Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Hello. Hey, all right, good morning. This is Center of Natural Resources and Energy and we, oh, it is January, and we are joined this morning by members of the youth lobby. Welcome. So excited to have you here, and I know we're going be hearing from three of you, so if you would come on up to the table. Do you want to go one at a time? Yeah, okay. So come on up to the table, we're going

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: to do a quick

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: round of introductions of ourselves,

[Speaker 2]: so that you know who you're talking to,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: and then if you would introduce yourself, and then tell us about any thoughts that you have.

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So we'll start

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: with you. Yeah. Hi, Ken. Nice to see you. Senator Ruth Hardy.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Senator Terry Williams from Rotterdam.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Anne Watson from the Washington District.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: Seth Bongartz from the Bennington Center District. Seth Bongartz

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: from Paolo. Good to see you again.

[Kutisi Szek (Youth Lobby of Vermont)]: Hi everyone. My name is Kutisi Szek and I am a senior at Regen Dean and High School. I'm a resident of Regen Vermont. I'm also a youth representative on the Vermont Climate Council, but today I speak as a member of the Youth Walk Evening. My passion for combating climate change began the same way as many of the youths here today. Over the past eighteen years living in Vermont, I've watched as temperatures have risen, ecosystems have been destroyed, and countless families have been left devastated by severe flooding. Vermont's leading climate experts and you all, our legislature have seen this too, which is why we have several transformative climate laws like the Global Warming Solutions Act, the Renewable Energy Standard, and the Climate Superfund. We thank you for your support of these laws and today we urge you to continue this progress. Today, News Blobby is proud to join youth across America in the Make Polluters Pay Week of Action. It's new event to dedicate to holding polluters accountable for the damage they cause for climate, economy, and future generations. I'm proud that Vermont's Climate Superfund is paving the way for progress nationwide. Allocating funding for this work is absolutely essential to secure the long term benefits of its promises. If we don't invest in understanding what pollution is fostering state, we will continue to see the dramatic impacts of climate change on other modern economy. We know that affordability is in the top of everyone's minds in socialization and many say that climate action is unaffordable and frivolous. We're already seeing a high cost of inaction. While the Trump administration refuses to recognize the most recent disaster does the serving of assistance, which puts the cost back onto the communities that have already suffered. That's why the Climate Super Fund is especially important because it holds up who you're to counter with their damage and not just protect spares. This money can in turn go toward helping Verma achieve his climate goals and build resilience in face climate change. By supporting the Superfund, we are supporting a sustainable future for Vermont and that prioritizes cost savings while preserving the national environment that sets Vermont apart. Climate action isn't just about today or next year. It's essential for the long term good of our

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: communities. Thank you. Thank you so much. Right, welcome.

[Danielle “Dani” Stanley (Youth Lobby of Vermont)]: My name is Daniel Stanley. I'm a young woman from MandM. And I'm here to speak in support of Vermont's climate action bills, including the Vermont Climate Superfund Act at a moment where those policies are facing and growing political and legal opposition. Vermont has a long tradition of climate leadership. We are treating climate change not as an abstract issue, but it is something that directly affects our winners, our farms, our infrastructure, and our communities. Slotting erosion and extreme weather are no longer hypothetical risks. They are cost Vermont is already paying. The Climate Superfund Act reflects the basic and sound policy principle. Those who profit from the most fossil fuels should help pay for the damages their products have caused. Vermont is a small state with limited fiscal capacity. Asking taxpayers alone should shoulder the long term cost of climate adaptation is neither fair nor economically sustainable. Cost recovery is a responsible way to protect public finances while investing in resilience. Yet today these policies are being challenged by a broader political shift, coordinated opposition and mis and disinformation often funded by fossil fuels and their allies. It's framing climate legislation as economically harmful despite lack of evidence that these will meaningfully raise consumer costs. Energy prices are largely driven by global markets outside of our control, not by

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: a state

[Danielle “Dani” Stanley (Youth Lobby of Vermont)]: level. Accountability measures. What does harm Vermonters economically is inaction, damaged roads, rising insurance costs, and lost agricultural productivity, and repeated disaster recovery spend. From an economic perspective, climate action is not a liability, is risk management. Every dollar invested in mitigation and resilience reduces future public costs. Clean energy, efficiency upgrades, and infrastructure adaptation also support job creation and help keep Vermont competitive in attracting business workers and families who value long term stability. As a young person, I believe that the long term consequences of today's decisions far longer than most policymakers in this room. But my support of these bills is not emotional or symbolic, it is rather than economics, fiscal responsibility and long term planning. Rolling back climate action now, we shift costs forward, weaken Vermont's leadership and leave future generations with fewer schools and higher bills. I urge you to defend these policies and continue Vermont's legacy of response, responsible forward looking governance. Thank very much.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: Hi, name is Julia Wolfe

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: and I am from Waterbury. I'm an eleventh grader at Harvard Union High School and over the past few years I've become increasingly involved in Vermont Youth Law and Climate Act. I'd like to thank all the legislators who helped pass important climate laws such as the Global Warming Solutions Act, the Renewable Energy Standard, and the Climate Superfund. And I'd like to ask you all to continue to support climate action this legislative session and fight for laws to protect our planet. As a young person in Vermont, I myself have seen the effects of climate change in my lifetime. When I was a kid, every Christmas was marked by a blanket of snow. Just a month ago, I was genuinely surprised when we had a snowy Christmas as we did. Backing that up, we've all noticed the floods that have batter us with a sudden and disturbing frequency in recent years. We've reached a point where we can no longer deny that something needs to be done, if not to protect the planet, then to protect Vermonters from losing their homes and livelihoods to unpredictable weather none of us are prepared for. In addition to seeing it in the real world, some amazing teachers of mine have taught me that climate change was a thing and how it was caused years ago, and it scared me. It still scares me. Our planet's average temperature has risen, seeing a multitude of record breaking temperatures in recent years, and the 2025 average temperature being 2.14 degrees Fahrenheit above the 1951 to 1980 average. An estimated 4,700,000 hectares of forests a year are cut down as well. Mine's an originally lot of time left on this group, and our younger relatives or future children and grandchildren have even longer. I want them to be able to ski and swim and run around in the woods. I want them to be able to explore the jungle, become scientists, love the natural world, and see it in all its glory. I want us all to be happy and healthy throughout our lives. And habitat loss, the loss of entire species, pollutions, global warming threatened that. I wanted to do something, so I began going to youth hockey events in seventh grade and joined my school sustainability club once I was in high school. I started not just hoping, but believing that I can do things about climate change. So I officially joined Youth Law Group about six months ago and don't plan on shying away from this work anytime soon. However, I need your help. Our current laws, including the Global Warming Solutions Act, Renewable Energy Standard, and Climate Superfund Act, have set up a solid starting framework to protect our planet, and we need you to protect and reinforce We are already reducing our emissions and on the path to long term economic improvement, but there's still a lot of work to be done. In addition to that, other states are following our lead in passing their own climate superfunds, And we're proving that we may be small, but we can lead this country to a sustainable future. You all can lead this country to a sustainable future. For me, for your children and grandchildren, your next door neighbor, yourselves, every inhabitant of today, tomorrow, the future, please continue to support climate legislation in Vermont. Thank you for allowing me to share my story.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: That was fabulous. Well, thank you so much everybody for sharing. I just want to reflect back. I love this sentiment of like, that you can make a difference in the world, and I know that you are all here because you feel that to some degree. I want to be like, just keep hanging on to that and like keep pushing for the things that you know the world needs. I love that so much. I also just want to reflect back that I heard you talk about the problems of mis and disinformation in the world, and I just want to anticipate that may become an increasing problem. And so being able to communicate what you know is backed up by science is also really going to be increasingly important also. And also just as you were talking about the data you were talking about accountability for you know, fossil fuel corporations in terms of climate safety fund. It made me wonder about like, what kind of accountability measures do we have for mis and disinformation? So anyway, I don't have an answer for that, but it's, thank you for like, you know, pushing my thinking. Then thinking about the costs of inaction, just really appreciating that, right? That for your future that we need to be investing now

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: in

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: that future. It costs us something now to save us more money basically down the road, and that's your future. It's our kids' future. So thank you all. Any other thoughts that folks want to share from the committee? Yes, go ahead.

[Speaker 2]: I just want to thank you all for coming. Oh, there's so many of you behind me. Thank you all for coming and sharing your thoughts. I think we hear from a lot of older

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: people in this building, so it's always refreshing to hear from young Vermonters and hear what's on your mind and what your priorities are. I think it keeps us honest, and I really appreciate hearing your voices and all the work and thank you for bringing and helping them as well.

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So, yeah, it's great to have you all here.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: What are you doing for the rest of the day?

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's testimony in house energy and digital infrastructure and then we have a press conference as well and we're going to the climate solutions caucus for lunch. So you guys are

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: all welcome to join the The conference is at eleven and this is your favorite if anybody wants to stop by. Great. Since we have a little bit of time, anybody else who did not share wish to say just a little bit of anything that you might want to?

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: We did hear about the work you

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: all did on portable solar yesterday. Yeah.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: Yes. Don't if anybody wants to go to church.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Thank thank you.

[Speaker 2]: Well, to be fair, it's

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: not quite done. We do have to do past third reading today, so see how that goes.

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Well, and then it has to go to

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: the house. Yes. You know, so, but it was a meeting of this boat. So I think that's, it was really exciting to have that over the finish line in a bipartisan way. So yeah. Super, well, we are not expecting our next witness for fifteen minutes or so. That's right. Right. So, I think we could probably take a little break.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: We can ask them where they're all

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: from at.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Oh, sure. Yes, let's do that.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Can we go around?

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: If you would say your name and if you're coming from. Oh, I'm Claire and it's

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: from Warren. I'm Jane. I'm from Weedsfield. I'm Emily.

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: I'm from Warton. I'm Farrah. I'm from Warren.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: I'm African. I'm from Bolton.

[Danielle “Dani” Stanley (Youth Lobby of Vermont)]: I'm Dani. I'm from Mandel.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: I'm from Zaporizhenz.

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm Julia. I'm from Waterbury.

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: I'm Jacoby. I'm Burke Fairfax.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: I'm Barbie. I'm from the Oakland. Washington County. How

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: does this work on a statewide basis? How do you connect? Does the lobbying, how do talk to each other and how does that work?

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So we kind of have a core group of us that meets very regularly and we talk about legislation, we talk about planning these big events, and then we send a lot of information out to a broader group of students that are interested in keeping up with our work. So then we'll have bigger events with a lot of people and getting people informed on what's going on, and we'll all come together to do stuff like this. Talk about, there's I think about 30 ish students here today. So a group of us, we meet every month and closer to that. When we have about six months.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: Is there like chapters in schools, chapters of youth lobby in schools, is it just individuals?

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, it's individuals. So a lot of us will come from school sustainability clubs and we'll like, we'll have a group of kids that all do work together at a school, but we all kind of work independently as just students who are interested.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: You mentioned you have a lot

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of remote meetings. Yes. It's hard to have big long distances between people who are all interested in working work.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: The folks from Southern Vermont came and spent the

[Speaker 2]: night in order to hear. You

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: can relate.

[Speaker 2]: I figured.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Super. And how do you all decide what to work on? Like what's your process?

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, a lot of times we, like at the end of last year, because it's like the second year of the biennium, we kind of looked at like, oh, what might still be in play that's still important to us. And also do things like sending out forms, looking over

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: the The environment, common agenda.

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, the common agenda, we look over things, we like, hand out pieces of that that we thought would be important. We send out surveys to all the people and ask them to talk about what's important to them. Our goal is to be like, although we do focus a lot on climate work, it's all about whatever really students are interested in, because we don't have a way to show our voice in any other way. It's kind of like whatever, if things are happening in the legislature that students care about, we kind of are a space for them to bring their voices and all work together to kind of uplift that.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Good, super. Well, thank you so much. Really appreciate you all being here, making the trip, and thanks for spending the day and your dedication to this work on climate action. So, thank you. And with that, we are going to take a break until 09:30.

[Roland (Shelburne Energy Committee volunteer)]: We're live.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, good morning. This is Senate Natural Resources and Energy, and we are coming back from break, and we are moving on to the Land Access Opportunity Board. Welcome. Can we step up? Yes, please Thank

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: you for making room for us to present together. Are directors of our board and we do try to always testify. And just for

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: a little more context, I heard from both Jean and Marnella in appropriations and felt like, wow, this is really pertinent to our work in natural resources. So

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: I wanted you to come present here. So thank

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: you so much for being here.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: Thank you so much

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: for having us. My name is Ruth Hardy, I'm Amanda Fiedo, co director of the Leon Nexus Opportunity Board for the Record. And I'm Jean Hamilton, the other

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: co director for the LAOB.

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: And we'd like to invite Nina, who's here as well, to introduce herself. Got it, sounds.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: Not sure

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: if you

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: can, with your sharing of your screen. You can't see her.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Oh, it. Okay. Think I just

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: There you go.

[Laina Greenberg (Community Resilience Organizations)]: Hi, good morning, everyone. Laina Greenberg with Community Resilience Organizations. Thanks for having me.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Thank you for being here.

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: We begin Everywhere We land with our touchstones, which we will share here today. We want to invite everyone to keep them in mind as we're working together during our time here. We listen generously, and we speak our truth from our heart and mind. We make the way that we work together an example of what is possible, and we trust that we each hold a piece of the puzzle, and that we need each other's pieces to understand the whole picture. Do we consent to working with those touchstones in mind today? Thank you. We're here today to talk about the Resilience Hub Toolkit, written and led by frontline community leaders, and the Resilience Hub grants, which are now available via the Land of Axis Ambrose Family Board. We want you to know that this toolkit and the grants are available so you can share these resources with your communities. We've handed out printouts of the toolkit and of the grants. You will hear the story of how community members from across Vermont came together to build this incredible tool for our communities. You will also hear how the LAOB is strategically investing modest state funds into multiplying community impacts. This is a story about tools we have in hand that are working. And right now, more than ever, we need to invest in tools that have this kind of momentum. Tools that empower Vermonters to help themselves and one another, and make more efficient use of all the different kinds of resources we have across Vermont. We will not have time today to give you an overview of our Land Access and Opportunity Board. Some of you may not yet be familiar with the LAOB, which was enacted in legislature in 2022. And for that story, we're happy to come back with your committee or schedule one on one time, if you will. Does this agenda sound good to everyone? Awesome. Please welcome our dear partner, Lena Greenberg, who shared a story of how frontline community leaders stepped up to build their resilience home to a place. Laina?

[Laina Greenberg (Community Resilience Organizations)]: Thanks, Arnela, and thanks everyone for sharing. I'm with me, my name is Laina Greenberg. I use theythem pronouns. I'm a co director of community resilience organizations. We call it CROS because that's a mouthful. We're a grassroots organizing hub and technical assistance provider to community scale projects across Vermont. And we emerged way back after Hurricane Irene and have been working since then to build local resilience before, during, and after acute disasters like flooding. We know from that work that people who have lived experience of problems tend to have the best ideas about how to solve them. And we also, all of us know that as Vermonters, if you show up as a solution in a town that isn't yours, the folks in that town are gonna say, what could you possibly know about our town and our problems? So with all of this in mind, we convened a group of frontline grassroots responders to flooding who showed up in the Northeast Kingdom and Central Vermont, and we gathered our best practices from our lived experience. We met monthly in person for well over a year. We did work around the edges, consulting with our communities, with local leaders who couldn't be a part of the process, holding public events to share our emerging work. We met with subject matter experts, that body of work has become the resilience hub toolkit, which I know you all have in front of you, and which also lives online at resiliencetoolkit.org, easy to find. So there's a lot of material in here. There are three main sections in the toolkit. The first is guidance about how to organize your community. This is a section encouraging folks to have productive conversations about disaster with people of different identities and experiences, some of whom might have job titles, some of whom might be the person who knows everyone in town and always shows up. It's also about learning where the water goes in your community first and understanding the place where we live. The next section is about emergency preparedness. It's a list of it's a set of lists and projects and plans for emergency preparedness, thinking about things like backup food and water storage or helping people get around when roads are blocked and understanding what existing emergency plans are already in place. The third section is a set of ideas for building baseline resilience through things like shared meals and community events. Unfortunately, we know that a lot of people in our state are experiencing disaster every day, and if we can build that baseline resilience and improve material conditions for folks in the every day, we will see our communities much more able to respond to disaster and be safe during that whole experience. So the toolkit is chock full of information gathered by people who lived this over and over again. Again, mostly folks in Central Vermont and the Northeast Kingdom. And alongside all of this this stuff and the ideas and the learned experience in this in this toolkit, we know that one size does not fit all. We are already seeing communities from Plainfield to Lindenville using the toolkit, and folks are interested in seeking funding from the Land Access and Opportunity Board to really get this work off the ground. And we know that that work is gonna look pretty different everywhere it's happening. And this is in keeping with our understanding that communities know best what they need, and those needs are really diverse. Also, the state has a set of services that are available to communities over the course of disaster. Those services are both valuable and extremely vulnerable to funding cuts. If we want to leverage those services most efficiently and effectively, we invest in community work that can receive those services and help put them to the best use. This creates deeper public engagement with those essential services from the state, and also that engagement can address some of the chronic capacity issues that the public sector is facing. So investing in use of the Resilience Hub Toolkit really invites Vermonters to deepen our already strong sense of local self reliance, and we see this model as a way to incubate innovative new models for financially light interventions that protect our natural and built environment and keep people safe before, during, and after disaster. So this locally led resilience work can encourage engagement with each other, with our local officials, with our public services, and with the places where we live, from the river to the historic downtown. And that engagement really yields deeper concern for protecting fragile ecosystems and distinct communities, which I I know is important to all of us in this room. It has been such a gift to work on this project, and I'm so excited to see it move forward. Again, this was over a year of meetings, and now we have this toolkit. It is ready to use. It is being used. And I'm hopeful that with strategic investment from the Land Access and Opportunity Board, which we hope to see increase over time, that we will get to see a critical mass of communities using this tool and this model, and then we'll not just get to have hubs in communities across the state, but those hubs will teach each other what they're learning, and we'll have this beautiful, mutually reinforcing, decentralized network of locally led community resilience efforts. I'm so glad that y'all thought this was worth your time. I really believe in this work, and I'm so honored that the Land, Access, and Opportunity Board sees the value of this work. I hope you can see it too, and that you can help us advance this vision. Thanks so much.

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: You. Thank you, Helena. The Resilience Hub Toolkit project is one example of how the LEOB is fulfilling its statutory purposes. We were invited into the conversations early with these frontline organizers after the twenty twenty three floods. We participated through the research and development phases, tying what we're hearing back to what we're hearing in other state level conversations, especially about FEMA's dwindling reliability, the critical lack of capacity at the municipal level, especially in the face of rising demands. The unsustainability of using public resources to treat the symptoms and consequences of systemic problems. A clear need to build solutions that fix root causes, and build preventative resilience frameworks in our community. And that Vermonters across the state are eager to be a part of building their strong communities, but don't know where to plug in their skills. From all of this research, we determined that the resilience hubs are a low cost investment that can catalyze very significant returns for communities and the state as a whole. The LAOB has created a grant fund for this priority investment. We've just opened up a first round pilot grants, and you have a handout in front of you with the information to share it with your communities. We can also share out the digital info. With this pilot grant round, we hope to fund about three hubs. We have funds we're hoping will be returned to us from our FY26 budget in BAA to put another $250,000 into an additional five hubs. Our proposed 2027 budget includes funding for additional hubs, but will require a once time appropriate appropriation for which we will need your help. Our goal is to create a cohort of 16 to 20 hubs that are launching at the same time, so hubs can support one another with learning and strategies, and that they can coordinate across regions to avoid unnecessary duplication, and leverage strategies such as bulk ordering of supplies. A cohort of hubs operating across the state also allows our agencies and policymakers to learn from the ground up, so that as we build our state resilience strategies, we are well informed by what our communities need most, what they can and cannot be expected to do, and how the state can most efficiently direct its limited resources to build the most impact in collaboration with communities. Jean, do you want to talk about why this is a good investment? I sure do. Thanks. Okay.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: So over the past two years, which has basically been the time that LEOB has been operational, we've conducted hundreds of hours of community engagement with disadvantaged Vermonters and spent additional hundreds of hours in state working groups on various land use issues. Whether we were in those groups talking about housing or farming or flooding or conservation or public security, we continue to see the same problems again and again. There we go. We've identified these problems again and again, and imagine that you have encountered some of these issues in your work as well. In terms of the resilience hubs, we really wanna highlight a few that are especially important here. Vermont absolutely needs to leverage more people power. There is currently a disconnect between our public bodies and the people they are supposed to serve. There is a lack of trust. Those who are most vulnerable are the hardest hit by all crises. And as a result, these folks know less what solutions are needed. And most importantly, in this kind of environment, a lack of effective solutions is inefficient, it's expensive, and it's demoralizing. So when we think about investing state resources into community resilience hubs, how can we think about what do we get back from this investment? These resilience hubs offer a shovel ready solution that meets communities where they want to take action so that we can use our public resources as impactfully and efficiently as possible. What we get by investing in and building community resilience hubs is we get more hands on deck. We get so much more than the sum of each of these parts. We get better informed investments so that when we invest our dollars, we know that they're going to work. We get communities who are taking charge of themselves and who are empowered and prepared to take charge of themselves. And we can build this snowballing virtuous cycle of community resilience or community pride, and then therefore community security. We are putting up this slide about LAOD's FY27 budget. Not to spend a lot of time on it here today, because we really wanna give time for questions on the resilience hubs, but do want you to see the full picture of what the LEOB's work looks like in FY twenty seventh. The resilience hubs are here proposed at $400,000 Another thing to point out here is a grant fund, 400,000 of predevelopment seed grant funds for new and emerging developers, small scale developers, which I believe your committee got to hear about our partnership yesterday with DHCD and the Homes for All program. And really happy to schedule time with you to talk about this broader LAOB work across our program. And you will see similar strategies as we presented here with the resilience hubs, which is that we prioritize real efficiency by effectively addressing root causes. We support the momentum of community leadership. We activate underutilized community resources, and we are looking to build these virtuous cycles of collaboration and continuous improvements. Again, I don't know how familiar you are with the LEOB, but I want you all to know that the LEOB is a unique, innovative and potent creation of this body. You all created an amazing tool in 2022 and we hit the ground running and have already made so much, set so much in motion. We're really excited to keep working or keep going with our work, we'd love to welcome you into that work. So please do reach out and let us know what questions you have and how we are serving your food piece. So we'll pause there. I think we managed to leave a couple of minutes for questions or discussions. We

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: do want to, thank you. Yes. Fabulous. We do want to, like, we ended up not being able to hear from the developers yesterday, but we're hoping to hear from them next week. So we'll see if that scouture line works out, but just so you know. Great. Got it. Yeah, so I would love to talk a little bit more about the resiliency hubs in terms of like, what could they look like? And I'm thinking, one of the things that I'm interested in is how we as providers can be developing our own systems to take care of each other in the face of a disintegrating or a more highly politicized FEMA situation. And so, in the absence potentially of FEMA help, how we can be taking care of each other. If there's anything you want to add about that. I would love for Lena

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: to answer this question, if that feels good to you.

[Laina Greenberg (Community Resilience Organizations)]: Sure, I'll do my best. Think we're all And, Yeah. We're all treading in new territory thinking about FEMA not showing up at all. So just don't wanna I don't wanna act like a prophet when I'm not. But what we have already seen is that when communities are better connected to each other before disaster, those communities are more able to prevent the kinds of damage to people and property that are so costly after the fact. And resilience is a tough thing to measure, right? It's about what happens to people, it's about what happens to places, what happens to infrastructure, and there's a lot of complicated federal funding that goes to individuals and infrastructure and all of these different kind of pieces that make up the puzzle of the aftermath of disaster. And resilience is a much more holistic look at what a community needs to survive something like acute flooding, as opposed to saying, we're just gonna make a plan for how to replace the road if the road gets washed out. So I understand that this is not quite the neat perfect answer that maybe we are all looking for in this time of uncertainty, but bringing communities together to actually tap the knowledge of people who are not involved in the sort of official emergency preparedness work that a given town or a given region is doing will help us have the information we need to actually plan for these disasters and get a broader set of people involved. If we have community buy in about moving a grocery store out of the floodplain, then we might be able to actually act on that and then not have this costly issue later that is infrastructural, that is economic, that has public health impacts of no longer having a grocery store in a town. I'm thinking about Johnson. And there are so many ways that we can prepare that are maybe not leveraging the funds that FEMA can deliver for infrastructure and home repair or removal, but help us understand what our communities can look like. And once we have that vision, we can work backwards from there and think about how to be as efficient as possible with community work, but also with state investment. I could go on and on. I'm going to stop there for now. Happy to say one.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Thank you. Other questions from the committee? Yes, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: the presentation and for all

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: of your work that you are all doing. I think this kind of idea, broadly speaking, is great, and I think a lot of, I think Vermont is ripe for it, and already a lot of it exists in lots of communities. Kind of it's part of Vermont's culture, as you know, like we all help each other's, neighbors, And that's one of the really special things. And I also have been thinking about this a lot this week because of what we're seeing in Minneapolis and how organized and resilient they have been in the face of a different kind of disaster and how the way that they've been able to resist it is through resilience and community and neighbors and helping each other across different cultural boundaries and neighborhood boundaries, which is so inspiring to see. So I think that there's potential that we might need this kind of thing for more than just flooding, unfortunately. But my question for you is more practical. I'm curious, you know, I, in a previous legislative session, did a lot of work on flood resilience and flood sort of our emergency systems response to flooding. This was after the twenty twenty three floods. And then of course, then we had the twenty twenty four floods. But so much of the response involves, yes,

[Speaker 2]: the sort

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: of personal resilience, but also that sort of more concrete, we need like big equipment and we need lots of supplies that are not the kind of thing you would find in the average person's house and all that stuff. So, and vehicles and all these thick, hard, big things. How does this interact with that kind of resilience work?

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: And then, do Yeah, go ahead. No, go ahead. Okay.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: I'd love to just

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: like

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: show

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: you a little bit about what's in

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: the toolkit. Then, I know Arneva wants to talk and relay

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: that too. This is literally what this toolkit does. So it is a toolkit in the sense that it is a series of templates that any people, any group of people, like we could pick it up together, our selected could pick it up together and start working

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: through and actually mapping out.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: So for example, this section is mapping your community. Write down three important things about your community, the place where you live. What are the biggest challenges here? Who's the road crew? Who's the town clerk? Who's always showing up to help? Who's struggling the most. And then there are chapters about, where do we have supplies? Where could we store supplies? What supplies do we have in this town? What supplies don't we

[Speaker 2]: have in this town?

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: And so it's very, very practical in the sense that it is related to hands on tools, but also a practical tool like this, which is a pod mapping exercise where communities can come together and say, who do we have in our community? Oh, we have a health center. We have a first responder emergency depot. We have a hardware store. We have a VFW glove. We don't have a pharmacy.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: But we don't have

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: a pharmacy. And so you can, the communities can actually map that before you get

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to the place where you're flooded and saying,

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: oh my gosh, like what do we have, who can, where's our walk in refrigerator?

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, I start with-

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah, yeah. Because this is the kind of, I mean, we literally require community, I don't know what you call

[Roland (Shelburne Energy Committee volunteer)]: Emergency management

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: committees

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Right. To do this Yeah, these are what are the official bodies that are supposed to be doing this work in there. So how does this interact with their work? Because I wouldn't want If it's duplicated or happening in silos, then that's not helpful.

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Yeah, there was like a message from emergency management. I think it's right here in the presentation that said that this was going to

[Speaker 2]: be helpful for their efforts.

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: There was a quote in one of the newspapers from emergency management about the fact that They're doing that, and then they're doing a lot of communities at once, and then these frontline organizers are the people that are in the community. I feel the emergency

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: management committees are too. They're members of the community as well. And they're like the people who are the emergency responders. Not saying that we shouldn't do this, I'm just saying

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: how are How are they going to be talking together? Exactly. The idea is that they will be talking together, they have already been talking together. The resilience of Toolkit folks have met with emergency management. I think that every community will have their own team, because they will have their own process of working together. Our intention is that they will, it's a priority for the LAOB, for this to support state initiatives, state efforts, and make them better on the ground. Because something we know and that we've learned is that there is this kind of tension and mistrust when the state comes in, two times, sometimes, I don't how that works together. I'm not

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: sure you're understanding, because the groups I'm talking about is not Vermont Emergency Management. These are regional emergency management. They are people in our communities.

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I see hand up. Not in the state.

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Yeah, I see Laina's hand up.

[Laina Greenberg (Community Resilience Organizations)]: I'd love to respond because you're raising a really important point. There's a there's a section in the introduction called how does this toolkit interact with emergency management and municipal plans? And I think to just address it really directly, you are absolutely right. There are so many people who are already engaged in the work of preparing for disaster and who are part of these communities. These are not outside arrivals who come in with ideas. However, I have seen every time I've done community work that often there is beautiful labor happening, and if you're not part of it, you have no idea it's going on. So part of the point of this tool is to help create a bridge between the people whose whose jobs, whether they're volunteer or paid, people whose jobs it is to do this work, and the people who are gonna show up and do it because they care, but they don't necessarily have a role. I I see this model as a way to magnify the positive impact of that work that's already happening. If in no other way than helping more people understand that it's happening and connecting that existing work through networks of relationships. There's a lot of folks in towns who don't know about this work that doesn't make it less important, it makes it less effective. And so the better we can bridge that gap, the better use of those people's time we will make and the broader impact it will have throughout a community.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, thank you, Elena. That is really helpful. I just wanna make sure that there is that bridge happening. So there's not these two groups doing emergency planning or resilience planning and that they're not, that just makes it more confusing for the people.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: The emergency plan, I've lost my pod map, but that would like absolutely be on the pod map of like, well, we have this emergency planning committee and here's our town emergency plan. I'd love to say one thing, because this is like a really key issue that LAOB finds across all systems. One of the most basic barriers that we come up against is people are intimidated by the bureaucracy of government processes. And so something that excites me to all ends about this process is it is in plain language. Any person can pick this up and be like, oh yeah, I can digest this. This website I had up here because I really want to show you, this website was custom designed by one of the organizers. It works even when the internet doesn't. So this was created as a resource that can work online and offline. Everything has been made so that these templates can be digital templates that then save offline. So you can fill them in here offline. You can get them here, then offline work on them. So when the power goes down, you still have them. You can also print this as a paper version if your town wants it in a binder. So all of these templates are literal templates that are just available for communities to use as they are in plain language. And so can totally plug in with those emergency plans. And we see this again, across every single system. The bureaucracy is intimidating, people have imposter syndrome. They feel like, Oh, I don't wanna go to those meetings. I just wanna show up with my generator and chainsaw. Is there a way for me to plug in? And this is coming again. They say, Put me on the list for if I give you the plow, a truck,

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: and a chainsaw. I'll be there.

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: And one of the things about the convenience hubs is that it helps folks build community outside of an emergency. Because these networks of support and connection are built when things are well. When we are celebrating our maple season and having maple days and our ski Saturdays and our farmers market. Our chicken by summers.

[Roland (Shelburne Energy Committee volunteer)]: You

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: said our the OAB was created by statute?

[Speaker 2]: Yes.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: So how much how much money have we already spent on? So you're talking $50,000 probably talking $13

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: So we are estimating grant sizes of $50,000 we have not awarded can we get or do we just?

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: We're getting every month.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: The money is all state appropriations. And so I kind of, it looks like we're

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: running out of time, but basically since 2022, we

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: got it appropriated about $3,000,000 Okay. And we are, our current FY '26 budget is, uses a large portion of that money and we are projecting a $3,500,000 FY So

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: we're already four years into the program. You haven't used any money yet?

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Well, we have actually done a

[Speaker 2]: lot of things. So we

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: had to build a board from scratch.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: So we did that. Our board involves 12 different appointing agencies and many board members.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Hardy's point was that you're duplicating effort with the, you know, each one of the regional global emergency management boards. I was an emergency management coordinator for my congress. One of our guys here this. And, you we work with the regional planning commission to make sure there's continuity and letters of instruction and mutual aid that we're doing. Mister. I can see where this is a compliment, but you already have the system in existence. Yeah, think it just It means they Right. Getting millions of dollars.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: Yeah, yeah, hear you.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: No, this is, so our purpose is actually much broader than emergency response. Our purpose is to identify, address and remedy any kinds of inequities and access to housing and land. And so we have been working for now the past two years on really building this apparatus so that we can address the vast disparities we see right now in who has access to housing, who has access to rent. Which acquisition? It was at '22 in 2022.

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: I can't remember. It was an omnibus housing bill of that year.

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I will say, Senator,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I don't necessarily think they're duplicating efforts. I think it's important that the official efforts with town and local officials just be coordinated with the more community based efforts. And that's what I wanted to make sure that we're not creating these silos. My

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: concern is that I was emergency management coordinator six years ago, probably still

[Mike Roy (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: hadn't. Because

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: I didn't even know it existed, they didn't even know what they've been doing for four years.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: But the I mean, I think it's important to understand that their their charge is much broader than this. This is just part of it. Mean, a lot of it is

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: they existed. They they Hopefully, they will. Yeah.

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Going to have a group of folks that want to grow and invest time in emergency management. They can apply for the grant that we have, and then take their efforts to the next level in your community, which is why we're here sharing that we have this resource, and then your community can have access to this money and better establish their resource, their community emergency response. Maybe I can say one more

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: thing about the broader LLB purpose. We were really created intentionally to give communities better access to government programs and to make that tie between what we're doing in the state apparatus and in the government and what is happening on the ground in communities to build that bridge stronger. And so that is the work that we are launching into now in the phase of the development of the LOB. 2026 is the year that we are launching program. So that is, we are right here at the beginning. I'm really excited to meet with Eddie

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: and O- And I'm going to double check if we have in full name through the bigger, broader network data and connect with them, make sure that they get an application to that outcome.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Well, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time and coming to share with us. Excited about it. Great. Thank you. All right. So we are moving on to a committee bill. And just for context here, do you

[Danielle “Dani” Stanley (Youth Lobby of Vermont)]: have to

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I have to just run. Okay. Don't worry. We'll wait for

[Speaker 2]: you. Okay, thank you. Yeah, no problem. Sorry.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: So just for some context, the way committee bills work is that they can be introduced, actually it would be the legislative council. Do you want to explain how the committee bills work in general? Like what the

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: timelines are, etcetera? Sure, Ellen Pitt has the office of Legislative Council. So in general, any member has the right to reflect a bill from Legislative Council and there are deadlines associated with what those need to be requested and introduced. There is also another form of bill to be, it's committee bills. So the committee, through the chair generally initiates a request for the committee to have

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: a committee bill and goes through legislative council. We can

[Speaker 2]: get you a draft number.

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then in committee, you work on the draft. It does not get an S number until you vote it out of the committee and send it

[Speaker 2]: to the board. When

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you do that, you do have the option of asking for it to be readmitted to the committee in order to keep working on that. And the reason that might be necessary is because today is the deadline for committee bills to be introduced. It's officially the thirty first. However, needs to get voted out of committee and get to the floor before the thirty first. And so in order to do that, today is the deadline for

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: the second year of biennium. In the first year

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: of the biennium, there's a lot

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: more flexibility the timing on that, but it is a bill from the committee itself, not just a single member. And if you vote to send

[Speaker 2]: it to the floor, we'll get

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a test number, and then either you can do set the do proceed to second reading or have it recommitted to this committee or

[Speaker 2]: have it sent to another committee.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: We thank you. Today. Today. It should

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: be done today.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: It does

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: not have

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to be done today. If you would like the committee bill, you need to vote it out of committee today, and then you have the option to have it sent back here or sent to another committee or just proceed to the floor. You have options once you vote it out here.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: And just to clarify, my intent would absolutely be to have it sent back here for further work. And I want to apologize that it is coming up just today. It is the result of many conversations that I've been having about housing and directions to go. And so I think as a starting place, this is a good spot. I'm not saying that this is where we need to land, but I think it could be the foundation of a good conversation. Just to really briefly, I did have some good conversations with folks from Let's Build Homes about their proposal around something called Root Zones, which is an acronym, but we can go through what their, actually maybe I'll explain what their proposal, roughly speaking, is as I understand it, which is to create model bylaws that have different densities, would call it, or I think they use the word intensity, but different densities that a municipality could choose for a particular location within their town, and then their vision of it is that if there's a development that comes up for a proposal in that area, that they would then get a certificate of compliance as opposed to a permit, and that would have the effect of potentially limiting appeals. So the discussion of whether or not, or the time to object to that for the population would be at the front end of the conversation. Is this the kind of development that we want in this area? So that's, it sort of shifts the appeal process to the front end instead of the back end. So that's roughly what that idea is, but if we were to move forward with that idea at all, we would need to see what are the details? What do those different zones look like? How prescriptive are they? And so all this community bill does would be to create a task force to develop the details of those zones. And then it's got some memberships and details about the meetings and that is it. Yes. Anything am I, well, also for context in case it's useful. So there is a two pager from Let's Build Homes that is, I believe published on our website if you're interested in that. And we'll hear more from Let's Build Homes. We'll also, I think, hear from the NRC. We'll hear from a variety of people on this idea or other ideas. As we move forward, and if we build this out of committee and bring it back, fully expecting to have a more robust conversation about this, and we might go with it, we might not go with it. We can tweak it or we can wholly do a strike all game for that conversation. So, that's pretty much it for me. Anything, oh, like, spells

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: I'm in the confused about the votes.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: Oh, okay. Of the bill?

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Late last minute.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: It's last minute. Yeah.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Why, you know, what is the definition of a Yes,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: so that is the idea of these different zones with different model bylaws that would have different densities, like housing densities, like municipal bylaws. So like how many units could be built, that thing.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: So is this to get the RBAT $2.50 or $1,000

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: or 81?

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: So I think of it as separate from that. It's a way of thinking about abuse.

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Anything? Have So procedurally, before I actually show you the language, I wrote this fairly quickly. You do have to vote an additive committee by today if you'd like it to meet the deadline. However, I didn't bring my laptop. So if there's anything in Strat currently that you absolutely do not want to be the version that's sent to the floor, this will not be the last time opportunity you have to make changes, but I

[Speaker 2]: am offering if you would like

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: me to make changes before you send them to the floor. I have some time this morning if that is needed. Also, I think you're anticipating that this is sort of an opening draft. It is rough and that you'll be working on it in the future, but

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: you think we should put

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: something in here for what

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: would happen if the passport refuses to do? What else can we do?

[Speaker 2]: I I don't know. Do you have a his number? Oh.

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: So just to maybe center away,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: it's just another way to think about this is that what happens a lot of times in communities is that when the bylaw is being developed, nobody says you can do a, b, and c here, nobody pays attention, it goes through, and then the application comes in, and it's there when you live or something, and all of a sudden people, oh, I don't want that, even though you weren't there at the time that it was developed and you should have been. And so that's where the frustration can come from sometimes to say Time

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: to zoom in, Mark. Make decisions

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: after the application goes in as opposed to before the application goes in. By the way, I have no idea how it works. But I do, but we did that. We did a little bit of that with the housing building February two, where we disallowed appeals of affordable housing contracts if they were an area zone for residents who's saying, like, you should have paid a death bill. There are as it turns out, there are residents, people owed them, and you said, yes, in this in this zone, this area for these, so you can't then appeal after the back. Well, we didn't really mean it. So it's a little bit of that that's sort of what's going on here. Got no idea about the detail of what I think about this study. There is something to the notion that we should be doing our planning upfront, making decisions upfront, and then making the permitting process underneath easier because we coordinate a decision upfront. So that's kind of what's about my different

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: take. Typically That

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: is my intent. Yeah.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Typically, don't do, you know, when we don't do a something like that, we don't give public outreach and and get them involved either. It's like we do in a vacuum and then Fair enough. Mhmm. Yep. Yeah. Not just with our global drawing board, it will save Vermont too. Agencies do, they make rules, go, oh, it doesn't really do. Yeah, it's a, yeah.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I think that is a absolutely fair point. And if we move forward with this idea, create these different model zones, and then decide that we want to move forward with it, which would be a separate conversation for another time, this is just to develop them, not to actually move forward with it, but if we decide to move forward with it, I think that is absolutely fair consideration to say, if you're going to do this, here are some standards around advertising and how you get people involved, because we don't want people to be in the position of saying, didn't know.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: That's what happened with 01/1981. There was some robust public participation involved built into the plan to make sure that we actually knew what was happening and they were actually drawn into the process, not just, you know, so, again, no idea how to fill up this.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: Yes. We are going to walk through it.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I was going say, we're going walk through it. Maybe I'll save my questions after asking And I actually, I'm already saying that I want one change, but of course. Great, I'll

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: also just say, I actually haven't heard the official pitch for this. I only saw the two pager and base it off this, so I think there are details I don't know or understand, and so this really is a task force to look

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: into this, and I will read it

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to you, but also happy to make changes right now in each of them. This is draft request number 20 Six-seven61. It's a committee vote from the National Resources and Energy Committee, and right now it's titled an accolade to studying the creation of model bylaws. So section one, Residential Opportunity Overlay Districts Task Force. So creation, there is created a task force to develop and recommend a detailed proposal to create residential opportunity overlay districts. These districts would be governed by a code of model zoning bylaws that address all the critical land use issues with clear and objective standards. So we're talking about municipal zoning bylaws. Once codes are developed and published, municipalities would have the option to adopt the codes and areas designated with Act two fifty Tier one status. In those areas, residential development that meets the requirements of the code would be submitted to a zoning administrator for a certificate of compliance. There would be no hearing or review of residential development applications by a appropriate fiscal panel or an appeal. Grants would be available for municipalities. Page two ceding would adopt a model code. A state agency would oversee municipal adoption of the code to ensure that districts would be designed to allow for housing density that would be dense enough to meet the state, would meet the municipality's share of the state's housing targets. So, What I did there was try to boil down what I think is in the proposal and to make a suggestion to the task force of all the elements they need to address. I also do not fully understand the details of this proposal, so there may be necessary clarifications there you need to make. So for this task force, on page two of the membership, there's nine members, and it's members with expertise related to planning and zoning. There's a typo on line six. It says the remaining members shall be the halls, but it should be just the members. So it's I trying to figure it out. I frankly signed this based on multiple different study committees I've drafted in the past, so I apologize.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I like that as a perb.

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So one member of the House, one member of the Senate, represented from the Vermont Association of Planning and Development Agencies, that's the group of regional planning commissions. The Commissioner of Housing and Community Development, or designee, represented from the Rutland Natural Resources Council, one from the League of Cities and Towns, representative for left build homes, representative from the affordable housing development community appointed by the pro town of the Senate, and a town planner appointed by the Speaker of the House. I did not discuss Senator Watson who wanted to make which appointments. So that's open. Yep, let

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: me know when you have

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: any thoughts on that. And so then the powers and duties are on page three. The task force shall develop illustrated model codes that use only clear and objective standards for critical land use issues, embed New England town building principles and integrate flood and historic protections. Propose how these codes will be administered and which entity would oversee them, and recommend the process for how municipalities would adopt these codes. I took this verbatim from the two pager,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: So please discard. Yes. The

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: assistance for the task force shall come from the Department of Housing and Community Development. Again, this is like some boiler language I took from other study committees, so you can change this. They may hire a third party consultant. If they would like to, they may be funded by general assembly funding, or

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: if there's grants for this, I don't know. You could change

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that as well if there isn't grants available, how we change that. The report here is due 12/01/2026. Again, in the first year, the biennium, which would be the next year, there are the drafting deadlines are farther out. So you can push this out a little

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: bit if you'd like it

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to be in January or so of the next year, but you can think about when you would want the report back for legislation. Summer versus a common deadline for those. But they're supposed to report back with model codes and recommendations for legislative action. Towns have authority, some authority right now, we can talk about the municipal zoning process if you'd like. They do have some authority, but

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I think if the proposal is

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to sort of create this new type of zoning application, you're going to need some legislative language. And then just meetings, again, I kind of use boilerplate language, called the first meeting back 08/01/2026. They shall select the chair of majority of the forum. Ceased to exist on December 31. And then per DMs for the legislative members and any other members not compensated by their employer. So yes, this is a form for a task force that you can customize to your vision for how this should work. It's less of a legislative task force because there's only two legislative members and it's using the Department of Housing and Community Development. You can make other choices about that if you'd like as well. But structuring it that way will mean there I picked

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: six meetings. You can

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: pick a different number. Those would be open meetings, public meetings, because those would be a public body.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Great, yes, go ahead. What would be this value that doesn't have zoning?

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That it wouldn't apply. So currently, towns have the choice to adopt municipal zoning if they like. If they don't, no zoning permit is required in those towns. This program would be related to municipal zoning, So towns would have the option to adopt this if you ever move forward with the proposal, it would be an optional thing for towns.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: And those have to be one A's?

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That is, well, doesn't just tier one. Yeah, you have to-

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Well, that is a sentence I would actually like to strike. Okay. The reason being, one possibility for the future is that we do limit it to 1As, but there may be types of model bylaws that maybe would apply outside 1A's. So I want to make sure that there's that flexibility. That also changes the next sentence. It would be in areas where municipalities have adopted these bylaws, residential development, blah, blah, blah.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Yes. So are we are we receiving, just a general point, any pushback from municipalities about increased housing, low income housing in in the municipalities. Have you heard anything like that?

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I'm not sure I understand your question.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Well, I've got I've got some people in my town here. You know, I'm saying, you know, shit. There's money available for housing, and they're like, we don't want. Mhmm. Mhmm. So, you know, we like things just the way they are. Maybe that's inhibiting the ability to get the 30,000 units by Yes. Certainly. So is this gonna enhance their ability to get that So

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: just to be clear, this is opt in. So first of all, like if municipality doesn't wanna do it, don't have to, according to the Let's Build Homes proposal. But this is not about necessarily low income housing specifically, it's really about a way of thinking about appeals and when appeals would happen. And that is something that I feel like we hear from. People are terrified of appeals and that's, that's, you know, there we can discuss the merits of that, but that's a thing that comes up. Does that answer your question, group? Good, okay. Yes. So the task force would be tasked with coming up with the model code? Right. What is in them, what do they look like, what is the density, is it, are we doing it based off of building size?

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: How are, I think I

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: know the answer to this, but I'm going to ask it. Municipal zoning codes right now are designed by their planning commission or their development review board. They're designed at the local. Exactly, with RPCs. So I'm a little concerned, for different reasons than Senator Beck, but I also, I'm not sure a task force is the right mechanism for this kind of thing. When would you come? Because I'm not sure if these are the right people at the table. Sure. So, I don't know what it is, like a working group or

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: something different? Kind of the same thing,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: but it's a little bit different that is not as like shiny sitting at a meeting table, but more informal. Yeah. And also, has more opportunity to have different people at the table. Developing the details of a code is kind of complicated work to be doing this kind of way that we do things. Yeah. I mean, not that maybe cause this is complicated, but I think it, I see it as a little bit different. So, okay. I think that's fair. I'm not sure I'm expressing this exactly right, but it feels a little like the wrong match for this kind of work. Okay, yeah, that's fair. I mean, would you I'm hearing a couple of things. One is we want to change it to a working group. Maybe that's just in name only, but another possibility, and I am very open to like, do we change the membership or are you thinking like, do we just task one organization to do this? Do we say, hey, get active, will you just do this? Yeah, mean, maybe it's having that convene a working group with the relevant stakeholders to come in and, because they're the ones that know this work a lot better than legislators, etcetera. So I guess, I'm not sure. Maybe you have ideas.

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, go ahead. So I don't think you've had a deep discussion of municipal zoning in here in a while, I do think you're

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: going to need to

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: have some of primer on municipal zoning, but just as some context, you should hear about the official pitch. But also in the past, the Department of Housing and Community Development has issued model bylaws already that towns have the option to adopt currently. There is something in municipal zoning called form based code. I think that this is going be building off something like that, where they are very technical design standards, more about the actual dimensions of a home that lead to faster streamlining permits. This is, parts of this already exist in the world. So I hear what you're saying. I do think you could hear from some

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: of the people in this process, may already

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: be things under development that this wouldn't be a heavy lift, but you should hear about that.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Thank you. I think that's really helpful, and you're right. I haven't had a primer on the municipals. Have known only just enough to be

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a little dangerous. Municipal zoning. Yeah, absolutely. I feel like

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: this isn't the right group to do it. And yes, if things already exist that are plug and play, you should take advantage of those. Yeah, and especially knowing that some of these models exist and then vetting them for like, these be appropriate for this kind of application? And I would like to hear their opinion. Yes. This thing. So why would we do this anyway? Yeah.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: I'm sure it's nice and shiny. Did you send the comments?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: Yeah. I'm I think and also, you know, it was a little odd to have this legislative at this point, and people get together all the time over the summer and work on stuff again until the point that there's so why we needed the official pest control is not clearly. Mhmm. Yeah. And then we have the issue. And then we have yeah, the issue of the makeup of the of so that and then we have there's the whole issue of model by law and how interfaces with each community that we have so we can have Mhmm. Inside. But it just sounds like like a lot of time, you know, we do this work over the summer, and that's how you actually get good legislation. There was a lot of way to get good legislation. It's been I don't know. I don't know what I don't know what the process would be done. But Mhmm.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: Does it come in over here?

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Well,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: we should have them in.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: We should find out. The

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: point is that this is just the beginning. This is a platform for further conversation. So happy to vet this all out, see if we even need it. Would love to have a vehicle, for that conversation. Yes. So, I have to go

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to another party on eleven. Okay. And so if you would, I did hear you say you want at least one change. Yes. And so, if you have, you have twenty five minutes of my time, if you'd like to make any other changes, I can get it right back to you, but you could, I don't know if I have anything else

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: much to add to the

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: discussion, but that I did want to hear, if you would like to have this vehicle as an option, if you vote this out and get it to the Senate floor and have it come back and have an S number, you are not obligated to vote it out of committee. I think, Terry is trying to use as an option for a vehicle. If you do not vote it out today, you would need to find either another bill that has already been introduced by the deadline, if you'd like to look into this. One saying that. I'm good. If you want to email it. I'm also happy to keep answering Are your

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: you able to come back to us before we adjourn at twelve, do

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you think? No, that's what I'm saying.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I have twenty five minutes. Right now. Right now. Okay, what I'd like to do is take a break, and we will come back when, how long do you think you need?

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Five minutes.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, well let's take a seven minute break.

[Danielle “Dani” Stanley (Youth Lobby of Vermont)]: Okay. Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Amazing. Okay, thank you. So we're going to take break for until 10:45. Okay. Okey dokey. Okay, so this is at Natural Resources and Energy coming back from a quick break. So we're, No, we're not ready for the- Yeah, but that's right. So we've got a new draft of this committee bill. But you just had- I think we just, the audit-

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sanded it out.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: And it just modifies this. It's just a There's two small changes. There's two changes. Well, I'll let you talk to through

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: the comments.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah, so

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: this is draft 2.1. It's with today's date, April 29 at 10:40AM. The two small changes on page one, it was line 16 that said instruct the reference to tier one, and so now that tends to just read once codes are developed and published, municipality municipalities would have the option to adopt codes in areas, So, the graphics to tier one. And then, the other small change was on page two. It said, The remaining members shall be the following on the file. Now, it says just, The members shall be the following.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Those are the only small changes. And fully acknowledging this, if we actually move forward with this, so we vote it out, bring it back, keep working on it, and then it is up to us to actually move forward with it or not, or modify it in any way we see fit. Did we go? Okay, any other discussion on this? No, okay, great. With that, we're lay a word out on us if the clerk can call roll.

[Scott Beck (Committee Clerk)]: Draft Okay, request 20 Six-seven61 draft 2.1. Senator Bennington? Yes. Senator Bongartz? Yes. Senator Harvey? Yes. Senator Williams? Yes. Senator Watson? Yes. I am Theodore Lee. Theodore Lee? I don't think we need a reporter to introduce it, but if you update the request to read from me about it.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I think that is the case. Ellen's gonna be my guide on all of that, so appreciate that. Thank you so much. Thank you everybody for your flexibility in recognizing that reasonable timing tight spot. Oh, thank you. All right, so with that, we are switching gears. Today is a lot of different topics. Yeah. So with that, we are switching to S-one 174 on green banks. Again, is a study to look at the possibility of whether or not Vermont could have a rebank or how that could be structured to benefit climate mitigation infrastructure, farming, agriculture, etcetera. And we're joined by Jennifer Byrne from, I believe it's the, it's the White River Natural Resource Conservation District. Welcome.

[Jennifer Byrne (District Manager, White River NRCD)]: Yes. Thank you so much. Lovely to be here. Good morning. I've prepared some notes. Do you mind if I launch into

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: them? Go right ahead. You

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: could turn on it. Hang

[Speaker 2]: on one second.

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Okay,

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: great. If we could turn around, so that'd be really good.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. All right. Thank you for being here.

[Jennifer Byrne (District Manager, White River NRCD)]: Thank you so much. Yes, thank you for the invitation to testify today. For the record, my name is Jennifer Byrne. I'm the district manager of the White River Natural Resources Conservation District. Our district serves 26 towns across Orange, Windsor, Addison and Rutland Counties. And I really appreciate the committee's leadership in exploring new financial tools to support climate mitigation, agricultural resilience and natural resource protection in Vermont. And I wanna say at the outset that my background is in agriculture, natural resources and the environment, not banking and finance. However, I'm here today because our district has been working through questions of public finance and banking with partners across Vermont, across the region and the nation as part of our effort to better support farmers and long term conservation. I know this bill is focused on green bank models, And my purpose today is to introduce public banking as a complementary approach and to encourage a closer look on how it differs in function and purpose, particularly when we're thinking about long term sustainability and local control. I offer this testimony from the perspective of a locally led conservation district that works every day with farmers, communities and partner agencies to turn policy into practice on the land. And so I'll briefly the role of conservation districts as locally led public institutions, share some context on how money and credit function and highlight why public banking is a necessary part of this conversation alongside Green Bank models. So to start, conservation districts were created in response to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s when it became clear that soil erosion, flooding and land degradation were not isolated farm problems, but system wide failures of land use. And the response was not merely regulation from above, but the creation of locally led democratically governed institutions organized around watersheds and working landscapes. And today, than 3,000 conservation districts exist nationwide in every U. S. State and territory, including Vermont's 14 districts that are established under the Vermont Soil Conservation Act of 1939. From the beginning, conservation districts were designed to work at the scale conservation actually happens across farms, whole farms, forests, watersheds, and communities. We're governed by local boards accountable to our communities and bring farmers, land stewards and municipalities and agencies around shared resource concerns. Our role is to translate and align local, state and federal conservation roles and coordinate funding into solutions that work on the ground. And that role continues today. In Vermont, conservation districts lead the locally led conservation process, which is formally recognized in federal guidance and relied on by USDA, especially the NRCS. Through this process, districts can be in local working groups, are structured forums where farmers, land managers, municipalities and partners identify priority soil, water and land use concerns based on real conditions in our landscapes. And these priorities are identified. The priorities identified through these groups help guide how public conservation dollars are targeted locally. Because districts work so closely with farmers and communities, we also see clearly where conservation delivery breaks down, especially around financing. Even when conservation practices are cost shared, farmers and land stewards are often asked to pay significant costs upfront, carry debt while waiting for reimbursement, absorb interest costs for projects that largely benefit the public, and navigate multiple programs with different timelines and rules. This financial risk discourages participation and innovation, particularly for smaller diversified or transitioning farms. At the same time, conservation districts via the local working groups identify conservation needs at the scale of whole farms and watersheds, while most financial tools operate project by project. This creates a gap between the locally identified conservation priorities and the capital available to support them. And so based on our work with farmers and communities throughout the White River District, questions of public finance and banking have become an important area of focus as a practical question of how to better align money, timing and risk with how conservation actually happens on the land. And that brings me to the next part of my testimony today, how money and credit function and why that matters for conservation. As you consider different financing tools under S one seventy four, I wanna take a moment to talk about something basic but important, which is how money actually enters the economy. Many people assume that money is created directly by the government and then spent into circulation. Historically, that was often true. Public authorities issued money or credit to pay for productive work, like building infrastructure, supporting agriculture or responding to crises, and then accepted that money back through taxes and fees. That shared system of issuing money and taking it back is what gave money its value and stability. In today's economy, however, most money is created in a different way. It comes into existence through lending. When a bank makes a loan, it doesn't simply move existing money from one account to another. It creates new money in the form of credit based on a promise to repay. And that money circulates, supports real activity in the economy, and is later repaid, reused, or retired, which AKA could be called destroyed. Over time, the authority to create most money and credit shifted away from public institutions and toward private banks. That system works well for some purposes, especially short term or high return investments, but it often struggles to support long term public needs where benefits are shared, are accumulative and unfold over decades. Soil health, clean water, flood resilience, climate adaptation, and farm viability all fall into that category. They're essential public goods, but they don't always fit neatly into private lending models. And the key point is this. Credit is not just money that moves around. It's created somewhere by someone for a purpose. And where that credit is created and whether it's created locally or far away, publicly or privately shapes what kind of investments are prioritized and whose needs are ultimately served. So I'll briefly explain what people mean by a public bank and why it matters for this conversation. A public bank is simply a bank owned by the state or another public entity. It holds public money such as tax revenues and agency funds and uses those deposits to support lending aligned with public goals under clear legislative mandate and oversight. Today, much of Vermont's public money is deposited in large private national banks. These dollars don't disappear, but they're often used to support lending and investment outside the state. In effect, public funds help fuel economic activity somewhere else. A public bank changes that by keeping public money here and circulating it within the Vermont economy. In practice, this doesn't require inventing new money or creating a complicated new program. The state could charter a bank and deposit a portion of its existing public funds into it. Under normal banking rules, these deposits would be used to support lending tied to public priorities rather than sitting in large banks and supporting activity outside of the state. Because banks create credit or money when they lend, a public bank does more than spend public money once. Loans are made, repaid and lent again. The interest stays within the public institution and helps build lending capacity over time. This allows public dollars to support long term needs without restarting funding from scratch every budget cycle. That basic idea of keeping public money local and letting it revolve and grow is what people mean by public banking. And this idea has deep roots in agriculture. Long before cash was in hand, farmers create real value through food production and rely on credit to bridge the gap between planting and harvest. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, farmers struggled to access affordable credit when they needed it. And so during wartime, governments issued public credit to make capital available when it was needed with repayment expected later, often after harvest. After the wars, farmers asked a simple question. If this credit worked in emergencies, why couldn't it work in everyday economic life? And that question helped fuel the populist movement as millions of farmers called for publicly controlled credit and locally accountable banking. While many of those ideas faced resistance and were not adopted nationally, the core insight endured who creates credit, where it is created, and what it used for matters. Vermont was part of that early experimentation in the early eighteen hundreds. The state chartered public and quasi public banks with the expectation that they would support productive activity and return value to the public. Vermont's early public bank closed during the financial instability around the war of eighteen twelve, long before modern banking safeguards exist when banks of all kinds were failing nationwide. One place where this took lasting form was North Dakota. In 1919, farmers there organized to create a public bank after watching money leave the state and credit became harder to access. The bank started with just $2,000,000 in state capital, and more than a century later, it holds over $10,000,000,000 in assets, is funded almost entirely by public deposits, and operates without without ongoing costs to the state budget. Today, it supports agriculture, infrastructure, student lending, disaster recovery, and community investment, primarily by partnering with local banks and helping them lend more, not by competing with them. Just this year, Dakota used its public bank to deliver roughly $400,000,000 in support to farmers during the tariff crisis, showing the value of having a financial tool the state itself controls. For that reason, public banks are best understood as long term financial infrastructure like roads or water systems designed to serve public needs over time, including agriculture conservation and climate resilience. So because public banks accept public deposits and operate with a public mandate, it creates several practical advantages for conservation and working lands. First, they keep public money circulating locally, supporting farms, businesses, and communities rather than flowing out of state. Second, lending allows public money to be reused over time. Unlike grants, which are spent once, loans are repaid and recycled, making it possible to support long term needs without starting over every budget cycle. And third, because banks create new credit when they lend, public banks can expand the impact of public dollars within safe limits set by law. When that credit is created by a public bank, it remains tied to public priorities. Earnings are retained and recycled into future lending, building capacity over time rather than paying dividends to private investors. Finally, public banks can provide stability because they are not driven by short term pressures. They can continue lending during downturns, disasters, and periods of agricultural volatility exactly when private credit often pulls back. For natural resource conservation and agriculture, this matters. Watershed restoration, soil rebuilding, and farm transitions take time. They require patient, predictable capital that matches ecological and economic reality, not just short term funding windows. So here's why green banks can help but can't do this alone. S one seventy four directs the state treasurer to study green bank models as a way to move more money into climate farming and agriculture projects. So it's helpful to briefly clarify what green banks are designed to do and how that differs from a public bank. So green bank is not a bank in the everyday sense. It does not hold deposits or create money through lending. Instead, it's typically set up as a financing program that helps good projects move forward when a finance when financing is a barrier by improving loan terms, lowering costs, sharing risk, or helping with upfront expenses. Because green banks rely on periodic capitalization through appropriations, bonds, or federal programs, they function more like targeted programs than permanent financial institutions. In practice, this can be very useful in conservation and agriculture. A green bank might help a farmer, municipality or business move ahead with an energy upgrade or infrastructure project that would otherwise be difficult to finance. Green banks can reduce risk and move money into priority areas more quickly. A public bank works at a different level. Rather than spending down a fixed pool of funds, it functions as a long term financial infrastructure. It holds public deposits, keeps those funds local, and uses them to support lending over time. Because loans are repaid and earnings are retained, that capacity can be reused and strengthened year after year. Another key difference is mandate. Green banks often work alongside private investors and respond to market conditions. Public bank, because it's publicly owned, can focus more directly on long term public benefit, even when projects don't align neatly with short term market returns. A simple way to think about it is this. Green banks help move projects forward, while public banks are designed to keep public money circulating locally and supporting long term needs at scale. These are not competing ideas, but different tools that can be strongest when designed to complement one another. So as the committee considers S-one 174, it's worth noting that Vermont already has an existing tool for directing public funds toward local investment through the Local Investment Advisory Committee or LIAC. Under current law, the state treasurer is authorized to use up to 10% of the state's average daily cash balance for local investment. LIAC, which is chaired by the treasurer, reviews proposals and prioritizes investments intended to support Vermont's economy, including infrastructure, agriculture and other development needs. This framework is important because it reflects a key principle behind today's discussion. Public money can be intentionally directed to serve local public purposes rather than being invested entirely out of state. In the context of tools like LIAC and public banking, the focus on what happens to money before it is spent and how its benefits remain local through where it's held and where it's used. At the same time, LIAC is more limited than the models I've previously discussed. It's a committee that does not take deposits. It does not create revolving credit through lending, and it's not designed to operate as a permanent financial infrastructure. In that sense, it functions more as a targeted investment program than as a bank. For that reason, LIAC may be best viewed as a foundation to build on rather than an alternative to a green bank or public banking ideas. Its authority and experience could help inform how these tools are designed and coordinated, particularly for agriculture and conservation investments with long timelines and public benefits. So with all that context, I offer the following considerations as S-one 174 moves forward. As Vermont studies green bank approaches, it's important to also examine public banking models that accept public deposits and provide long term revolving capital. Green banks are often effective at moving projects forward quickly, but public banks are designed to ensure capital remains available over time without needing frequent injections of appropriations from the legislature. Looking at both together allows Vermont to distinguish between tools that accelerate projects and institutions that sustain investment and may help Vermont build something that works now and lasts. Number two, consider how deposits and local credit creation could support resilience. Accepting public deposits allows money to stay in Vermont, be reused over time, and support more lending than one time spending alone. When that money is guided by a clear public mission, it can support long term conservation and marking lands where progress happens steadily over many years rather than in short bursts. Three, consider whether financial tools match conservation timelines. Conservation work does not happen all at once. It unfolds over time across properties and watersheds, and it often requires upfront investment before public benefits are fully realized. As financing models are evaluated, it may be useful to ask a few practical questions. Do these tools help bridge timing gaps between when investments are made and when reimbursements or benefits occur? Do they support work at the scale conservation actually happens such as whole farms, watersheds, and landscapes? Do they reduce financial risk for those delivering public benefits on behalf of the broader community? Financial tools that align with how conservation actually unfolds are more likely to support durable long term outcomes. And four, consider how conservation districts and NRCC could inform local investment decisions. As the committee and legislature continue to work on S-one 174 and other natural resource and energy initiatives, I would encourage a consistent effort to include Vermont's Natural Resource Conservation District as part of the conversation and to recognize the value of the locally led conservation voice. Conservation districts are locally governed public entities that work directly with landowners, farmers, municipalities, and communities to translate conservation policy into action on the ground. Through the locally led conservation process, including local working groups, districts already convene farmers, land managers and partners to identify priority resource concerns and help inform how local state and federal conservation dollars are directed. In practice, districts are already a part of the infrastructure that guides public investment where it meets real landscapes and working lands. The state level, the Natural Resources Conservation Council, NRCC, our overarching state agency, plays a coordinating role across districts, agencies and programs, helping align conservation priorities, funding sources and delivery. Together, conservation districts, low local working groups and NRCC form an existing democratically grounded system that Vermont already relies on to understand local needs and assess what is working and what is not. As you consider new financial tools, it may be useful to consider how this existing structure could also help inform local investment decisions related to conservation and agriculture. In other public banking models, such as North Dakota's, public banks operate with clear public oversight and draw on advisory input from legislators and community stakeholders to help guide priorities, while professional staff retain responsibility for the financial decisions. A similar approach in Vermont could build on what already works, elevating locally grounded, democratically accountable input to inform priorities without asking conservation bodies to become financial institutions themselves or politicizing lending decisions, and with recognition that sustaining this locally led role depends on adequate and stable capacity. Conservation districts were created during a time of national crisis to protect land and water through the locally led, democratically accountable stewardship of place. That core idea that people closest to the land should help shape the decisions that affect it remains just as relevant as Vermont response to climate change, water challenges, and the future of its working landscapes. But to conclude, as 174 moves forward, Vermont has the opportunity to look beyond individual financing tools and consider how our financial systems, conservation goals and locally led delivery structures can work together over time. The committee has heard thoughtful testimony about using existing programs, partnering with private lenders and moving capital efficiency to priority projects. Those perspectives matter and reflect real strengths in Vermont's current system. What I hope to add is a complementary way of thinking about public finance itself. Green bank tools and targeted investment programs can be effective at helping projects move forward. Public banking operates at a different level, as long term financial infrastructure that determines where credit is created, how long it circulates, and what public purposes it's meant to serve. Experience elsewhere internationally shows that publicly owned banks tend to invest more consistently in climate and infrastructure, not because they take more risk, but because their mandate allows them to focus on long term public benefit rather than short term returns. That distinction matters for conservation, agriculture and working lands, where progress depends on steady investment over time, not one time infusions of funding. By examining public banking models, green bank tools and mechanisms like the Local Investment Advisory Committee alongside Vermont's locally led conservation process, the state can explore approaches that are stable, mission driven and grounded in real landscapes and communities. A well designed public bank could support conservation delivery while also keeping public dollars generating and working in Vermont to meet broader long term needs from water infrastructure and flood resilience to housing, agriculture and community development under clear public oversight. Thank you for the opportunity to share these perspectives. I do appreciate the committee's engagement and I look forward to continued conversation as the work progresses. Would also be glad to connect you with my colleagues and mentors who may be willing to share additional insight into this conversation. And I'll close with a quote from the Bank of North Dakota's coffee table book celebrating their one hundred years in existence. One of my mentors quotes this quite often, that the Bank of North Dakota is not an ordinary bank. It is the people of North Dakota acting as a bank. And the Bank of North Dakota has proven to be a bank for good. It is everybody's bank.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Thank you so much. Really appreciate your testimony and especially highlighting similarities and differences between a green bank and a public bank and how they might serve slightly different purposes. One question for you, I mean, so

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: could you see

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: the overlap in a green bank and a public bank? I mean, I suppose there are some similarities, Maybe a green bank could serve some of the functions that you can see in a public bank. I guess I'm wondering about the dovetailing of these ideas.

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Sure.

[Jennifer Byrne (District Manager, White River NRCD)]: Well, from what I understand of a green bank, it's more about the programs that it runs, financial assistance programs, how those are designed. And sure, yes, I think they could be very complimentary, but the question being, where does the money live? And the money isn't living inside of that bank that's held by the public. It's still living in a private bank. And in addition, not that this is a bad thing, the green bank typically will assist with the acquisition of private loan products. And so those are still private and those are still driven by the private banking institutions' interests and designed by them. So that's a difference. I do think it absolutely could be complementary. Money from a public bank could be the money that the green bank uses. I think the confusing part is that it uses the word bank. But

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: it's really a to me,

[Jennifer Byrne (District Manager, White River NRCD)]: it's really a program. It's it it seems like from what I can gather. I'm not a green bank expert.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yes. Go ahead.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: So you the just gonna compete with the the prime credit bureau or and who's gonna decide in the state of Vermont which who gets the priority for for the money that there's a little amount of money to loan?

[Jennifer Byrne (District Manager, White River NRCD)]: Well, also from what I understand about, for example, North Dakota, they have a series of advisory committees who help to guide how those programs are developed. And then what are the decision making processes within each? They have many different verticals, agriculture, student lending, etcetera. And sorry, the first part of your question. Well, the farm credit.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Oh.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Use a farm credit for loans.

[Jennifer Byrne (District Manager, White River NRCD)]: Can't. Many can't get those loans, but not specifically farm credit, but a lot of the times local banks, CDFIs, they get brought up as, well, if there's a public bank, then these other banks will become obsolete. That's not true either. That's not what the example of North Dakota, they're not doing direct lending to people. They're de risking and adding value to the existing loan programs as well. And similar to what is being thought of as this green bank, where they're assisting with getting more money out the door, getting more loans be risked so that people can have more access to loans. And that in North Dakota, for example, there's more community banks than I think any other state. They it really strongly relies on the public bank to let those community banks function. So I can't speak specifically to Farm Bureau, which is way bigger than your average CDFI. But in general, these they they complement each other and they make more loans available and not it's not a competition. I did meet the president of the Bank of North Dakota. He did offer to come and testify in Vermont if you ever need to hear more. And he made it extremely clear that they do not compete. That is not their mission. And that's not what they're, you know, that's in effect they actually compliment. They don't compete. Thank you. Other questions?

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, super. Well, thank you so much. Really appreciate your testimony.

[Jennifer Byrne (District Manager, White River NRCD)]: Thank you. Have a great day. Thank you everyone.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: All right,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: super. And now we're going to be jumping. Thank you for your flexibility, your committee about different topics for today, but we're going jump to S219, about energy navigators. Maybe on

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Absolutely. Yes. You can be multiple people at a time. Great. Close the door. Thank you.

[Mike Roy (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: So this is how the sausage is made.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Indeed, you're here. Well, super. Well, thank you all for being here. I think it's really worth taking a minute to introduce ourselves so you know who you're talking to. I know at least one senator already, but just to get us started with that, if you can Hi, start us thank you for coming. Your Senator, Senator Ruth Hardy from the Addison District.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: I'm Senator Terry Williams from the Rollins District.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Senator Anne Watson from Washington District.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: Senator Roberts from the Bendigo Consentative District.

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: Thank you for having us. My name is Steve Meyer, I am Rutland Middlebury and I'm here today with Gene T. Williger and Mike Roy. We all serve on the board of the Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County. And we'll talk more about that as we go along. And it's, thank you for inviting us and we're happy to be here to tell you about our program and what we hope we will do as we still. I'm, Jean is actually gonna take it from here and we'll do a little tag team and our intention is to take no more than fifteen minutes combined to do that. And so there should be time for questions and also for Joey and Roland to also provide some counters. Super. That sound okay? Absolutely. Great. Thank you. Go ahead.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: Thank you for the opportunity to speak with me today. Imagine some of you were sitting in your chilling kitchen in a cold snap in the last week or two, and perhaps some of you were asking, How could you keep your pipes from freezing? How could you keep your pipes from freezing again? Stop the process. You wish you had a neighbor you could call on who knows enough more than you to point you in the right direction. And the Energy Navigators program is providing this type of neighborly resource for home energy improvements. Energy Navigators is a locally rooted program based in Addison County that helps residents lower their energy bills, improve the comfort and safety of their homes, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions through one on one coaching. The program is completely free and open to all residents, regardless of income, and regardless of whether they own or rent their own. I come to this work as an architect with over thirty years of experience at all scales of residential design, with a focus on energy efficiency and natural buildings. I knew that creating a program to connect people with all the resources available to improve their homes was not the easiest path forward, but it could have a meaningful impact in our communities. What makes Energy Navigators different is our focus on building relationships with our neighbors, not on paperwork or sales. Many Vermonters want to make smart energy improvements, but they face information overload, confusing options, and uncertainty about where to start. Our role is to help cut through that confusion. We provide clear, practical guidance and support our residents to feel confident and empowered to make a plan and take action. Here's a few questions that we've helped people with. I got an energy audit, but I don't understand what the next step should be. What options will make my home more comfortable? I'm really interested in getting a heat pump, but I've heard they don't work well in cold weather. How will I know if it will work for my home? My basement is always damp. Will getting a heat pump water heater fix it? I have icicles, this was just last week, I have icicles on one part of my roof. How can you help me with that? Our mostly volunteer navigators meet people where they are, literally. We go into homes, we assess their homes using basic building science principles, and tailor recommendations to each household's specific situation. We then connect residents to the incentives, rebates, and programmes that already exist. And importantly, we stay with them over time as a trusted resource to answer questions and provide support. There's no sales pitch, just ongoing, knowledgeable support. In this way, energy navigators serve as a missing link between Vermont's statewide energy programs and real household level action. Programs through Efficiency Vermont, Green Mountain Power, CBOEO, and others have a long and successful history, but gaps remain. Many residents still struggle to access or navigate these resources. The energy navigators provide a last mile connection to turn eligibility into action. And our work also places a strong emphasis on home electrification, one of the highest impact opportunities for reducing emissions, while improving affordability and resilience. By helping households understand and adopt cleaner technologies, are directly supporting Vermont's climate goals in a practical, people centred way. Finally, the Energy Navigators is building local capacity by training and supporting a network of community based volunteer navigators. This model extends our reach, strengthens community trust, and ensures that this work can grow sustainably across the region of Vermont. In short, Energy Navigators is helping Addison County residents save money, live more comfortably, and be part of the climate solution by meeting them where they are and walking alongside them every step of the way. Thank you.

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: Mike is gonna take over now and talk about our recommendation that we should be moving in Vermont toward having a statewide program that supports community based energy coaching programs, like ours.

[Roland (Shelburne Energy Committee volunteer)]: Thanks Steve. And thank you so

[Mike Roy (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: much for inviting us here to speak with you today. So my background is in IT and libraries and so I know I've learned a great deal about building science from hanging around machines, but that's not my background.

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: A lot of the work that I did at Middlebury, where I

[Mike Roy (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: worked for seventeen years at HistoryType, was really thinking about collaboration, consortia, how do we work together in a kind of peer to peer relationship. So some of the things I'd like to bring to your attention today are really less about the kind of details of the work that the Navigator program does and more about kind of the infrastructure and process for running a proper scale and program up from where we begin. So I have five things I wanted to share with you. So the first thing was just to assert, having reread the State Climate Command, that energy coaching is part of the State Climate Plan. So there's an explicit part in the State Climate Plan that says energy coaching is a necessary component in order to accomplish many of the goals that the overall State Climate Plan has. The second thing I wanted to assert is that we have found by running this program that there's broad interest across Vermont in this community based energy coaching. Roland will tell you more about that, but we've been approached by many, many towns, many energy communities saying, yes please, we'd like one of these. And so we're really interested and it kind of breaks our heart that we're always saying, we can't do this, we're this small and this is what we can do. But I have a fairly strong feeling that there's a very strong interest across from homogenous. Based on that, the third piece of, and this is more of a kind of something to keep track of, is the Energy Action Network, which hopefully you're familiar with. They produced this annual report on energy use in Vermont. We all work with what's called a network action team to explore energy coaching in Vermont. So we're in the kind of early stages working very closely with Efficiency Vermont in just thinking through doing the inventory of all the current service providers, everybody who's doing energy coaching or energy coaching adjacent work, and just trying to get a state of like what's true today, where to get back to where there are opportunities, we should have a kind of preliminary finding by probably mid April, that may be something to pay attention to. We can certainly, as that work continues, we keep keeping you posted about that. We've also been trying to kind of lift our heads up and not stay completely focused on Vermont. It turns out that in many of our neighboring states there are already state level energy coaching systems or programs. So Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York have the new economy. Connecticut and Massachusetts ones are based out of the energy efficiency, and the New York one is based out of state government. We've spent a fair amount of time talking to the people from Massachusetts about their program, which is called community based partnerships. Of the most interesting things about it has been really the kind of equity focus. So what they've discovered, and I don't know if this is true in Vermont or not, but that in Massachusetts the money that was being collected by the energy efficiency utility was not going equally to all citizens. And so many of the folks who were paying into this efficiency utility were not actually receiving as much benefits. And so this program is built explicitly to make sure that people who low and moderate income, people who may not speak English, people of all sorts have access to these kinds of services. And so we've been, I think, on the list of folks that we were considered to invite you there, which is well worth talking to them, it's really inviting me. And then the last thing, kind of taking me back even another notch, we're part of a recently launched consortium that's looking at energy coaching systems across the country, and so these sort of community based, NGO based programs are growing up in Oregon, Colorado, Virginia, Ohio, Maine. All of us are starting to talk with one another and trying to figure out like how do we share infrastructure, how do we learn from each other, how do we share training materials, how can we make it easier for states and smaller communities to launch this sort of work without everybody having to reinvent the wheel. Those are the five things that I think in mind would be useful for you to be thinking about. I guess I'll just close by stating the obvious what we all know, which is that we are not hitting our goals in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and electrification. This program all by itself will not do that, it is not a silver bullet, but I really do believe that this is a really critical part of a broader approach to addressing the kind

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: of emergency that we all face. So thank you. Thank

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you so much. Thanks. And thank you

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: for all your work.

[Arnela (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Sorry, I

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: think you had something more to say. No, don't have anything to say. It's okay.

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: Again, I'm Steve Meyer and a little bit more about SEAT, we're small nonprofit. We have most all of our board are volunteer and we're a working board. We have two staff members who now help to direct and run this program. And they're the only paid people that we have on our team. Everybody else is either board members or community volunteers as you've heard. This program has been in play for about eighteen months now. We've developed a lot of necessary resources and materials, website, technical tracking systems so that we can keep track of where things are with our clients, follow-up with them over time. We have a finance guide that it turns out that each of our partner and collaborative agencies, efficiency Vermont, Green Mountain Power and CDOEO, everybody has somewhat different qualification standards for getting a particular kind of incentive or do you qualify for CDOEO weatherization or not. Just keeping track of that in one place, if we can provide people advice has been extremely helpful. It's also something that needs constant attention because things change, as you're probably well aware. And then also materials that we've used for training our community volunteers. Most of these resources we are willing and prepared to share with other communities, they're in an open domain and so that's one thing that we've done on behalf of the broader state actually. Our funding so far, part of the bill in front of you is small appropriation. Our funding is completely at this point from local donors, small private foundations, state and federal and some small town contributions to our program. The federal grants that we have are some of the last from the department of energy before they no longer became available and so we know that those won't continue beyond the current calendar year. So we were looking at our funding is pretty secure for this calendar year, then things drop off rather precipitously. So we therefore have respectfully requested a $150,000 appropriation to help us bridge over to during the time period where the design study that this bill proposes takes place would take place during the course of the starting in July, it were to pass, I presume. But anyway, there'll be a period of time when they're required, wouldn't be required to report to you next January with our recommendations. So we believe energy navigators is well positioned to continue to be an important pilot project for community based coaching in Vermont. And we ask for your support for this bill and for the design study and for the bridge funding request. So thank you for your attention. We'd be happy to answer any questions.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: Super. Thank you so much. Okay.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: So some of the things that you do is like very good moment opportunity council does Brock So do you you don't get do

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: you get funding from efficiency Vermont bringing in the what you're doing? No, not organizationally. We routinely will recommend to our clients that they, okay, you would qualify for this kind of incentive from Efficiency Vermont or you might probably in Addison County, our community action agency is, we were mentioning CDO, yeah, Office of Economic Opportunity. Rutland and CDO are the two, they provide the same services in different regions. But no, we don't get direct funding from efficiency or mine, it's an idea worth thinking about, but we haven't pursued it.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: And we don't do exactly the same thing as Brock does. The yo yos typically are focused on weatherization for people under 80% of median income, more easily available under 60% of median income. And so we work with the full range of people, which means that, and we know that higher income people typically have larger houses, spend more money, so actually have the capacity to do some more of the work that needs to be done. So we routinely recommend, Oh, we see that you're in this income level. You should talk to CBOVO and get on their list because you will be eligible for that. But people don't necessarily even know they're eligible until they call us. We help connect people to all of those different services.

[Mike Roy (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: I would say 60% of the folks that we work with are in fact LMI, building bottom line, and become We don't focus. We have

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: a pretty broad outreach efforts, but it just turns out for whatever reason that's what

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: I thought it's up to speed up.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Typically, higher income people have heat pumps and, you know, solar panels, and they just turn the thermostat on. They're still using fuel oil, electricity, and they're not. Rather than putting it into the efficiencies in the house, that's that's my case. You know? Mhmm. So

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: You just turn to heat up.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: It's turning to up. Yeah. Yeah. We we tend to use more energy because we can afford Yeah.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: It's a bit of a pain. Yes.

[Speaker 2]: Thank you all for coming.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I appreciate it. And I'm wondering, Jean, you're trained because you're an architect and you know a lot about building science and how houses work. So two questions. One is, how do you train the volunteers to have enough information to do what you know how And to then two, do you also work, I should know this, but do you also work with businesses or is it strictly residential?

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: I'll take the second one first. Okay. We decided to focus residentially.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Okay.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: Because there's only so much, particularly with volunteers, we can ask of them, And so we would love to broaden our scope to that, but it's stuck with residential at the moment. And so for training volunteers, there's this You may have heard of Rewiring America. They are offering a coaching training program. Over 1,500 people across the country have gone through this training now, including at least, I don't know, 10 to a dozen in Addison County we brought in and Steve. And so they provide a really great overview of all the different pieces you should know, how to talk to people, including how to talk to people, how to do outreach. And then we have also developed our own training scope that addresses exactly how things work in Vermont because obviously it's not the same as it works in other places.

[Roland (Shelburne Energy Committee volunteer)]: And then we are

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: also currently, we have a monthly meeting with all of our coaches so that we can of talk about different clients and issues and bring in new information and bring in guest information. We've got Efficiency for Moncton, we've got CEOYO folks in to continually upgrade our training. Great.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Thank you. Yes, Bennington?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: Actually, understand the appropriation part of this.

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: Mhmm. The 150, we refer to as a bridge. From what? Fridge from what to what? The and and who and who would control that money and who would spend it? So the design the the money as it's written would come to our organization in the to enable us to bridge over to a time when this the a statewide program that would be presented to you next January, which the legislation asks that that include funding for communities and feeding groups until that is is able to be implemented. So that's the bridge that we have in mind. You had funding prior to this one in Turkey? Not from not from state general fund. No. This is a new request. And just

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: to keep you real until

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: the whole system Yes. Okay. That's great. Thank you.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I have a couple of questions. Well, first of all, thank you for all the work that you're doing in this area. I'm not mistaken, I heard that this program is about eighteen months old. So that's relatively new. In recognizing that, relatively speaking, that's a short amount of time, do you have any data or statistics about like, we've engaged with this many homes, we've completed this many projects, this is the breakdown of the types of projects. It's kind of getting a little bit to Senator Williams' question, but I'm wondering about the data that, like if you had like a one page you know, list of that kind of information. If not, that's okay.

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: We don't have something at hand, but

[Mike Roy (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: go ahead. So we're using this system called monday.com, which is called, it's called customer relationship management program and we're using it to track all of this so we have good data on all of the people who contacted us. We can track their progress through this kind of pipeline of you know, we talk to them, we meet with them, we write them reports, we give them some recommendations. The challenge that we have, so I think we've met around 200 homes so far, we've worked, we've had meetings and issues written reports for about 200 families. The challenge that we have is getting people to tell us that they've done something. So there's no particular reason why they shouldn't do that. So it turns out Efficiency Vermont has lots of that information because to get a rebate you have to go through Efficiency Vermont. So one of the things that we're talking about in this EAN study group is how do we, for folks that are doing this vocally that would like to know whether or not they are actually achieving the results that they want to achieve, how do we create trust relationships so that we can know without violating people's privacy what they've been doing at least at an aggregate level. So we have a system to keep track of it all, which makes beautiful charts and map everything, all the trend lines and all that. It's just we had a very hard time getting the outcome data because there's no particular reason why somebody, after they've done this, they don't think, oh, I'm going to call Gene and tell her I got my eTalk.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: And we do have some people who do that and we have anecdotally, you know, a whole number of people who have gotten heat pumps. We've helped people get heat pumps up to the very moment and pass the heat pump, the big heat pump incentive. Heat pump water. Your incentive was available. We've with Brock and CDOEO and have gotten their services, but we don't have a lot of our numbers. And we do know that it takes people a long time after they get a report to start doing work. It takes some time to organize their finances, find time in their schedule, find contractors, so we're certainly available to help them but they don't always call us and we do, we have heard from We're working on

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: that, not done trying. We have different ways that we're planning to start keep working on it. Our intention is to continue to be in relationship to be an advisor over time. So we want to check-in with people at first, after a month or after three months, six months. So we have ways of reconnecting with people to find out where they are, what they might need to take the next step. So that's another important feature of our program.

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: And we've heard from people, you know, a year later, oh, I'm finally ready to do something. Can you help me with this? I

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: have another question here, but before we go, I just want to recognize, I want to make sure that we have enough time for Mr. Davis to go, and if we run out of time for this, then we know you're around. So I just wanna be sensitive to that, but

[Speaker 2]: go ahead.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: So just taxpayer money, what what mechanism would it be for providing oversight from the legislature for the money that they're asking for. Which

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: Lights sound a little bit good, I don't

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: I'm thinking but I'm thinking I don't maybe for the committee too. Yes.

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: I I mean, what whatever you think is appropriate would be, I mean, where we have grant funders that we need to report to. So I would assume there would be funding,

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: there

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: would be grant report requirements and it's, I don't think it's clear to Bill, you probably have to figure out where does the money, who are you gonna give the money to that would then give us a grant. And so with them, if it's the department or if it's Digital Divorce or somebody else, we would have grant agreement with them, which would require some reporting. Don't think that's specified anywhere, but that's to me.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: That kind of goes along with the panel. Yeah,

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: exactly. Anything

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: further you wanted to add?

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: No. Great, well thank you so much.

[Mike Roy (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: Thank you. Thank you again.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: All right

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: and so we'll welcome students. Welcome.

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: Why don't you just leave that chair?

[Roland (Shelburne Energy Committee volunteer)]: Over a year ago. Their program was quite new. We invited them to come down to Shelburne, come up to Shelburne and describe what they're doing. And I already had a little glimpse of it from Jean because we were working side by side and some other things, but I was very impressed and I was one of the people that Mike said, I want one of those. Think more than that, I said, this is a program that needs to be replicable elsewhere. The bigger the better, but you you gotta start summer. My belief behind that is that I think very strongly that the hardest piece of the climate program that Vermont is in was residential thermal electrification is gonna be unarming. It's complicated, slow, evolutionary kind of a thing, and a lot of tools need to come into play. I think a local organized structure of coaching is really a key part of it with a lot of volunteers. So that led me to be part of a series of meetings over the last year with CF and eventually others, including the interest of Vermont. BGS was involved, EAN, led up to the CAN. So that's where I'm at, the thing I want to stress is that part of that group that had been meeting included people that we reached out to in our neighbors, Sherlock, Heinzburg, which we definitely have strong interest, who want to do it on something of a regional basis, might not be, Chitlin County is a big bite, but Southern Chitlin County could be a potential pilot program. South Burlington has said, we won't hear, but we'll come back with stories in particular. So that's kind of where I'm here for Patty. I think that really this can be a key help in getting through the residential slot, all these old homes that are set up for our life. Any questions?

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Lisa? Yes, go ahead. I have a question that I'm actually not sure if it's for you. Thank you, by the way. But maybe for one of these guys, did you also hear from Brandon and some people in Rutland, some folks in Rutland County that were interested in a similar way that Shelburne was? That's what I was wondering.

[Steve Maier (Board, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County)]: One of the federal grants that we have was a grant to the town of Brandon, and we contracted with Brandon to provide these services. We currently are also, in addition to Addison County, working in Brandon.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, so it's really just about the funds to be able to go north or east or the whole west would be the lake, but

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Super, thank you. And we do have seven minutes, I don't know how long you're in

[Jean Terwilliger (Architect; Energy Navigators, CEAC Addison County)]: this morning. I can try to

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: be brief. Sure, okay.

[Speaker 2]: And I wrote it down so I can try to be thorough, and so thanks for the opportunity to be here today to speak to you about S-two 19 the need and opportunity more broadly for energy navigation services. I'm Joanna Miller, lead the Energy Climate Program with Vermont Natural Resources Council. First, before I talk about this, I do want to just say thank you for the work you've done on affordable solar and the big Adam's folks. And so here in my testimony, you may have heard before, a big piece of my work is collaborating closely with committed energy committee leaders who comprise the informal network of the Modern Energy Climate Action Network, which we helped coordinate about half the communities, as you may know, have energy committees. And they've been working, as you've heard, you know well, helping their municipalities themselves, as well as the people in them reduce their energy bills, reduce their energy costs, and reduce their reliance on imported fossil fuels.

[Johanna Miller (VNRC)]: So I come to this conversation at a little bit of a higher level because of my support and work with those community energy groups. And I've seen a lot of progress made through that volunteer model, you know, through the leadership of hardworking and informed volunteer community energy committee led leaders. And as you know, I don't have to

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: say those efforts have helped

[Johanna Miller (VNRC)]: get town halls weatherized, and, you know, solar on roofs and on schools, and, more efficient heating technologies in homes and businesses, and so far beyond. I also have had the privilege of working with a lot of policy issues and serving on the climate councils, so I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of players in Vermont's ecosystem of service providers. That includes the efficiency utilities, our distribution utilities, the community action agencies, which are really pivotal partners. So I feel like I have a pretty strong grasp. Also been at this for a very long time, of what the state has committed to when it comes to doing our part to cut fossil fuel reliance and act on climate. So I just want

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to underscore, I feel like we

[Johanna Miller (VNRC)]: have a very strong foundation of how much to build, and a lot more to do. So, as you know, we're talking about a significant and essential transformation of our outdated energy system, and a way from fossil fuels to a more renewable, local, distributed, and affordable energy system. That's driven by two factors: economics. Renewable energy is now the cheapest and fastest power source on the planet. It's also driven by the environment. We have a climate crisis, it's getting worse, it's costly. I was with this morning, Terry, very engaged in a farm community, or excuse me, youth leaders, you heard from them. So this is an extension to them, it's an economic issue, and it's an opportunity for Vermont, because we import all the fossil fuels that we use. So the transformation is well underway across Vermont and across the world, but to help more people reduce their energy bills and actually cut carbon in line with our long standing goals and our requirements, we got a lot more to do. And we got to do it faster. So that's where the concept of energy navigation services comes in, and why I very much appreciate you taking up this issue, this bill, and looking into it far more. So again, underscoring we have a strong network of partners that are supporting Vermonters already and making good informed energy decisions and ultimately investments, because we're talking about these are real household budget level decisions. But as you heard from Siak and from others, as and we did identify in the Caledonia Council, there's also a gap in our amazing network of providers. And so, I mean, I think that's the conversation before us. You heard SEAC has a model that they say is helping to fill the last gap. They helped organize to meet it, and I think, as you've heard, there is significant interest in the CI Pilot and navigation services in general. I hear that all the time from the communities that I collaborate with. So I have been, we are really interested in exploring how we might better support the network of town energy committees, and mostly, again, all volunteers in playing a more coordinated, impactful, and trained role in expanded energy navigation work. So a few more specific things I know, and I'm standing between you so much, I have three more minutes. Again, we have

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a strong base to work

[Johanna Miller (VNRC)]: from, from the community level to the professional provider level. I do believe that there remain gaps in the current provision of services, partners, and providers, and that we should be helping to fill those gaps and help Vermonters make informed, good energy decisions and investments that will save them money and accelerate the transition to cleaner, less costly energy more quickly. And that these

[Jennifer Byrne (District Manager, White River NRCD)]: support services, as you've

[Johanna Miller (VNRC)]: heard from SEAC and I know from others, it's really important to help Vermonters understand, navigate, access, and then ultimately benefit from potential incentives and programs, especially for low income Vermonters. That work is happening and needs to happen more. And we need a little, for lack of

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: a better term, Campbell, because these

[Johanna Miller (VNRC)]: are really complex decisions. So

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I work closely

[Johanna Miller (VNRC)]: with SEAC and their affiliation with the Middlebury Energy Committee, appreciate their leadership, and I think there's an opportunity to lean in and learn from that model. I would also just underscore what you've heard from Mike Roy, that the Energy Action Network has been putting together this network action team. They currently interview, I think, over 20 different partners and providers to understand what types of energy navigation and support services already exist, what gaps in services or unmet needs there may be, and what might Vermont do to fill those gaps looking at and maybe into potential pilots like SEAC and otherwise. So just saying that you might want to invite Energy Action Network meeting to learn a little bit more about that. They could also be a potential resource to play a role in the study that's envisioned in the bill. But as you heard from Mike,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: it's probably not going to be done until April, which

[Johanna Miller (VNRC)]: may not line up with your legislative schedule, but I

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: think it would be helpful

[Johanna Miller (VNRC)]: to potentially hear from them sooner rather than later. In April or twenty seventh. Yeah, no, they're deep into it already. Okay. So, now lastly, no timely, I'm abundantly aware significant budget constraints and a lot of competing priorities. So, you know, I'm going to just defer to you and hope that, you know, we can find funding to support this potential and other potential investments for priority. So thank you

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: for your work. Yes. Thank you. Yeah.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: I made it listed. Where is it?

[Johanna Miller (VNRC)]: Oh, I said it earlier. Thank you. Johanna Miller, I lead the Vermont Natural Resources Council's Energy Funded Program, but I also have two workmates to stay by night for town energy committees. And I'm on my books if you ever want to talk about that.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: It's really fun.

[Ellen Pitts (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you so much.