Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: This is Senate Transportation. We're going back live with some of the people from the industry, and introduce yourselves and we'd love to hear what you have to say, maybe.

[Nick Sherman]: Nick Sherman, Linai Public Affairs. I represent the Paving Association of Vermont, Gerry Otis, Pipe Industries. Thank you for having us. We wanted to come in and speak specifically to a key element of how the program sort of optimizes the ability for the industry to do the work and that is consistency and stability over time. Noting the prior discussion, which focused a lot on oil prices and price adjustments, also happy to answer any questions from the industry perspective around that if you have them. So I'll let Gary speak to the detail, but really the key point that we wanted to bring to you today is that, know, as you know, we've been concerned for some time now, a number of years, we've been coming to this committee and highlighting the concern that the state have a stable transportation fund to be able to support the paving program year over year state funds. I know this committee spent a lot of time on that issue this year. We appreciate that. That's critical we think to be able to have a program that can be predictable, which really helps the industry be efficient and obviously bottom line that the work is there and that's critical for the industry. It's also critical to be able to maintain the system in the state which you've heard us talk a lot about. So, you know, we are really appreciative that, you know, the administration came out with a proposal around purchase and use to try to, you know, create more of a longer term funding source in that area. That's something we think is an important thing to consider. Also, this committee and other committees have been looking at other proposals and we are open to the discussion of any proposal because it is critical that we not leave federal money on the table and that we have a program that can keep our roads maintained. I guess, I think it might be helpful, Gary, if you want to talk a little bit about why that's the case and whether it's planning, whether it's the timeliness of knowing what the programs would look like throughout the summer, the fact that others you work in other states and so there is competition for crews and workforce, that'd be helpful.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I would just end here. You've seen the book. Yep. You've seen a 140,000,000. You've seen 70,000,000, and the jumps in between. You've also seen the proposals that now that we have on the table. Governors had a ramping up proposal from the house as one year, and then it drops off. And what your comments are, those two things don't seem to be in the you should comment on those.

[Nick Sherman]: So what I can say about, the paving, the proposed paving program this year in relation to what is anticipated for next year is that consistency there matters too.

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: We would love

[Nick Sherman]: to see $150,000,000 paving program every year. We welcome that. But if it goes from 148 down to 70, that's problematic. Just this. That would speak to

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: the problematic piece because and I won't represent like we have, I just represent all my comments will be based on like pipe industries, what I see. And I've been there over thirty years and the big part of the paving budget being consistent for us, Nick mentioned, we'd gladly say 140,000,000. Jeremy's going to speak to what the system requires, but really for us, we have eight fifty employees and we operate across Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. We have a little bit more flexibility. So if Maine has a robust program or New Hampshire, we can kind of, we're unique in the fact that we can kind of move some of the workforce around. It's not always the case. Some of our competition might not be in the same boat we are, but it does put stress on our ability to onboard people, train people, and retain people. And again, when we have these big programs, we have to ramp up. We're typically our company, we're planning five years in advance. For us, it's just knowing that consistency and for capital projects, in expenditures to be able to have just a nice incline. But when you go up to 140,000,000, like you guys mentioned, go down. If we all of a sudden get three or four more jobs, we might not be right staffed. So it's very hard. You just with those peaks and valleys to try to get these people and then retain them as soon as we go to the down year. Like if we fall off the cliff next year, we onboard all these people. It's like when they leave this industry, if they get burned, they're typically not coming back. It is probably right beside, I remember the old years ago, said construction was breakdown with people with solid waste, you know, as far as recruiting people, like it's hard to get people to do the jobs that we want, that we need to do.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: So I will do in particularly bathing. Yeah. At least when I, on a hot summer day,

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: it's been a guy in a cleaning truck. And I think on a health side it's all concerned because I also do deal, I'm the president of AGC this year. So I'm dealing with that as well. So there's this extreme temperature that they're looking at. So we live in Vermont and then we tape in the summer. So it's like, that's a whole another thing that we've got to deal with from an overall industry perspective.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: But for

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: us it's more just about, again, it's nice to see these big numbers like come out, but you know, term, I truly believe slow and steady wins the rates and it's got to be predictable, you know? And I think from the state's perspective, when not hiring for the need of the year and you have people that stay in their career out of what they do, you're going to get a better quality, which is going to relate. When you have better quality, you're going to get extended life and payments. Overall costs should come down over time because you're going to get a better product. So, but I'm open to any questions like I know you were asking about asphalt plants, I'll answer what I What are you seeing with

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: the increase in fuel prices around and the increase in asphalt right now?

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: Well, like was mentioned earlier, clearly with what's going on in the world, you know, in the type of our business, the biggest thing that we do when you produce pavement or asphalt, or even when we run our quarries is the diesel fuel is, you know, and on average, think we've seen like a 40% increase is where it's at. And then on the paving side, again, the index was reflected to be like $730 a ton. So it was up a $100. A ton of asphalt typically has about 5% of the liquid asphalt in it. So you're talking about a $5 per ton increase. That's what you would expect to see whether on one of your contracts or the municipalities. But it's always lagging. So I don't know if, again, I looked at the chart and we don't pave, we don't do any paving until we get May into maybe November, maybe the December. So the greatest draw for tons are probably the July, August, September timeframe. And that's where that will just basic supply demand charts. And so hopefully whatever's going on in the world can kind of get it out of its system. Well, don't mean it that way, but just hopefully people are true to their words so we can get it done and then we can just, it can get back to normal. But we have seen an increase and I don't know if it's where it's going to be at, you know, over the next couple of months. But the beauty about the system and it has its pluses and minuses, When you talk about asphalt price or fuel escalation, I remember the days when I go back a long time where you didn't have that and then the contractor would take all the risk. So it's not as easy as saying, well, the state always pays. It's a matter of the risk is out there and it's a competitive bid environment and you can go out of without having you guys see any undue costs. And like that example from 2022, I remember the year after that we had to pay in because of the contracts were let at like 07:30 or 08:30 and the next year the oil went way down. We actually have to write a check back. So it's pretty much a good standard practice for everyone and it really helps to keep contractors in business. Like some of them probably couldn't absorb making a bad mistake on bid day. Yeah, I

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: think we haven't heard from ACG or the papers in particular about like a revenue source that you'd see to help address this problem. I think one of the most difficult things in this whole conversation is just there's no political will to raise any revenue. The administration isn't proposing anything. The Democrats are not interested in proposing anything because we know we'll get beaten over the head. If we try to move forward on this topic, so do you see any political will or direction that you would recommend to someone in the industry? People willing to rally behind at this point? Or are we just going to have to manage for decline?

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: I don't think managing for declines really a good option because at some point you're just gonna the cost to fix what we've allowed to just deteriorate is gonna be exponential versus just keeping the projects in that good condition like Jeremy had showed for a chart. I think we're open to any options. I mean, I think you're looking at miles driven.

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

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: You know that? I'm not saying it's good or bad because I haven't seen the details of it, but I think we'd be open to any avenue and we'd be willing to sit down and work it through because at the end of the day, whether it's AGC or Pipe Industries or the PAVE Committee that I'm here representing today, it's like we're looking out like, I truly care about my employees. And the last thing I want to do at the end of the year is say, especially like this year when they got out early, there's not a big paving program, like there's people calling it. To me, I've been there a long time and it really, really upsets me. That's why I don't mind coming here or doing what I have to do outside of work to try to secure work for our industry to keep these people employed. They pay taxes and they're good people and they work there, you know what all. And I just, I'm here to do right by them and the people that are in this industry. It's important to me, but we're open to any avenue and like, you know.

[Nick Sherman]: Yeah. They asked in the House Committee, we were asked the same question and I, you know, I'll echo what he said. The last time the gas tax was raised ten, twelve years ago,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: 1933.

[Nick Sherman]: No. Not that the state state was coming towards when we were in, you know, in this building, we lobbied for that. I mean, we supported that. So I you know, we're we're open. But we think that you know, we do think purchase and use that transfer back makes sense because that is transportation money. But there are other proposals too, and we're we're happy to discuss and

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: and,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: you know. But it needs to be consistent over time.

[Nick Sherman]: That's the difficult piece.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, what you said is not going

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: to be. The program needs to be consistent.

[Nick Sherman]: And it may need multiple to things pieced together to achieve that.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And you have some of the heaviest vehicles in your industry. And one of the conversations we've had with mileage based user fee, although I don't think you're here to comment on that, has been that electric vehicles, they aren't statistically the main drivers of road wear and tear. It's our heaviest vehicles that are causing a disproportionate amount of road wear and tear. And while there is, you know, a tiered system for waiting and how you register and all that, Would you be open as an industry to discussing like an infrastructure fee on our heaviest vehicles to make up for the revenue shortfall?

[Nick Sherman]: I mean, think we're open to any discussion. We're open. I have to I haven't sat in here for those discussions.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I apologize. Reason I bring it up is we are getting rid of the infrastructure fee for EVs and it just feels like if gonna have a mileage based user fee and

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: it's Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: A user fee, so the idea that's based off of what you are doing to the road in some regard, and the idea of equity amongst vehicles, the largest issue for us for wear and tear, that usage, in my view, is our heaviest vehicles. So if we're going to try to create an entire structure to get it the the BEVs of the world to have equity, I think it's something that we also address for the heaviest weighted vehicles. There's there's a lot of science behind that in

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: other states. I think you'd have to look at the the weight because the EVs, they versus the regular passenger car in the higher loading, they're gonna create wear and tear as well. So I think that idea, we'd be open to, I mean, we'd be open to look at that, but I think everyone should be, they overuse the word fair share, everyone should pay. Every vehicle that drives on the road creates an impact. So it's figuring out what that impact that they do to the roadway. It'd be important to figure that out before we just go in.

[Nick Sherman]: Yeah. And I mean, I think that's Yeah. I think we're kind of in the same place as you in the sense that if everybody who's using the road has an appropriate or the way they're using it payment, and I mean, if you're looking at the heavy vehicles, you have to look at the registration, what they pay in the gas tax and stuff like that because that factors in

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: too, Yeah.

[Nick Sherman]: So, I mean, we wanna see our goal, our primary goal, this legislative session, as it has been for the past few, is how do we stabilize this fund?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And I guess one final question. I really appreciate you on the cuff, like the off the cuff talking about, it's appreciated. We talk a lot about the towns and I do worry as we continue to see declines in our own paving budget, we're going to see those declines on a municipal level as well. And then there's also going to be, I think, some in fighting again about which contracts are supported by what contractors. And if the state contract is available, usually that's when you go for first. And I know there's all sorts of timing to that. But do you see any conflicts or increased prices from your industry having that down pressure on municipalities as well? Or, you know, what if you could speak to that a little bit?

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: I would say what I've seen so far to date is with the, irregardless of what before a lot of the work that Jeremy talked about got bid before this last issue with the oil. I would say the prices based on the workload probably has come down a little bit versus the engineers. I think overall, some of them, some of the projects were quite surprising, but it's a competitive environment. A lot of it has to do with how much work is out there, not just from the state, but to your point with municipalities. I think people look at that and they figure out where the work's coming out and where their asphalt plant or quarries are located and they try to figure out the work that aligns with where they're at or where their operations lie. Do you have any

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: asphalt plants you can provide?

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: Yes, have seven. I manage all of them. We have 26 across Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Quite a bit different from when I first started, there's quite a few other apple plants around the state geographically. They only run-in the

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: summer or some run year round?

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: No, none of them run year round just because there's a requirements for, have to heat the asphalt to like 300 degrees, three fifty, depending upon what we put in for liquid binder. And you burn oil,

[Nick Sherman]: I assume to do that.

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: For the most part but years ago we've done a lot to mitigate like risk long term because we got to compress natural gas. I mean we've always looked for like energy efficiency projects, low cost alternatives versus like number two fuel. So we've done a lot of things in that regards to lower our throughput costs. But yeah, we have plants and then a question that was mentioned earlier, a lot of our assaults, they see the supply from Canada or Albany or it comes out of like Western Mass, they might do rail and bring it in there. So that's the big component is asphalt, but it, and then that gets trucked to our asphalt plants. Then we actually make the hot mix. We take the grade of asphalt and we blend it on-site. What do you blend it? What is it blended with? Stone. So what people don't realize that when you look at pavement 95% of the makeup is aggregate like stone, gravel, recycled pavement. We're a big user of recycled pavement and 5% is the binder that is the glue that holds it together. But it happens to be the largest cost of what we do.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And that's where the oil price of oil affects that 5%.

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: Yeah exactly.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: And the aggregate's all trucked?

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: Yeah, so that impacts, we crack all of it. Some are trucked, most of our vertically integrated operations, have a quarry right where the asphalt plant is. We're able to save there, but pretty much every kind of hot mix that we produce or HMA that gets trucked to the job, that gets dealt with on the diesel side. All of our trucks run on diesel. Have your own quorums, you're integrating that way. Yeah. Not everybody assumed you have pigs as their quarries. I'd say most of the competition in Vermont are they are all vertically integrated with their own gravel and quarries on-site or they're in the process of developing them. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So you do work in, basically Maine, Hampshire, and Vermont, mostly? Correct. Yes. What's the situation, in the other two states?

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: Maine does a lot of bond, they do a lot of bonds and they have a robust program and New Hampshire has a pretty good program as well. The one out of the three states we operate in is that Vermont's probably the one that's lacking as far as jobs that are being led or advertised in the overall program. Definitely it pales in comparison to the other two states. So

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: you would say that they are more consistent?

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: Yeah, correct. I think Maine's found a system where right, wrong or indifferent with their bonding, they've been able to just, they have a good system in place and they're pretty consistent with their, the work outflow, you know, the jobs that they let.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: It's good to know.

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: I'm in Vermont, so I hope I

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: hope Yeah. Yeah. No. You guys

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: need to know that. Like, I just worked for a big company, I've managed to do very well over my career, but I love Vermont. I work you know, I live in Vermont.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So if we do we're here, and then we're the ramp up time, are we, in your company, competing somewhat against the the veins that are more consistent?

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: You can only the people that work here aren't that transient. Like, when I say we can move Vermonters to work on some jobs, like, we have a plant in West Lebanon on the border. So if we take some jobs in New Hampshire or in that border, I can move them. But it's very hard to retain help. Like, if I told a crew here that you're gonna go work in May for the whole summer,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: probably half of them would quit. So how many crews would did did I heard this? Did we had seven crews here or your

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Company had seven crews, and now we have six?

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: No. We have we have fewer than that. We probably have, like, three three crews that would service for Vermont or, you know. And will that do all the work that we need to? Us it will, but each of our competitors has their own crews too. So I think our rightsizing, you know, a lot of those people have probably brought on crews. So it just meets whatever the demand that we may have.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I'm asking about gear up time. So if if we if do something that isn't like this, but we decided all of a sudden to go like this, what's the ability of the industry to accommodate?

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: It's rather difficult. I mean, we could put together a crew, but it could be a couple years to get them trained up to where that they would need to be where they could go out or not. We'd have to take a part of a seasoned crew and put them in place as like a four person and then try to backfill with some of the skilled labor to run the rollers and the other equipment that we have. So it's quite a significant ramp up time. That's why I'm, you know, when we lose these people, I can't tell you enough. It's so hard to get the talent and it just takes years to bring you know, you lose a twenty year employee and it's like, you just can't make that up overnight. And that's what we're here to talk about. That's why it's so important. And as far as capital reinvestment planning and like if these asphalt plants are big mechanical pieces, our paving equipment, so all of our rolling stock or equipment, everything that's used that's in conjunction with making a ton of asphalt, it wears out over time. So it's very hard to get money to put back into a business when there's not a consistent program as well. All these things work hand in hand. And

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: How many what's your total membership of the paving association?

[Nick Sherman]: Right now there are well, we have the three big companies that do work here, but we generally advocate for the program. Generally, like, we don't just work for the the three that are immediate members. So we

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: How many employees would you say are all different? Is you know? I mean, you utilize. What are talking about?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Year round. Don't know if you do see the employees, but

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: We have 850. What we're in three states. That's what we're three states. Probably a little bit less than a third would be here in Vermont.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And are you similar to the competitors and now have a few

[Nick Sherman]: 100 employees? Well, you're the biggest, so I would have to get back to you on that.

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: Yeah. They're not here and I don't have that.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Right. No. I get to know what the total employment is.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah, I'm hearing what you're saying about predictability. And I mean that's just the case in a lot of situations is that predictability is more important than anything. Mean, that's for developers. That's what they want is to know what exactly I need to do and how I'm going to plan. So it's really helpful to hear that from you and it would be great for you to share that out to influential folks.

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: We are. We do.

[Nick Sherman]: And and the other piece of it that ties into this that I would say, and I didn't wanna cut

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: you off.

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: No. Go ahead. Oh, no.

[Nick Sherman]: Is, you know, we are very focused on the sustainability, and we've been kinda hyper focused on the state fund because that's at risk. But of course there is the maintenance of the system, which you also hear us talk about. And I think as it relates to the sort of gradual ramp up, it is important that we try to ramp up and try to do it in a way where the industry can be consistent and where the state can, you know, ensure that it's getting the miles out because, you know, we need to frankly do more miles to maintain the system. Think right now we're a point where we need to address the sustainability issue, but obviously the goal after that is to try to ramp back.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Right, and just have a long term focus.

[Nick Sherman]: And have a long term

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: focus. Yeah, and I appreciate what you're saying about other states. Think it's really helpful to know what other states are doing. This is where I want to live forever, but we can it doesn't mean we do everything perfectly and,

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: And I don't want you thinking I was saying that they do us better because there's things

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Well, yeah. It's inevitable that there are things that we can learn from others. I appreciate you bringing that up. You can also tell us sometime what we're doing right so we don't stop doing that.

[Nick Sherman]: Well, I actually think that to that point, I mean the predictability in terms of the program rolling out has been fantastic. And that was something ten years ago we were complaining about here, That's really, you know, the agency's done a fantastic job and to the extent they can in creating that predictability so the industry can plan to do that really well. We appreciate that. This isn't, I mean, as you know, this isn't an industry versus agency challenge. This is a funding issue that we're trying to

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: But it's really important to the state that we have more than one contractor too. Oh, absolutely. So having enough

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: We're not the only

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: contractor. Yeah.

[Nick Sherman]: And depending on I mean, when you're talking about getting down also, you you mentioned town highway. I mean, you know, on the smaller projects, there are there are more contractors. There are smaller companies throughout the state that, you know, take on those smaller contracts, do some of the private work, parking lots, stuff like that, which is but, you know, I I guess who you probably usually see on the interstates.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah. Definitely. Great reputation.

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: Good. Thanks.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Thank you very much. Thank you. It's been helpful. We're

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: on

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: the floor at 11:30. I would like to ask the committee since we're gonna be pushing up against time. Would it be possible on Monday, the thirteenth, if we could meet in the afternoon.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: On Zoom?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: They could be on Zoom. Or they'll let You know, to move with it will be an attempt to move this along next week. We should and correct me if I'm wrong, Adrian. We're going to we're working on some language around the paving budget, seeing if we could move some and I've had conversations with Jeremy and and there will be a proposal to talk about paving, maybe moving slightly away from interstates and moving some money into the state highway system. No less money, but in that, the '92 miles that we've heard of interstate that we're doing versus 55 miles of of paving is difficult, but think it's somewhat a discussion on the floor about the balance in paving and where we are in paving. We gotta have that discussion out in the open to show everybody how how little we're doing. And none of this is all good choices. The MBUF language will be hopefully pretty close.

[Nick Sherman]: We're we're already pretty close. There's a couple of outstanding pieces that

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: is after I kinda hoping to buy up on that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And can you I kinda like to get that out at least to people if we could get that out to people on Monday so they have a day to look at it before we take it out on Tuesday. I'll have it

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: out to the committee Monday afternoon. Probably

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: the stuff we talked about pilot and what we talked about earlier in the year, We'll be looking to have some language out about that. The whole discussion about purchase and use and where all of the in the relationship of all the funds in that area, I think we if we're going to include that in our bill So the way and Logan's here. I asked Logan to do a chart and and where is everything? Where is it in the governor's proposal? Where is it in the house proposal? And and over here, it becomes difficult to follow. In that house version that came, everything is in the miscellaneous tax bill that deals with the purchase and use people and the relationship. I'm just gonna speak with my afternoon committee, and that concerns me because I think the place that the most is at risk is the general fund. And we're using that as so we're the vehicle but we're right in the middle of all of that. So I you know, we need to have a proposal, I think, to provoke something in finance.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Okay. You're good.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And so

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I don't I'm not fully following what

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: that proposal would be, but I am hoping

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: to have more conversations about that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: You know, with both the House the the House's proposal and the Governor's proposal all deal with purchase and use.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yes, so I guess I'm

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So it's not new revenue?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: No, no, no. I'm following what you're saying. I guess I don't understand what you're doing.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I would say to you that

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: So you're going to this afternoon in appropriations, you're gonna

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: tell No. Them that we're

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: It it got I think we're gonna start the conversation. One of the things that I I I don't know exactly where we're gonna end

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Oh, okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I don't know exactly. I but I am in this first year, and you tell me if in this first year, if they don't what we're really doing is transferring money to the from the general fund to the ed fund, and then you're doing it. Maybe the whole purchase and use thing, you just put off a year, and we asked the appropriations committee to just send us the 10,000,000.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Oh, is one alternative? I I Instead of doing The complex movement around. Yeah. I mean, I guess the bottom line for me is whatever you want you wanna come up with, I am supportive of a revenue source and not just moving around. If there's any conversation we can have about that, I think that would really show finance that we care about I this I I But I'm supportive of whatever shell name you mean, shell and and I don't mean that name. I mean that

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: name No. I hear you.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: If there's a simpler way for us to do it, I I as a non appropriations committee member, I would empower my colleagues to come up with a I I

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: hear what you're saying. I you know, and and we need to have that con we need to have that conversation, you too. But I see as difficult is nobody in the whole building seems to wanna have that kind of a conversation.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I think we all do. I think people are just concerned about their elections.

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: Oh, brother. So we've gotta come up with something that we could sell to the rest of the building.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: We've we've had multiple finance studies. I've had bills

[Nick Sherman]: That's not

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: saleable this year, though.

[Nick Sherman]: It seems

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: like do you just, maybe it, maybe you're right on the cause, maybe it's an election year to people, but whatever the reason, it won't fly.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: It won't fly in the building. No. I think we should try. It's really helpful to have industry supporting it. I mean if industry supports it that could help a lot. Yeah. It's basically having a functional economy, right? Everything needs income and we're starving ourselves as a state.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: But yeah, I think

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: I Those hear what you're

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: are the things that hopefully we will move along to have the discussion for in those cases.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: That's great. Thank you for doing all that work. Looking at H944, I sent

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Oh, and I will say to about the we talked about there's a particular lawyer that deals with the contestant, and I don't know what her name was, but we need to get two or three people in to testify, but I think there's a lot of support in here for a charging crew.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And there's also so I think I've mentioned a few times, you know, you've got the witness list of folks that I've sent you, and I can send to the whole committee as well. Yep. The language that I would like to send to the whole committee for consideration in the T bill is an additional bit of EBSC language, which was floated to the house by representative Phil Pouch that would require credit cards to be available at chargers. Certain data would have to be provided by the chargers. So I've got that language. Like to present that to committee at the appropriate time.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And then I've also got that list as the people that should testify.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Exactly. Go ahead.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And then I do have my controversial request to potentially include two Windsor County projects for full funding that are not listed in the project book with that amount of money. So I do want to discuss that and look at that as a committee. I'd like us to hear from those people if possible because I think we're at a point where there's no way that they can communicate at a local level these needs. And I know it's outside of our but I'd like to have that language looked at and Damien has been kind enough to note over email that he would be able to get something to the committee by next week. And then the last one that's like a piece of language that I'm really would like is to consider the T Bill that I know has health support is the super speeders. And you had said don't talk about the DMV bill because it's not DMV bill. Wait till the t bill. So I'd really like to talk about it in the t bill because safety was our number one thing. And if you wanna stop people from getting hit by fast cars, this might be the solution. There you Those are my pitches. It's only incremental fee based on the number of tickets. Right? It's you get it's like an ignition lock device. It's basically in your car as for speeding, so you would not be able to go. Yeah. It would stop your car from going over that. Governor.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: It doesn't.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Put the governor in your car. You're the local guy. Power your speed. Yeah.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: To It's a good cop.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, since we're doing our list, I have one Oh. Small thing. We had the testimony from my constituent in Worsville that felt like she didn't get the history of Yes. The vehicle. From CARFAX. I'm not really sure that we CARFAX and everybody on the planet would like to testify on that. I may ask the committee to consider a small piece and it would ask DMV for a recommendation in a report for next year.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, she was Yes, very

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: that is an issue. So are we going around the room? I also have projects that I really bridge projects that I need to talk to you all about and that kind of leads to a conversation about the process and how locals are able to tell VTrans their priorities. Then the reason I was late, second time, sorry, was when I was speaking with the transit providers because they still have that bill and I think it's really important that the providers be compatible with state law in terms of how the boards are populated and that's not just being picky about state law, but I think it's better for the public and for their service.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And I think we have Damian working on language specifically around that piece. Which? Around prioritization language. I think we have it asked at that point, so I don't know. Great. So the request that I have is to have the trans consider input from the transportation advisory committees from the local planning and development or regional planning commissions. Really? Yeah. So that that's what I have. I don't have anything specific to those two bridges that are No. Well, those are in

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: the white book, I thought we were gonna talk about projects in the white book.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We I wanna bring that up in in that

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: And I don't know

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: about the conversation about your local projects too.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: But if we were gonna do that, then we would have to do it for everybody.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I think that's the discussion we're gonna have.

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: Yeah. We do because if you

[Nick Sherman]: have two, I'm gonna come up with two.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Please come up with them. That's what I'm saying. At least that I have the opportunity for each center to pitch their local projects that you

[Jerry Otis (Pike Industries; President, AGC/VT)]: wanna Yes.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: They should be allowed that opportunity then. I'm just it's just so dire. Like, it's so dire. The way I think

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: we should look at that is get a list from B TRANS about what is being either canceled or postponed to. What are these? Because you may not even know which ones are in your area that are being impacted and then look at the list

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: together. I think that's the road that we're going to have and the agency will wanna chime in.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah. Patients is gonna be a big part of the

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: conversation. So at this point,