Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: You're on.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: So this is Senate Transportation, and we're back live, and we have the deputy commissioner of DMV, and we're going to talk about the super speeder or the intelligence speed assistance devices. So you're on. Alright. Matt Russo, deputy commissioner for DMV. So intelligence speed assistance devices, ISA for short, is in infancy stage right now. It's being discussed nationwide. There are only three states that have passed legislation and only one state that's gone live since passing legislation. And that state was just had just gone live back in October, so there's really no data for us to use. The program itself would be very similar to the Intra LAR program, which became mandatory in 2022.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: To the what?

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

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: The Intra LAR program, so restricted driver's license program.

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

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: Yep. In that, you would have them calibrated regularly. They'd be installed for certain convictions. At face value, sounds like an easy process. But because this is a different device, it's gonna have a lot of other requirements and a lot of other unknowns. AMBA does have a subcommittee that's currently focused on ISA and trying to set the standards for ISA nationwide. And again, that also is at an infancy stage. We would need to know how to handle circumventions, noncompliance, intervals for calibration. And then on the flip side, what are the extensions for circumventing or for deviating from the contract that you've signed with the state. NHTSA has begun standards for ISA, but still in development. Nothing said. There is no restriction code for this, so you get a letter code on your license. It's a restriction code that lets the officer know what the restriction is, of the restriction, for instance, is for glasses. We currently have no restriction code for that. So there are a lot of unknowns that we would need to figure out. And while we're not opposed, we would suggest a report so we can iron out the details, what the unknowns are, and we can pay attention to what Canvas deciding on and what they're setting for standards. Questions?

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: So right now, what's the process if someone is a repetitive speeder? It seems like from the way the language is drafted that the goal is to reduce repetitive speeders while also not taking away their license. Kind of, I think about how we do DUIs in a way with the interlock device where if you can show that you are not intoxicated, you can access your vehicle. Well, this is you have a governor on your speed, so you're not able to go over it, you're not able to break that. So do you see, what is our current process? How many times can someone speed in a restricted area before they get enough points essentially, and what happens now?

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: There are certain. This is a point system. So for instance, over, I think it's 30 miles an hour, it's criminal, and you get So eight also suspended, so that in addition to your points, automatically. Statistically just forgot the stats. We over the past five years, we've had 12 convictions for over a 100 miles an hour.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Over, like, in one

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: In the past

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: go? Five years.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: You mean to, like, in one go, someone

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: No.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: No. These are all separate tickets. So there were there were that many tickets that were issued for over

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: a 100 miles an hour.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Wait. Okay. Wait a minute. So what I'm trying to understand is you're in a 25 mile an hour inner area, and you're going a 125 miles an hour?

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: No. These are more than likely gonna be higher if I don't have the stats for what's Not a 100 miles Oh,

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: okay. Like, woah. I was like, that is that is insane. I was like, that doesn't add up. Okay. So this is your at a 100 miles per hour. Okay. I understand what you're saying.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: How many?

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: They were over a 100 was

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: 12. Wow.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: I mean, that's

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: And by the way, within a five year period.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Mean, that's still like

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: How many were duplicate second offenses? So they were all separate IDs. Sorry, one of them was twice. Same day?

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: It was. Oh,

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: they let us go even if they

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: have to

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: get they have to get that convicted. If they're going over a 100, you know, could be 40 miles over the speed limit and they're, they do let him go even though it's eight points.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: Right. I looked that up because it was specific I think in this bill.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And are those all Vermonters? Vermonters.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: Oh, okay.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Do you We didn't get any out of state people?

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: None of us had for the past seven years. Wow.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: So so they so they can get a ticket for going that fast and still go on their way. I thought there was at some point you Yeah.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: I'm not I I would have to look at the statute if if it does become a criminal at the the best. So if they were all interested, they'd all be over 30 miles an hour. There'd be about

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Or 12, I should say.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: There'd be about 12 people

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: 12 people.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Who would be relevant to this discussion

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: That we know of.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: And that was just for that specific

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: matter. Or conviction. Other questions?

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: What was the one state that's Spanish? It's a Georgia, it's DC.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So it was the District of Columbia.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: They have they just went live with the program with ISA in October.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Go ahead.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Well, I do want to point out that I think that we have too many deaths on our roadways currently, and I'm very concerned about that. And I'd like to try any policy solution that moves us in that direction. I'm wondering if you could just generally give us an understanding of what the DMV is doing now that you feel like might be, because I feel like this is a solution I see, and I'm not sure of other things that are happening besides the marketing of, you know, like the signs or enforcement. Are there any other programs or anything that the DMV or AOT is working on to continue to get us at our goals of reducing?

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: Not that I'm

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: aware of.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: Just upping the the enforcement and signage. Thank you.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Do the the DMV officer do speed enforcement, or do they just may pull them over as they get down to them as they're doing the, like, large truck enforcement? They can pull over for for They can't. They actually, like, control for that? They can stop the speeding. They can patrol the speeding. So sometimes they're out just looking for speed. Because I always assumed that they just pull over speeders like somebody zips by them, not realizing that they're a police or they're, you know had a truck stop.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: Yeah they do they do quite a

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: bit of enforcement up there.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Thank you. Thank you.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I definitely would like to do something with this. I'm at least put the report in, but I think we'll come back around and discuss what want to do, which is I will say that after this bill, they've said we are going to allow morning committees to meet for another two or three weeks.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Oh, wait, beyond May 8? Well Or up until May 8.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Up until May So in that period of time, yeah, this is one of those issues that if we didn't do something this year, I'd like to take testimony. And then, you know, there isn't a clear vehicle. We have language in the T Bill about a study. We could have to swap it out, at the very least it would say for January when we would come back, we'd be in the center. But we need to, let's have the whole discussion when we get to the section to do that. Okay,

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: so thank you. I appreciate knowing that there's some study language in our most recent draft, so that's helpful to know.

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

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: that came from them.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: It is not in the draft yet because we haven't discussed it.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Oh. Guess

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: so. But

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: I can put that

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Put put it in the draft.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Yeah. Because I hadn't seen it, and I was like, wait. Hold on. No problem. Thank you. So it sounds like we would discuss that. I guess my other question would be, I think they what was confusing about this bill in particular outside of just going to judiciary was that we had originally talked about it in relation to the DMV miscellaneous bill. I think we actually did hear from Amy Cohen at the beginning of the year or at least a representative from the safer streets group. And we had talked about it being more applicable to the T Bill, so we wait to talk about it. So that's one thing I just want to note is that we did talk about it, but

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: we pushed it off to

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: the T bill. But I still think there's a very clear argument to be

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: made that it is more relevant in

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: the DMV bill. And I think the House is considering, because they have a bill that didn't go to judiciary that ended up in their

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: county To transportation committee, so

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: feel good about it, to have a position after we get the t bill out, that this is one of those issues I'd like to I'd like the national organization is developing standards. I'd like to get testimony from them. I think there's a number of places that we should get testimony from. Might be somebody in DC that we could get to talk to us about what this so I I I don't want the issue to die. It's just how do we get this? I really don't wanna go to the floor without without a fair amount of testimony on this because I think, you you know, what are the standards? What are we looking at? But let's when we get that in, we'll we'll have the discussion.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Sounds good, and I would also just say, I guess what I was trying to communicate was, I think we could make it known to the House that we're not against the idea that if they spent time working on it that it would be

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: something that we would be open to.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: We end

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: up If we did not put in the DMV bill because we didn't hear

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: about it. Okay. End up putting a study in and we we gave testimony on it over the period up until the May 8. Okay. Think that kind of says to them, We're not opposed. Correct. I'm not opposed. Just don't know. There were no I've made myself. Yeah.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: No, you did. Thank you.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: And I appreciate you taking the time to

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: hear from the Right.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I think now we're a little ahead of schedule, but, Patrick, you're who's first? Because we're talking Are you

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: give a second. I don't know.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: They're not sure because

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: we're there first. We're back to mileage based user phase. We gotta get through this somehow.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh. Yeah. Well, I think it's Patrick, Evelyn, and Rob are aren't on there unless you want me to walk through it before those.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So What would you like? What what makes more sense, Patrick?

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: Well, mister chair, I would say this was I thought mostly for some of the other parties. I can certainly comment afterwards. Okay. Provide the agency's perspective

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: on But we're enough ahead. So why don't you Oh, we can hear chair. We've No.

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: It's Rob

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: just not here. He is saying because I

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: did email them. I told them we

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: were running early. So Rob Kidd is here on sale.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: He is? Yeah.

[Megan (Committee Assistant/Zoom host)]: Do you want me

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: to let him in?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yep. If if you could let Rob in, we could get started. That's a. Nice.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: Yes. She's dog.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Are you there, Rob?

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: Looks like

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: Perfect.

[Rob Kidd (Chapter Director, Vermont Sierra Club)]: There we go. I I heard you guys were finishing up early, and I I was actually listening to you. And then all of sudden, got Megan's email to join on. So Nice.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Is that spruce that your dog was on?

[Rob Kidd (Chapter Director, Vermont Sierra Club)]: I'm not sure if that was Spruce Spruce or Worcester. I'll I'll look back at it and tell you, Andy. That that those are two her her two favorite spots. Okay. So you're ready for me now?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yep. Good. Well,

[Rob Kidd (Chapter Director, Vermont Sierra Club)]: thank you all for the opportunity, just to speaking onto this issue. My name is Rob Kidd. I'm with the Vermont Sierra Club. Apologies that I'm actually sitting at my house instead of coming to you, but I was just traveling for the weekend, and I have a slight raspy cold that I'm not sure about. So

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: Thank

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: you, Rob.

[Rob Kidd (Chapter Director, Vermont Sierra Club)]: Doing this Thank

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: you for not giving

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: me a shit call.

[Rob Kidd (Chapter Director, Vermont Sierra Club)]: Yeah. But, anyway, so I I am the chapter director for the Vermont Sierra Club. I'm based here in Mount Pillier. We have about 10,000 members and supporters and we've been working on EV issues for about ten years here in Vermont but Sierra Club has been actively following electrification of transportation for many years. We're speaking to you today because we actually are concerned with the mileage based user fee, and we're concerned about some of it may cause a chilling effect into people adoption. In this time of very, like, people are really confused about using EV policy to make them go through extra steps to pay the registration fees, I think is real big challenge. And even till that day, it's like, you know, for the last couple of months, my wife and I have had to travel back and forth to Connecticut and have dealt with so many different chargers. My wife will frequently call me, I can't figure out this charger. So, the work you all are doing with improving charger transparency is very appreciative. But I think we don't want to be overstepping our guns, making things more difficult for people with adopting EVs. We also were appreciative of the work that the the Senate Transportation Committee did a couple years ago. I know Senator Perchlik was there. You weren't yet but when they created the EV registration fee, you made sure that the fee was not punitive. You made sure that the fee was at least EV drivers were paying for as part of their funds. And that and they also you dedicated the money towards EV infrastructure because we still have a long way to get to make it fully 100% viable for everyone. I myself and my wife have no problem getting places with RVs but it's still there's still some infancy so we still need to work on that But I just want to say, I appreciate that original policy. But also, I want to kind of lay out is years ago, the Sierra Club, we flatly opposed the adoption of any EV fees because first off, we wanted to actually make sure that the internal combustion engine pays its fair share of the damage it's doing to our planet and our air pollution. Like I've seen statistics of how much money we would save just by dropping off, like in the region, like millions of dollars would save because of less air pollution. So, we got to also look at that as not just what it's costing to the roads, what it's costing to our planet, what's it costing to our health? My wife has asthma and she's never smoked at all. So, where did that come from? And it's like, you know, we have to look at these different things. So, it's not just about what damages we do to the roads. The climate action plan calls for us to reduce our emissions. And so here is our EV programs are to do that. As well, we also want to make sure when we do make any particular new policy that it goes across the board, not just for EVs. We don't want to see any EV policy adopting that makes it more difficult for an EV driver. You've already addressed it, like, you know, some of the concerns about continuing inspection process. Well, if that's how you're going to calculate the mileage, why is an EV going to have to go to inspection but not an internal combustion engine? So, I wanted to make sure we are aware of that. But also, before I go too much further, I want to acknowledge all the good work that you all have done because Vermont is actually leading the way in EV infrastructure with the charging infrastructure per capita. And we're high up there with their EV adoption. I actually notice it on the roads. When I'm driving, I see how many more EVs there are in the state compared to just across the border in Massachusetts or Connecticut. There is a lot more. So, we're doing a lot of good work, but I still do not see it as the time to kind of pull back onto that path. But also, I wanted to kind of throw out one major concern I have is I keep hearing this talk about EVs need to pay their fair share. Now, you all know because you've been talking about the purchase and use tax. Well, EVs pay the purchase and use tax. What is it? 6%? And with most EVs, they pay a higher cost than the internal combustion engine. So in theory, EVs are paying more money than an internal combustion engine. So that's why I wanted to kind of make sure everybody realizes that. We have the combination of the impacts on the environment and that they're actually paying more money into the purchase use tax than the equivalent vehicles. But as Ray, you're actually written out the concerns about the mileage based user fee. I am actually appreciative in some of the messages that I've seen that you all are looking at of like, actually, how do we get to this to all the vehicles? And I think that is needed. We also need to address how we're going to deduct miles driven out of state. Like I just said, I've been had to drive out of state a bunch. I think I calculated in the last month, my wife and I have driven at least seven fifty miles out of state in our EVs. Well, we have two EVs, only the one that has the better range. So that one was the one that traveled out of state. So how do you deduct that? Were we passing a mileage based user fee without deducting that? And I know there's people who live on the Massachusetts Vermont border who travel more to other places or New Hampshire border or New York. So we have to kind of look at that even more on how we do that. Also, out of state drivers. Currently, gas tax pays 25% of our revenues for the gas tax come from out of state driver. So are we not going to make the fair share for out of state drivers coming into Vermont? Like, you know, and I see more and more EVs from out of state coming in. So, we actually have to do that as well. I am also concerned that, you know, that there's no mechanisms to assist lower income and moderate incomes. We spend a lot of money incentivizing low income folks to get into Mileage Smart program or the low income incentive programs. But here now, we're going to add an extra burden to their costs than what their expectancies are to make it. So, I see that as a major problem. Then also, you know, the challenging technology, you know, people still don't really fully understand how an EV works. They sit there and go up to a charging facility and they're like, oh, how does this operate? Myself, I actually have, because I actually have an undergraduate degree with a little bit of computers, I can figure this stuff out. But some other people are always technologically challenged. So now we're going to actually encourage them to actually do more things to their car because of the EV, because they drive an EV and they're doing what they feel like is the best thing to do. Instead, I think what we should do is make it keep the EV registration fee, keep it lower, and give us time till we can address all those major concerns. I don't think it's a really good path to not pass a mileage based user fee if we don't have these concerns addressed yet. I think it's, you know, if it's the tent is to be fair share, let's make sure we're fairly addressing it. So, that that's basically the crush of my concerns But I actually wanted to say thank you for also looking into the EV transparency that Mr. Perchlik testify on. Also, I know in your bill, there's the right to charge provision about, common communities. I would like to see that explored into all the places where people live, including rentals, but it's a challenging issue. We need to dive into those issues a little bit more. And then also, I want to acknowledge is you all have pledged some support for Drive Electric Vermont. Drive Electric Vermont is one of the most critical resources to the state of Vermont. I have questions about EVs. I call Dave Roberts up all the time. He is the resource. He it will correct people's concerns about EVs and it's a really critical time especially when there is so much misinformation out there on the table. So, I wanna say continue to support that. And that's in conclusion. And I just would like you to see delay adoption of this bill or this fee. The whole bill obviously is going to go through. You need the most fast bill. But I hope to see a delay in implementation. And I submitted a written testimony last week, so if you need further clarification on what I said or you have any questions, I can do that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Questions? I don't see any hands, Rob. Thank you very much.

[Rob Kidd (Chapter Director, Vermont Sierra Club)]: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: Thanks, Rob. Thank you. Committee.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Welcome back.

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: We hear the train.

[Rob Kidd (Chapter Director, Vermont Sierra Club)]: Oh, yeah. This is the same train. Well well, the chair knows where I live. I'm across the street from where Israel was. So so thanks.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: The next witness is said they will be here in five minutes, ten minutes So hopefully they'll be here in two minutes.

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: Do you want to take a break until we get there?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I, you will see in the draft, and I asked them if they put it in section 37 of the bill on page 66, there's highlighted the number for dry electric Vermont. The house put in it was like 190 something.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: When You said 56?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: $80.66. '6. '6 and 37. I think it was 325,000 that driver electric Vermont said they

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: had enough

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: money to go through the first quarter of the year when I think it was Dave, it was here, when he I asked him, given that it's about 50 to $52,000 short. So this reflects what I believe we heard that would get them first quarter of the year they've got paid for, so they need to go last three quarters, and the $242,000 would get down to the $325,000

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: Oh, okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So they need $3.25 to operate the whole year.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: So the

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: They've got the money to go through till the September so that the money that the house put in is 50,000 short of the $3.25. So this number would get them to the $2.25 effectively to do the $4.23.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Okay, great. So can I just say what you said a little bit different so I understand? That first quarter is not included in the $2.42 number. That is separate. So that's not inclusive of it. It's $2.42 on top of their first quarter. Great. Thank you. I think that that's a really wonderful nod to the amount of work that's gonna be needed. And

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I think that's what they said, 03/25 was what Yes, they yes.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So when we go through this, we'll do that. So we have Which one of the two of you would like to go first?

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: Well, Chair, we were wondering if we might

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

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Oh, that's fine. You both want to Thank

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: you. I'd love to go. We just got the note that you could have come earlier if you're

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, we're back

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: in the we're the

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: chat, but then I thought

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: we were going Good. We

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: did send a presentation, and I don't know if Megan you can You have anything like the three pens? Okay. We'll have to do that. Well, do really appreciate that for driving.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: That's great. And Sandra Watson had asked me

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: if that also needs to be

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: approved especially in the budget. And I told him no.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: I didn't think it was in. It's just the

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: the drive electric edition. Show up in the All the numbers in here will end up Okay. In the budget. But it will it but it's automatic. Okay.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: I did answer incorrectly.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Your appropriations at Chase. That's right. And when we get into this, I'll tell you where we move the money from to get there Okay. When we go through the t dose. Thanks.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: Enter full screen. So if it's in Canvas. The

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Excellent. There we go.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: Thanks. Team effort. Yes. Happy Monday. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today. I'm trying to make efficient use of your time based on the different hats that we wear. Appreciate the opportunity to testify jointly. So my name is Johanna Miller. I'm the Energy Climate Program Director for Vermont Natural Resources Council. I'm joined by my colleague Evelyn Seidner, our Climate Action Coordinator Organizer. Really appreciate the opportunity to testify today a little bit broadly on T BILT, but mostly we're here to talk about the mileage based user fee. So thank you. I'm just going to give you a little bit of context about the perspective from my position that we bring to the table, then I'm going to turn it over to Evelyn briefly and we're going to go through these slides as quickly as possible. So first, as Energy and Climate Program Director, a

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: big role that I have

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: is helping to coordinate the statewide network of town energy committees across Vermont. As you probably likely know, about half of the towns in the state of Vermont have these mostly municipally appointed grassroots groups, and we play a coordinating role to support their efforts, working with their municipalities directly and the people in them to cut costs, cut climate depletion, that sort of thing. This actually timely. This sort of framework was enabled in the early seventies when there was the first oil embargoes. And in the mid two thousands, the initial statutory was about saving people's money and saving energy related to the oil embargo. Feels eerily similar at this moment, but in the mid two thousands when climate change became more and more of a concern for many communities, we helped start many a town energy committee and now we continue to support them with a network of partners. That really informs our policy work supporting communities across the state. I'm also an appointed member of the Vermont Climate Council serving on the cross sector mitigation sector, a subcommittee which is focused on cutting climate pollution and energy costs and obviously transportation being the lion's share of where pollution comes from. Since the Climate Council was convened, I've also co led the Transportation Task group of the council working closely with B TRANS, their staff, other climate counselors, key stakeholders to discuss, walk through, inform, and advance the transportation focused recommendations of the Climate Action Plan. I'm sure you are very well aware that vehicle electrification is a cornerstone key strategy to reduce climate pollution in our beautiful state, which is very rural, and many people have to drive to work, get where they need to go, to hospital appointments and more. So, in short, we cannot attain our climate requirements, our commitments, to not only get off of fossil fuels, but to also help equitably cut transportation and spending without a cornerstone role for electric vehicles.

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: And another part of our transportation work is the NRC helps to coordinate the Transportation for Vermonters Coalition, which you may know, But it is a coalition of over 15 different organizations that all represent individuals in Vermont, businesses and institutions working to advance an accessible, affordable and sustainable transportation for all Vermonters. And of course, electrification of our transportation system is a very important component of our coalition's work. In addition to really ensuring that our communities are walkable and bikeable, and we have sufficient funds for public transit. Those are kind of where our big priorities are in that coalition.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: But enough about us. Let's talk about you and the important work and conversations that you are having related to the mileage based user fee in particular. So, as we shared in the joint letter that we submitted with BPERG, Conservation Lock Foundation and Vermont Conservation Promoters last week, we certainly recognized that the transportation system in Vermont faces many challenges, funding revenues in decline, while the need to maintain infrastructure, expand affordable mobility options, and reduce climate pollution from Vermont's most polluting sector just grows. At the same time, transportation is consistently the largest source of the state's climate pollution. As you can see here, I'm sure you've seen it many different ways, 40% of where pollution comes from comes from transportation.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Can I just make a comment and then just a So quick I'm so glad that we're getting to transportation because it seems like we haven't gotten to it as soon as I would have liked? And this is from your annual report that you guys do, which is amazing. I just wanted to make a shout out to that. And at some point we'll talk about trucks and diesel and just that, how much of this is semis? That would be good to know and you probably already do know it.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: Maybe, and we will be happy to help you if we can. Just noting though that this analysis that we lean heavily on is done by the Energy Action Network, which is an ally of the organization, but not us. That's the report. Not to be confused with the Vermont Energy and Climate Action Network or BNRC. It's Jared. It's yeah, Jared DuBall and his team of analysts. So again, we know transportation pollution is a significant challenge and I'm happy to try and get you answers and communicate with Jared directly if that's okay. But also, transportation costs are one of the largest household expenses, especially in rural areas for rural Vermonters, where they tend to be about 21% of annual household cost for many families. So just to say, you know, second often only to housing in terms of the household expenditure. So in short, it already costs a lot, for people to get where they need to go. All the while due to the latest war, gas prices are skyrocketing and again, the pump in just a matter of weeks. As you've seen, the cost of gasoline has risen by about over a dollar a gallon. At the March, actually, so several weeks ago already, the cost for gasoline rose by more than $50 a month for the average Vermont driver. So again, but that's old news. The prices have only continued to go up. I had to go to a soccer event for my kiddo the other day and that seemed fluctuating from $4.00 9 to $4.20 in Central Vermont. So, I mean, we have a strong reliance on imported fossil fuels for our transportation sector and beyond, but it is increasingly and painfully clear that there's a need to prioritize making it easier and more affordable for monitors to access cleaner electrification for transportation and beyond, and electric vehicles, which are some of the most cost effective, cost stable and cleanest transportation solutions that we have. Turn it over to Eleanor.

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: So as Joni just said, EVs are more cost effective than traditional gas and diesel fueled vehicles through both maintenance costs and operational costs, but they're also more efficient. And so the two graphs here, the first one kind of points to the maintenance and operational costs over a lifetime of an ICE versus an electric vehicle. And then the second one really shows the difference in efficiency, which I find really interesting, especially in this conversation about turning our revenue towards a mileage fee. And just noting that the efficiency of an electric vehicle is pretty significantly different than an ICE vehicle. So just reiterating what's on the screen. Most of the energy used by an ICE vehicle is wasted via heat and other engine losses with only 16 to 25% of the total energy from gasoline actually being delivered toward the wheels and moving you forward. Meanwhile, 87 to 91% of the energy used in an electric vehicle is delivered to the wheels, getting you where you need to go. And so, can go to the next slide. So, because of this, each dollar spent on energy goes much farther in an EV than in a fossil fuel combustion car. And so, as you can see in this slide, a dollar spent on fuel for an average gasoline car will only propel the vehicle seven miles, while a dollar spent on electricity moves the car two to three times farther, which is pretty significant, I think. All right, I think we can, yeah. And so you saw this slide when Dave Roberts came in to testify on Friday, but I just wanted to reiterate this point because it's more important than ever to support the uptake of electric vehicles right now because the world is moving in that direction. Right? So with the federal government's shortsighted retreat from the cleanest, least cost energy suppliers, it's more important that states and that Vermont steps up in this moment to fill the gap. And it's said, make it easier and more attractive to lean into this beneficial electrification for transportation and also to support our state and our economy moving where the world is going.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Interesting about the battery pack is that people had expected for years that that price would increase with all of the changes that we've had otherwise that would have caused it to. So probably economy scale or something. And innovation elsewhere in

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: the world. As electric vehicle adoption continues to grow, it is important that these electric vehicles help fund our transportation system. We definitely believe that. It's also critical that the legislature crafts new policy to fill those gaps in a

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: way that

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: disincentivizes vehicles that are thirtieth vehicles and are costing Vermonters more and incentivizes those vehicles that are more cost effective and clean. And so our goal is to ensure that as you consider a mileage based user fee, which we are supportive to, supportive of, that you do so in a way that is seamless, fair, and prioritizes and not potentially penalizes cleaner, less costly vehicles. So we just wanted to walk through a few of the principles. Again, we agree that electric vehicles should be paying to support roads and bridges, but we worry that moving forward with a mandatory mileage based user fee out of the gate, which no other state has done yet, and Evelyn's going to get more into that. So moving straight to a mandatory program could have negative long term impacts for fostering greater EV uptake in adoption, And we very much appreciate the work, all the work that you've done and that B TRANS has done over time to set the table for moving down this road. Again, a road that we support moving down. But it's going to be complex, which you know, it's a big new needed program and as such could be confusing for consumers and likely to be fairly administratively burdensome. So just wanted to share with you some thoughts on principles that we hope you'll consider as you refine your work and move move Vermont down this road. But again, as EV adoption continues to grow, it's important that these vehicles help fund our shared transportation network. I just want to say that again. We believe that. It's important to fairly fund roads and bridges, but avoiding making it more expensive or more difficult for EVs over internal combustion engines. It's really important to get a big new program right for the long term efficacy and success of the program. That's why we want to recommend a potential stepped approach that you have on the table in front of you. We're very glad to see that. We also firmly believe that contributions to the transportation fund should accurately reflect the vehicle's true impacts on the environment, on our infrastructure, on public health and beyond, which is one of the reasons we want to put on the table, you know, just putting electric vehicles on par, not paying more than internal combustion engines. This is really important last point on the principles. That we need to be implementing the MIOS based user fee in a way that supports, complements and doesn't undermine our obligations under the Global Warming Solutions Act, which are fundamental provisions not only because our planet is warming and that has significant consequences. According to my beautiful hometown Montpelier that is still grappling with the costs of devastating flooding, we know climate change is here, it is happening, it is costly, and it is going to intensify. And in the in the state of Vermont where we don't mine, frac, or drill, where we import all fossil fuels that we use, it's a significant cost opportunity to help Vermonters get off of fossil fuels and realize the cost and other benefits that Evelyn noted in terms of the more fuel efficient and technologies like electric vehicles. I'll turn it

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: over to

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: Evelyn to get into more specifics about the MBAF recommendations. Yeah, so as Joey just kind of outlined while talking through the

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: principles, VNRC has four specific recommendations regarding the current mileage based user fee proposal. So the first one is that we really recommend that the mileage based user fee start out as voluntary, meaning you can pay an increased flat fee or participate in the mileage based user fee until the agency completes the necessary reports on the transition plan for all vehicles and how to cover all vehicles.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Do you want to finish or do you want questions first?

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: I think it's up to you. Yeah.

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: You are happy to answer a question.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: I just have a question about we have the most recent draft. I don't okay. I don't know if that were actually I don't think it reflects that. Like to me, we've kind of gone back and forth on like, what does voluntary mean? But for me, it feels like delaying the enforcement in particular, like not allowing for denial registration, but having that flat fee or being able to choose if you

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: want to join the envelope program.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Do you think that would kind of sufficiently address that voluntary request or is there additional language that you have that?

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: I think we have some additional language on the next slide. As far as the voluntary component, I think it's our position and Joe can also speak to this, that due to the research that the UVM Transportation Research Center has done, it's clear that the $89 infrastructure fee that EVs are currently paying is not on par with what the annual gas tax kind of cost is to most Vermont drivers. So we are supportive of creating a higher infrastructure fee that better reflects what the annual average costs are to most Vermonters to make sure that EVs are paying kind of on par with with most of our residents. But that the enrollment in the mileage based user fee isn't an option. So you can pay an increased flat fee, we're supportive of that, or you can choose to enroll in this new program and help the agency kind of work out the kinks, but did not meet mandatory. Thank you. Yep.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: The goal of it being sort of it's a big new program. It's a needed program. We are grateful you've done the work. We translate the foundation and sort of a step approach for us, I think would be important.

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: And we also recognize that there is a federal grant on the line and we are fully supportive of making sure that Vermont can get those funds. We know that's a critical component of this work and that the deadline is January 2027 to do that. But there have been other states who have been able to utilize that same grant funding and they've started out as a voluntary program. So that we're just recommending that Vermont be in line with what other states have done. And so kind of continuing on, we were supportive of an approach that has EVs paying more in line with their usage as we just talked about. And the proposal that the committee is currently considering, which was brought up last week, I believe, is doubling the infrastructure fee from $89 to $178 And like I said, we support EVs paying more, but we do have significant concerns that is currently laid out in the proposal. It would have the average EV driver paying more than the average fossil fuel vehicle. And so that is why our second recommendation is that the flat fee and PAP, which is the current language, should not be more than what the average ICE driver pays in

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: annual taxes.

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: Like I just said, the most recent proposal to double the infrastructure fee would have EVs paying more than the least efficient vehicles are paying currently. And we want to promote, not penalize driving electric because kind of as we laid out in the introduction and the principles, EV drivers help meet our climate targets. They're more cost effective, affordable and efficient in the long term. And we really do need Vermont to step up in this moment of kind of when the federal government is dangerously retreating from these cleaner and less costly transportation options. However, if you do, If you do choose to move forward with doubling the current infrastructure fee, we really suggest allocating that $24 difference to go towards Charge Vermont's EVSE grant program, which is administered by ACCD. And it supports the deployment of electric vehicle supply equipment at workplaces and multi unit residences in specific counties. It was open to all,

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: but some have already spent down. So that's why there are

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: some still open though. And this program is currently being funded by the $89 infrastructure fee, which currently is struck

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: from future bills from

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: the statute right now in the proposal. And we all know that the infrastructure is a critical component to ensuring that Vermonters can continue to adopt electrification of their transportation options. We really need to keep supporting Vermont's EVSE built out, for workplaces and multi unit residences where that's kind of the least accessible opportunity that Vermonters have for people driving electric right now. So in order to do that, it needs stable funding.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: I we can go next. So oh, did you want to?

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: Okay. I made this chart up because I think there's been a lot of conversation about what other states are doing and what Vermont's proposal is. For me, it's helpful to have a visual. So I just, I did some research on the other states current mileage based user fee or road usage charge programs. And I just wanted to point out that currently all of the pro the four states, which, you know, arranged from 2015, that was when Oregon implemented theirs to 2025, in Kauai, they all began as voluntary, and they all offer some type of flat fee. I think Oregon is the kind of has moved the furthest along and it's the most expensive, but they've also had their program implemented for over a decade. Yeah. And it is still it is still voluntary. Hawaii is on track to be the first state to move to a mandatory program in 2028. So that's three years after they've implemented their program. And currently they have a flat fee that also acts as a cap of $50 So Vermont's current proposal is significantly more than that. Utah's cap and flat fee right now is a $180, which is more in line with what Vermont is proposing. And then I just wanted to point out that they also have some different ways that they create the rate. So Virginia, for example, it's based on the each car's fuel efficiency and it's updated annually. I just felt that that was an interesting kind of way. They ensure every year that they're kind of creating a more fair system than just a flat kind of mileage rate. Whereas one of the earlier slides pointed to how efficient an electric vehicle is. So kind of basing the rate that they're paying off of a 23 or 25 mile per gallon average really isn't quite accurate with the efficiency of that vehicle. I

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: have just one question now, then I'll have more, but just on this, on Virginia, do you know if they look at the price of gasoline? I would. Especially with what we've had now with the changes, that would be a good reason to update it annually.

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: Yeah, I would have to go back and look at my research, but I know some of them do index the fee too.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Great, and index it to the actual price, just a number each year that's the same number but they index it to the price of gasoline. I'll have to go back and look

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: I really confirm with you.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: We can also do that even if others don't.

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: Yes, I would ask Logan. Thanks. Okay, yeah, perfect. I think that's pretty much what I wanted to reiterate. Yeah, and so our third recommendation, we really appreciate the transition plan report that's currently laid out in the mileage based user fee proposal. I think it's really important that a lot of those questions get answered and that's kind of our whole position on this that electric vehicles should not be the guinea pigs of a program that still needs a lot

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: of

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: answers. And just one that we want to to make sure it gets kind of in the mix is how Vermont as a state can capture out of state revenue from electric vehicle drivers because that currently is is not in the report and it hasn't really been figured out by the state. But as society moves toward electrification, that's gonna be a really critical piece of Vermont's transportation fund. Currently, I think it's estimated that anywhere 25 to 30% of our revenue comes from out of state drivers.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: And so the more the more electric vehicle adoption increases, the the more revenue we're gonna be losing if we don't start looking at that. That estimate may have changed with the Canadian transport to and from our lovely state. But that's along the lines of what it has been in the past, which is a significant share.

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: So for our final recommendation is just there is language that indexes the mileage based user fee a year after, I believe a year after all vehicles are covered, defined as covered vehicles. And we just really want to kind of reiterate the importance of indexing the gas tax at that time or before, as Vermont progressively moves our state's registered vehicles toward the MBUV system. Out of state tourists will increasingly be the only drivers assessed under the gas tax. So if we don't index the gas tax between now and 2032, we're just going to be missing a really critical opportunity to raise revenue from non Vermonters

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: that could have gone toward

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: transportation infrastructure investments that make Vermonter communities safer, more accessible and more resilient in the long term. And I'll hand it back over

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: to So just in conclusion, we support moving towards a mileage based user fee if it's structured well, strategically rolled out, and fairly implemented. Moving too quickly, however, and making it mandatory out of the gate could undermine attaining those goals, we think. So, I mean, we know that administering a per mile system is more complex and costly than collecting taxes at the wholesale level like we do with fuel taxes. So shifting to this new system is gonna require probably significant investment, you know, years of investment in public education to to build trust as well as awareness about how to comply with the new system so there aren't unintended consequences and, also consternation. I mean, if you've driven an electric vehicle, show up. This is another piece of equation. The goal is not to create more consternation. It's to make it simple, as simple, as fair, as equitable, and easy as possible to ensure the EDs are paying for the roads and bridges that they're driving on, but through a program that is more seamlessly integrated as a new significant shift. So just wanted to say, thank you for your hard work. We know again, B TRANS has been doing a lot of good hard work on this. We really appreciate your consideration of our input. And again, we definitely are aware that, you know, of the reality and the challenges facing our transportation budget and, that's impact on our roads and we support a more equitable system, but how we do it matters. And it's our hope that we move down the electrification road further and faster. And again, states have a really important role to play in this moment while the federal government advocates, the future and the cleanest, less costly vehicles. So, you know, in cost, the pumpers are skyrocketing. Electric vehicles are looking really good at the moment. We wanna help people, especially low income Vermonters, which get into these electric vehicles. So that's where we're coming from, and we very much appreciate the work and the conversation at the table that you're considering at this moment. So happy to answer any questions or

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: can certainly potentially follow-up. So there's a slide that I really want to have up there that Megan has that we've seen before that shows our current network of chargers and then what should be done at the 2027 because I think people who are watching this care about EVs and not knowing if you can charge is a huge barrier. That was a barrier for me, that's why I have a hybrid instead of an all EV. So I just want it to be seen as much as possible. Is that okay with you? Chair?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Do we have the chair? Yes.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: If you stop sharing it, Mr. Chair.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: And that's also great information too because they are becoming, the market finally is showing that EVs or is making it so that EVs are a logical choice even if you're not worried about climate. So just I don't know if you remember we saw that slide and so the map on the left is what we currently have and the map on the right is what we should have by the 2017.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: We don't have the ones on the left, they're just under contract. Only have one of them.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: You're right, you're right. Yeah, the Bradford one is getting And is that would have happened a lot sooner if we hadn't had the wackiness of the federal government taking the money away, but then they gave it back. It's probably not the right word, but they had to continue giving it to us. But the one on the right is notable. So I just wanted, when we're talking about challenges of mBuff and how it could deter folks, just wanna make sure that people know that there's a good future to the charging stations and I'd really like to know how many out of state folks are using, especially private chargers and we just had ChargePoint in a couple minutes ago, a few minutes ago, but they should be able to give us that data. One of the benefits and, not benefits, of charging is that it's a data issue, right? Because when you charge at a place where you have to have an account, they know who you are, where you live, lots of other things about you. So with ChargePoint, generally you need to have an account. I have an account with them.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I'm not real thrilled that we don't have better rules around no sharing.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Me either and so that's something I need to talk about at some point.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Which we have in the new draft.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Which is great, but while we can get information, I don't want detailed information on who people are, but I would like to know the amount of customers that are out of state because out of state with EVs is much more on the public chargers than it is gas stations. I mean gas stations, if you have a gas car, you have to go to a gas station, know, Vermonters, but Vermonturs who have EVs, a good amount of them, which I'd like to know that number too, we don't know that number, have home charging stations. Like I didn't even want a home charging station, but it was so annoying going to the ones that were broken that then we did put up the money to do it. We can just learn more about this system and who's doing what and paying what now in this period of time while we Charter Point more than the private ones. So that's one thing. And then the fees, we'll talk about the fees. I mean voluntary versus, mean there is already a fee that I understand was supported by drivers and proponents of EVs

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: to- Not really, but yeah.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: We've accepted it. No, that's what I heard that many of them wanted to pay something for the roads and that people were dismissive and negative about EVs and so that was a

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: way

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: to cheer it up. I appreciate that that was the case and I want to keep that spirit going.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And then I have to say piece of wood. This is a whole another time we can't do it here. You know, part of the issue for transportation comes in that the charges that are on electric charging are sales tax, and that doesn't go to transportation. That goes to the. And that's something in the future that we can't do everything here, that's going to have to be talked about.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Right, and then there might be other taxes or fees that could be looked at. And then just one other thing that I think is important is that this is a relatively small population and we know them. We have their, because they're registered at the state. And we did require that VTrans be very active and communicate with those folks both before anything goes into effect with whichever method we use so that we can update it and change it based on customer experience. So I think that's really important and if we're going to start this somewhere that's a better way to start because it's a very relatively small population that we can directly communicate with.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I deeply appreciate you bringing forward these perspectives. I feel like I've been kind of saying them and then been the only one saying them. I just want to be clear that the way that you come up with your opinions are based off of communication with the organizations you work with, like the full coalition of transportation for bond. This isn't some extreme perspective. This comes from you've worked with people who are involved with electric vehicles and are asking for something specific. I think that the thing that was most compelling to me about your testimony is very similar to what we've gotten over email. I've been getting tons of emails from EV drivers in my district who are really concerned about the increased cost. And one example, not for my district, but from Montpelier, we got a person who so interested in understanding how the fee would impact them that they broke it out and compared their own vehicle, their own EV to if they had a different kind of car and what they would be paying. And I really appreciated this. Because to your point, it's how are we doing the rate? So if we had someone who drove 15,000 miles in a year, and this is based off the 0.31 gallon, all of that. If they drove a Toyota Tacoma, they would pay around $2.00 $2 in gas taxes in Vermont. If they had the Toyota Camry, which has 50 miles per gallon, they would pay $93 in gas tax. And if they had a Prius, which is 57 miles per gallon, they would pay 81. So in that logic, the more efficient your vehicle, the less you pay. But if you drove an EV fault, you would pay $210 in EV fees. So even more money than the least efficient of those three options, the Toyota Tacoma. I think the point that you're articulating is we are disincentivizing having a highly efficient vehicle, both using electricity and just like a kinetic energy difference as you described. I think that this isn't actually fair in the way that we keep framing it up. And I appreciate that you were able to articulate that so persuasively. I remember representative Curt McCormack talking extensively about the concept of fee baits. And we spent a lot of time, would fee baits work? Would they not? And there was I just felt like no conversation like that in the mBuff creation. So it feels like we've missed kind of a key piece of why we're trying to incentivize EVs, and it's because they're more efficient and we shouldn't be penalizing them with higher usage fees than some of the least efficient vehicles in our fleet. So I appreciate your testimony. And I would like to

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: do all four things. Well, very much appreciate the opportunity to testify. Again, we understand the conundrum that the state is in, and we wanna be participants in solving hard problems. Sometimes I think about the state of the transportation fund is kind of analogous to the state of the climate crisis and that we have not fully out of the gate paid what we've probably needed to pay to create a very robust system that underhirds our entire economy. So as we work to fill the gaps in that funding, it's just our hope that we take a step process that, you know, again, puts electric vehicles on tap to support the infrastructure, but in a way that doesn't have our cleanest vehicles paying more than the dirtiest, least efficient vehicles on the road. So thank you for, the consideration of our input, the potential proposal, which I'm assuming if you consider this, like, taking the $24 difference between the average ICE vehicle and the average EV vehicle that you wanna get, you know, ACCD in here in particular. But and I totally appreciate your point on the EV deployment. I wonder if you took that map and put gas stations over it. Probably see a bajillion more. And from my close work as communities, have a robust network. It's getting more robust. To be trans is really led in this arena, and I'm deeply grateful for that leadership. And there's more work to do to build out a system that serves everyone equitably and efficiently. So thank you so much for your work, your time, and grateful to be here on Monday. I'm sorry you have to be here on Monday, but this is really good and important work.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: If we can follow-up anyway.

[Evelyn Seidner (Climate Action Coordinator, VNRC)]: Great. Happy to follow-up. Thank

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: you very much. Is Jeremy She's here. Okay. We're gonna switch gears and on in the draft we've got, we're gonna talk about the Amy's Catalypse and we're going to do a demo of this layout of health care screening. And then tomorrow, we're gonna section by section, gonna do much of this as we can, and get as much off the table as we can. Are we hearing hearing about that? I'm after Jeremy can only be here half an hour. I don't know how long you guys wanna be here, but if it was my hope that we put Patrick in the chair after Jeremy covers what he's got, then we shouldn't take long.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Okay. I have to be

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: done by 04:30, if that's okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. Fine. You know, if I hang on to you for an hour, that's probably the most I can do.

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

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That doesn't look like Georgia.

[Jeremy (VTrans finance/program official)]: I figured you wouldn't wanna see the inside of my hotel room.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So I I you you know, are you learning anything?

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Yeah.

[Jeremy (VTrans finance/program official)]: Actually have. I've talked to the main DOT about their bonding and their financial struggles and some relatively poor news on federal reauthorization. So as as per typical, I come bearing good news.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, I hope reauthorization, you're telling them more money would be good.

[Jeremy (VTrans finance/program official)]: Yeah. I don't know that we're there yet, but

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: we've got a couple of issues here. First issue in the new draft section three, can you talk to tell us about the movement of money to get the 1.7 to put in added onto the eight onto the seven?

[Jeremy (VTrans finance/program official)]: Yeah. So this is essentially taking 1.7 out of the pilot for the TIB and or for the TIB and directing that money to state highway bridge projects that were identified to use t fund with the $10,000,000 purchase and use sort of recapture, and then taking the 1.7 and T fund for those bridge projects and moving it over to district leveling project. So that would increase the district leveling TBD item by $1,700,000 and keep state highway bridges at the zero net difference.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So can you remind us per million dollars in district leveling about how much you can treat?

[Jeremy (VTrans finance/program official)]: We can probably treat roughly three miles per million.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So the present 7,000,000 would be about 21 miles and at 8.7 we could probably do.

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

[Jeremy (VTrans finance/program official)]: Roughly 25. I mean, there's a lot of variables that go into that, but you're you're probably adding five to seven miles of district leveling with the 1.7.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And, know, part of the thinking is that's where we're gonna have to go if we're doing only 55 miles worth of statewide paving, and we have 2,700 miles of road. We're gonna need more of leveling than we ever have.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: This is in the draft.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: This is in the draft on page seven at the bottom in B, you'll see the movement of the money, but you don't And then you see at the top part in A, we moved the money out of the TIP bond fund and we moved them into longer term projects. What the house did was they not withstood language to take it out of the TIP bond fund. This would move the TIP fund money and replace TIP fund money and move it out. The stickler within this is if you would not withstand, you leave yourself open to the bond houses question. Oh really? I don't why would that Because they only approved of this because we created a special fund that only did projects of how many years in length, Jeremy?

[Jeremy (VTrans finance/program official)]: It has to have a design life or useful life, I think is a phrase of over ten years.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Oh, so we could just put that in there.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: You can't just put that into paving or hand it out to the town. No, no, I understand. I got some reviews then. Notwithstanding it would Would the bond houses in this world would come and say, why did you not withstand that? Because you created a bond. It it's like and you're probably better at this than I am.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: No. I would just say because then we're not following our rules. Yes. That's why the bonding companies don't like that. But isn't the point of this

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: that we also would only use those funds on projects that like fit that description?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: That's what we're trying to That's what we're doing. That's what we're And

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: the house didn't do that.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: I got it. Thank you.

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

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: So when we did the TIP bug, things must have changed obviously over time. It was thirty years. Yep. Are we wrong about that? Just why I don't want

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: to They went from thirty to 22.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: Yeah. So it's been it's down to ten now. So it actually there are three different categories in there that are covered. Okay.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: There's thirty year bridge projects, bridge culvert, etcetera Yeah. For state highway. There's the for the town highway. And then I need to double check the language. But it's the bottom line that Jeremy identified is that regardless, the the money has to be used for a project that has a a long design life if which leveling doesn't because that's only a handful of years.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: So What if we only paved the road every fifty years?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Well, we're getting there.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We're getting there. At some place I hope we don't get it.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: So that's why we've we've done this exercise many times in the past. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We've used the bond fund to fund bridges and to fund long term projects before, so this is nothing new. But in what the House did, they now withstood it and they so this seems safer. Understood. Jeremy is correct,

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: the Title 19 language does say ten years. It's think the title 32 TIP fund language speaking to the actual bonds says thirty years. So you can spend TIP fund money on things that have a ten year life, But if you're bonding, it has to be a thirty year life. Does that make sense? So

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: it's about thirty years. Yeah. Okay.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: So, yeah, Jeremy was entirely right with the ten year

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: language. How about that Jeremy?

[Jeremy (VTrans finance/program official)]: Get one now and then.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: That was a suck.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And I would say this is getting ready for this committee. The House put the money toward the tenants directly to the towns. And one would question if you're bringing the 1.7 towards the towns, but it's just for this year with nothing that goes on into the future, us taking the money from the local option tax that hopefully, as that pot grows into the future, that will be a more consistent pot of money going to the towns into the future every year.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: So you could essentially what was the amount that we landed on that you would get next year? There was some I was hoping that

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Logan was going to be here. I went over it before we started eating. Oh,

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: no.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Oh my god. With the dogs. That we can't sleep. Were you at the door? Oh.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: Well, asked if

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: she's She's asking about we asked for a chart on the local option tax, what it would look like going forward.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Right. That would go to the town. Yes,

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: that that

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Like next, like, 2028, what, with our predictions, knowing that they might change or go up or go down, but, we asked for a chart for that. Have you seen one yet?

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: Yeah, Ted has a chart. Ted Brennan has a chart so you can present tomorrow. Okay, that's good.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: That's awesome. I think my one concern would be I would hate to be the committee making it that they get less money. Know, like I don't

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We do put in this 3,000,000 out of that instead, and this would have been 1.7.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Exactly. Okay. Perfect. I feel like I can go with a straight face and make that point.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: The next piece in C in this, have you seen the language Jeremy?

[Jeremy (VTrans finance/program official)]: Yes. Damian sent it to me this morning well, yesterday and this morning, section four paragraph c, which is

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Not adjusting project, but it does push you if anything is put off.

[Jeremy (VTrans finance/program official)]: Yeah, and don't have any objection to that. I'm hearing the committee loud and clear that we need to invest in the state system and directing available funds on a one year basis to the state system doesn't cause any heartburn. I haven't sent to to Damian yet, but one point of clarification might be beneficial and and more in line with the committee's intent to say overruns and underruns because either of those events could cause us to have additional money for the state system.

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: K. K. You got that? Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Tomorrow, as we're going through, we'll have to vote on these, sections.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Yeah. What's your timeline? We are we have to vote the bill out

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: by I'm trying my hope would be that by the end of Wednesday that we have a pretty firm draft, that we can let them so on Thursday we have a clean draft. I'd like to be done I'd like to have voted on this on Thursday. Okay. And then if we mess up, we've got till Friday.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: But

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: the plan would be that by Thursday that we

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: And And it goes then to finance and wait and appropriations.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Right, and if we need to clean anything up, we should have some time in, but I don't expect it will get all the way through the process for at least a week, at least. And so we'll have some time in committee to start if we find anything to clean it up. Jeremy, I think I told you we wouldn't take more than a half an hour, I think we took fifteen minutes. You can go back and you'll be expected to write a handwritten report to each member and transportation committee to report on your findings on your trip to the SAC.

[Jeremy (VTrans finance/program official)]: Thank you, senators. Have a good day.

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

[Jeremy (VTrans finance/program official)]: 82 and sunny, but other than that, it's miserable.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Be

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

[Jeremy (VTrans finance/program official)]: We'll we'll be back later in the week. Thank you.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: See you. Patrick.

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: Thanks very much for director Patrick Murphy, state policy director for the agency of transportation. Wanted to address a couple of the issues that were raised by previous witnesses. I think maybe the first is really getting at this, what is this notion of a voluntary versus mandatory program? In Oregon, in Utah, in Virginia, is a voluntary program where people have the option, they can participate. Utah and Oregon in particular have been more voluntary in the sense that people do volunteer to participate. There are higher flat fees in place. So in Oregon, I just want to correct, the $340 fee in place for 2027. Utah was noted $180 in 2026, but in fact, it becomes $280 in 2027. Their per mile rate is going from 1.25¢ per mile to 1.5¢ per mile. Oregon at 2.3%, 2.3¢.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Hawaii- But I thought Utah had a cap.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: Yes, Utah.

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

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: the cap goes up as well at that point too?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah, to 2 and 80,000.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: Oh, okay. I'm trying

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: to find that hole. It looks like it's two You said that it goes up to what in 2020?

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: So they had on the slide $180 in and 2020 then it goes up to $280 in 2027.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Oh, because what they provided to us on their slides is in 2032

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: would be $2.40 at most.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So I don't know.

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: I can only tell you what I know, which is that it goes up in '27.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Oh, maybe that's a different law change.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: I was just looking back at the presentation that we got from Utah, and

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: it says it would be $2.40 in 2013. Yeah.

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: We had correspondence directly from Utah in the last Okay. Week and a

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: that's new information.

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: Hawaii, which is in you have to sort of cost, so all electric vehicles are paying some sort of rate. It's mandatory that they pay a fee. By 2028, they will have to pay a mileage based user fee. Their rate is capped at $50 but the Department of Transportation there is expecting to raise that at least by 60%, potentially more, and to lift the capital altogether. What we've learned from these voluntary programs, and it doesn't always work to make them voluntary. So it's important to have a sense of the scale of these programs. Where you heard earlier in the session where some programs have only a thousand drivers enrolled. Others may be eleven twelve thousand at most. What we're talking about here is just 13,000 vehicles thereabouts to begin. And so the question is raised that electric vehicles shouldn't be the guinea pigs for this very extensive change in how we fund the entire transportation system. And the question is, well, who should? Because other programs in the past have learned that voluntary doesn't quite work. Right now, electric vehicles on a per vehicle basis are where we're seeing the highest losses to the transportation fund. Not in total because of the number of vehicles, but on a per vehicle basis, that's where we're seeing the highest number of loss to the transportation funds. In successive years, it's been proposed in this committee that we then bring in more vehicles that are also causing losses to the transportation fund. But you can see in sort of the schedule that's laid out for the Virginia program, which has a highway use fee and then the mileage choice, the ability to pay on a permanent basis up to that capped amount. You can see sort of the rough amounts of how a mileage, what the mileage rating translates into in terms of losses to the T Fund. So it's a scale that ranges from six all the way up to electric vehicles in Virginia at $132 What I think is important is the proposal the senator Perchlik brought out last week, which caps the amount that any one vehicle can pay for a mileage reporting period at $178 So when you take the example of the communication you received from constituent around 15,000 miles traveled, And you also take into account what folks just testified to that, you know, fuel savings, maintenance savings, not even getting into maintenance savings for electric vehicles, but fuel savings. When you take those into account, it's really important because an electric vehicle with that cap in place is still saving money over a fossil fuel vehicle. And that's because 32¢ at, whether it's $3.2 per gallon, as we had a few months ago, or now over $4 a gallon, you're saving quite a bit. Dave Roberts last week testified to something around 1.75, the equivalent gallon how far you can travel, that was also testified earlier this afternoon, the amount you can go on $1 is two to three times more in electric vehicle. So it's important to have that context. All these vehicles, electric vehicles, are not paying federal gas tax, federal fuel tax, which is 18.4¢ per gallon, more than half what what vehicles are driven by fossil fuels. And then, in some of the examples that you've heard, Vermont is actually one of the only states that is collecting funds from out of state vehicles. We do, as Chair referenced, have a 6% sales tax on the sale of electricity and public EV chargers. Our surrounding states do not. The nearest state it does is Pennsylvania, which has about a 60¢ gas tax, and then down in Georgia. And there are a handful of states out west. But we're not really in the situation right now because of where things stand with electrification. No other state has really figured out how to capture out of state vehicles traveling within their state. We're not really in a situation where it's the potential for double taxation.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: So

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: I think we've laid out why we're starting with electric vehicles first, that you do have to do this in a stepwise fashion. You can't do something as big and broad as moving all vehicles into a mild space user fee. It has to start somewhere. And what we propose to do is to to start electric vehicles and to learn from that. We've also learned from all of the other states who have tried this in the past. And so that's how we've come to our recommendation. I think it's important to recognize that there isn't actually going to be much difference to the user of an electric vehicle. We did this intentionally. We designed intentionally not to have plug in devices that you have to be mindful of, remember to turn on or plug in, to have phone applications, mobile applications that you have to make sure that the phone is in the car and all these other things that you would need to do as a user. We designed it to fit it into existing systems. So to build on what you all have already invested in, in terms of DMV, IT, core upgrades, but then to be able to have somebody continue to go to their required annual vehicle safety inspections, to continue to go to their registration processes just as they would. And all the difference is, is that there'll be an invoice generated based on the mileage that is in the background collected through our distinct processes. So we don't think, given all the challenges that people do face, figuring out mobile applications to be able to charge their vehicles and everything, we don't think this is a significant lift for folks to be able to manage their way through the process. We do think that the proposal to implement a flat fee, at least in the interim for the first couple of years, makes sense and helps onboard people. We think that the transition that the agency proposed to take where there is an absence of data to be able to continue to pay the $89 fee as is required right now, makes a lot of sense. That you're in effect prepay for a MIDAS reporting period and no person would be out more than $89 when they go to settle up at the point of registration. Moving just to a flat fee does have equity impacts. Right now, who are traveling less than 6,000 miles are paying more on a per mile basis than those traveling more than 7,000, because an $89 fee does not represent every single circumstance. The $178 likewise, is about 12,714 miles. So anybody traveling above that amount is still paying less on a per mile basis, and anyone traveling below that paying more. What we're trying to do with the mileage based industry is get to a fairer place, not to go back and charge more. It's based on an arbitrary number, but to get to a fairer place where we're charging based on an explicit number that people are traveling. And so that is the main thrust, I think, of what we're trying to do. We recognize that it's not going to be perfect in the beginning, but that we need to start somewhere. I wanna be clear about the voluntary nature of the program though. FHWA, the Federal Highway Administration, gave us a $3,000,000 federal grant. That is not to implement a voluntary program. That's to implement a mandatory program. Because they've seen over the past several years the funding that has gone through prior iterations of their programs that are looking for alternative fees, alternative funding mechanisms, that they have floundered, that they're not working, and they want something that can actually scale up, whether it be to a regional or even a national scale. So that is what we are committed to with our federal grant. And I just wanted to be able to stress that point.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So would we owe the 3,000,000 That would be a big question.

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: We're talking about a system where they will just get to opt out indefinitely, that is not what we agreed to with the Federal Highway Administration. Thank

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: you, Mr. Chair. Where do we see the agreement around that? That's different information than what I understand to be true. I think kind of the framing of it is a little interesting. I'd like to know really what are we required to do with the CERTA money because it seems like all the other states were able to do it voluntary, continue to be voluntary. So is there like a specific reference or way you could show that to us?

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: Yes. So, it's a competitive grant program, just like those other states want competitive grants, and they proposed different things than what we proposed in our grant.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Okay. So, yeah, you could send that to us where it says, yes, you have to do a mandatory program by 2028 to get funded.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: That would be very helpful.

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: Yeah, January 2027.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: So in your grant, says you don't get the money unless you do a mandatory program by January 2027?

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: I'm quite sure the language is you don't get the money. It's not in there,

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Well, it's whatever you want

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: of a mandatory program by 01/01/2027. That is the key deliverable. And it's also a transition strategy by 09/30/2028.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Okay. I guess I would want to see that a little bit more. Well, I want to say I trust you on that, Patrick. I've been burned before where people have said, Oh, it's required in the grant. And then we find out actually that was maybe a slight exaggeration of what was required. So I'd love to see that in writing. Not that I don't trust you, but I just want to see it with my own eyes and get some clarity because that's different than what I think we've heard going through the process. It's a new articulation of it. And then the other thing that I'm struggling with is this argument that all of these voluntary programs have floundered, but that somehow making a mandatory one will mean that it's successful. I'm wondering if you could just explain that to me. It seems like if anything, what's more logical would be the program would flounder and be mandatory, and then the consumer, the driver would be impacted by that. So I guess I'm wondering if you could explain why you keep saying scale, but I'm not really understanding it. I want to understand your argument. So why would it be better if it was mandatory?

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: So you all had testimony from a number of different states. And I don't remember any of that testimony being that those states had achieved sort of what they anticipated in terms of financial revenue coming back, that they had high administrative costs. They had high administrative costs because they didn't have enough volume in the program to actually make the numbers work. Especially with the third party account managers where there's more costs with the technology, with plug in devices and use of telematics. If you have only a thousand vehicles participating and you have a fixed cost that you have to pay that third party administrator, it's just, it's math. It doesn't work.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Yeah, when I pull up the example, they have their expenses. But their expenses also go up considerably when they make it mandatory in their presentation. So I guess that's the confusing part for me.

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: As an absolute number, sure. But as a percent, if they're working in the right direction, should go down as a percentage. Just like when we actually have a program up and running after the initial implementation and the changes to the program that adapts to, you know, what we need to do with a whole new group of vehicles, the expectation is that over time, with more and more vehicles in the program, we'll be able to reduce the amount of administrative costs.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Yeah, and I think that's what we see like with the Utah example. It costs them, like they laid it out to us in their presentation, it costs them 397,000 for that first year, but then only 87,000 in revenue. Then their administrative costs also went up in line for some of it with the users. It wasn't until they had even a small increase in users while it was still voluntary, they were still seeing their administrative costs going up even as they scaled up. So I guess that's where I somewhat agree with you, but I also don't think we've actually heard that spelled out that just scale will reduce cost and make it worthwhile. And it feels like the consumer is the one who's gonna be dealing with the fallout if it doesn't go well while the admissions are kind of not necessarily tied to the scale, guess is what I'm trying to say. That's maybe I'm just looking too closely at Utah's example and we should go back and look at

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: the other ones as well.

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: So the language in the bill anticipates that the agency reporting back to you all on other methods of reporting. When you go beyond electric vehicles, what we've testified in the past too, is it becomes more complex.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Now

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: you have people who are paying fuel tax out of state. You have a number of different, you have just a higher number of people with a number of other scenarios that you want to be able to account for that isn't present with fully electric vehicles. And so, from the agency's perspective, it would be more advantageous that if we are moving to other vehicles beyond electric vehicles, then we have some option for those out of state miles and that we are able to provide an alternative to be able to distinguish between the two. If we start with a program that is just voluntary and that's a thousand in Oregon. So scale that down to the state of Vermont. If we're starting a program with a few 100 vehicles, we will never have the scale to be able to offer that other kind of option. We just need more and more vehicles within the program to be able to get that kind of solution down to a reasonable percent in terms of administrative costs.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Would having a flat fee, that is the amount that Senator Perchlik put forward action, I think that would suffice the grant question because that's a mandatory fee they have to pay. That would, in all back to me, answers that question, and then someone could choose if they wanted to be a part of the mileage based fee. Do you think that's a voluntary program or does that not fit in with the grant?

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: I think it fits in with the grant and being able to provide a transition so long as that is sunsetted and that we do move to a true mileage based user fee.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Yeah, I guess I'm open to that. I am afraid people aren't going able to register their vehicles and we're going to have like rural older drivers who are confused and lose privileges to their vehicle. So that's like my biggest fear. So I've been trying to like get that understanding because you'd have to sign up for my DMV. You know, you'd have to do all of that, if you wanted to get less than the flat fee. I

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: think it's important to recognize that people will be able to pay their mileage based unit fee as they do other fees. It's They can go to a DMV. They can go to a DMV. They can pay in cash. They can pay in check. There's all of these options that are currently available will still be available to people.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: You'd have

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: to get

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: an inspection.

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: You would have to get an inspection, which is still existing law. And with a cap in place, it works for electric vehicles. But once you start introducing gas vehicles, what's proposed in this bill two years from now, you'll have circumstances where if you do the math, people traveling x amount of miles will still will have a fuel tax bill at the end of the year that you're proposing to use as a credit against mileage based user fee. You'll have a fuel tax bill that will exceed the cap, a $178. People right now pay more than that amount gas taxes. So then what do you, I don't think it's an intent, I won't speak for the committee obviously, but I don't think it's the intent of this committee to get into a situation where you're capping now the amount that people are paying in fuel taxes. So that's why the agency is proposing, yes, have for this runway to MyoSpace user fee, put 178 flat fee cap in place, but make sure that it's sunsetted so that we don't get into a situation that maybe isn't anticipated.

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

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Just wanted to are there other questions, Patrick? We're gonna go through the bill section by section tomorrow and knock off as much of this as we can.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: There are what? I do have one

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: more question for Patrick. Okay.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: So there was a proposal around the $24 over going to EDSE. In their original proposal, they had said whatever was over the amount that a gas driver was was paying that that amount would go towards EVSE adoption. Yeah. Does the agency have a perspective on that?

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: Well, think if you follow what we had proposed, there's not an over because it's If somebody's running up against a captive because they've either hit those number of miles or because they've gone beyond them, right? So there's not an overage. If anything, there's a gap that's been created.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Over the average is what's the average?

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: Right. So if you're just saying there's a flat fee no matter what scrap, we're gonna not implement the $3,000,000 MilerSpace user fee. Yeah. And you say, okay, we're gonna charge people just $1.28. That's it. That would be one thing, is it's just based on the, you know, somewhat above the average. But what we're saying is have this in a transition to a MySpace user fee. We're still collecting all the miles. The first point at which people pay, actually pay a mileage based user fee won't be until 2028 because you need the data first to be able to assign that fee to it. So it will be based on actual miles. You've proposed, as I understand it, is a cap of $178 But somebody traveling 6,000 miles will still pay below that amount. So they won't be paying any more on a per mile basis than they absolutely would need to. They'll still be paying 1.4 on a per mile basis. And you would do that all the way up until $178 which is roughly the 12,714 miles. And so anything above that is basically, you're actually getting free miles if you're not under. Right? I guess I'm not understanding what is the difference if it's based on actual mileage.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Because it's the average well, it's not the proposal that I'm understanding would be the flat feet, not the cat angle of it. It's if you had the flat feet and it was chopping

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: up But the flat feet

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: is acting as the cat.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Yeah. As as well. This is Andy's proposal. This is that one.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: Yeah. He Yours is a cat.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: That's the way I was talking about the cat. They were talking about a flat fee, not a not a

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: pad. Was yeah. I'm kind of just saying. So they were they were suggesting that $24 go to somebody or, you know, would be for somebody driving 6,000 miles a year. It's only paying 1.4¢ for 6,000 miles.

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: So what I want to clarify is that what we're proposing is actually in any other circumstance what an environmental organization would propose, which is to do something based on vehicle miles traffic. But stay support. Yeah. But going to a flat fee is inherently unequal because you have those underneath whatever that flat fee is paying more on a per mile basis and those above paying less on a per mile basis. That's what we're trying to address, the fairness of it. So if you stick with just a flat fee, you will and and in fact, raise it. You'll just have more unfairness.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Yes. But we also wanna make sure that voters don't go from one amount to a very large amount rapidly and

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: That is also what we're trying to address. So by saying that we're going instead to the miles you actually travel, the old woman wherever going 5,000 miles per year is not overpaying her fair share. And so you instead move to a system that's just based on the actual miles traveled.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Because we've got just fifteen minutes left. Thank you, Patrick. Sure. Not in the draft that we've got so far. You want to talk about jet fuels? Yeah,

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: that's one way to provide some more funding for the transportation fund. We're collecting gas tax from folks. Some of that goes to airport infrastructure. So if we were able to take what we did with gas tax, put it to transportation infrastructure.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah, it's on the same structure.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah, like we have infrastructure that we invest gas,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: you know,

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: vehicle money for airports. We could put a TIP fund on the sale of, or a TIP assessment on the sale of jet fuel and have that money to aviation infrastructure thereby saving the T fund some money that we can use on vehicles. The TIF assessment right now is 2% with this, well, so it's 2% on average price over time for gasoline and diesel. Instead of putting that same structure on jet fuel, but not on aviation gas.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So sometime between now and probably Wednesday morning, we're probably going to see that language. We did, that's, I think, joint fiscal did an estimate that's about 600,000. The thing that Andy pointed out to me that we totally messed up on, you remember the testimony from the guy from the Public Service Department that came in and was talking about log drives? And Public Utility Commission. And the the Public Utility Commission. Excuse me. I'm I go back to the data. They're already together. Yep. And that that old statute that is all about log drives, you're probably gonna see that tomorrow. Damian does have that language. He asked us to clean up the statute. This is the second year in a row that they've tried to get it in.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Oh, We missed it last year. The house took it out for some strange reason.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Because the T board objected to parts. So there's parts that the T board is in agreement with. We'll make those changes out there. Yeah. But we don't know who is in charge of log drives. Maybe not the T board says they're they shouldn't be the log driver. Yeah. Yeah. So we

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: can either I take that don't think we've had a log drive for more than a century.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: We should have a

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: It is very dangerous. It is. It's charming.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: You don't have to be on

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: the logs.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: No logs rolling.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: It's the second year in a row he's tried that. So you're probably going to see that language within this. That feels non controversial.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: That's at least how I feel about it. Me too.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: The long term part is another part of, if we, we can take a PUC out of it, but then we can just leave it not clear who's regulating log drug, or we could give it to, like, ANR. That seems to me more like an environmental issue, but they might have existing laws to deal with.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So And we

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: do have I'm

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: just gonna say, why don't we jam them?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We have, we had language that came through from the house that we haven't spent any time on, but Clayton Clara from GMT has asked for. It's the one that would allow them to raise private monies to go for roots and and things like that. Good. If we can't get to that before we pass the bill out, because I'd like him to sit in the chair and talk about it. If we can't get through that, he'll be on the agenda Friday, and we could do a bill to add that language into the bill before, and that will be long before we get to the floor. But we're going to need to hear from him. I don't think there's any objection to any of that. I haven't or at least I haven't heard of anything. But he's got that language, and we don't wanna drop the ball with that. Right?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: No. It's all broken.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Oh. Minimize. We're trying to get there. You know? We're gonna get you up to a 100 pages. You want think

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: it is up to a 100. We're at

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: 80, but I think the cleanup language should be seven or eight pages. We're getting close to 90. My job is to get a 100.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Quality. I

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: just added jet fuel tab and the intelligence speed assistance report language that

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: you guys asked for. That's up to 83.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I've got How much is there for the cleanup? That's gonna

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: take five to 10 pages. Just

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: need five minutes.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: Hey. I have some amendments actually about that. I have no suits in the Reading Garage and the Fox Tan Bridge that I had previously drafted, but no. I'm serious. I'll do an amendment. Yeah. Actually, I yeah.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: I've got it drafted, and I'm happy to introduce it to folks.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: What is it?

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: It's the Botan Bridge having it being covered and paid by the state, which we heard about earlier.

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: It would

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: be good if you had that language.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: I emailed that to all of you last week.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: It would be good if you had resent the language out and had paper copies for some of us that are handicapped at the table tomorrow.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: You're like you're moving it onto the program? Yes. Well,

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: that's how he did the first, the Fox Dam Bridge, but the Reading one is not in the program already, so it would be an addition. The Fox Dam Bridge is in the program, but not the amount that I've

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: priced it. Just armor of the year, though. Well, warning

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: you that will not be uncontroversial. I get for my speech

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: about how project prioritization is broken. And I went through, Jeremy was very kind to send me all of the federal guidelines around project prioritization and I can go section by section of that guideline and explain to you why we are actually able to do what I suggested by amendment even in the way

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: we have required it to the federal government.

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

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: am happy to do that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I'm sure we'll have a a conversation. It will not be uncontroversial. That he gave me. Okay.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: But just to clarify, Griffin, I you guys want the tip on the FPO language, intelligence speed assistance report, the TIVORPUC cleanup language with the log drives and all of that. Yeah.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: And then, the updates from ChargePoint and CLM on the EV real time charging info. Yeah, and the comparison of what's in and what they were replacing.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair, Windsor District)]: So like, can we do the option one, option two thing like that he has in Saul? Okay,

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: so do you their two versions are so close. I can do it in a couple of brackets if you want to see it against what was in the pouch language?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Do it in a way that we can understand it as simple as you can.

[Patrick Murphy (State Policy Director, VTrans)]: I'm

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: gonna do a side by side. I'm gonna cut and paste what we have currently and put their language in.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: As long as we can understand what the difference is. Well, hopefully, side by side will do that for you. Well, sometimes some of us are a little slow. Okay. Not many names, but just those four things.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont DMV)]: Okay. Yeah. Okay. And And then more to discuss on

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: additional items.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yes. As we go through the bill tomorrow, I suspect there'll be little points of K. Anything else? I think if you take us offline now, we are in time for the senator from Windsor to make

[Johanna Miller (Energy & Climate Program Director, VNRC)]: her