Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Wait for it. You're live.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, it is Friday, and we are it's the January 9, and this is Senate Transportation. And we are here with Jeremy Reed, who is the chief engineer of the highway division. I wanna apologize for being a little late. I went over to joint fiscal, and I couldn't find Chris Root. So and then I got lost. And and then I found him.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah. Was gonna So

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I'm going to to think that it's Chris' fault that we're here. Okay. And I hope he's watching, but it's not really. It's Michael. Go ahead, Jeremy.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Okay. Thank you, senator. Jeremy Reed, chief engineer for the agency of transportation. Let me share my screen. Okay. We're here to discuss a report that was compelled by Act 145 out of the 2024 section about the use of telecommunication in the right of way and an inquiry as far as what other states do to perhaps monetize the telecommunication in the right of work. What's the total?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Is it historic photo, or is it modern black

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: and white? That's a historic photo. So that's early sixties building on the interstate at the Checker House Bridge. No.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Oh, Checker House?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah. Richmond.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Right right after Richmond. The bridge well, we we redone that bridge and made it much bigger. Wider. Yep. But we kept the historic shape Exactly. Because it Right. If you that's what the community wants.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So this is the the construction of the interstate bridges that are adjacent to that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And that would be the county fund just beyond Yeah. And move to the And I served in the legislature with glorious when I when I first came. Oh, okay. Wow. Small

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: state. So here's the the compelling language that yielded the report that I'm about to present on. So, I want to jump right through the key findings of the report just so there's a little bit of context about the information that I'll present. So the right of way and utility location electric utility locations through the right of way are generally pretty well known, and the accuracy of that information is pretty good. Communications infrastructure data is lacking in both completeness and accuracy. As we looked nationally, there's two approaches to monetize or or regain the value of telecommunications in the right of way. One is a bit of a bartering approach, and there's two approaches to that bartering. One is to incentivize further belt build out of broadband where the the public utility or the telecommunication utility wouldn't otherwise do it. So you're basically incentivizing additional build out. The second approach is to build what would essentially be DOT infrastructure for ITS systems and AOT transportation uses of that broadband. The second approach is revenue generation, not a shared typical monetary compensation thesis. The ultimate finding is that it's largely unknown if the costs associated with the operations are covered by the revenue collected, unfortunately.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Is that the purpose of the study? Yeah. So

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: the purpose of the study was principally just to figure out what we're doing in the right of way right now, and then essentially look at what other states are doing. So there was no mandate to, in any way, quantify what the possibilities are. And through the presentation, you'll understand why that is largely impossible at this point. So the consultant started by looking at the existing data sources, and in a very subjective manner, they assigned a low high medium completeness and accuracy rating to the various data sources. So the right of way lines, we we have a pretty good handle on where the right of way is, and it's generally accurate. Where the the runs gets is historic right of way is on a two dimensional drawing, and it's not GIS located and and things like that. That being said, we have data for for the majority of the state. Again, the eleven eleven permits completeness. There's some some older permits that we don't have good data on, and the accuracy is is pretty low on that principally because the eleven eleven process is meant to be not onerous. So it's very much just, yeah, we're generally cloning an asset here, and it's, again, not DIS located. There's no GPS coordinates or anything like that. It's it's very kind of two dimensional on a piece of paper. Exactly any available permit is needed for any

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: project that touches the right board.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Correct. And whether it be a driveway permit for your house, or a gas line running down the right road. So then we looked at the communications data sources. Public service has three data sources that the utilities themselves self report on: the broadband status, data fiber routes, and cable routes. You'll notice there's a distinction between the broadband and data fiber and cable routes on the accuracy and completeness, and largely what that is caused by is the manner in which it's reported. So the broadband is reported by an actual physical address of the house. The other two are reported based on a approximate centerline of the roadway notation. And so, you've got some variance as far as where that is. But again, both or all three scenarios are based on a housing connected residence or or building, not necessarily relative to the right of way.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: So are we gonna talk more about that first? Do do you want the question now?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Sure. Well, if it doesn't interrupt, know, phone goes.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Okay. So broadband to the house, it identifies the address of the house.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Correct.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Me, I'm not that interested in getting revenue from that because that would be from the individual. I would be interested in getting revenue from main lines So that's where the data that we're getting isn't what it should be. I I get Perhaps.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: It's not data that's extremely useful for the purposes that we're talking about today.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Okay.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Right? So I think from public when UPS is receiving this data, it's more about the build out, not to quantify the assets in the right of way. So I'm just presenting what the existing data sources are, and the current objective of capturing this data is to understand the proliferation of broadband, not to quantify the volume in the right of way.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: The volume in the right of way is really important to estimating the revenues.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Correct. But currently nobody's recording that. And that's the point of the limitations of the data.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Like, they know where the data, like, a map of where the broadband is going, but that doesn't overlay with the right away maps directly. So Correct. I mean, you'd have to go with GIS on that and say, here it is in the right away.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Here it isn't. Correct. And and to a large degree, the the accuracy of of both the right of way and the, you know, asset, we'll call it, is plus or minus a certain amount, and we'll talk about why that's a problem in a little bit.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Okay. But I did hear that it's within the right of way, and that they generally just say that it's in the middle, but it's not necessarily in the middle.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: No. It's it's absolutely not in the middle. What they do is they reference the center line to determine where the asset is. So the broadband references a physical address of a house or a building. The other two reference the center line of the road. So it's the reference point. That doesn't mean that's where the asset is.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Is it within the right of way? Maybe. Okay, so we're going have to talk about this more because if you have a roadway project in that area, they'll they'll tell you pretty quickly where where it is because they don't want it to be cut.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: In general terms, yes. In precise terms, no.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: But we don't need precise to have a fee for that.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Well, so you do.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: We just need it to be in the right of way.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Well, so so so here's the the principal problem here. Our roads. Right? Generally, utilities go straight. And so what our approach is when we ask for or when we grant permission to be in the right of way, we want them on the outer bounds of the right of way. So when we come in with subsequent projects, there's less chance of an interference. Sure. So you need to have a certain level of precision to know whether it's a foot outside the right of way or a foot inside the right of way. And that's the crux of the problem is we don't have precise enough data to determine whether it's a foot outside or a foot inside the right of way. And and nobody really knows that just because it it's construction, and you've got a crew out there. They're laying at plus or minus three or four

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: They got permission to lay the line in the right way, and they thought they might have laid it out because they were going straight line. But they did they get permission from the landowner to make that cut that corner?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Uncertain. Right. And and a lot of times, I think when we give them permission to be in the right of way, it's over a period of distance. Right. It's not specifically at this location be two feet inside the right of way line.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: I mean, my feeling was that we would just say that it is in the right of way

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: and have them prove that it's not. Yes. Yeah. So why

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: It's If we got if we gave them permission to put it in the right of way and they didn't put it in the right of way and they didn't get permission from the other landowner, then for the purposes of this, we should say. Or

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: they can move it out of there.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah. And I I think when we give them permission, we say, you know, over this, let's just say, two mile stretch. Yeah. Yes. You can run it in the right of way. It would be probably very expensive for them to parallel on a right of way line, though.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Right. So if they didn't put it in right of way, then they put it in somebody else's property that you need to tell us where they got permission, and it would be very clear what parts are. So we say, we gave you two miles of permission. We're going to assume you put it in the whole two miles until you tell us where you did and put it on them.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Would they do that? I don't know. Well,

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: they're getting something for free, basically.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: They're getting something for free from us or the other landowner, because they could've told the landowner, the farmer that is like, oh, this is we're in the town. We're in The States right away. And they're like, oh, okay. I guess that's The States right away, but they could be some feed off the farmer's land. Farmer's not getting compensated. We're not charging them because we don't know if it's in the right of way.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Or they could have been on farmers' land for part of the way and aren't compensating the farmers'

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah, we don't. That's kind of what you're saying,

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: so we don't know. That's exactly what I'm saying. At current state, we don't have precise enough data to have any certainty in exactly where this stuff is enough to monetize it with confidence.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Let me just say something. They know where it is. The the fiber people know where it is. They can they can.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Well, they

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: they may not know which ownership is where it is, but but they know where it is.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So so maybe. Right? I mean, you can ask any road foreman or or, you know, public water supplier. Where is your waterline?

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Waterline's different.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: In what regard?

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: I I mean, they generally know where

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: it is. And and I guess that's my point.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Right.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: But that's that's a public asset. These are private assets that are extremely valuable. And if it's cut, it doesn't just have an impact right there. It has an impact for possibly hundreds of miles. Sure. So they know where it is.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So So it's my understanding that just the practicalities of construction, they know generally where it is, but I don't know that they know within a foot that this is where it is. And I'll just say from firsthand experience, when we did Richmond Wilson Richmond, I think it was, moved to reconstruction, we were driving guardrail posts through their fiber frequently because they didn't know exactly where it was. They thought it was outside, and again, there's certain standard deviation that they would

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Okay, and that's fair, and I'm sure there's anomalies, but generally, that infrastructure is really important to them.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So,

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: if we ask them to tell us where it is, they should be able to provide that information.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Jeremy, do we have the 01/2011 permit for all? Anytime anytime anybody did think they might be the right way, they got a lot of permit.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: In theory, yes. But I think the bigger the company, the more likely it is. You know? Anything new, certainly, and again, what we're talking about telecommunications, it's all new. Do we have an eleven eleven permit for potentially a poll that was placed thirty years ago? Maybe not. But yeah. I mean, anything new from a broadband fiber install, we probably have a little bit of support.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: The 01:11 permits, though, are every driveway access. But could you I assume Yeah. What we have we have if it's an older property, it's hit or miss whether it has an eleven.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Right. Right. Well, I just wondered if for the for the telecommunication, I assume it's a searchable database and this isn't paper, but it could be. It's not it's not in a virtual database. You can't just say telecommunications.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Right. And that's why the relative accuracy and the completeness is is medium and low because there isn't a GIS layer for all the eleven eleven parameters. Well Or or something that's even and I don't know the the full searchability of it, but I don't know if it's tagged fiber broadband, electric utility, water. The utility. Yeah. I don't know to what level of granularity they they compiled it.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: They were all fine with the beads.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: In theory, yes. I mean, and I will say, we've we've certainly come across instances recently where somebody was working in the right of way and didn't get an 11:11. Right? I mean, that that happened as well just like any other

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I'll give you an example. We owned just called a duplex. We shared a driveway with an existing house that was built the house was built in the eighteen twenties. It was shot existing driveway had no 11:11 permit. And it was a driveway being used by a farmer down behind brick house that was built in the eighteen twenties. And then we come along and they said, sure. We'll why don't we use the driveway? You pay us a little and you can access the same. And we figured out there was no eleven eleven permit for anybody. Right. And and they've been living there, and, you know, the house had been occupied forever. They now have an eleven eleven protected.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Who who just for my own knowledge here, who picks up the tab when you when the fiber is in your right away and you hit me driving. They they're Yeah. So long as we take it, right, as requirement law, it's it's on them. Are those marked every half mile or something, or is there whole I don't know. No? Yeah. Mean, I've seen the little green Yeah. Saying that, but I don't know if there's a standard delineation for the cough.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: But even when Dick said you hit on

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: it? Okay.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, that's sort of my point.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Oh, Nothing's perfect.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: there's always going be that.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So, again, general sort of takeaway from this slide is the data is lacking.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Sorry, I just keep in the revenue is lacking too.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So, moving on to looking at what other states do. There's two relevant MCHRP reports. '1, 2014, managing longitudinal utility installations on controlled access by waste rights of life. And a 2023 report, the valuation and compensation approaches and utility accommodation. From those reports, 10 states were looked at to investigate deeper, and we actually held interviews with with nine of these states, and we looked at any information that was available prior to that interview. There are public stated strategic goals for this this trying to regain the value of of letting them in the right way. You can see a lot of it has to do with trying to further broadband build out and and basically serve the public interest along that line. Iowa actually has one of the goals is they have a environmental program, which I'll I'll identify later, that this partially funds. So, are the states that try to monetize it, and again, it's not all 10 states, obviously. And I guess the important thing here is to recognize that other than Utah, the states that monetize it only monetize it in limited access highways. So, interstates, it's obviously what we know, 89, 91, 93, and then freeways at the end, yeah, they're limited access highways, 189, Super 7, things like that. And the obvious restriction there is interstates are much more clearly defined, they're much straighter, so monetizing it becomes a lot easier on a limited access highway than what our state routes are, just given that serpentine nature of state highways, especially in Vermont where it's hilly and we're avoiding ledges and all that stuff. So this talks about the use of the revenue that is captured by the states. Again, Iowa has the living low rate trust fund, and other than that, it's largely about either ITS enhancements for the DOT or just furthering broadband build out in some manner or respect.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Can

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: I just ask the question? So, the Utah one, it says in kind donations. So, is that the company's basically, when they're requesting a permit, they're making a large contribution?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I I think what that is is is largely that. Yes. Or instead of paying it in an actual monetary piece, they'll be like, okay. We'll run some ITX fiber for you while we're doing our fiber.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: I that I yeah. I just wanna put a pin in that that feels like maybe a way to get it, the lack of data and the like, having almost like a rate for these costs without information. It sounds like you wouldn't need that in that scenario, but I've never heard of doing that. It's an in kind contribution to the state from a large company to basically get more beneficial permitting.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah. And it's it's sort of falls in that second category of borrowing as well Mhmm. Where where it's, okay, if you do something for us, we'll give you this amount of right of way to occupy, or we'll allow you to occupy this amount of right of way. And depending on the use, if it's ITS, they don't necessarily generate revenue off that. If it's a further build out, potentially they do recapture some revenue over time, but it wouldn't necessarily be the return on investment wouldn't be there otherwise through traditional market conditions.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: And do you know if Utah says, hey, this is what we think would be a reasonable amount for you

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: based on if

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: we Yeah.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So so that's where the crux of their argument is too, is across the nation, there's this uncertainty as far as what is a fair market value.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Right? Because we we can't just arbitrarily charge something because we're trying to raise, say, $10,000,000 because we use Federal Highway money, and they don't want us to profit off their investment. And so trying to assess a market value of what the value of their occupancy is can be a challenge. And that's where one of the NCHRP reports tried to understand. But again, it's a very squishy calculus. There's not a defined methodology that's widely accepted, just do this and you'll be fine.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. Can I follow-up on that? So, do the financial regulations allow private companies to benefit from the service? From from from the right away.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah. Think implicitly

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: they do.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Advantage it? No. I mean I mean yeah. I by I think implicitly, of course, they do. Right? We give them access, and then they have a business model that profits off, whether it be a cable company or a broadband or a fiber or whatever. It's a for profit company, so their presence in the right of way is by definition a for profit occupancy.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: And they're allowed to and that's not a problem.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Correct.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: And is it a problem if we regulate that?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: No. That's you. That's your other committee. That's your

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: other committee. I mean, in in the terms of of regulate.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Or in charge of fee.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah. Is entirely yep. It's entirely legal to charge some fee. The the the operative word there is reasonable, and there's not a defined methodology on what reasonable look like.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Okay.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: If it was a CUD, it would be a non thought.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Right, right, and so I would want to treat them differently, but that's another conversation.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So the challenges which we've touched on throughout this, there's in all likelihood limited interest to have full collaboration from the telecom companies for obvious reasons. Currently, we don't have the staff, and by we I mean the state government, to administer this program. There's unquestionably going to be a time delay between when we stood up such a program and to when we actually started receiving money because we have to basically build the program, create the administration, and collect the data before we even assess the fee or or a lease. There will be the perception that this is a regressive tax essentially because per foot per hookup is much lower on urban rural areas than urban areas. So it it would counter the goals of driving a build out potentially.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Can you explain that a little bit more?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So if you need to be in the right of way for, I'll say, a quarter of a mile in an urban densely populated area, you're going to hook up many more people than in a rural area. So you're able to defray that per foot cost much better in an urban area than in a rural area.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Well, that's a whole conversation too because they aren't really the privates aren't doing it in the rural areas unless they've been subsidized. But, okay, but that wouldn't apply if we're doing it in the interstate right away?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: It would apply less. Mean, 89 through Chitney County is still going to be denser than 91 through Orleans County.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: What was the regressiveness? Did you cover that?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: That essentially for rural areas would be paying a higher tax essentially per hookup. Per customer. Per customer. Because we would be charging more per customer in essence.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: I'm sorry, have to say something. Just on that, it's not in some cases fees are passed on to the customer and other cases they're not. That doesn't always happen. Like in housing, for example, the price of housing is what the market will bear. If developers have to pay fees or if costs increase, they can't necessarily increase the cost of the house. It's a market phase.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Again, perception would be that would would slow deployment of broadband if if we were charging the the utility to to build new new assets that could, you know, I guess, cool the the incentive to to do so. Uncertain revenue estimates again because we don't have the data, so we don't even know what this would yield. And then uncertainty whether or not the revenue generated would actually cover the cost of administering the program. When we spoke to all 10 states, all 10 states, well, nine states said, we don't know. Believe it was the IRS that said definitively it absolutely does not cover. And so, there is a significant stand up cost to have precise enough data to collect a fee and again, create a fee structure. The other piece I want to touch on here is there's two approaches to actually monetizing this. One would be a permit fee, which is generally what we do now. The other approach that many states do is they actually lease it over a twenty five or thirty year period. Some of it's index to inflation, some of it's a set index point. Others, it's just a flat lease for over a thirty year term or twenty five year term.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Go ahead.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: So if a municipality has to put, like, water or sewer I know it's I I this is a different conversation than telecommunications, which sounds like what you focused on, but do we charge them?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I I don't I don't think so. There may be a nominal just $11.11 permit fee, but we certainly don't try to monetize that. Right? Between electric and water sewer, that's deemed for the public good.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Okay.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Right? And we're we're not looking at that. That's not a for business enterprise.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Okay. So for example, if the main street in the village of Jeff is is state highways Yeah. And the water lines for the village are down that main street, you wouldn't charge for that.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Not in a monetization fee. I'm not sure there may be a nominal permit fee, but again, I think it's it's very low, and and I'm not even confident that that's true.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah. Maybe we can ask because I think the only the the only key takeaway I have from this is from that question is if we are charging a fee that is being charged to municipalities

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: I would in that space, it feels like

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Well, yeah.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So if can say with confidence, whatever we're charging a water company, we're definitely charging the company. There would not be, we're charging the water company, but we're not charging the broadband company. And I'm fairly confident we're not monetizing the water company either. So there's no scenario in which the broadband company is being treated more favorably.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So in conclusion, and I'll just read this from that report, a successful right away monetization program in Vermont requires precise data management, significant development of workflow and process, strategic legislative support, collaborative industry engagement, and transparent fee structure frameworks. Currently, the agency will highly capable, is hobbled by the aforementioned challenges, and would have to allocate significant resources against uncertain outcomes.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I'm

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: sure you know that already, but I just wanted to reinforce the points.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Do you see a world I I appreciate that conclusion, but do you see a world where we could, at the very least, have better barter and negotiation in these conversations? And is there any kind of enabling legislation we could do on our end? Because I think at least what I'm hearing from your point is I don't want us to be in a situation where we're losing out on a revenue source for a for profit in particular company. But I also don't I think you're correct. It sounds like we would not be able to get, like, a fee structure set up that might even compensate us enough to cover the cost of doing all the work of charging people. So do you have a policy or a standard? And could we address that and and maybe ask it to be a bit more aggressive in getting

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Sure. So historically speaking, there there's two pieces of legislation that are at odds with each other, and this goes back to, well, the Scott administration and into the Shumman administration, if not sooner or earlier. One basically says, thou shalt recover some costs associated with asset in the right of way.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Okay.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: The second piece of legislation says, thou shalt not do anything that inhibits the expansion of broadband. And so going sort of on the sort of authorizing language, I think we would need some level of clarity as far as which one should we follow. Again, multiple administrations up to this point have chosen to do nothing that discourages the expansion of broadband. From the bartering piece, some of the challenges I see there, and I don't know specifically how other states do it, but you would want to create a system that treated all entities relatively fairly. It couldn't just be a horse trade because somebody who's a better negotiator is going to get a better deal or somebody's having a bad day and you acquiesce. So you want to create some level of equity. That being said, it's probably the simplest approach because you don't have a precise calculation as far as what that costs, and so the level of data integrity is probably lower, or the the employer data integrity is probably lower.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah. I really like the Utah. Oh, I think it was no. Iowa. I apologize. Iowa is the Living Roadway Trust Fund. I'm gonna dig a little a little bit into that because I am I I think we've already heard this year that it it moves in the climate solutions caucus. There is a bill from house transportation to look at how do we better manage our roadways, like the size of our roadways when it comes to pollinators and all sorts of things, and that has costs associated with it, unfortunately. So I'm thinking a little bit about that, and I don't know if you have any thoughts on how they do it. Sure. I

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: will say, I don't know the details of the program, I will say Iowa was the one state who said this program does not pay for itself. So, there's that. The other thing I'll mention, I think this maybe talked about it before, even if the program did pay for itself, would have to be some discussion on how efficient of a tax this is. So if we're, from an administrative perspective, spending 60¢ of every dollar collected, effectively, you've only got 40% efficiency of tax. And so, what we found based on what we looked at, no state is using this approach to bolster their transportation fund. They're doing it for other public good, essentially. And so from a peer monetized perspective, this is, to our knowledge, is not a successful approach that's been widely used.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Well, thank you for taking the time. Do know

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: how much how many 111 permits or telecommunications are being applied for?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: We we we could look to see, you know, what what, say, the last three to five years looks like, but I don't think it's

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: a common or not. So

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: you don't if it's if it's Phytium that's running a line onto and they're the same company onto a remote electric pole or a pole from a consolidated. Mhmm. They don't have to get a 11:11 permit.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I believe the way it works is the owner of the pole gets the permit, and they may or may not, I'm not sure, identify everybody on the poll.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Like, if they get a new person, do they have to go back to you and say, hey. We have a second line.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I'm not sure about that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: K. Because most of these poles in my ear, and it's interesting when you bring up, you wouldn't wanna tax the CUD. My CUD has a contract with Fidium, and they have a lease. So the owner of the pole the owner of the infrastructure now is my CUD. They're hooking to poles that are probably about 50% owned by the electric utility and 50% owned by consolidating. And I don't know the exact amount, but the whole system and the utility companies pay a property tax. If I don't, and I don't understand the whole system in any detail, but that just even in the ownership, it's kind of, fuck me. Yeah, go ahead.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, the broadband in on the highway especially right? Broadband on there is broadband in the interstate right? On the interstate right away?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: There's fiber I don't know to what extent we have broadband.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Okay so fiber. Yeah. Fiber and like that's why it's so valuable on the railroad is because it's a long continuous span. So you don't necessarily have to know exactly where it is if it zigzags the interstate is nice and smooth. I mean that's the point of the interstate, right? One purpose is. We could know the length, right? And the amount of fiber by certain companies.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yes.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: And that would be not that hard to come up with a fee for.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: And that would be a nice I mean, it would be revenue.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: This does get exponentially easier if you limit it to your limited access.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: So why don't we start with that and just keep the conversation going because there's a lot of money being made on on that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, your list all started with inner states.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Correct. The the only state that we found that uses state highways is Utah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yep.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: And, again, I think the topography of Utah is probably different than Vermont. The other thing I'll just add, another nuance or complicating layer here is the definition of telecommunication. So most electric utilities with their electric clients have telecommunication lines. And so, for their own purposes. So, again, that definition would have to be sorted out.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: And those are on interstate?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: No. No. I'm talking in general too.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: I think because you're really focused on the energy.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Usually, the telephone company in the past consolidated shares pools with the utility company. You know, in my area, it's about fifty fifty and they share pools. As landowners, no landowner wants one pole for the power company and one pole with for the communication lines. If you're gonna have a pole, you might as well just have one.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Well and I guess I was just to clarify, I was speaking that let's just take Velcro for instance. Velcro has, as I understand it, a telecommunication line with their electric line just for their own purposes, not as a separate entity. Washington Electric, if you have smart metering, there's a telecommunication line with the electric line to facilitate that metering. So, beyond even separate entities attaching to the same pole, electric utilities oftentimes have telecommunications as complementary infrastructure.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: I just wanted to make a note that if you wanted to work on language or have something that's considered on this topic, I would certainly be interested in talking through it for probably the T bill more than the DMV missile.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Oh, definitely. Missile. But so we've been

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: in time. So I just wonder if you worked with Damian on language or anything for something around limited use highways and a and almost, like, an in kind contribution style thing, would be very Okay. Great. At at least to look at it maybe further. Mhmm. Because I appreciate this study because we had no information before this stuff.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: do we own the right of way, I think, for the interstate? Or Well,

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: we own it, and the usage of it has to fall within federal requirements.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So do we have to get federal permission?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I think it's just a matter of, hey. Can we do this? I don't think there's a formal process.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Oh, if you got 10 other states doing it, it's probably permissible. And the other thing about the interstates is they were laid out later.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Right.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And because they were laid out later, there's none of this a house from the eighteen fifties Yes.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That doesn't have an 11/11. You know? They and and the the they did all the surveying in that, so we pretty much know exactly where the interstates are. And we don't know that in my area of Route 15, some places it they it's wide, some places it's, you know Yep. And I would suspect

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: You you you suspect correctly.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. That Route 4 is the same. Or even yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Even parts of Route 5.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. Yep.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah. I mean, the the state highway system is, to your point, like this. And fair or not, our centerline has sort of meandered over time as well, and most of this is measured from the centerline.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So the Fed's gonna have their own wildlife and burn it again?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: No.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Let's keep the conversation going and looking at the interstates

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: about that. And I would agree with Senator White, if you had an idea you wanted to put on the table, we'll consider it.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Okay, great. Good, thank you.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Okay. Thank you.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I think we are on