Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: Before I wrap the opening day.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: All right, this is Senate Natural Resources and Energy, and it is Tuesday, April 14, and we are starting, I suppose, a little bit of an unusual way. There's a bill that is really over in Senate transportation. There was a question that was posed by the chair that he was interested in having this committee weigh in on. We don't have the legislative council with us today, we have tomorrow, but we do have Marci Gallagher from Local Motion with us here today. Recognizing that this is a little bit in a different order than what we normally do, so just recognizing that, would love to hear from Ms. Gallagher about framing up what is the choice that we are sort of being asked to make, we'll hear knowing that we're going hear more about this from legislative council tomorrow. Then if you have any thoughts that you want to share with us about that.

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: So I'm going turn it over to you.

[Marci (Marcy) Gallagher, Complete Streets Specialist, Local Motion]: Thank you so much. For the record, I'm Marcy Gallagher, and I'm a complete street specialist with Local Motion. I'm gonna keep, I know this isn't ideal, but so I can look at

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: my notes too, not have it be full screen.

[Marci (Marcy) Gallagher, Complete Streets Specialist, Local Motion]: Anyways, Local Motion's mission is to make it safe, accessible, and fun to walk, bike, and roll in Vermont. And specifically, lot of my work is working with advocacy or municipally led walk bike groups in Vermont communities that are working to get things like sidewalks and crosswalks and bike lanes in their town and just make walk, bike, rural infrastructure more safe and accessible. And so I'm very familiar with how this works on the ground, but then also do a bit of advocacy here as well, and that makes sense. And so we're talking about the transportation alternatives program, which

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: is more commonly just referred to as

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: TAP funding.

[Marci (Marcy) Gallagher, Complete Streets Specialist, Local Motion]: And so at its core, this is really the primary funding source for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and safe routes to school initiatives that comes from the federal government. And so it funds things like sidewalks, crosswalks, traffic calming, safer intersections near schools, ADA accessible infrastructure and more. And so the funds come from the federal government and the state department of transportation are the ones that decide how the funds get distributed.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Balance all the things that are on the street.

[Marci (Marcy) Gallagher, Complete Streets Specialist, Local Motion]: So this is just the language of what can be funded through the TAP funding program. So you'll get a lot more of this from lunch council tomorrow. But in addition to active transportation infrastructure, it also funds environmental mitigation, which is kind of the core of the decision that's now being made that I'll talk more about in a second. So in Vermont, B TRAN shared in the house this year that it's about a $4,300,000 annual apportionment. Historically, the maximum grant allocation has been 300,000, although a change for fiscal year 'twenty three, that goes to fiscal year 'twenty seven, of that up to 600,000 awards are announced annually. Actually, they just got announced last week. So a little bit late this year, but around this time, the funds are 80% federal with a 20% local match. And as I mentioned, it's a competitive process that B TRANS manages every year. Once B TRANS gets the funds, they have to obligate those funds within four years, which is kind of another kind of core part of this conversation, because what we heard in the house from B TRANS is that environmental mitigation projects that are funded through TAP and particularly the salt ship projects do see a really high rate of cancellation through TAP funding, about 35%. This is directly copied. I stole it from a B TRANS presentation. You can give me them credit. But basically what we heard from them is that when these projects get canceled and especially at such a high rate, it has a lot of pressure on B TRANs to then obligate those funds in a short period of time, or else they're either at risk of losing those funds and or receiving fewer funds in the future if they weren't able to send all of those funds. So it's been challenging for them is what we've heard. So when we came to the house, actually I'll cover kind of historically first. So the split of where top funds go has changed quite a bit every few years. So back in 2018 and 2019, when we were really dealing with clean water, this crisis, 100% of the top funding was going to the environmental mitigation projects. But then between 2020 and 2023, it kind of swung back the other way and was funding like pet projects again. Then in 2024, the legislature moved to a fifty-fifty split for MRM mitigation and BIPET projects. And so this year in the house, the Transportation Burger Modernist Coalition, which the local motion participates in, came with a proposal to move to an 80%, 20% split with 80% going to BIPET funding and 20% going to environmental mitigation. B TRANS came in and they asked for three things. They asked to increase the maximum grant allocation for this year to 1,200,000.0 because, as I said, because of all the cancellations, they're kind of in a sticky situation with having to obligate these funds quickly. So they really want to be able to get the money out the door this year. They also asked to reduce the reserve funds for environmental mitigation to a maximum of 25%, which was in line with what Transportation of Vermont was asking for with the 20%. And thirdly, VTrans asked to retain the preferential weighting of the bike pet projects under chat funding, which has been the case as long as the project has existed. Ultimately, what VTrans and the committee and Transportation for Vermonters all agreed with was instead of the eightytwenty or some other kind of split, just give VTrans 100% flexibility to spend because they explained to us, there's so many things that go into choosing the projects that it just really made more sense for them to not be under the constraints of that fiftyfifty or eightytwenty or whatever it may be, because should all of these projects be canceled, they want the flexibility to then be able to spend the money where it makes sense. So ultimately transportation providers and locomotion feels like this funding source is just not really suited for a lot of these big environmental mitigation projects, particularly salt sheds, or some of ones that get a lot of cancellations. So I do think that there's steady language this year. I'm sure you know more about that than I do about other funding sources for salt sheds and environmental mitigation. I'm definitely not the one to talk about that. But again, what we heard is bikeped projects are just more predictable. They're easier to fund. And so that was part of

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: the justification

[Marci (Marcy) Gallagher, Complete Streets Specialist, Local Motion]: for B TRANS asking to keep that car for preferentially bikeped projects. Also in the house, they passed that maximum grant allocation to 1,200,000.0 for this year, which is what we transvest for it, and 600,000 moving forward as opposed to 300,000, which

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: is what it has been.

[Marci (Marcy) Gallagher, Complete Streets Specialist, Local Motion]: So what local motion is proposing in the Senate Transportation Committee is to keep the house pass language, which retains that preferential waiting of the pet projects. The question, I think, in Senate Transportation is whether to bump up environmental mitigation as kind of an equal preferential weighting or take the bike pet projects off of the preferential weighting altogether and just weight the environmental mitigation projects. I will say in the house, no one asked for this. B TRANS and Transportation for Vermonters both supported keeping the preferential weighting of the bikes head projects. We've also heard from B TRANS that, again, just so much goes into that competitive decision making process that they didn't really find it's necessary to fund those environmental mitigation projects. It's happening regardless. So we essentially are asking for no change from what was passed from the house because we feel that bike and ped projects are the program's primary intent with use. And there already is flexibility to fund these other environmental mitigation projects like Salt Sheds. So I pulled these out for my testimony yesterday and sent transportation. Because the cap funding projects were just announced, we have some examples of the kinds of bike and ped projects that are funded through cap funding. These are just three that I found I could get good Google Maps photos and share. So one of the projects that's being funded through TAP this year is in Swan. This is not just bike and pet infrastructure, but also just improving this intersection for cars as well. I've driven through this intersection. I don't think that needs a lot of explaining why this is a good candidate for improvements. And Swan had already done a track study to support these changes. Well, this photo isn't floating, but Oh, there it is. Okay, so when I went on Google Maps to take photos of this project in Chester, every time I flipped to move down along the road, I saw a pedestrian walking on the side of the road, which I almost never see. So they are improving this strip of kind of their main road by putting in sidewalks, curb ramps, green strip, and pedestrian seal lighting. This was, yeah, another one. It's a really high pedestrian area and it's really dangerous when we talked about it yesterday. Senator Wright was saying, you have to cross the road to kind of get to these businesses, and there's not safe crossings, and cars are going really fast, and there's lots of big trucks. So this is a really great project. And then lastly, Bethel, I found that this was a pretty clear example of a non ADA compliant sidewalk that they are now going to be funded to improve. And from Global Emotions perspective, we want to make the point that we find that these projects aren't just helpful or nice to haves in our communities, they're need to haves. And these are happening in a lot of our rural villages and small towns where it's just genuinely not safe to walk, bike, and roll right now. And lots of folks walk, bike, and roll who can't drive, whether that's because of age or disability or the cost of driving. And so regardless of whether or not we're making these safety improvements, people are going to be using our roads for this purpose. And in 2025 alone, one hundred and sixty four people were injured while walking and biking on Vermont roads, ten people were killed while walking and biking on Vermont roads, which is just not acceptable. And it underscores that this is a really urgent need for our communities.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Student reduction center, I gotta buckle. Go ahead,

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: go ahead.

[Marci (Marcy) Gallagher, Complete Streets Specialist, Local Motion]: No, I'm almost done. Okay. Yeah, we are concerned that without clear prioritization of bike path projects within TAP funding, that we won't be able to make some of these really necessary mobility improvements. There are many products already that aren't being funded through TAP. This is just kind the bare minimum. We really recommend keeping this prioritization by kind of products through TAP as the program was intended.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay, and go for it.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: But I didn't even, I wasn't even aware of local motion existed right now. But are the tap funds of federal?

[Marci (Marcy) Gallagher, Complete Streets Specialist, Local Motion]: Yes.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Okay. So and we're in a situation now where funding that the state of Vermont has got has to be used or the move forward. Okay. So, in that case II probably would support some of your recommendations but you know, part of the your point in your letter about people injured and people killed. One of the things I see in my district is a lot of bicyclists that are riding. They're not paying attention to the rules of the road. They're going through stoplights or riding on sidewalks as local folks should never thought about putting like a statewide training program so that people are aware of what the rules of the road are. You know, it's kind of unfair. The other thing is that, you know, bicyclists don't put anything into the roads and you're asking the OT for funding that motors to actually pay a tax have to have to pay into that.

[Marci (Marcy) Gallagher, Complete Streets Specialist, Local Motion]: Yeah. Would you

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: consider II? Remember back in the day in my district when if you had a bicycle and you registered in the city and you had to be inspected and you had to continue a training program. And I don't think we had the problems that we have now as far as safety and injuries. Yeah.

[Marci (Marcy) Gallagher, Complete Streets Specialist, Local Motion]: Yeah, thank you for the question. Local Motion does do a lot of education. We actually run the statewide bike smart program. So we bring a trailer of kids bikes to different Vermont schools and provide that to Vermont schools for free. With the idea of being that teaching kids how to safely bike and the rules of the road will then result in safer adults riding on the roads. It's more challenging to kind of track down and force adults to do safety education programming. We do offer it. We actually have an adult how to ride class that we're offering right now, but it's voluntary and there's no mandate for folks to have to do that. Regarding bikes on the road, I I live in Burlington, I see that too. I think part of the issue, I saw something online recently that was a picture of a car on a train track and the message was like, God, these cars aren't getting out of the way of the train. You know, like the idea being that people on bikes and roads that are designing for cars are kind of in a losing situation no matter what. And a lot of times making what seems like the more unsafe decision is because there are so few options for safely biking on the road. And lastly, I'd say that bikes are, the weight of bikes is very small compared to cars. So they really don't contribute to the wear and tear on the

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: roads the way that cars do.

[Marci (Marcy) Gallagher, Complete Streets Specialist, Local Motion]: And this funding in particular is coming from the federal government to support bike pet funding. So it's not B TRANS funds that would otherwise would prepare in state highways. It's a completely separate pot of money. And that there's lots of evidence to support that people walking in biking is a huge economic stimulator for our local towns. Same biking trajectory does contribute to the economy as well.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: So I was on the regional bank commission in Whistler and the trans came out one of the proposals. We take a 26 foot right away and cut two feet out of each side of it and they can make each side 11 feet. Wide for for all and then we throw in the potholes. You know, it's not really equitable. I don't think or to expect to take four feet out of a out of a travel runway which is intended for for motor traffic. But they're doing great things with the money they do have and what and every safety is everybody's business, so I support that. But I'm just you know, as we compete for less and less money in our budget, that everything that pays a fair share. You know, it's only a small part. Yeah.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah. I was in

[Marci (Marcy) Gallagher, Complete Streets Specialist, Local Motion]: a conversation about this yesterday because there's a road in Essex Junction that they are making smaller to 11 feet. And I actually learned for the first time that it's both B TRANS and federal guidance that state highways and roads like that not be more than 11B for travel lanes because any greater than 11B just really encourages speed and it's really hard to keep speed safe.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: And when you take, when you figure the potholes in that 11 feet, people ride, tend to ride in the center of the road.

[Marci (Marcy) Gallagher, Complete Streets Specialist, Local Motion]: Yeah. Which

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: causes safety hazards too. Police need my attention.

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

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Thank you. Any other questions for Ms. Gallagher at this point, knowing that we're going to have more testimonials tomorrow? So thank you so much. I really appreciate it. So to be continued on that one, and we are going to switch gears to a bill that we just got possession of, H-nine 40. And so we're going start with our office from the Legislative Council. Welcome.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Council.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'm here on H-nine 40 as past the house. It is a map relating to miscellaneous public utility subjects. And so this is one of the committee bills from the House Energy Committee. And so it has three topics in it that are unrelated to each other. So it is a miscellaneous bill. The first section is on the use of thermal funds by Burlington Electric Department. The sections two, three, and four are on enhanced energy planning and land use and amend some of the sections you all amended in S-three 25. And then the last section is a repeal of the Telecommunications Advisory Board, which is a board that hasn't met, I think since at least 2021. So page one, section one, use of thermal energy and process fuel funds for greenhouse gas emission reduction programs. So previously, in 2020, I believe it was this committee set up a pilot program which was known as EMA, the Energy Efficiency Modernization Act. It was initially for three years and then extended again for another three year cycle. It was a pilot program that allowed the two electric efficiency utilities to use their thermal energy and process fuel funds in a way that currently is not allowed under the statute. So the efficiency utilities get a couple of different pots of money that they have to spend on different types of products. There's the electric efficiency money that's largely derived from the electric efficiency charge on your bill. Then there's also the thermal and energy and process fuel funds, and those primarily come from the sale of RGGI credits, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative credits, as

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: well as the awards from the board capacity market with ISO 21.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So thermal, what we're calling here the thermal efficiency, thermal energy and process fuel funds have a more limited set of uses that they can be used for. They're not for an electric efficiency, they're for thermal and process fuel efficiency. So under the prior scheme, or this prior program for six years, both Burlington Electric Department and Efficiency Vermont, the efficiency utilities, had the ability to use these funds in a way they hadn't previously been able to use them. And so this proposal in HIN40 would extend that concept, not specifically in a pilot program, but for another three year cycle, and just for Burlington Electric, because they are unique in that their service territory overlaps significantly with Vermont Gas Systems. Vermont Gas Systems is also an efficiency utility in the thermal space, and so they are also doing thermal efficiency work where Burlington Electric would be doing. So I'll read through this language, but it provides additional flexibility for Burlington Electric Department to use their funds in a different way. Otherwise, they are saying they would not be able to use a portion of their funds currently. So section one, subsection A, that was standing under the provision of law or order of the Public Utility Commission to the contrary, the entity appointed under per EVSA two zero nine(two) that is also a retail electric provider. So there's really one of those, the experimental electric department. For calendar years 2027 through 2029, they spend any amount that the entity has available to it through annual budgeted thermal energy and process fuel funds and carry forward thermal energy and process fuel funds from entire periods on programs, vendors, services that reduce fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions in the thermal energy or transportation sector, regardless of pre existing fuel source of the customer. The entity may also use thermal energy and process fuel funds under this section to deliver thermal and transportation measures or programs that enable fossil fuel and greenhouse gas emission reductions, such as geothermal test well funding, regardless of the preexisting fuel source of the customer. Thermal energy and transportation sector funds are going to be what we're talking about here, for programs on those issues. Under this section, the entity shall also prioritize weatherization and thermal sector efficiency programs within its offerings pursuant to this section. Onto page two. And shall budget at least 60% of the funds for programs under this section for weatherization and thermal sector efficiency programs to be offered to customers regardless of their previously fuel source, with a minimum of 60% of those weatherization and thermal sector efficiency program funds allocated for customers in low income and low to moderate income. And projects requiring electric panel or wiring upgrades, or abatement of other health or building related items to facilitate weatherization and thermal efficiency. The entity shall seek approval from the PUC for all planned expenditures throughout the three year performance period as part of the triennial energy efficiency utility planning process in the demand resource planning proceeding, and report to the PUC annually on program participation, including any customer survey data obtained that discussed how impactful incentives offered under this section were for customer adoption. Any funds spent on programs, measures, and services pursuant to this section shall not be counted towards the calculation of funds used by the entity for energy transformation projects pursuant to 30 BSA 8,005 A3, which is tier three from

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: the renewable energy standard, and the

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: calculation of project costs pursuant to tier three.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: No, we don't have BD with us today. As I understand that this part was, well, can hear more testimony on it, but my understanding was that there was a lot of agreement about this part, which is encouraging. And so actually, we have two members of finance here. So I don't know if you want to comment on this. We

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: took testimony on the section in finance. I think finance considered this section, their jurisdiction, and there was

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: many problems with it. Everyone has a

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: fine with it.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: And it's basically an extension of the existing program working

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: out. You're doing the financial report, is that right?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I think you are.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, great. Thank you. So let's keep going.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: All right, so sessions two, three and four all relate to the optional enhanced energy planning that municipalities and regional planning commissions have the options go through. This process was created in 2017, and if a town or regional plan adopts an enhanced energy plan, that then is given substantial deference when either the municipality or RBC appears before the Public Utility Commission on energy projects. So it gives the decision of the town or RPC additional weight when of developers requesting a CVG on renewable energy project. So sections two, three, and four are seeking to align this existing approval process for enhanced energy planning with the new regional plan adoption process that was created under ACR 101. So prior to Act 181, when the enhanced energy plan process was adopted, it is a separate sort of standalone process that the town or regional planning commission would go through to adopt their enhanced energy plan. This is seeking to sort of weave it into the regional plan review that the ladies and board would do on the regular cycle of regional plans and also have the Department of Public Service reviewing it at that time as well. So section two is a 1924 BSA 4,348, adoption and amendment of regional plans. So on page three, oh, and I just want to flag, you worked on this section in S-three 25. And so this language is not in S-three 25.

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: Because we

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: took it out. Well, it'll never be good to hit. We opted to not include it.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So, you may want to consider how we're going to weave those two things together if both of those bills are going to pass, because you've, well, when language passes that conflicts, it can be a little hardy.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I thought that we took that out of three twenty five. So you're saying that there is a part that would conflict.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes. So this paragraph

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: is in three twenty five.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: It was different language. Which one? Paragraph. B. And maybe others.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Confirming one thing like this. And it's not huge, but there are a few, yes.

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: Okay. Oh dear. All right, good to know.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: All right, so on page three, Subsection B, sixty days prior to holding the first public hearing on a regional plan, a regional planning commission shall submit a draft regional plan to the Land Use Review Board for review and comments related to conformance of the draft with 04/1948 and Chapter 139 of this title, and is seeking an optional termination of energy compliance to the Department of Public Service for review and comments related to conformance of the draft plan with 4352. 4,302 is the purpose and goals of Chapter 117. 4348A are the land use categories that are required to be part of regional plans. And then four thousand three and fifty two is the statute on enhanced energy planning. So this is envisioning that the enhanced energy planning will be part of the regional plan when RPC is seeking to have it adopted and approved by the LERB. They would also submit it to the Department Public Service who are the ones that do the review of energy planning as well. And then the board shall coordinate with other agencies and respond within sixty days unless warrant item is granted for the RFC. Next, on page four. At least thirty days prior to the first hearing, the Regional Planning Commission shall provide each of its member municipalities with a written description of match changes within the municipality, a municipality wide map showing tool versus new areas of labels and information about the new tier structure under MASA Chapter 150 one-two 50, including how to clean Tier 1A or Tier 1B status and the process for updating designated area boundaries. The Regional Planning Commission shall, if it is seeking an optional determination of energy compliance, elicit feedback on its enhanced energy plan, including consistency with 4352, the enhanced energy plan statute, and the enhanced energy plan standards. Subsection H, within fifty days following adoption, a Regional Planning Commission shall submit the regionally adopted Regional Plan to the Land Use Review Board for determination of Regional Plan compliance with a report documenting conformance with the goals in 4302 and the plan elements established in 4348A, and a description of any changes to the regional plan and future land use matter. Regional Planning Commission shall also at this time, if seeking an optional determination of energy compliance pursuant to 4342, submit the plan to

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: the Department of Public Service for review,

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: onto page five, with description of conformance with the enhanced energy planning standards and a summary of any comments received during the public hearings.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I'm not getting to cheer on this,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: but we'll take some more testimony on Mrs. Caledonia. Any other questions at this enhanced

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: energy planning standards, are those statutory or are those?

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: No, I believe that they're issued as part of the comprehensive energy plan, but I can get back to you or you can hear from the depart about how that works.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. They may know.

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: Awesome.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Right. Any questions? Okay, thank you. Section three is amending 4,350, which is the municipal process. Enhanced energy plans can be adopted at the regional level. They are also optional at the municipal level as part of the common plans as well. So

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I'm not going to read

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: this full paragraph, but this is on the general municipal planning process. So as part of the consultation process, the commission, so a regional planning commission here, shall consider whether a municipality has adopted a plan. In order to obtain or retain confirmation of planning process, the municipality must have an approved plan. And so I'll jump down to the bottom, line 16. The commission shall approve a plan if it finds that the plan. And it's adding on page six, if the municipality is seeking an optional determination of energy compliance is consisting of 4,353 by the enhanced energy planning standards. So there is a specific process that the municipality should comply with if they want their planning process to be confirmed and approved by a regional planning commission. And so this is adding to the list of steps or part of the process that they have to include if they're seeking an optional determination that they have to be consistent with the statute and the standards.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Question? Who provided oversight of the work? I've heard some stories about towns that updated their plans, said they met the regional plan, but then they were denied you know, whatever it was. They they were trying to decide where it was going to decide. Think it was a solar field actually but it so we've got a town that does the energy annex for their plan. Mhmm. And it needs the regional plan that's approved by the who's gonna make sure who's gonna decide if there's a conflict?

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So if there's a I'm not sure where the conflict is because this is establishing that if the municipality is gonna do this, they have to include it as part of their planning process and the relevant RPC reviews that and approves it. So I don't believe that decision is appealable. Then it gives them the substantial deference at the Public Utility Commission for them to weigh in on energy projects. It is not a guarantee that the municipalities preference will be adopted.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Does this include immunization policy? That's section two forty eight. Right.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: This is all for energy projects.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: It's occurring to me that it might be useful to have some background on substantial deference if that is

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: an useful concept to chat more about, but we do have.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: So let's keep going for now. All right, so

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: then section four is amending 24 BSA 43.452, the statute on the enhanced energy planning. So the first couple of changes are cleanup. So on page six, to obtain an affirmative determination of energy compliance under this section, a plan must. And it has a list of things that the plans must include. And on page seven, it's making two changes to this. It's striking reference at the top of page seven of Vermont's greenhouse gas reduction goals, they have requirements since 2020. So reflecting that, and then also striking reference to Vermont's '25 by '25 goal for renewable energy, which I think has effectively been replaced by other rules. But also if replacing it with the renewable energy standard, which is eight thousand and four and eight thousand and five of Title 30, and that language was previously in subdivision E, lines eleven and twelve. So it's condensed into a couple of these requirements.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, I see. And then at

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: the bottom of page seven, state energy plans, recommendations, standards. The Commissioner of Public Service shall issue recommendations for regional and municipal energy planning and the standards for issuing a determination of energy compliance described in subdivision C3 of this section within one year after adopting or readopting the state comprehensive energy plan adopted pursuant to 30SA 202B. And so previously it said that the state energy plans shall include the recommendations. This is changing that to say that the commissioner will be issuing them within one year after the adoption of the Topper Next to Energy Plan. And then on the top of page eight, the recommendations and standards shall be consistent with the state comprehensive energy. Subsection E, process or issuing information on energy compliance. Review of whether to issue the information on energy compliance under this section shall include. And so it's straightening reference to a separate public hearing. Shall include consideration of comments received by the Regional Planning Commission or municipality during the plan adoption process this the plan adoption process on consistency with this section and with the enhanced energy planning standards. The Commissioner Regional Planning Commission shall issue the determination in writing within sixty days after the receipt of a request for determination. The determination is negative, the Commissioner and Regional Planning Commission shall state the reasons for denial in writing, if appropriate, suggest acceptable modifications. So it's striking reference to a separate public hearing because it's going to be part of the general municipal planning and or regional planning process, has a few required hearings built into it. Then on page nine, it's striking what is currently subsection G, which was initially passed as part of the statute originally in 2017, and so it's striking a time sensitive process that was only in use until July 2018, so it's no longer in use. And then it's adding new language at the bottom of page nine into page 10. And so the optional energy determination effective, I'll just read it to you, it's becoming the new subsection GOSH, Climb 15. An affirmative determination of energy compliance issued pursuant to this section shall remain in effect until the end of the period for expiration or readoption of the plan which it applies, with the following exceptions. So, Regional Planning Commission plans have an eight year re adoption cycle, although sometimes amendments or updates to plans are made more frequently than that. But this is saying the energy determination shall be on that same cycle effective to the same period for expiration, unless one of the exceptions apply and it's sort of if something unusual has happened out of the cycle. So the first one, the RBC or municipal legislative body adopted a plan with an updated energy element and notified the appropriate body of its intent to request a determination of energy compliance up to page 10 at least thirty days prior to the first public hearing on that plan. In this case, the Commissioner of Public Service or RBC may choose to offer the requesting body a provisional affirmative determination of energy compliance that shall remain in effect for two months following the adoption of the new

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: this means on

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: line 20 at the bottom of

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: page nine, what's this updated energy element to me?

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So that's what we're talking about here is the energy element of the regional ultrasound plan. Okay. And so you have the option to make that an enhanced energy element. Okay. I was thinking about wartime. Oh. Maybe it should say enhanced entity element, but if they adopted it out of cycle basically, and there's a change to it, and it will need to be reviewed again by the department.

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: Yeah, it's just, I

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: think they used the word element is, I don't know what the right word is, it's just an unusual use of it in this context.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Could it be? Thinking out loud here, if it was like that chapter or that section, would that be sort of an equivalent? I'm not proposing to change it, but I'm just trying to think of

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: like how it's being used.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah, it's the portion of that regional plan that is related to Hecochie. Yeah,

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: in 4348 A, it lists the elements of regional plan. So there's a housing element, there's an energy element, there's a transportation element. So that is what they refer to. That is the jargon that's used there. But if it's confusing that it's not clear that it's about this section, like the optional energy element or something or the enhanced energy element maybe.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: It's interesting that it's I think

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I do Well, no, I think it is a little bit awkward so you could think about it if you need to make it more clear.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Actually, for context, regional plans do all need to include an energy element. They just may not all opt to have the enhanced energy. Okay. And

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: then I think this is the last part, on page 10 subdivision two. So the other exception here is in the event of a regional or municipal plan is readopted without updates to the energy element or chapter that impacts the plan's existing affirmative determination, the affirmative determination shall be extended to the expiration date of the readopted plan. Regional Planning Commission or means the column shall seek an opinion from the Department or Regional Planning Commission that a new determination of energy compliance is not required, and shall seek a new determination of energy compliance if determined necessary by the Department of Regional Planning Commission. Notwithstanding anything in the new determination of energy compliance shall be required if the standards for issuing a determination of energy compliance have been revised since the last affirmative determination of energy compliance was issued. Both regional plans, municipal plans do expire on a regular cycle. If either of those is readopted, but no changes have been made to the enhanced energy element, the department can give an opinion on whether or not a new determination is required or if it can just stay the same. And part of that is whether or not the standards have been revised since the last time of things updated. And then the last change at the bottom of page 10, in the discharge of duties assigned under deception, the Commissioner of Public Service may consult with and solicit recommendations from the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce and Community Development, Natural Resources and of Transportation. And currently that's a shock, so it's being changed to a May. Page 11, Section five, I don't think this committee will be working on, but this is the repeal of the telecommunications and connectivity advisory board.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: And this was something that finance discussed. Yeah. They're okay with that. We met for a month. Yeah.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I think since 2021.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Great. Okay. That is helpful. I feel like there's,

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: for what it's worth,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I'm still digesting with the energy planning part of this. Looking forward

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: to hearing more about it. Thank you.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Any other questions? Yes, Bennington. What does the enhanced energy planning catch? Substantial death for PUC for 2018. And you're feeling about Yeah. We can talk. Okay, thank you so much. All right, so we're gonna move to some folks from the Department of Public Service. I'm wondering if you want to come up together, if you'd like to come up one at a time, however you'd

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: like to do this.

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: I know I have one before, Alice will be on the part.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, got you. So let's go to Mr. Anshan first.

[Unidentified Department of Public Service representative (Telecommunications)]: Alright. We'll set you for letting us see me talking today. I guess I'll start with the email piece. I also have a prewritten statement from Hunter Telecom that I'm trying to make it on the first dash. Right? So the Department of Public Service and the Telecommunications and Connectivity Advisory Board, TCAB, officially request you disband the board. The initial charge of the TCAB was the expansion of wireline internet service to offer monitors. This charge has since been transferred to BBC DB. The TCAP has held two board meetings since 2022. The department sends the annual report to the board for review. The response from the chair for the past four years has been a recommendation to disband the TCAM. Upon introduction to this bill in house energy and digital infrastructure, the chair of the TCAM sent a letter with his recommendation that the TCAM be disbanded and that letter has also been Super. And then on the subject of EMA, I will keep it short and sweet. I think this will echo the message that finance code liquor gets fired on Friday, I guess. Last week. But we feel that this represents unfair compromise. Think the department has reservations about accountable money, but it's important to acknowledge that BED has a pretty unique challenge in the overlap in their service territory with the BGS, which does preclude them from doing a lot of the weatherization. So succession would normally fall under this EDI program. And so, you know, in that acknowledgement, we feel that this is a fair compromise negotiated in the base. The ED is the immediate one of the second changes in the best the year as part of.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Any other questions about that? Okay. Super.

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: Thank you

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: so much. Sure.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Yeah. That was so fast.

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: At your pleasure, but I understand Kathryn Demetriq has a challenge of going after me and I may take a while.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. That's perfectly fine. Thank you. Yeah, it's there. So yeah, come on up. We'll meet you.

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: Thank you for making me. So thank you for

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: having me here. I have good morning today to talk about H940. I think we know I'm happy about this yesterday, but I didn't see it posted,

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: so I just resent it. You're saying it's posted?

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Ms. Matrix test.

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: I just resent it a little bit ago and I noticed it wasn't posted. Okay,

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: super. So for the record, my name

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: is Kathleen Demetric. I'm the executive director of Rutland District Division of the E and D mission. And I will try to be brief, but I'll just note on the outset that the regional planning commissions fully support the language in this bill that addresses the process for adopting and approving the enhanced energy claims. The department of public service collaborated with the regional planning commissions through the summer and fall on this language. And the overall goal is to improve the efficiency of the process of getting the plans through the approval process, the adoption and approval process, it doesn't change any of the underlying costs of Act 174. It doesn't change any of the requirements of the enhanced energy plans. So it's really a bill that will help to align the enhanced energy planning process with the new process that was established in PAC-one 181. So the bill really does to us five important things that I'll highlight. One is that it allows the Department of Public Service to add an additional year after the adoption of a comprehensive energy plan to develop the standards that local and regional plans must follow. So it gives them a little time to adopt the plan and then say, okay, how would I implement the plan? Rather than trying to do both at once, which doesn't allow as much time to thought. That's what would be helpful in process. Wait, can I clarify that?

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: So the standards are part of the, wait, who, and just repeat, who does the plan? The Department of Public Service. Okay, so there's a statewide enhanced energy plan. Comprehensive energy plan that

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: includes the standards. And then those standards are applied to regional plan. Correct. Okay. It's a checklist standard form, there's about 15 pages. And right now it's in parallel with the Comprehensive Identity Plan. This change would allow the department to do all their public process to adopt the plan and then do another process to have the standards implemented. So it allows for more thoughtful time. And Anne can talk more about the details of that.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I have lots of questions, but I want to make sure that you get through whatever you need to say first. I mean, you, you're, I advise you or not.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah, good. That was one of five points I would like to say about why this bill. I'll have four questions.

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: The second is that it really aligns the timelines of the land use review board reviews of our regional plan and the Department of Public Service review of our plans. So it puts those timelines together and that

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: is just more efficient for everybody.

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: It allows the Department of Public Service to rely on the hearings that the regional planning commissions are doing as part of our regional planning adoption. And similarly allows the regional planning commissions to rely on local hearings rather than a whole separate hearing process, which frankly no one ever goes to and doesn't provide a meaningful input because the plan is already adopted. So this aligns it with the adoption process, provides meaningful input before the plans are finalized. So I think it's a really good, both efficient and effective change for incorporating levels we've had. And then the fourth thing that we really like about this bill is it allows for provisional approval. So right now the way the process works, we adopt a regional plan or a town adopts a local plan, and then you have the review process to decide to make a decision about whether it meets all the requirements. That can take thirty to sixty days, depending upon when meetings are held and this provisional approval would cover that gap. So if a municipality or a region should get a large scale project for the gap of lifting drops in that gap period, we wouldn't get substantial deference. This provides coverage for that gap so that the substantial deference can continue. And the substantial deference allows the town to intervene or have it at the public utility commission.

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: Yes, and I don't

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: wanna get too far over my knowledge here, but I will say that what it does is it changes level of consideration that the Public Utilities Commission is supposed to give to those local and regional tenants. Okay.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: There's the

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: due consideration versus substantial difference. And those are terms of art in the Public Utilities Commission process. And substantial deference is more. Yes. Yes. Yes. Point out your phrasing us down.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'm like, it's more random. There it is more, yes.

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: Due Yes. Consideration is Laura. Thank you for your comments. We're glad

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: you took the time to come.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah, right ahead. See what happens. Yeah, it's not gonna happen. Okay.

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: So then the final thing that it does is it allows Department of Public Service or the Regional Planning Commission to simply continue the determination of energy compliance. If a new plan is adopted, that doesn't change the enhanced energy plan or doesn't impact the standards. This is particularly timely with all 11 regional planning commissions adopting new plans by the end of this calendar year. And many of us are not changing our enhanced energy plans. We are simply adopting new plans that read the enhanced energy plans as is, as have been approved, that meet the current standards. And so this would allow both now and in

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: the future,

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: the Department of Public Service or the Regional Planning Commission to simply say, yes, we agree with you. If you haven't changed anything that impacts your

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: approval, you can continue with your approval.

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: Those are my five points. We really like this bill and we appreciate the department working with us. I will comment briefly on what Alan noted that there are a couple of sections related to the regional plan amendment and adoption process that are changed in S-three '25. I think there, I don't know how the legislative drafting process works, but I think they're cumulative rather than conflicting. So they each change different parts of that paragraph. In my opinion, they don't conflict. But I don't know how the legislative drafting process works. One would supersede the other, whichever is passed last. So we have to Right. Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I'm having visions of the Mattos Benson amendment where the one sort of ended up canceling out the other. Exactly.

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: We should take a look at

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: how to merge that. If we're going to affect a paragraph, to merge that in. It'd be interesting to know too, the house is going through their process, if they are thinking about making changes to that particular paragraph. That we're keeping up with whatever they are talking about.

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: I am encouraged to just know that they don't

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: conflict. Fair enough. Okay,

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: so

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: do you have a sense of how many municipalities typically go through or have a substantial deference? It's over a 100 right now. We

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: have a list on the back to the website.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. And it's, I mean, the way I have thought about substantial deference in the past, it's the ability of a municipality to say no to a project that they have to, it's like, can't just say no to everything. You have to be a part of the solution and so you have to have a plan in order to be allowed the right to say no.

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: Or say yes.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Or say yes. Yeah. So, I'm just thinking about the process, because I want to make sure that I'm understanding the process. We have the comprehensive energy plan. So what then would be, something that might be helpful actually is if you have like an example, I think a model plan that you could send to us, it's like, here's a good example of the kind of plan that we're talking about. So we can see the kinds of elements that are fields. Like what's in it, basically.

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: Love the element. Elements in

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: the element. Because I think one of my confusions is thinking about if you have this energy, basically municipal comprehensive, or this municipal energy plan, an enhanced energy plan, then if later you're building in standards that came from the comprehensive energy plan, then how does it, what's the difference between those things? So anyway, just being able to see like what is, what would that look like before and after? Or just, unless you have some examples of like, here's like what that, that looks like, what that means. If there's an easy way to explain that, great. If not, would love to see some examples.

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: So

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: I can do both. I can send you a copy of a local plan because that's going be shorter than the original list. And just give you an example of what those look like. In general, the requirements come from the comprehensive energy plan, and there's a lot of goals in the comprehensive energy plan that can be affected by municipal actions or regional actions. And so the standards tend to follow those. One example is called say weatherization. So the state comprehensive energy plan has some weatherization targets in it. And then we take those and say, okay, what are our original weatherization targets? And then we can take those to a municipality and say, here's what it would mean for your municipality, how many homes in the municipality would need to be weatherized. And so that data is included in the regional. There are also setting maps that we have that know where there are areas that are best suited for solar, for wind, or other generation or energy facilities. We have regional maps and municipalities also not local parks.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Just putting a flag out there that in terms of the scope of things that I hope people are thinking about, one of those things, this is the future conversation, but this hydro battery, like pump storage, basically. Feel like that's not one that's on a lot of people's radars right now, but I would like to have more conversation about how we enable that in Q1. That's probably a future topic, but just want to make sure that's on the radar.

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: And I would say generally, I think the Act 174, it means the read process is working really well. I think the regional funding, regional funding commissions have all adopted enhanced energy plans. Most municipalities, when they update their local plans are choosing to do the enhanced energy plan as well. And they come up with assistance from the regional planning commissions to get the work done. And I would say overall, it's working quite well. And I think that this bill will just help the process. So it's a little easier, more efficient, more effective, But the overlap with standards and how it's being implemented, I think is working really well.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, any other questions at this point? Let me see if I have any other things that are coming up. Well, so one of the things that you mentioned in terms of baking in the public input, it sounds like it's sort of eliminating the public input process for just the energy plan and baking that into the regional plan. And so you said that the turnout, I suppose, for the individual plan or the energy part of it is not necessarily super high. You said it's better for the regional planning process. Could you just describe you know, how many people typically attend those? Or like how can we measure the fact that it's like, is going to get us better input?

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: Yeah, sure. So I would say the number of people who attended the last public hearing for Northwest Regional Planning Commission's energy approval was zero. Okay.

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: Well, I should say that, and I think there were four of

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: us because there was me and three department of

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: public service staff. Okay. But by

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: the public, there were no, no, no, no.

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: Northwest Regional Planning Commission, we recently adopted our regional plan and between our two public hearings, I would say we've had between twenty five and thirty individuals participate. And then we also got a poster for income.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, great. Thank you. That's helpful. And then when we got

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: that comment, we were able

[Catherine Dimitruk, Executive Director, Northwest Regional Planning Commission]: to incorporate it into the plan as opposed to hearings after it's adopted from.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I think those are all the questions I have at this point. Anybody else?

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: This might be for Alan or no, he's gone. Sorry if I could just

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: When there's the statewide energy plan that has energy standards, Who's involved in that and what's the process for developing that? Are you gonna talk about that when you decide? Okay. I can talk on that then. Okay. Is any munch, I think that

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: wouldn't play with these.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Oh, okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: All right, fair enough.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: That's all good.

[Marci (Marcy) Gallagher, Complete Streets Specialist, Local Motion]: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, appreciate it.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: And apologies that I'll be leaving now. If I don't want to hear your testimony.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, but we'll go to Ms. Marjotson. Unless you want to defer again. Okay. It

[Greg Favre, Vermont Public Utility Commission]: might make sense for me to go, since my comments are limited to section one, honestly.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Sure, yes.

[Greg Favre, Vermont Public Utility Commission]: I don't have any comments on different sections.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: That's fine.

[Greg Favre, Vermont Public Utility Commission]: I'd be happy to come up and comment on a section you guys aren't talking about.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Well, I would make the case that it is a cross jurisdictional piece, so it's not irrelevant

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: to us.

[Greg Favre, Vermont Public Utility Commission]: Yeah, totally confusing. I know they voted this out in finance. So for the record, Greg Favre with the PUC, we're fine with section one. Gives us a chance to review any of these new plans. The rest of the sections, we don't have any comments. So Great. That's it, unless you have any questions, I would give it to the manager.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I don't have any questions. You're okay with this?

[Greg Favre, Vermont Public Utility Commission]: Yes, yes, great.

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

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: so, Benjamin Smart Jollis, welcome. Thank you.

[Unidentified speaker (diarization mixed)]: My battery's sat here, so I might wait for her to share. I'm hoping we need to. Do you have a copy? But we have some questions. I do. Thank you. For the record, I'm Anne Morgolas, who's the Department of Public Service and the Deputy Planning Director. Appreciate you all having us here today, and I think this is perhaps the first time we've had a chance to come in and talk about ACT 174 for a really long time, perhaps since it was first been in place about ten years ago. And just for context,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Act 174 is about enhanced It can't be in

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: the planning. There's some other things in there in that bill, but we are shortcomings to refer to Act 174. We to these as Ad-one 174 plans and as our Ad-one 74 webpage. So I'm prepared to go as deep or shallow as you'd like on this, try to strike a balance here in this memo, which I'll just quickly go through, but overall, in summary, we did work with the regional planning commissions on this over the past year, and we also asked the LERB if they were okay with it, and I believe they provided a memorandum to House Energy that supported this language as well. Really, think the time is ripe for these changes. We've been developing and making better the process of the Athens and Newport Plan since the first standards were adopted. And there were a few kind of procedural elements that we thought. We noticed some things that we'd like to change over time, but it really wasn't pressing until Act 181, the alert process came into effect and essentially really sped up and made us have to review these plans much more frequently than we had originally instigated. It was supposed to be about every eight years, and we didn't have any additional funding when Act 174 was passed to help implement this, and maybe with a cadence of a regional plan coming in every eight years, that would have been fine, kind of absorbed into our regular workflow, but we have noticed these plannings prior to the Act 181 coming in much more frequently because every time the plan expires, it's readopted, we have to go through this process, which is very extensive procedurally for us, especially including noticing that hearing and reviewing the draft, reviewing the final, issuing the determination, it can really consume a lot of our staff time. I think prior to hundred eighty one, we already thought this was about the equivalent of a full time staff position. With that 01/1981, we are anticipating that we would have to review all 11 regional plans just this year. Some of them had not updated their energy elements, so we would be going through a review and all the steps in that process, really to look at a plan that we might have just given an affirmative determination to just last year, or the year before, and it hasn't changed, but we still have to go through that process. So one of the changes in here you'll see addresses that. But just to go through these specifically, these are procedural changes. We're not proposing to change any of

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: the

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: substantive parts of Act 174. It does enable the department to publish our enhanced energy planning standards within one year of publication of the comprehensive energy plan. The next comprehensive energy plan is due in January 2028, so we're really gearing up to do that process, which will involve a lot of stakeholder work, including taking input on things that might need to change with the standards. But we take all that input and refine that plan up until the last minute, really. And if we're making all of those changes, it's very hard to kind of translate those into, well, how should those change what regions and municipalities do in their plans? How should this broad statewide goal be translated into a goal for regions and municipalities concurrent with publishing that plan. It gives us a little bit of time after the CEP is published to do that translation. There were some questions, I believe Senator had had some questions about where the standards came from. Act 174, twenty sixteen did have a very detailed list of what needed to be in the standards, but then directed the department to go incorporate all of those elements and then come up with the standards. But the standards have to reflect state energy policies and goals, including now the Renewable Energy Standard, Global Warming Solutions Act, building efficiency goals, anything that's in the statute, and also goals that are in the Conference of Energy Plan. So that first year after Act 174 was passed, we had really intensive stakeholder work with regional planning commissions, municipalities, state agencies, paying Vermont Center for Geographic Information enough for all the help that they kind of lend us. In this process, we don't have the mapping capability on the energy side the department. And so we developed that percentage standard. It's very much reflecting what was in the statute, which was lot of concession law at the time. So we did refine those with the 2022 Governance of Energy Plan, and very much looked like what was in the first set of standards, but with additional refinements for changes in statutes since that time. Would the stakeholders, or did the stakeholders include energy project developers, As people who

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: part

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: of the whole, it's part of the Conference of Energy Plan at large, there's a, in the comprehensive energy plan part of statute, there's a long list of stakeholders that we need to engage, including renewable energy developers, renewable energy, our primary kind of goes to there, but there are a lot of developers that engage outside of, through directly through renewable energy demand as well. So as part of CEP and standards, there's a broad array of stakeholder interests, including industry that are part of that discussion. Okay. Yeah. And so that's kind of the first point here, is giving us a little time after the CEP is adopted, and that process is coming up really soon. The next item here is aligning submissions of drafts and regional plans with what has materialized since Act 181 came into place. So we were involved at the department in Act 181, but to me, when I look at it, sort of like all the non energy parts of regional plans, it's a similar process as Act 174, but it's for all the non energy parts of those plans, and it goes to the Land Use Review Board, and they have a process where they review drafts, and they have a process where they review adopted plans and issue something like a determination of energy compliance. And so we are also involved in that process to review the couple energy related standards that the LERD has. So we're seeing the plans as a draft for us, as a draft for them, as an adopted for us, as an adopted for them. The plan may have changed their energy omen when it goes to the alert and we review for them and for us, and it may not have changed. It might not have seen the plan in eight years. So this year, especially very intense reviewing all those drafts, finals against our standards, against their standards. And we anticipate kind of that pace will increase as plans are just amended more frequently to meet those goals in particular. So we are trying to just align those processes so we're not having a lot of plans coming to us left and right for different purposes, draft, final, letter back to 01/1974. Really just formalizing that we will also receive the draft plans when they're submitted to the LERV, and that's when we will do our draft review, which right now is just a voluntary thing that we ask the Regents to do. The draft is where we can flag a plan that might not meet the standards, or we can stakeholders, like we've heard in the public hearings, can actually meaningfully make an input that will affect changes to the plan. Whereas after it's adopted, there's really not the opportunity to do that. So we're asking for drafts to come to us at the same time they go to the LERB. LERB does their review, we do our review. We also review our parts for the LERB, and then the final gets submitted to us at the same time. So it's really just aligning those guidelines. Also, as you heard, asking to take advantage of the Regional Planning Commission hearings on their plans versus having our own separate hearing, again, in order to actually get input when it can make changes to the plan and take better advantage of the time that people have to give to all of these public hearings. We've asked a lot of people in all of these public processes, and we've heard we get a lot of participation at those hearings, despite the fact that they're advertised in the paper, etcetera. So we would like to get the input at the time the RPCs are doing their hearings, and then when the RPCs submit their plans to us for determination, they submit our checklist, all the standards, they say, yes, we need it, here's where we need. And so they would give those checklists to us along with a summary of the public comments that they heard at their hearings, and then how they address those in their plan that they submitted to us. We also have, this kind of predated Act 181, but was accelerated by it. We were asking for the ability to give provisional determinations of adopted plans. Again, this is to address that gap where the regional plan has been adopted. The new regional plan has been adopted, meaning the old one expired, and it's the old determination of energy planning, energy compliance expired. And then we have sixty days before we issue a new determination of energy compliance, that is if they submit it to us right on the day it was adopted. So it could be up to two months or more where they're not covered by an affirmative determination. This would allow us to give a provisional determination so that we maintain that substantial backwards and be able to keep issuing their municipal determinations. And point to where that is in the bill. Yeah. Perpetual determinations, the bill, now it should be ages nine to 10, 24 BSA, three, 52 gs, and it would be so G has deleted. Right. It's a new G. The time limited when we had the opportunity to review municipal energy plans before the regions had their plans adopted. They have to have an approved enhanced energy plan in order and affirmative determinations in order to review their municipal claims. I see. So,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: page 10, line three, you've got a provisional affirmative. Yeah.

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: So it starts on page nine, and then the bottom of page nine, and then into the top of page 10.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay.

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: Thank you. And then that last piece is that we have seen a few of these, and then we're seeing many more of them with the plans racing to get approval before the end of this year, before the LERD, plans that have changed, everything except the energy element, which is very often an energy chapter. And this question came up before, but many of our standards are across all energy sectors. So many of them really say transportation, land use, efficient use of when you're developing town centers, and you're not encouraging sprawl. You're encouraging multimodal transport. You're encouraging commuting commuters to carpool. There's standards like that. So we worked with ACCD, ANR, and helping them come up with the standards. So may happen, point B, there may be some standards related to state transportation and land use that are not in the energy chapter, but when the region submits their checklist, they may say, We address this because it's in our transportation chapter. So there are things that are sprinkled throughout. It could another element. It could be another element, it's really just that they have an enhanced energy plan so that they meet all their standards. So we we may have just given them an affirmative determination in year of health, and they're coming back now because they've readopted the plans, new plan in order to meet LERB requirements. And we had to go through our whole process just because they changed other elements, even though they didn't touch the energy element that we had just approved. So this allows us to extend determination in that kind of instance. So I have more here. Let's really walk you through what the changes are. I have more background. I'm happy to get into anything about Act 174, and how it materialized, how it's going. That is kind of the main points that we're trying to get through in this piece of legislation. Great.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I don't think I have any questions.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Any other questions? Making sense. Yeah, it is making sense. Appreciating the alignment, the process for the LERV. I feel like I'm appreciating the provisional aspect of this.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I'm appreciating that moving

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: the public hearing to the time when there might actually be more meaningful input that's making sense.

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: Is this the sense that said?

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Millions? So, So that's okay. Any other thoughts or questions, any concerns

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: folks have about this at this one?

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: We will continue to hear more. And I do suspect that I, well, I do want to have the lurb in as well-to-six of this. So So, to be continued there, but at this point, I think we're done for this topic. Oh, council to ask.

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: Can I ask a question for the witness?

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Oh, gimmick. Do you have

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: any examples of how the substantial deference has worked? I did check with our public advocacy division before, a week or two ago when this was moving across. Had any of these gone through substantial deference before the, you know, since before the Public Utility Commission, and I can't think of any, and they can't think of any. Would like to, that's what my

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: information was as well.

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: Yeah, so my sense is they're, know, these plans, they're very detailed. They do have the sighting maps with, they've got potential areas, preferred areas, suitable and unsuitable areas, there's a cloud. The standards require a lot of natural natural and resources, cultural resources to be mapped. Whatever can be mapped is mapped. And then kind of what's left over is compared with sort of a number of acres available, and then compared with what the region might have their goal for solar or wind, or hydro is a little different, but there are hydro maps, and then they can say, we have a lot of unencumbered, at least on a maps level, land that can support, say, more solar. It's many multiples of what our goal is for siting as a region. And so there are maps, and there are policies articulated in these plans. And the substantial deference is to the land conservation measures and specific policies. And a regional municipal plan could have just really detailed, explicit, firm using shell language under land conservation measures and specific policies before the Public Utility Commission and not have substantial deference. And those may hold more weight than a plan that's more aspirational and uses EPA language and isn't very specific about areas and what's allowed there. Maybe that gets substantial difference, but it's to a much more of ambiguous standard. And in causing judicial setting of the Public Utility Commission, we really need for something to be in the record as evidence. The more explicit it is, the better. So that's something we encourage in our standards, but it is hard on the planning level to get there. But I think, it's my opinion that these plans are signaling to developers what and where certain types of development might be allowed, and they also frequently include kind of, there's going be solar, we don't want to see it on the steep slopes, and we would like to see it screened with vegetation, that sort of thing. So there is a signal to developers in there of might, where they won't run into as much kind of opposition, at least from the region, or municipality. So that's something I think we're going to try to dive into as far as we develop the next set of standards, the juice for the sweet. How well is this working? Can we refine this? These plans, the work is worth it for us, the work is worth it for the regions and municipalities, and that it's as clear as can be for its use in a regulatory setting or as a signal to developers. Is something that's evolving over time. We hope it has that soft power effect, but we have yet to see it tested, think, really.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah, have questions about that. Because want to make sure I'm understanding your question, so thank you. When you say it's never been tested, does that mean that there's there's not been a project that has been challenged, let's say, by a municipality that's gone to the Public Utility Commission and then that has been would describe? What does that mean?

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: Been denied on 48 B1 for new developments. So that has enough. The substantial debt is being given to the land conservation and specific policies in a regional municipal plan that say that specific type of development from that angina shall not But feel

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: what you were referencing is the soft effect, to say, this is already a signal, so maybe people are just avoiding that at the outset to avoid the conflict in the first place. So, and then that effect's sort of not measurable.

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: It's very difficult to kind of measure the absence, you know, the project kind of coming to the commission and going through that process. So there's a lot of stops along the way, looking at the plan, forty five day notice, meeting with the region or municipality ahead of times where a project could take an off ramp before saying, I know what this plan says, I know my project isn't going need it, but I'm going to go forward anyway. That would be maybe not the most prudent to take community. Right? To get that in the bud, if you could, or you're not moving the project or screening it, Tuesday, it's okay. So no part is June. Well, was

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: just wondering if the plans talk about where not to site things like prime ag soils. I know it's been a big issue of citing solar or to site things like citing the brownfields, for example, that kind of things.

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: I don't know if you want to pull up, I could pull up the standards if I still have a battery here, but the standards, Giovanni here.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: This is also something you could potentially send to us.

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: Yeah, can find it out there. Would be great. There's a whole list of mapped natural resource constricts that you need to have a checklist, because there's checklist in the standards that says, you know, wetlands,

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I'm thinking about the chicken

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: stuff. Wetlands, prime ag, deer winter in the yards, forest habitat locks, you know, all of those things. And there's a set of known constraints, where those have been determined through, especially work with the agency of natural resources, to be areas you will run into a conflict with the agency of natural resources receiving if you try to study on classroom lab, example. And so those are areas where kind of those are next steps of potential mapping. They're just not available. And then there are kind of potential constraints. So those are second order, they may or may

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: not be there. You're definitely going have

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: to verify as a project developer with an on-site investigation, you know, whether that constraint is there. So they're kind of marked as caution area on maps. You may be able to cite it here. You may not. And then there's subtract all of that, and what's left over is generally considered suitable, or there's no known or potential constraints there. And so those are really the areas where as developer you want to kind of focus first. It doesn't have to keep you of your responsibility to go and make sure there's not any native species there or something, but at least everything that has been mapped, have been mapped, even have taken remote maps. And what about grid connections?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Is that also part of it? Yeah.

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: There's a few ways to address that. We asked them to map free phase maps that are provided by most of the utilities. So at least you know if your proximity is a larger project to a three phase power project, so then explore that new. So that part of the mapping of potential suitable, unsuitable areas. We also provide a lot of guidance and tools for the regions and municipalities. One of these is a ability, it takes your time to target as your region or town, if it lets you on-site, wind or solar, etcetera, and then it compares with what's your available distribution or transition capacity that is known to be available at the distribution or transition substation and says, okay, are you able to site based on what the grid is capable of siting as well as the land? And that can help the towns figure out, well, maybe we might not be able to site as much here, or at this substation, we might have to focus our preferred areas for siting over here. And we do ask for almost, I think, all the regional plans, I guess, right, focus on preferred areas for sighting being not necessarily mapped, because it's hard, but listed, like brownfields, gravel pits, landfills, all those types of sort of utterly disturbed areas. I'll follow-up with the standard.

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah, that would be great. Super.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Well, thank you so much. Thank you for

[Anne Margolis, Deputy Planning Director, Vermont Department of Public Service]: your time. Really appreciate it. Absolutely.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: And so just to do a quick review of the rest of the week, hoping to vote out a couple of bills. We do need to

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: hear more about the transportation issue, SALT versus

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: pike pen. We're hearing more about the dam safety bill, bottle bill. We're going do a walkthrough of the fish and wildlife miscellaneous bill and look more into the building energy codes. And then Friday is pretty open at this point, so we need to

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: do some more work on that

[Ellen J. Cassidy, Office of Legislative Counsel]: agenda. Anyway, so that's sort of

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: the preview of the week. Any questions, thoughts, concerns?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Okay.