Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: We're live. Okay. Sorry, my accent is bad. Okay, is- We're good? Yep. Okay, very good. Good morning. This is Southern Natural Resources and Energy and it is Wednesday, April 22 and it is a little after nine. We are starting this morning H two ninety eight. Fish and Wildlife technical corrections. And we're gonna start with hearing from some folks from Fish and Wildlife.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Do you wanna come up together?

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: Yeah. Don't mind me?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Oh, yes. Good. It's up right here.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: 28. Such a surrogate.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I'm just surrogate for you. Thank you, ma'am.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Great in my day, appreciate it.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah. Well really, For the record, I'm Hannah Smith from the General Counsel for Fish and Wildlife.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Permanent item, Director of Workspace.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: This technical corrections bill is really just technical, for the most part, very technical corrections. The bulk of the bill consists of minor tweaks to 10BSA 4,502, which is the uniform point system, are points assigned to those charged with violations of section part four, which are fish and wildlife violations, part four ten zero seven. And the accumulation of points can result in the loss of your license for a certain amount of time, depending

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: on how many points you've accumulated.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: And so it's a very critical part of our enforcement regime. And the reasons for these updates, some of these are shifting violations that points that you're either, the default is five points, unless it's a violation that's specified as 10 or a 20 violation in 45, too. And so there's a little bit of shifting. Some of it is truly a correction where the cross reference in the statute was to a section of the rule that has just been changed. So the section numbers of the rules were wrong. So some of them are just corrections of that. Some of them are movement of violations that were five points to 10 points, were 20 points to 10 points, just sort of to equalize how things are being enforced across the rules for various day named species. I know that you got a walkthrough from Leg Council yesterday. I don't know if you would like us to go through these changes line by line.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: That would actually be very

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: helpful. Okay.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So we will start, first page of the bill is just the existing language that introduces 4,502 and the violations that are covered by various pending points. The first change is on page two, beginning line one. 4,704, these are violations of 4,704, which talks about a number of different activities, including, actually, I'm not 3,704. It's not, I'm seeing four thousand seven and five. The change in 4,704 just include strikes where used to prohibit the use of gun suppressors. Gun suppressors are legal now. A person taking a game with a gun may use gun suppressor. So I'll show

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: you that language. Can I ask about that? I feel like we did something last year. Didn't we add this last year? We did something about gun suppressors and our misleaders bill.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: A bill about them that had sunset that allowed if the prohibition was to continue that would have was something the legislature needed to do and it didn't extend this the prohibition. Oh. It went away.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: They're Got it. Yeah. So that now that it's legal. There's no Oh, okay. Can you Excuse me, I remember it coming through.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Because I was like, wait, didn't we just change this? Can you explain to me how gun suppressor works?

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Sure, just all it does, very basically when a bullet leaves a firearm, it is creating, obviously you have the explosion inside the mechanism itself, but then you have the trajectory leading at very high speed, which creates something on a sobbing boot basically for very, not that big, but that's the idea of it basically. It's a bunch of expulsion of power coming out of the barrel into the environment and a gun suppressor limit, it just limits that and reduces that

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, so it's just about noise.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: It's just about noise. If anything they can restrict range because as you add resistance at the end of the barrel you're creating drag and all that other sort of stuff. There's way more technical terms that I'm not meaning, I don't understand all the mathematics, but if anything you're reducing into the effective random firearm sort of suppressor. Not gaining, the only thing you're gaining is not going down.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, don't think

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: that's considered. And there

[Unidentified Committee Member]: are actually not like you see them, oh we've been following up. No. And there's no,

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: a it's sign on

[Unidentified Committee Member]: me, it's like coincidental. Okay.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: It just says, it says sure. I had one for a firearm and the first time I shot it my wife went wow I thought they were firearm like this is not Hollywood and that's the thing you have the Hollywood and it's not.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I don't have that. Probably just like people have it. I'm freezing my ass because I wouldn't forget know how to put somebody on. That's helpful.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Thank you. The next revision begins on line three. This is a change to the violations associated with Glynis seven zero five. So, sorry, just a little more context. What we're talking about now are things that are 10 violations. So section of the statute for you. So shooting from motor vehicles or aircraft is a 10 violation and we've added language excluding 47 and 5A. 47 and 5A applies specifically to shooting from a motor vehicle or motor propelled craft, and that's being moved to the 20 range. So all of the rest of the 47.5 is 10, 4705A which is actually shooting from your vehicle. So in the age one, twenty five. Just This

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: is maybe like just a drafting question. This is something we can ask rather, but it seems because this is

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: 47 most dieting thing was added, so it's gonna show up on line six of page four. Line six of page four.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. That was going to be my question. I was like, where? I'd like to see if it's referenced.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So the rest of the provisions of 4705.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So actually I have to say that, about a quick start of this, shooting from motor vehicle aircraft, excluding 70 four-fifty eight, what's even excluding?

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: I understand why that's confusing. Shooting from a motor vehicle aircraft is the title of the section. So that was in there. That's in there right now. So 4705A is broadly about shooting from various places on or near the road. And so that, we left that language in there because it's part of the title, but the actual 4705A, which states that a person shall not take or come to take a wild animal by shooting from a motor vehicle, that, just that subsection, is being moved to twenty twenty. Should we change the title so it's not confusing? Well, the whole title is Shooting from Motor Vehicles with Aircraft Shooting from or across highway, sending one permit. So it's covering a lot of ground.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: That's such a lame title. This boat does not have a

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: lot of handcuffs.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: I think that I would defer to Bradley. We just didn't yes with the language that was in there because 475A still is shooting from the motor vehicle or aircraft, etcetera. Yeah. But then we moved just pulled 475A at the end of the '25.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Seems to me it will be confusing to have the thing that's in the title in different section. Maybe we should just change this shooting around roads.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: I mean, we could I mean, what I they could just, probably could just take that language shooting from motor vehicles or aircraft. It could just be violations of Section 4,705 exclusion forty seven five of these. I also think that generally the folks who are the wardens who are enforcing this and the hunters and shaders who are aware of this, so they know what 4,705

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: It's refers like a thing in the field where people say the 4,705 violations.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Yes, it's not just, I mean, it's possession of a firearm loaded in a vehicle. Mean, it covers a whole damn thing, but it's not just shooting. It's hard when we're just looking

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: at, you know, the last survey of it. Anyway

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: It's a sort of an argument that, you know, we're looking at it from the lens of we're gonna have to report this. We're gonna get questions about it.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: We we wanna So let's do that. I

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: think I think your point, we'll get with Bradley and just make sure that we have it worded properly so it makes sense. So yeah. And and we don't like to introduce the public, is it? Because the last question I got on the board of Fish and Wildlife board was, how does the Fish and Wildlife Department grant educated public developers? Well, they're not because we didn't tell them to go. So, you know, there's no requirement. So, we need to make sure that there's enough common sense stuff in there without complicating The

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: thing that I am wondering about,

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: think it's,

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I am feeling a little confused still because on Page two, this is about So these are 10 violations that says shooting from motor vehicles or aircraft. So that's still a test.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Pigeon 47.5 is a 10 violation except for 47.5.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yes. That's so weird. Okay. Here. Yes. So

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Recessions. So

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: this is these are is just the tools. This is the appendix.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: And and so like, 47.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So that's how this is laid out.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Okay. Then speaking, it gets

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: a little walk through. Nice. Yeah. Even then Okay.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: That's how most of that's laid out. I don't I don't know if

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: that's Okay. But I think it is. Well, can I look at the Sure?

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Go ahead.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Because well, I feel like because this is shooting from over the barrel to be spilled. Shouldn't have the contest. Proposed

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: moving towards this safe description by this and pledge console.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: This is literally a Yeah.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: We would do what this is.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Yes. We're not. So this is now 2,400. The idea of the

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: 80 people are. You're not Yeah.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: That sort of stuff. Okay.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Yes, ma'am.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I think I am clearer now.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: To clarify a couple of things, this section 4,502 assigns points to violations of statutory sections and rule sections. So there is not a lot, to Senator Hardy's point, there's not a lot of text in here. If you're reading through this and you see that a violation of Pennex 44 is a 10 violation, you're going to need to cross reference that section of appendix 44, which is the purveyor rule, to find out what exactly is the violation. And we had sort of talked earlier in the session about moving towards more text in here to describe the violations rather than just cross referencing. And lunch counts will move back towards the pin sites just for remedy's sake, because it's already a fairly long statutory section. So yes, if you're just reading through this, it doesn't give you a lot of information about what the violations are. You do have to cross reference the sections.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: And if I may just add, that's part of the reason why warden's trained for eight months because this takes a while.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So don't,

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: like, please don't feel like we're talking I'm talking down anyway. It's it it's

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: it takes a long time

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: to get this stuff, that's why we train them for a long time get this stuff.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Do you have a manual or some, like, thing that you put in plain language for wardens?

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: What we have is we have a schedule of fines, but it mirrors the language in this relatively closely so that a warden in the field can say, I know what they did, here's what they did, then can find it in the book. How?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: If you're hunter in hunter training courses

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: We have a lot of items. That does the plain language, but does no study and actions. That is a plain language book.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: If you do this, it's 10.5.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Yes. And there's one for fishing and there's one for hunting and drafting. Okay. And and it's true number books. They're pretty I can certainly read and create some if you want to

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: see it, but it's it's just more plain language stuff. It's all of like Might

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: be helpful to have one of each in

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: the room. I know. Can rest. Deliver them later.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Maybe there's one in for some. No. There's not. That's satisfying. What I

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: was saying in the house committee is literally this is like looking at the recipe not at the final thing. Like you're looking at you know two thirds milk, one third whatever, and not at the cake.

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: This is literally the rest.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: And it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, you know, how large can I get to?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Nice pictures of the cake in here. Yes. They would. Would be Mhmm.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Make this, like, 30 pages long. Right. The next page is begins on line seven. This is these are 10 violations for violations 10 points assigned for violations of appendix 44, which is the verbiage rule. The strike through is literally a technical correction. These sections are fueled and removed around. The addition of fourteen fourteen point one eight B and B refer to the time requirements that someone has to report if it's making them for error after the the CSIP. Close So we're making those point violations. So we feel it will report in time required.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. Okay. Have another dumb question. Fur bearers, is that in all mammals? No.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Is there subsets? It's the mammalian species. It might be bears.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: So beaver, muskrat, otter, fisher, mating.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, so the things that have traditionally been like part of that you've

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: That you self prefer. Yes,

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: so they're animals that can be harvested and utilized for fur.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: So even though bears and deer have fur, they're not for bears?

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Correct, because you cannot sell their own. Pay off, but they're not part

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: of the commercial for a margin. Right.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Okay. That's more or less refers. That's like, well, we're an antique carnivore.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Exactly, exactly. Okay, cool. Thanks.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Not a dumb question at all.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Yeah, not at all.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: On line 10, this is Appendix 37 is the Deer Management Rule. So these are tweaks to violations of the deer management rule. Currently violations of the deer generally are 20 points, and we only sign 10 violations for the novel season. We're actually proposing to make a number of the deer roll violations into 10 fake violations. So that's why there's a long line of additional provisions here.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Is this moving them down from 20 points?

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Okay. So consistent with turkey, bear and goose, the other big game rules, the following sections are now 10.5 emissions. 4.1 refers to antidote steer permits. 7.5 refers to the method of take during the October muzzleloader season. 8.5 is the method of take during the December muzzleloader season. Section 11 to 11.5 are the novice season requirements. And 13 is the advance of care. So these are, we're making all of the requirements around methods of take into 10.5 patients.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: So violations during muscle loading or method of taking? If you don't use a muscle loader, it's a 10.5. You feed it, that's a 10.5.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Ish. No. If you feed beer, that's a 25. But feeding a deer, if you are not hot feeding a I don't know if you hear about it. If we go with deer hunt, and you go out in your backyard and dump a bag of corn for the deer, you're feeding deer, which is not healthy for them, it's a violation, but you're intending to kill the deer.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I see. So that's maybe but it's I don't if I dump a bag of corn and I'm not a hunter, the 10.5 issue doesn't mean anything to me. Correct.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Which one applying for that is higher than feeding. Where if a hunter who needs their license for three years, that means nothing to you as a not hunter, but applying for feeding is higher than the time for feeding. Good. Interesting. Okay. And it's just because there is irreconcilable that are very yeah. We shouldn't say irreconcilable, but there is very clear quantity done by feeding your products and things like they're designed to do what is in nature and so if you don't we found here to start with melons, if you can't digest it,

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: no I get that.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: And so this is just generally speaking of your theme again, it's not doing, you're on a ten year video. So

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: yeah. But that differentiation between the violation between if you're a hunter is interesting and important because yeah if you

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: take away my hunting recipes at least not because I don't have them.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: And feeding of, you know, feeding them pain because they're biologically their stomach changes. Yeah. And you they'll eat it. They're starving, they're killing it. They can't digest it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Just real quick, if I may, part of the reasons when we're going through this week, one of the issues was we had with the gangs, particularly here, therapy therapy that we're I'm not there's one more, I understand these guys. Sort of stand up and they can't say the word for it, so those guys but those those terrestrial big game animals, they were not consistent in this. And so that's part of

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: what we're trying to do here is make those consistent amongst the species because

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: it it makes sense that they weren't.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Herpes big game. Smaller than

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: the moose.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: It is. The moose of the big game. Also one of the most popular.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Is kind

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: of fun.

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: Yeah. I'm guessing we're gonna need

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: to come back and go have more fun. Fishables in there.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: That's right. Yeah. I heard you speaking. Exactly. Small game. Yeah. Yeah.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I do slide the slideshow.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: A diagram. Put notes and pictures. There you go.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: That's okay. Try to have a slide.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Let's change the lines to to see. The reason that that references appendix 37 feeding deer is struck through is because we had moved third feeding deer into, so here to buy out of Wait, appendix seven? Starting appendix 30, starting on line 16, we struck through the language that said appendix 37 is section navigable. That's true. That's now included in II. Okay. Appendix 37, Okay. Section on the PDT is still, some of my violations just included above. And we're now reusing subparagraph FSS to a 238 which are the bare management rules, section 5.3, which is taking their

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Yeah. That that's actually that's a lower that you're in front group.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Alright. Well, we can figure that out. Is there a

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: change that we need to make? Yes.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: There might be We refer to section 5.3 in both this one and ten point section, so we're

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: gonna have to figure 19, that

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: UU. These are specific parts of the turkey management rule. Again, this is similar to what we did with the deer management rule above, where these provisions, the new provisions that we're including here are all 10 violations. 6.2 refers to shot size. It requires that you use a certain shot size to ensure that the turkey is actually killed when it's shot. It was a five point violation. It's now 10 points because it results in injured or more serious violation. Yeah. And then the novices and requirements and the methods of TAFE.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: That's all of the gates.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: The eights are the novice season parents.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Which is the method

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: of taking? There's a 6.2, which

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: you said was and shot all the eights are novice season?

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yes, you're right. Is, the eights are all novice seasons. So just going to use the shot size and then progress the length for three hours a second. The shot size being the important element, not good to make sure that you're not being introverts. The next page on page three, line one, this is the abuse management rule, section 93. Appendix 33, section 12 is means and methods of take, which includes who's allowed on time permitted uses of electronic devices, allows the methods to take previously five points. We're moving this to the first page. Line two, page three refers to the appendix five, which is a rule that we have the forward arrow standards. These are, it's very short rule, it just states the minimum broad head size than expects forward arrow for their beds. And was five points moving into 20 points. Again, use of incorrect broadhead implements results of injured animals, like landscapes, like

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Can I ask VB, the mood management? Did you say that's 10 or 21?

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Sections, so that these are all 10. Gays are all 10. All three ones. If you continue to the dominant, now you're in the twenty one secondtion.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: So Wait, I'm sorry. For access? Where's the dominant?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: 4701. Oh, sorry.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: We'll just use the.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yes. 4 seven zero one. Let's see. So you have dilatation is going in general to take from a five point dilation to a 10.5, which is increasing the policy. I can tell you exactly what 107 says. Use of, unless otherwise provided by statute, the person shall not take aim except with a gun at arm's length, a long arrow, torn across, or a soft rise, and gaze on the board. And then also the best style of a person should not take gain between one and half hour after sunset and one and half hour before sunrise. Person may take game of forbearing animals during the open season, take the aid of dogs unless otherwise considered by statute rule. And a person taking game of the gun may possess very early use made on the sequestering act to keep game. So there's broad catch all around methods of take that are allowed.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Gun fired guns one thing. Basically, you can't have a set gun or some remote control thing that you know. Okay. Try to also, I

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: mean, we've had people with alows, which can't be used, and we've had the low guns, which can't use. I don't know why you wanna do that. Then let's

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: call this kids to get maybe

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: a little happy and better with the guns, but

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: it's it's it's two of

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: those two of those examples are literally college kids. So

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: The

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: rules, I almost need to ask this question, but I know it's really not social, but

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: the rules about using dogs, are there more rules that

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Yes. This is just a catch all for all the yes. All the other there are many other rules related to it. This is the of they're built in does not attend unless if the board decides tomorrow to make something a rule, which basically, we don't have a penalty because it takes time. These are sort of this is the sort of catch all for that, and that can be addressed by the way. So we don't have an enforcement mechanism. Basically, it gives

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: us an enforcement mechanism for what the basic and what insurance is.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Okay. All of are all of those are high outbounds, bare house, when they merge with officer, all of those exist inside of the hearing. Okay, thanks.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, ready to keep going.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: We're now in the 20 points section. So the 20 points will be assessed for first change is line seven. Forty seven and two refers to the usable light. Her neighbor is intentionally throwing their casting rays and light or some of their artificial light in order to stop locally, take or attempt to take any vial in. And the 20 violation is the use of a light when have a firearm, muzzleloader, airflow, or fire fuel with guns go involved. So if you're just casting light, my understanding, if you're just casting light, you're not carrying a firearm, it's about default by a point. We do have a firearm. It is now 25 inches.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: Well, it is then 20.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: We just it it only did firearm, and so we hired all these other mechanisms that make us their own methods of taking

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: the food. Right. And they're now those are.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: There it goes. Yeah. The next

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: change is line nine. This is appendix seven, which is, again, their management tool. And this one is getting a little complicated. And actually this one, we had, just to complicate things further, between when the House voted on this bill and now, we had a ruling from a superior court that dismissed charges brought under our catch all statute, which we used to enforce the seasons and when things taken out of season. And it found that the specific charges, were related to taking a spike line in the long WMU, which we consider a season violation because you are not permitted to take things that are not legal books in certain WMUs. In that case, it was just one court, but the judge found that there was no probable cause. He did not consider that to be a seasonal violation. So we are proposing a couple additional sections in the bare and ear sections of the 20 violation to include all the specific cross references to the seasonal requirements in the rule. We thought we'd captured those in high catchall. We just want to make sure that we're able to still charge those violations for 20 points because they're serious big game violations. And so there are a couple of changes which I'm going to have to send you to Brad. But just to walk through this now, OO, sorry, O is appendic, changes to appendic seven, bear management rule. And section six point, so these are all 21 violations. 6.3 are related to hunting their dogs. 7.1, 7.2, and 7.4 relate to bartering use of dogs, and residents applying for fair homing permits for the purpose of allowing non residents to use hounds. 8.2 requires that if a warden requests that you return to the kill site with them, that you comply with that request. We are also proposing to add Section four point zero inclusive, which is all the seasons and shooting hours. 5.3 is the bear season bag limit. Six point one and six point two are license requirements for VAERS. So proposing add of those to this section. And 5.3 is the one we had a question about because it should not be a by the way. So we'll have to name it. I'm sorry. Which one was that? Section five point. This is 5.3 of section appendix seven.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: So you wanna add that back.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: It's listed on page two, line 16, which shouldn't be there. Certainly. Oh, it was it was pulled over from where

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: it was worth not my fault. Oh, okay. That's what And

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: you wanted to be a 20%?

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Okay. What the the bartering use of dogs, what does that mean?

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: That's all the bear dog stuff. So you can't put an average house sale or barter each year dog. I can't hire you to go there on my report if you're parent. Oh. And

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: meaning that I have the license to do it and you don't.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: And dogs, right. And so you can't basically, the idea is you don't want people to create a business by buying better food now.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: And then the

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: use of your license, bartering your license

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: to an out

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: of state?

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Yeah, so you live here and I don't, I say, hey ma'am, I'll give you $100 if you apply for a parrot permit for me. And I'll just go up and run on on that permit because that's the way it goes. Okay. Because it's trying to serve so because there's statutory limitations on the number of out of state resident I'm sorry. Out of staters that can get per hour permits, and it's in proportion to the amount of insiders that can. Okay. That will be certain by that. And so that's the tracking.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: How many out of safe versus insane?

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: It's 10% of the total bear out permits are out of safe. Permits. Permits for 10. So if have a 100 in safe, you know, it's.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: It's interesting.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: On line 10, these are the provisions of the chirping man's rule that are 20 points. So in the copy that you have, 4.2 is the spring season, 4.3 is the spring season, legal turkeys, And 6.4 through 6.5 are legal implements allowed wild turkey hunting. And we've added 4.1, which is the spray season dates, 4.4, which is the bag limit for turkeys, Five might earn the five dates for the open, while the management units. I pay two are the shooting hours, and 5.4 is the bag. Wait, where are these? Those are the ones that they're not in your apartment. This is, these are the,

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: there's bird they're not able to find birds.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Flushing the turkey. There's turkeys everywhere. I need to Well Dogs to find them.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: I I then I I will say I've been hunting in the fall for other birds. Yeah. Yeah. The dog the dog will have been the dog will also flush out turkeys. And the guys, I think, would actually add a very nice and so we decided to them.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Mean, I guess, I mean,

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: I understand flushing out other kinds of birds just because of the herpes are

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah. They

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: It would also be very hard to differentiate someone who's hard to get moved out on take herpes and one who's Herpes, not being able to take place at the same time and relatively the same out of that. Yeah. Okay. But it was just illustrated that dog stuff exists in other places. Okay. That's good.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Line 13, the this is the section 33 is the use management tool, and section 13.7 is a 20.5 requirement. You return to Lake Hill site where the work is exhausted.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: And is that for the warden to be able to basically assess what happened?

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: The amendment proposed on line 14 to appendix 31 is really just a correction to The pin sites were incorrect because the rule has been updated. So these are the season and back limits for hair of the well and they're just writing the pin sites to make sure that it's the correct rule reference. Nothing is changing. These happened in 20.5 emissions. Sorry, is that the 117? Blank 14.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Eleven fourteen. Okay. Are there really an unfair move to help give them a lot of I

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: mean, there hasn't been, but I think that for one time, I mean, there's certainly in theory, lot of thought relates to the Northwest and there was concern. They never think ventured to say it.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Think So this is basically There's no season.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: There's no season. Okay. That's good.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: I think now would be current. I think with climate change and all that, it probably exceedingly likely, but rather than trying to get rid of the statue altogether, it's easier to make it safer. Got it. Okay. But but it's certainly all over from back in the forties or fifties for sixties, so

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: It was more winterish here.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: And then on page four Oh, I also want to say that Senator Watson, my reference to the line numbers might have been incorrect because I've messed my topic at Addison of Section numbers that I so that sorry if I was confusing with Lyme first. I'm gonna take the answer. It's okay. But I'll I'll try to stop. Can

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: I make a request?

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Whoever does, I'm happy to sit down and vote for a plan. Get to know it's the only reason.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Then the amendment to stuff you got from you, he's on the steer management provision. So I believe in emerging view, refers to these are the deer management provisions that remain 20 are 70.4, which is the use of legal implements during the October muzzleloader season, 8.4, which is legal implements during the summer muzzleloader season. Nine point four and nine point five are required legal implements during archery. 12.2 is the requirement to return to the kill site. 14 is fading. And then we are proposing to add 5.1, which is the bag limit. Six point zero, which is regular season dates. 7.1 is October mussel litter season date. 7.2 it's the animal steer permit requirement, 8.1 are the December muscle litter season dates, 8.2 are the December muscle litter bag limits, 9.1 are the archery season dates, and 9.2 are the archery season bag limits. In the 20.5. Then E is where what we talked about before. This is forty seven five a shooting for women who are visible is now a 2025 edition. Section two of the bill. We're now out of the point assessment. So slightly less complex concepts here in the next new bill. Section two is an proposed amendment to thousand two hundred and sixty three, ten days of 04/1963. This talks about the issuance of licenses And currently, all annual licenses shall expire on December 31 of the year of which are issued. We're using language plus that allows for annual licenses to be issued for three sixty five days at the commissioner's discretion. We would likely only use this for fishing licenses because most hunting and trapping licenses are associated with seasons. Mean, usually, we don't have those renewed actually in a year in most over years. But for fishing licenses, for example, we have folks come up in Labor Day weekend, and we'd like to encourage folks to continue to buy annual licenses. And by allowing them to use that license for a full year, they're much more likely to do that rather than buy one or two day licenses.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I appreciate that. And I'm concerned about this language being vague. And frankly, that three sixty five day annual thing when it comes to posting kind of got people in a tizzy. So I'm a little worried about this. Could we just be more explicit and say something like the commissioner may issue three sixty five day fishing licenses or something, just so that there's not this ambiguity? Because it does, in the way it's stated right now, it looks like, well, the commissioner will give Ruth a three sixty five day license because he really likes Ruth, but Terry, not so much.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Well, wouldn't be, it would not be the only discretion the commissioner would have would be around which licenses, not who. It doesn't say that, though. But I mean, I think that there is some inherent department to review who's applying. I mean, this doesn't modify our current ability to deny somebody a license because they have points, for example. I mean, like any, I don't think that this could be, I don't think this could be used in a way that would be discriminatory in any way.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I mean, maybe it's just that I don't quite understand how it all works, but the plain language as I'm creeping in, it does sound like it could be. And I appreciate the thing, the problem you're trying to fix or the thing you're trying to encourage, and actually what you said would apply to some circumstances I've been in, But this just feels really open ended and I

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: don't know. I'm concerned. So the important thing is, you know, they can clarify it and never sold, you know, what the fishers get. Yeah. Nobody ever drove through the part of the time.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Very soft. We do.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah. That's the thing. Like, I mean, if that's what they're looking for is to be able to have fishing licenses, the three sixty five day licenses, in order to avoid confusion like we just got into with the posting situation. I feel like it needs to be more explicit.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: So it's certain that the department would issue some then this would be It would be applied to the license type. So an annual fishing license would Currently expires on December 31. This just gives the department the discretion to say annual fishing licenses actually expire three sixty five days from the date of issuance. And the reason that, and part of the reason it's open ended is because, frankly, we're not quite ready to make that change. I mean, it would require a lot of logistics in our business office and in our licensing department. Yeah. So it's not something that we're wanting to do. Well it's just a gives us that flexibility. Also one

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: thing, so in the video that you're referencing, the issue of the post that this exact language was missing. There was no reference to the number of days, which is what created the fall.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: No, no, I understand I understand that. And I just, it seems to me that if what you guys want is to be able to issue three sixty five day fishing licenses from October, you know, for whenever somebody gets them. They come up here for over dinner and have friends up or whatever. I think that makes sense, but we should just say that. And if you're not ready to implement it, we can do an effective date in a year or eighteen months or whenever you're ready to do it, to give you time to implement it. Because the way that this sounds is that it would be the discretion on an individual basis or on a basis of, well, this group of people. It just feels like it's too open ended to me.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Okay, so would we clarify that the dates would be applied to a license type and not applied on a license by license basis? Would that? Well, that would be better,

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I think, if it's a class of license, like all fishing licenses. But I just don't understand why you wouldn't want to just say fishing licenses could be three sixty five days.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Well, would have to talk to other folks in the department, but I don't know if there was some desire that some non licensed licenses would eventually be issued for three sixty five days. I'm not sure. I know that the focus really is only on vision licenses, which was the only, that was the only division that really was interested in implementing this. But I don't know if there would be some desire to keep that flexibility for other types of licenses. I mean, we

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: could just say fishing licenses and then ask you to report back on whether or not you want to do hunting licenses. I mean,

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: I just feel like you need to be clear.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: About what you want.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: So I'm not concerned about it. Think it's okay, but you also, you could just say all classes are crucial, I guess.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I don't think that, I think it would

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: edgy. I'm just not good with that. Well, you're

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: going be in touch with Mr. Schumann anyway. I mean, we can have a discussion about how we want to tighten it up, but if you have some suggestions as to how it can be tightened up, we'll let you start with that. Totally. Just so you know, we're going to wrap up this conversation in the next five minutes or so. Yes. So if we need to have you back to keep talking about this, that's fine. We are going hear from Mr. Shoman later in the morning. I,

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: are changes in the fees, but there is a change beginning on page six to that section. So the whole section is just for the context. Right. So section three of the bill is a proposed amendment to 10 using a word in February, which does convert license fees. The language, should begin on line six. Yes. This is the, this would, if so often the board is determining through the rulemaking process that they're allowing additional tags to be issued. For example, when the deer rules were amended last year, the rules were updated to allow for a second bot tab to be issued. And the department administers the issuance of all those tags, but we can't assign a fee to the issuance of those tags if it's not in this attitude. So this language would allow us to, if the board determines it's necessary, issuer would require additional big game tags or big game permits that are not otherwise identified in this section, the department may issue such tags and may assess a provisional fee at an amount equal or similar to the fee for the same bank. So for example, right now, if the second buck tag may issue a fee that is equivalent to the issuance of a deer archery in less than $200 So same type of big game fee would be equivalent. This language also requires that within a year we see the legislative approval provisional fee. And if you fail to do so, the fee is floating. So it allows us to fill that gap if a new tab is added. And we haven't gotten much to say it's approval yet.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Ms. Y, equal or similar to?

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: I think that, so what we had proposed originally, again, this is just my attempt at brevity, I just said, up to 4, no more than $40 I think there was a concern that folks wanted the fees, any new tax should have a fee similar to existing times that we're issuing. They didn't want us to go overboard, But also acknowledge that if these in statute are updated in some future year, that if new tags are added, we're able to make them equivalent if they're over $40 for example. Like if these go up 100% or something, that in any new tags, we'd be able to assess a similar fee.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. What kind of tag, can you give me an example of what this kind of tag might be?

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Sure. So there is discussion about whether or not to add a second pair tag currently in here. Okay. Before we decide, yes, we're gonna issue a second bear bag, this would apply because currently there is no there is no cost to a second bear bag that does exist.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. So why would

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: it

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: a second bear tag not just be the same cost that was the first bear tag?

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: And It would be we wouldn't have to assign the same cost because the language saying that if it's similar to what happens in there, well, it says equal or similar. Yeah. That's why that, again, it's it's a little vague.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Sometimes second tags are less common to second and third tags, like, your two tax, like, There's variations in the.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I guess I think we'll say similar to could be, like, open to interpretation. Exactly. Is that is that $10

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: more? Because that's that's, you know,

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: within 10% or, you know, what was it? Anyway, if it's up to, if you're thinking that the second time might be less, then we could say equal to or less than. That's equal to. I don't know why you would say that's Sure. The matrix shouldn't be equal to that. Yeah, that's fair.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yes, go ahead.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: It's because the, you know, a lot of these changes because of the survey and sort of the biologists do, but there's a need for us to reduce the number of there that may want people to take advantage of it. Doesn't

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: No. I understand that they might wanna put in an extra tag. It's the language, again, it's about clarity. The people are similar to, is they. It could be $5, it could be $10. $10 is similar to $5. So it just seems to be saying an amount equal to the fee for the same baking. If your bag's bear tag is $5, which frankly seems like really low, way too low for a bear tag to me. But then the second one should for me, the same cost.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: Who has the authority to make, as far as the

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: last concern? Is it the commission? Well, so the board is adopting rules related to Ponce De Ancliche.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Are you gonna

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: cost with them?

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah. Okay. So the board basically rules requires that we issue the tags and then you guys decide how much we charge for the tags. Unless we're given this authority, which allows us We'll

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: have some level of ability to do that. We're stuck in a sort of weird situation where we have to issue tag the public or euro dollars because we

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: have no ability to. And

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: I think this language was what the house committee monitor. Yes. So certainly, we're not tied to the line here. If this is anyone, we're gonna lie We're just stuck

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: in the middle.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Yeah, we're just stuck in the middle.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: So thank you. I realized we have this one part left about Championlands, which I know we have some questions. Okay. Wondering if we can put a, unless it's like thirty seconds, but I know we're going want to talk about it. So can we have you back on Champion Lands anytime? Yeah. Thank you. Much appreciated. That was very helpful. I really appreciate it. Thank you guys. Going through all the detail.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Was concerned, if there's ever a time where you just want to sit down and try to get plane, I'm happy to do it because it takes tremendous time on our So I recognize that this is a lot of grief or whatever language you don't speak, you're trying to figure it out in five minutes. Happy to help out if you'd like to stay.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Thanks, Dylan.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Thank you.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Hey, we are going need to shift gears to talk about H. Seven twenty seven, which is the data center bill. And we're going to start with Mr. Nolan, who's with us virtually, MIPSA. Welcome.

[Ken Nolan, General Manager, Vermont Public Power Supply Authority (VPPSA)]: Good morning. Thank you, Madam Chair. For the record, Ken Nolan, General Manager of Vermont Public Power. I'm hopeful my testimony will be brief this morning and get you back on track a little bit for time wise. Let me start by saying VEPSA has been very active in the large load conversation at the national level, both through American Public Power Association, our our trade association, and through a group that we're part of called the Transmission Access Policy Study Group, which is a group of 36 transmission dependent utilities around the country. So we've had multiple conversations with the federal energy regulatory commissioners. And frankly, we've become concerned about where the federal policy is going in this regard, especially with the recent Department of Energy requests that that a rule be developed. So we're very appreciative that the legislature is actually having this conversation. I'll start with the fact we support the bill that's eight seven twenty seven that came out of that house. We believe that the requirement for data centers to be served by retail service providers is key provision. The federal policy is getting fairly ambiguous with whether large loads can connect directly to the transmission system and bypass retail service. So having that provision, we think is very helpful to the state customers. I have three specific comments on the bill, and these are minor tweaks from our viewpoint. One is a reference to the 20 megawatt load size. Think that is very appropriate. Just for perspective, that's about the size of the largest municipal utility besides Burlington. Burlington is 50. But if you look at the other smaller utilities, the largest of them is about 20 megawatts. So we don't think going any lower would be useful. A little bit higher could be discussed, but we think the 20 is the right place to be. The only two concerns we really have are one in the equity contract that's required. We would prefer to have language in there that explicitly allows flexibility for the utility circumstances. The way that provision reads right now, it seems very prescriptive. The PUC, Public Utility Commission, needs to meet several findings, and we'd prefer a clause or language inserted to just say the contracts can be flexible to reflect the utility's particular circumstances. And the second is on the Department of Public Service report that is due we are somewhat concerned that because these large loads are gonna need both Public Utility Commission and Act two fifty approval, that the lines can get blurred between those two. So we would ask that the language be inserted into the report to say that it needs to find clear lines of authority between those two entities. Just minor clarifications is to make sure that we don't have confusion on the back end. But in general, we're very supportive of the bill and hope you move it forward. I'll stop there and answer questions.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: So just to be clear, so that last point, you're made for clear lines of authority between because there's the Act two fifty process and then there's the there was something else that you said and I missed what you what the other thing was.

[Ken Nolan, General Manager, Vermont Public Power Supply Authority (VPPSA)]: Yeah. The two issues we've got are one in the equity contract itself, inserting language that says the contract should reflect the particular circumstances of the utility providing service.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yep. Got that.

[Ken Nolan, General Manager, Vermont Public Power Supply Authority (VPPSA)]: And then in the DPS report section, because there are essentially three entities that are going to be involved here, You got the Public Utility Commission, the Agency of Natural Resources, and then the Land Use Review Board, making sure that the report recommends a clear delineation of authority for those three entities.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. Okay, any other questions for Mr. Ruth? Okay, super. Well, you so much. Really appreciate it.

[Ken Nolan, General Manager, Vermont Public Power Supply Authority (VPPSA)]: Great, thank you.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Thank you. Okay, now we're going to I'll be up there with him. Okay, welcome, BMP. Welcome. Welcome. Good morning. If you

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: could introduce yourself in the room. For sure. Candice Morgan, Green Mountain Power.

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: Cam Forrest, Green Mountain Power.

[Candice Morgan, Green Mountain Power]: Great. Thank you for having us this morning. Similar to what you just heard from Ken at VPSA, we are supportive of the House passed version of age seven twenty seven, and they think that it does a good job of shoring up the regulatory structure that would exist already, but make really clear what Vermont's expectations are related to data centers. We thought it would be helpful for you all as we consider this bill and some of the conversations that have been out there to talk through how we at Green Mountain Powder look at and consider and plan for large loads. And so we'll turn to our slides momentarily, but wanted to share how that process would work outside of 07/27, and then hit some of the points that helps clarify and make clear really what it would look like should a data center knock on Vermont's door and say, Hey, we're looking to build here. What that would mean from both an interconnection perspective, our sort of system planning perspective, and then how they would engage as a customer of GNPs as well. So I'll go ahead and share

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: my time need. Oh, wait. Someone else. Yes.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: Any questions? Real quick. Your concern is if you to make sure you if they require a product also if they give them the general answer then you can accept it.

[Candice Morgan, Green Mountain Power]: Right, that's right. So the overall theme of our conversation that I think that's important for everyone to think through as well in the context of data centers is that size and location matters. There is already a review process in place in Vermont that we would follow should someone comes to Vermont. And as Ken mentioned, the bill has passed the House, has 20 megawatts at that threshold. And so this would be true for anything less than that, but also certainly above that in terms of how we plan for and look at our system overall. You might be familiar with the utility integrated resource plan process, which happens every three years, and that's a really thorough review of our system and what we can expect in the next decade. And so that's something that we do every three years, and Cam is our lead on that from an engineering perspective. And so he's going to talk about how that shows up, and also, like I said, how we work that large load in the space as well. But like I said, overall, we are supportive of the House passed version because it's important to clarify those regulatory structures that exist. But I also wanted to let the just share with the committee, there's been a lot of national press about concerns related to data centers and driving up costs for other electric customers and them not paying their fair share or advancing in that same way. Vermont obviously has a much different overall utility regulatory structure than a lot of those states, where we remain fully regulated, and we're also revenue decoupled, which means that as a utility, we don't want to quote, make money on the sale of electricity. Instead, it's a direct pass through to those customers in terms of what we have to pay for. What that means is that any additional load, whether it's from beneficial electrification, like EVs or heat pumps, or a large load, like a data center, actually can result in lower rates overall, because it's more retail sales that are getting spread out over our fixed costs. And so it actually could be a potential for cost decreases for our customers, because the rate structure that's required and discussed with seven twenty seven, and also just how we have to share and have customers cover their costs actually help result in an overall benefit for this service as long as they remain connected to a retail utility, which is what this bill complements. So that's a broad overview. I'll turn it over to Cam, and then happy to answer questions on the left.

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: Great, yeah feel free to stop me along the way. I'm a system planning engineer at Green Mountain Power. I lead the integrated resource planning and set for the engineering side of things. I've seen some preliminary reviews on where and what size we put data centers in Vermont with the existing infrastructure. Think there's this question of what is a Vermont sized data center. We see stories about these 2,000 megawatt data centers going in Texas and Virginia and then putting in new gas turbines to power them. I think we've been intuit that that's not Vermont, right? We don't have that infrastructure in place, but I don't think we really know what cap is on what is a Vermont sized load. So I looked at five key substations around the state and just started at 10 MW and just kept ramping up the loads to see where we started seeing system limitations come into effect in really solid range from 50 to 200 megawatts as this Vermont sized maximum load we can put in. The former Vermont AP site is really the hotspot for where we can put the most load in just from there's a lot of transmission built there. It's close to the rest of the New England system. And as you work to Ray North, there's generally less capacity for the existing infrastructure. Yeah, questions on any of that before I keep moving?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: So the Brumadinho you say could handle up to a 200 megawatt but basically the transmission that's

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: Yeah, like preliminary. There's a lot of NERC, the North America Electric Reliability Corp, is putting out this new modeling guidance on how to study data centers, and that's coming out soon. I think there's kind of more to be seen on how these loads are modeled from the transmission perspective coming out out of the abundance of caution. Sure.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: But for now, this is the initial estimate.

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: Yeah, sure. Okay. Great. Yeah.

[Candice Morgan, Green Mountain Power]: I added this slide, which is an example of an existing rate structure that we have for a large load customer. The bill is passed at house. It would require that any data center that meets the definition of the bill would actually be served instead by service equity special contract that we would engage with that customer before the PUC would then approve. So this would not be what the data center that's covered by 07/27 would be paying. But I wanted to include this as just an example of how we have historically structured rates for large loads, which include demand charges and some of the other system charges that, as a residential electric customer, you wouldn't see on your bill, but this is really meant to have that large load cover the costs that we would need to develop and serve them in that space. So this is really meant to be an example of, like I said, what a larger load would be served as an existing rate that we have. But 07/27 kind of creates a separate path for that customer. But it would likely have and would certainly consider demand charges and some of these other things as well as referencing the bill that's the case.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yes. The gray box on the right hand side, is the top charge inclusive of all the things below it? Or does that, are Those are adequate. Okay. Actually before we leave this, so the service equity special contract that is named in the bill, does it, we went over this a long time ago. So it is really in my brain. These types of rates are not, I'm just wanting to make sure that they're not specifically called out in bill, but they are the kinds of things that you would include potentially in a special contract.

[Candice Morgan, Green Mountain Power]: Exactly. And then should the bill not pass or that provision be changed, which I think as it exists in the bill as passed, the House does an appropriate job of capturing all of those items that would need to be considered in terms of a rate in a contract with a data center. And so we're not out of game for that to go away. But should the bill not pass and the data centers show up, this is otherwise how they would potentially be served in GMP territory, right? Other utilities would have their own rate making or special contract that they would have to engage in. But this is what we currently have sort of as our outstanding March rate, off March low rate. Okay. Good.

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: Okay. Yeah, so I think now I'll talk about how we study new loads on the system at different levels of demand. And like Ken said from BPSA, there really is this kind of overlapping MAC two fifty, MAC two forty eight world once you get into these larger loads, especially. You know, MAC two fifty, that's like kind of when you want to build a new house or something you want to add a new load, there's this ability to serve letter that GNV provides that says, you're requesting this amount of load, we are able to serve you this amount of load, or you need to upgrade this, this, and this in order to maintain a reliable system. And that comes directly to our engineering teams. The engineers will study the load and make sure that there's no reliability concerns, and those costs are paid by the customer at the end of the industry. But generally, distribution connected loads, like the lines you see running through town, those are not data center sized loads. That's up to five megawatts max, roughly. So then we start looking in the five to 20 megawatt range of loading, and we started looking at the high voltage system, the 46 kV little, 35 kV system, everything in between distribution and the really big power lines that you can see running across the hills. So this is a little bit more of a gray area. You might have some Oxy50 requirements depending on what you're building, but there's also going to be likely a QC review for Active4gate if you're building a new sub transmission line, but you would need to if you're interconnecting the load. You need to make a change to the system to either extend a line or put in breakers or protection or something to reliably interconnect the system. This would be a small data center, probably not above the 20 megawatt range other than that in this bill. Once we're thinking 20 megawatts or larger, we start looking at the bulk transmission system, which is 115 kmV or higher. This is also some gray area here because our transmission operator in Vermont is Velco, but these people, these customers would be GMP customers connecting with the wellness system. And this would definitely require an AXI-two 48 review, as well as a pretty substantial review from ISO New England, the reliability coordinator for all of New England. And that's a pretty in the weeds study

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: that occurs. And just as a question for this, how all, these are all sort of automatically triggered? Guess what, so Act two fifty makes sense to me as like a trigger for like, oh, we got to see if we have the capacity But to start on what is it exactly that triggers two forty eight or a need to look at the bulk transmission system. Right.

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: So for February, GMP owns the sub transmission, so anyone who's interconnects that would have to come to GMP and ask if they can interconnect, and then there would have to be a CPG file for the changes. If you're moving a pole off the center line of the right of way, which is a pretty small change, but that would require manual. So it's pretty right? It's automatic.

[Candice Morgan, Green Mountain Power]: I think that's right. Yeah, it's automatic based on any work that's happening in there that would transfer. If a customer is coming to Interconnect and we realize we have to make a change to that system, it would likely require a CPG and a two forty eight review in The United States. So if there was a location, I don't know if there is one really that exists, but that would not require or need any changes to that system. If not, it is possible certainly that there would need to be a CPG review there, but almost certainly when we're talking about load for data center, there likely be some upgrade or something happening. And as Cam mentioned as well, it's important to note too that just under existing regulatory structure review, any of the costs of that upgrade is paid for by the interconnecting customer. So it's not something that gets shared across all of

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: our customers. And that's just the way that it exists today for any insurer. And so if there's new destruction, needs to connect to the grid, they obviously notify you. So that tells you like, oh, maybe we need to have a conversation about substation or sub transmission. And then if the larger transmission system is implicated, are you all the ones that notify Bellco? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Great. And then also presumably I submit them if necessary.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: So

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: one more slide and talk really quick about this. So you know, data centers are kind of this new load. They can appear as pretty constant block load like you might see from a sea area in the winter making snow, which is just, you know, their block load, constant load, winter is full. So it could be that, or it could be something that fluctuates more. Could be really high load and then no load, of up and down. Really is in this very broad term, and there's a lot of guidance coming out on how to study all these different loads. There's a lot of work being done to encourage flexibility, to keep interconnection costs down, to maybe try to keep peak data center loads away from peak general grid peaks, to flatten the load across the system to better utilize the system. So this is an emerging field for NERC, ISO, LFO, GMP. We're in the loop on the changes that

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: are coming up in how

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: to study this and make

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: sure they're reliable. So that was No. This this was I mean, the the debt at at peak. At peak. Not at the end of the day. How do you yeah.

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: So I think this is this is, like, an example of data center that was doing some, like, data training or something or crypto. All their CPUs are running full bore for a little bit while they're training, and then it drops off and they're not training. It's just little motivation.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: So I have a question about this. I'm not looking at your slides online, so I can maybe get more on this. When the data center is running and there is kind of a band of variability, I've heard a thing that I just want to verify or see what your comments are on this. I've heard that particularly for systems that are small, that the variability there, because that is a, or like when a data center turns on, there can be this fluctuation. And that level of fluctuation can be like the whole load otherwise for a small system. Have you heard about this at all?

[Candice Morgan, Green Mountain Power]: Is this something that's on your radar?

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: Yeah, I mean, I think that kind of goes back to the right size, right place. I think if you're looking at the part of the system that has really kind of small capabilities for moving power around, and then you're putting 100 megawatts there, and it's fluctuating 30 megawatts up and down, that would be captured in this study. They would check to make sure that you're not going to be dimming lights every time assuming it. And there are ways to mitigate that. The customer can pay for bigger wire if they really want to be there, or they could put in dynamic devices that compensate for that.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. Well, and for those kinds of mitigations, one possibility is that that comes out in your work with right sizing the load or identifying the location. Or maybe it comes out of the CPG. I'm not sure. But I'm wondering if it's worth calling those out that there needs to be mitigating steps to ensure that the grid is not going to be, you know, that we're not dimming our lights, that we're not having blackouts or brownouts from the data center turning on.

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: Does that make sense? It does make sense. I think that's pretty well captured in both Act two fifty and two forty eight, just because to get a CPG you have to show that it's unreliable, you're not having an adverse impact on your reliability, it should be covered in the study. If it's on the bulk system, I'd say New England has all these requirements that would have to be met, that check

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: for that. Okay, so you're feeling comfortable that those concerns are sufficiently addressed either in the CPG or in the study? Right.

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: And at the end of the day, want the system to be reliable and wouldn't willy nilly let something connect to isn't reliable. Okay.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Great. Thank you. That is the last of other slides. Happy to answer

[Candice Morgan, Green Mountain Power]: any other questions or certainly come back as you all review. I know you have some further testimony with folks tomorrow as well. But one thing that I did want to mention that in the mill, let me just pull up the section. Share it if it's helpful. So section five in the bill is passed to the House. And it's not directly related to data centers necessarily, but there is, I think, some appropriate context there as well. It is asking the Public Utility Commission to write a report on the projected regional renewable market conditions. A few years ago, the legislature passed an update to the renewable energy standard. In that law, there was a report feedback from the commission in 2029 to also examine what's happening in the regional renewable space and consider any potential changes based on availability or pricing or other things of that nature. Given how much has shifted since that law was passed, given some federal changes and just a lot of uncertainty driving up the price of additional of the new renewables if they're getting built or also just not coming online, such as offshore wind and some of the other things that I'm sure folks have seen, we thought it was important to have that report in a review of what's happening, come back to the legislature a little bit sooner. And so this is meant to capture that ask and be something that is provided to the legislature ahead of or the beginning of Division eight twenty seven legislative session as well. So I'm sure that these people will discuss that when they're in here tomorrow, but I just wanted to give you that context. So it's something that GFP feels is really important as we are looking ahead to figure out what updates we need to make in light of renewables that's not being available, having a good review of what is happening in that region, I think will be useful for that conversation in the future.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, questions? Yeah, absolutely. This was mentioned in Pat Nolan's testimony about clear lines of authority, and I wrote it down in the wrong section. Could you tell me where the report that

[Candice Morgan, Green Mountain Power]: he was referring to? I believe he was referring to section six, which is the report on defecation. Oh. Which does involve public service, AMR, and the land abuse or newborn. Okay. And I think that that was something that added towards the end of the House's review of this bill, wanting to come up with a plan for decommissioning. And so I'm sure there might be other edits that folks want to make in that space.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. Because I had written down next to the renewable energy report. Yeah. That doesn't sound right. So, Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Yeah, of course. Right. Okay.

[Candice Morgan, Green Mountain Power]: Any other questions at this time? Thank you so much. I really appreciate this. Of course. It's you all

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: the same suit. Okay. So our next witness is going to be here at eleven. We're go back to 09/28, the Fish and Wildlife Act of Corrections Bill, the legislative council. And then we've got some language from the attorney general's office. They want to talk to us about PFAS. You So know what they have to say about that. So, with that, we will take a break till eleven.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: Okay.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. Relax.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: Good morning. This is started after resources and energy. We're back with mister Bradley Schon, who's the legislative council, and he's gonna be talking about h nine twenty eight. Good morning. Good morning.

[Bradley Schon, Legislative Counsel, Vermont General Assembly]: Bradley Sheldon, I'm also legislative council talking about h nine twenty eight. So I heard that partition the model might have some changes, I had not received those changes, but they might have some changes to the point system or the points values or what have you from this volume. And so I haven't received those yet. I'm happy to go through the s pass by version and just kind of go over the points values and the changes and things of that sort, if maybe it still finds it valuable.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: Probably in a high level because we're good we know it's changed.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Well we just did that with your department, so I'm not really sure.

[Bradley Schon, Legislative Counsel, Vermont General Assembly]: Yeah, so I think then it probably is not a great use of time for me to redo that, especially if we know that changes.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: I think we stopped at page six.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah, and the only thing we didn't go through with them was this thing about the champion lens.

[Bradley Schon, Legislative Counsel, Vermont General Assembly]: Right, that's okay. And I need to still do some, if they didn't have information about the champion lands, then I need to look into the legislative history about that because I looked it up and I don't think it's still called the champion lands.

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: So I just need

[Bradley Schon, Legislative Counsel, Vermont General Assembly]: to know specifically what that is referring to and just pull up their testimony.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I have marked in my copy of the bill all the places where they said they had changes for you if you're interested.

[Bradley Schon, Legislative Counsel, Vermont General Assembly]: Okay.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: But they also will send them

[Bradley Schon, Legislative Counsel, Vermont General Assembly]: to I will take your copy. They'll send it to me, and I think that that would be good. So I can come back with more information on the champion events. Yes,

[Cam Forrest, System Planning Engineer, Green Mountain Power]: and like I said, did look

[Bradley Schon, Legislative Counsel, Vermont General Assembly]: that up briefly. Spent more time just kind of trying to find a good way to explain the changes to you folks because without going through I mean, it does require actually going through the statute and going through the appendix because that's how the public will use that information. So I think it is helpful for the community to kind of like look through the actual statutes. Sometimes it takes some digging to figure out what is the dishonest information. So I took the house side when it was on the house side, that's how I took them through it. But I think what I'll do here is I'll wait to get those changed from Hannah and then maybe you can circle back on that piece.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah, that makes sense. The one other thing I would note that

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: we had

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah, I can tell you offline too, if you're interested in where she goes on, there might be changes, but if I might, section two, there was disagreement on the committee about this, but, so I wouldn't say this is definitive, but lines fifteen and sixteen were their stat change. I think it's a bit too vague. So if you want to think about, if you have ideas on how to clarify it, you can talk with Anna based on our discussion.

[Bradley Schon, Legislative Counsel, Vermont General Assembly]: Okay, okay. And are you thinking, is it vague in that it gives the commissioner too much discretion to determine? Yes. And is your concern, are you thinking about per license applications or are you thinking it has applied to individuals?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah, I mean, what they told us they wanted was the ability to have phishing licenses be three sixty five day licenses. So if that's what they want, I feel like we should just say that rather than put in discretion. But to be fair, Senator Bongartz had a different opinion on it. So we're not saying this is a definitive committee opinion.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: The other way you could do it, rather, because I think they wanted not to be limited, just sufficient. I think the concern was that theoretically they would favor an individual one way or another, I don't think that's gonna happen. But being as of May, you could just say all classes of license, they're in, just in the beginning of that sentence, add the words classes of, and then it would have to be by class, not by individual license.

[Bradley Schon, Legislative Counsel, Vermont General Assembly]: Okay, okay, okay. So. Okay, I'll check with Hannah about that, but that's a good, so I understand the issue there a little bit more now.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Well, it also just, if they're starting to do three sixty five day license, if we say all classes, then they could theoretically do all licenses as three sixty five day licenses. Maybe that's okay, I don't know. I think we should have a broader conversation about whether that's what we want. And also, would it have an impact on their budget? Because it's a license, their licensing fees, you know, so would that make a difference? Right now, we're sort of dependent on them getting, you know, a bucket of license fees every year to fund their budget. And if it starts being more

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: And they get them usually before the season.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: So when the season is getting ready to start, people go buy their license. Yeah. They get that influx of income that we're Right. Every spring, they get

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: a bunch of fishing license revenue.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: Well, I think and I think the thing with the fishing license issue was they wanted to extend it to be three hundred sixty five days. So somebody came up here in October about fishing license, they would come back again. Okay. And they wouldn't have to buy another license until October. Okay. Next year. Right. Right. Okay. Keep them going back. Right. Right. Right. Yeah.

[Bradley Schon, Legislative Counsel, Vermont General Assembly]: And so now we have a decision to get an impact on revenue. So Okay. Right. Big You know, make a

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: nice dish for the whole winter. Yeah.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Given the problems we just had with vague language with posting and all that. Just

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: feel like clarity is better.

[Bradley Schon, Legislative Counsel, Vermont General Assembly]: Okay, okay. Yeah, so maybe some clarity on what licenses it applies to or at least clarifying that it applies to a class, the class, class or classes of license and then maybe getting a sense of the impact of a budget that that might have.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: Okay, great. Anything else? No, I think we've got some testimony coming from the tradition coalition about the champion brands.

[Bradley Schon, Legislative Counsel, Vermont General Assembly]: Oh okay okay.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: And it's actually a recommendation for changes on the language.

[Bradley Schon, Legislative Counsel, Vermont General Assembly]: Oh interesting, okay great, great. Alright. Well, I will stay posted then. And does the video have everything needs for me?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Great. Thanks.

[Bradley Schon, Legislative Counsel, Vermont General Assembly]: Well, thank you. Appreciate it.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: We go off live. Sure. Sitting here. Don't know.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: We think everyone's doing it.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: We're live. Okay, good morning. This is Senator Natural Resources and Energy coming back from break, and we are going to be talking about PFAS. We're joined by Kosemurthy from the attorney general's office.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yes? So good to meet you. And again, for the record, I'm Laura Murphy with the Vermont attorney general's office. I'm an assistant attorney general and the director of the environmental protection unit next door. So thank you for having me.

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: I am here to basically walk through a few revisions to Vermont's PFAS product bans law, Our office thinks our housekeeping revisions that didn't make it into the bill last year, and so we just are hoping that it'll happen this year if possible, and I can just walk through what those are. But maybe just to provide a little bit of background, may already be familiar, but Vermont has the law of advanced PFAS in several different types of products. So there have been different laws over the years that have come into place. In 2024, Act 131 basically took the existing bans and moved them from Title 18 held into Title nine, consumer protection. And then last year with Act fifteen oh four, there were a few more products that were added to the list of what was banned. And some of there was some streamlining done, right? There used to be a lot of different sections and it kind of made it a little more streamlined. So there's basically four different categories of products that have PFAS bans in place. First is cosmetic and menstrual products is the first category. The next is consumer products. And there's a list of a few consumer products, maybe eight to 10 to 12 that are currently on the list for PFAS product fans. The third category is food packaging. And then the fourth is firefighting agents and equipment, essentially. So that's just very basic background. And PFAS, I'm sure you're aware of toxic chemicals that are lots of products that we use and very persistent in the environment. So with that said, I think you all have a memo that we shared earlier in the session with Center Alliance. And this is just, these are the revisions. So it's not super exciting necessarily, but I'll just walk through what they are. So basically, the first one is to make the definition of intentionally added consistent throughout the four different product ban sections. So last year in Act 54, the definition was amended, definition of intentionally added. And so I should back up. These bans essentially, for the most part, apply to products where PFAS was intentionally added. So that's why we have this definition. Last year, it was amended for consumer products and the firefighting agents and equipment sections, but for some reason, not for consumer products and cosmetic and menstrual products. As far as we know, this is just, don't know, maybe a housekeeping thing. As far as we know, there wasn't a reason for this. That was sort of intentional. So we would recommend amending the definition in the cosmetic and menstrual products section and the food packaging section to be consistent with the other sections that were amended last year. And we've kind of laid out what that would look like. I'll back up again. For consumer products, there is an existing definition of inventionally added, which is the same as the one for food packaging and the one for cosmetic and menstrual products. The amendment last year said that in July 2027, this new definition will kick in. So we would just recommend doing the same thing for food packaging and for cosmetics and menstrual products. Keep the definition in place now until 07/01/2027, and then along with consumer products definition, you would move into the new definition. So that's the basis, and I have here what the new definition is. This paragraph basically helps to make clear exactly sort of when something is intentionally added. It's both in the final product and starts to function, and also if PFAS is intentionally added to the manufacturing process, because that could also end up in the final product we're putting on our skin for food packaging. Any questions about

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: the first recommendation? If I were to capture

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: that, it

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: would be that we're making this new definition of intentionally added apply to food packaging and cosmetic and menstrual products, again, effective July 27. Correct. Okay. And have that be consistent for all of these different types of products.

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: Exactly, that would make the definition consistent with the consumer products definition. It is a list of, again, like 10 or 12 products. I will say that the firefighting agents and equipment definition of intentionally added, which already is the new definition, doesn't have a delayed timeline, but since cosmetic and menstrual products and food packaging are kind

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: of more similar to consumer products, we

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: would just suggest putting it on the delayed timeframe?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Because heartbreaking, but not a consumer product. Not so much. Not so much. Yes. Let me break

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: you off because Rita was original agent, golf and golfer. Yes. So why are you coming here and not going to help the welfare, moving for a vehicle for this?

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: Well, I think we don't have a vehicle in mind necessarily, but last year I believe the bill was in House Environment and Senate Health and Welfare. And so now that it's later in the session and we're over here, that's kind of what we heard. Also, I'm interested in finding

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: And

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: firefighting equipment was, there was a problem with the fact that they have to replace it and it's so expensive for certain years that they delayed that and didn't vacate it. How do we what's an academic for enforcing this?

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: Enforcement of these laws is with the attorney general's office. So that was one of the changes that happened in 2024 was that when Title 18 was Title nine. So it's basically their enforcement provision says, may I get this exactly right, but it shall be enforced the same as the Attorney General's authority for the Consumer Protection Act, right? So we

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: have

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: the authority to adopt rules. We have the authority to issue consumer investigative demands, things like that, for enforcement actions, civil enforcement actions. Okay,

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: great. Should we continue?

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: Let's see. Okay. All right, so the next one, these are even probably less exciting. The next one is certificate of compliance. So one of the features out of the PFAS product laws is that the attorney general's office can ask a manufacturer for basically a certificate of compliance to say, yes, I am compliant with the law, essentially. So the consumer products section, the firefighting agents and equipment section, and the food packaging section all have this provision that says, Attorney General, you can ask for a certificate compliance. It's not in the cosmetic and menstrual products section, so we would just like to have it added there just to make clear that we have that free.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Good. So the certificate of compliance, Is that something that you verify in your enforcement action? If somebody says yes, we comply, can you check to make sure they're actually complying?

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: That is a very good question. So we have not actually requested any certificates of compliance yet. So very early days in the enforcement. I wouldn't see any reason why we couldn't ask for verification, in part because we also have the civil investigator demanding consumer touch back. Okay. So it's

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: not just taken as, oh, you say you comply. I would say that you comply. You must be comply.

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: I don't think there's anything here that would require us to necessarily take a manufacturer at its work. Okay. Great.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. Okay,

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: next definition of manufacturer. So each of the sections, except for the food packaging section, has a definition of manufacturer. So as a reminder, the law applies to manufacturers. We're just suggesting to add the same definition into the food packaging section. Again, just for clarity, just for consistency, I don't seems unlikely that someone would try to argue there's a different definition for this section, but it might be useful just to make sure it's in there.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Sorry, so there is a definition of manufacturer in these sections?

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: I'm sorry. Yeah, no, that's okay. It's confusing because there's lot of different products. So there is a definition for the cosmetic and menstrual products section, for the consumer products section, and for the firefighting agent and equipment section. But there's no definition for the food packaging section. Okay, I see.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: So just adding a definition of manufacturer to that. Exactly. Okay. Yep. All right.

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: And then the final one is a reuse of food packaging. And basically, there has been a sort of, if you're a resale, reuse kind of exception to some of these product bans. And then last year, in Act 54, this provision for consumer products was amended to be what you have here on the bottom of the page, shall not apply to the sale, offer for sale, etcetera. We would suggest using that same resale, reuse language in the food packaging section, again, for consistency. So currently, food packaging section has the old provision before Act 54, which unfortunately I don't think I have in here. But we would suggest it should be the same, I'd say, in single products one from last year and just to have things be consistent. I'll also mention, if anyone's interested, we have a guidance on our website about the law.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Just thinking about this last one. I'm trying to think of an example of when food packaging might be resold. Right. Before reused. Well, reused, I think, you know, like plastic containers together. Yeah, exactly. You know, I I ever use those all the time.

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: This is a tougher word for vision. A tougher word. I like it. Okay.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Just but I'm not sure that we sell it except for, like, maybe at a bake sale. Yeah. Know, like, we have a church bake sale that We're

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: not chopping up saran wrap and Bethel for So

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: we're saying that, like, that's fine. We're not gonna Yeah. I'll save you for that. Right. And then the other things, like, for clothes or whatever, it's okay to resell clothes at, you know, Goodwill or Eastglow itself. Okay. Okay.

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: Yes.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: When that original bill came out, it was there there was a date certain for outdoor cold, the right floor packs and rain gear that might be used for hiking and skiing and stuff. And they pushed it back, I think, to 2028. How do we know that they actually did that? That's why I asked the question about enforcement. Right,

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: well I think that is still to be decided in terms of what are the mechanisms that we might use to figure out if companies are complying. One of them would be the certificate of compliance, civil investigative demand. We haven't gotten this far yet, but some types of products can be tested as well.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: You report with us though. I did.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: Yeah. There were some, were some robot manufacturers that actually

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Asked for a delay. Because

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: they were grade in some of the. Okay. Thank you.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I have one other question with this. Is there an easy way to describe, maybe it's in this paragraph here, for the definitions, for the first change that you're talking about, the definition of intentionally added, is there a way to briefly explain what the difference is between the old definition and the new definition?

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: Right, so the old definition, which is still in place for, as we discussed in a couple of sessions, but the definition for consumer products was intentionally adding means the addition of the chemical in a product that serves an intended function in a product component. So I think the concern was that this could potentially be too limiting in terms of how PFAS would end up intentionally or knowingly in a product. It could be read as though, it could also be read otherwise, I would say, but the concern was that it could be read as though PFAS is only intentionally added if you put it in your product and you intend for the PFAS to be in the final product to serve a function in the final product. And recognizing that PFAS can end up in products not only because you intend PFAS to serve and function in the final product, for instance, as manufacturing aid, this new definition was broadened to include, for instance, when PFAS is added to the manufacturing process, and also to capture when PFAS may break down or into other PFAS that arguably maybe wouldn't have been covered as an intended function in the product under their earlier definition. So that's really what this is attempting to. Okay. Yeah. That's a very unscientific way. Right. A painful. Yeah.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. Great.

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: Thank you all. Thanks for helping

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: us. Yes.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Just on the reuse of food packaging, is there a connection to PFAS with this section or is that just-

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: It is, right. It is the food packaging PFAS section that currently has a provision that says the reuse resale is okay. Essentially, I'm not getting that exactly right. So the language I-

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Whether it contain or not, that sort of-

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: So, oh, right. Okay. So the food, the PFAS food packaging section basically says, can't have PFAS in food packaging. There's an exception, right, that says unless it's being resold or reduced, essentially.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So that would mean is that is that Tupperware? Because you don't No. That's actually not food packaging. What is it?

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: So for that, let me look at the actual definition of food packaging. It's a broad

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: definition of food packaging. Think what the issue is, if I might, sure, we worked on this bill. I've worked on multiple e pass bills in health and welfare, and there were exceptions put in for essentially like used clothing and used things saying, you know, this ban does not apply to, if you're in a, you know, resale store selling these products, you're not gonna be somehow held liable for them having PFAS

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: in them, because you might be selling a like 20 year

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: old or something. So my guess is that the reason it wasn't included in the food packaging is because there's not really a resale market for food packaging like there is for clothing and durable goods. But I think what you're arguing is you want to make all of those sections consistent. So having an exemption for resale or reuse of things like there is in other sections, is I think what the attorney general's office is asking for.

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: I'm not

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: sure it's as relevant because we don't really resell We do reuse it. I mean, and I'm not talking about Tupperware, but like, you know, you buy yogurt in a container and then I might reuse the yogurt container myself, you know, at home. But, and I think the only way you could imagine reselling something like that is maybe like there's a church bake sale and people bring the muffins and the miscellaneous plastic packaging that they have in their home drawers, and they don't want to be, that church doesn't want to be held liable for, one of those products might have PFAS in it. That's my read of it, but is that accurate? Mean, that how you were thinking of it?

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: Almost, right? So I think these are examples that it is a little hard to envision, like, reused food packaging, but there could be some, right? It's more durable. There is already an exception in the food packaging section, and I found a language. So the one that currently exists says that it doesn't apply to the sale or resale of these products. So we basically, we're not asking to add an exception, it's just to make the language that the exception- Oh,

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: okay, there's already an exception. And then we have

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: a packaging section, right, consistent with the new one and the consumer product section, essentially. Yeah. Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay. I think I just couldn't figure out what trajectory was. Okay.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Any other questions? No. And at this point, to your knowledge, do you know if anybody's, like, against this? Maybe that's not a fair question, I don't know, but it gives you

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: I mean, I think that's a great question. Not that I'm aware of, again, because we, as far as we know, these are just house speaking revisions. If that were to change, you'd into the next discussion with that if you can.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: All right. Good to know. Thank you very much.

[Laura Murphy, Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General’s Office (Environmental Protection Unit)]: Thank you, appreciate it. Okay.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: All right, so we are done with witnesses for the day. Just looking ahead to tomorrow, we're going to hear more about data centers and let's have a longer conversation about the bottle bill. Inviting, normally Michael Grady to look through our, because we did not finish going through the bottle builder path, but we're going invite the redemption centers to be here as well for that. Then we may have some more conversation about 07:40. But there's one other thing that I wanted to check-in with you all about because next week our schedule starts to be limited.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: When is the first time?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah, I'll just say for our schedules, I'm not sure about 07:18. Not sure for me. We'll see, we'll see. Next week, yeah, our schedule starts to be Wednesday and Thursday, on the floor at eleven. Yes. So we're losing some time. So I'm interested in meeting remotely on a Monday, on next month. Wondering about people's availability

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: to You say next month.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Oh, I'm sorry. The twenty seventh. So they think this is coming. It's coming. On Monday. Yeah. Monday. Okay.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Let me

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: My thought is the I haven't used the word training on. Okay. Looking at the afternoon. The afternoon.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: If that's a possibility. If that's not

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: a possibility. It's a possibility for me.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: How long do you need? Oh, I think maybe just two or three hours.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I think that was me. Okay. Okay.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Center lines.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: Max

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: moment. The twenty seventh. Yep. In the afternoon. The morning. Oh, in the morning?

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: Yeah. Afternoon is good.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. Great. Afternoon? Afternoon works for me. Good. Well,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: after that was yeah.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: I have a Okay. I can't do the morning.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Go ahead. What if I'm have to do?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I'm thinking one.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. One to three.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Start of month three. That'd be helpful just so we can get get a little bit of time back.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I might gonna let me check and see what I'm doing. Supposed to be there between 03:30, and I'm gonna

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: let me go there before.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: We it takes me half an hour or something. Gotcha. Then let you know which Okay. I can do. Okay.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: So for now, let's put a pencil in the calendars, 1PM on Monday for little bit of time. Okay, thank you, appreciate that.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Yeah, I'm just meeting with them.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes, good.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, super. So any other thoughts folks want to share beyond? Cause we hope morning reads are supposed to end next week. Which means we've done a lot of wrapping up of things. Oh, I'm sorry.

[Hannah Smith, General Counsel, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department]: Oh, the eighth. Yeah. So we

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: got two weeks.

[Dylan (last name unknown), Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (Law Enforcement/Warden Service)]: Okay. But

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: So No. Our floor sessions starting next week on Wednesday and Thursday at eleven for next week and the following week. And the following. Got it. Yeah. For those tests. For any.

[Unidentified participant (likely Fish & Wildlife Department staff/other committee member)]: Excuse me? By Wednesday and Thursday. Okay.