Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: You're live. Yeah. So this is the conference committee on the TPO, and we are all here. And it is Tuesday, And what's today? The twenty sixth fifth? Sixth. Sixth. And we're here with Damian Leonard, and let's go through the the comparison. K.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Morning for the record. I'm Damian Leonard from the Office of Legislative Council. So last night I went through, the the two bills. I put them through a compare document to make sure I caught everything. Here are the remaining differences between the two on mileage based user fee. One thing that's not noted here is that the the senate has its findings section.

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

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But that but these are just the substantive differences. So the house proposes just payment at the end of the reporting period. So the annual payment option, the senate has four payment options, annual pay as you go estimated at flat rate. For the house, because there's only one payment option, all vehicles are subject to that. With the senate, because there's multiple payment options, new vehicles are permitted to use the pay as you go estimated or flat rate options in the first year. And then with the default rate, the two are the same except for the time limit, to obtain an inspection if you've forgotten to get your inspection. So both require an inspection within a reasonable period of time, after the inspection is due. And then if you have not gotten your car inspected by the time you get to registration renewal, the senate allows ninety days to obtain an inspection. And then if you show less mileage than the amount you paid for to get a credit against your future MBUF. The house is proposing forty five days, but otherwise identical. The transition period, is the the language is the same except for the payment options. So the senate has two payment options. The house has one. The house has just the annual payment. The senate does annual payment or flat fee option. In both cases, you're paying a road usage charge upfront and then receiving a credit against your amount with if you choose the flat fee, your road usage charge can cover the full flat fee or half the flat fee. Outreach and education and user feedback are the same except for minor wording differences in there. The transition plan and reports are the same except that the or are very similar except that the senate has been updated to limit expansion to just plug in hybrid electric vehicles. And then finally, the house has a report on evaluating potential fees on public EV charging. The senate proposal does not have that. And so already, you've, I think, eliminated three or four differences between the two bills as the drafts have moved closer together. And this is what remains everything else that was on the first version of this sort of comparison has been resolved between the bodies and the other issue areas.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: I I guess the first one being the ninety days because of that was a lot of time. Somebody had come in to do the paperwork. Brought the line to Sandra

[Unknown House conferee (possibly Rep. Walker)]: or anything. We were just trying

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: to find something that was reasonable while at the same time that excessive for people.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I think the biggest issue getting here with the penis, the amount of different ways to take it. Yeah. And the three of us haven't had a chance to really talk about that. So we'll be going with that and probably be the Quite frankly, if you come to your way on that, some of these other things should be a lot of give up on. I

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: think from our side of the options, we wanna have options for people. We were just looking to, like, for the first year, just, you know, keep it simple and then sort of act a little more. What would work best? And I think, you know, it's with too many options for a number of options there, there'll be more confusion. Just try to this first go around, just keep it simple and get it working. And then as we look forward to expanding it at some point.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Dana, I don't know if you want to pull up that. Representative Walker can see that the sort of the intent thing was there's quite a few pages on there. This we

[Unknown House conferee (possibly Rep. Walker)]: can swipe up an iPhone. I mean, it is a different. I thought our flat rate was at the beginning. The

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The way way it's written right now, it is at the end of the reporting period. It could easily be changed to

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: the beginning of the period. So sorry, can you say that again?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Way the flat rate is written now is at the end of

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: the reporting period it could easily be changed to

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the beginning of the reporting period. So the lightings are behind me. They talk about the adoption of gas tax in Vermont and how at that time, of the limitations on or the very small difference in fuel economy between vehicles, it was essentially a usage tax. Since then, as we're all familiar with, the the vehicles have the variety has expanded greatly. Fuel economy varies significantly from vehicle to one vehicle to another, as well as in the last few decades, improvements in fuel efficiency have just resulted in less consumption of fuel. And then most recently, with the advent of battery electric vehicles, which don't acquire fuel at all. We have vehicles on Vermont's roads that until this past year were not not paying for their usage of the roads in the same way that other vehicles were, and and still the $89 infrastructure fee doesn't cover the average mileage for a driver. And then talks about how mileage based users user fee imposes a per mile fee and ensures that owners and lessees of vehicles contribute to the transportation fund in an equitable manner. I'm sorry.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Could you

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: back up the level of golf for a second? Yeah. Thank you. Yep.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then, points to the stagnant fuel tax revenues from the reduced fuel consumption, and unchanged gasoline and diesel tax rates that have not kept up with inflation. And then also points to demographic constraints and changes in vehicle ownership and usage that have limited growth of fee revenues. These are things like revenues from registrations of vehicles, purchase and use tax, etcetera. Just because Vermont is is not growing as a state and with COVID too, we've also seen, you know, less need for two or three vehicle households because some people are working from home. And then I the language in 12 cites the consensus revenue forecast estimate of 1.33 compound annual growth in the T fund over the next five years, compared to highway construction costs, which over the past five years have increased by 62%, and that it provides that the intent of the general assembly is to implement a mileage based user fee for battery electric vehicles, which will replace the existing infrastructure fee to ensure that owners and lessees of battery electric vehicles contribute to the transportation fund in amount that reflects the annual miles traveled by each vehicle. This language here, 13 through 17, is very similar to what's in the purpose statement for the in the the construct that passed from the house earlier this session. And then the remaining portions of the intent that were in the senate version have been struck since they talk about expanding in later years. And this current version limits the expansion to looking at possible expansion to plug in hybrids in future years. Was that it? That that yeah. For the findings and intent. Yeah. Alright.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I'm not sure where we

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: agreed on it. I can understand that. One of the things that we spent a significant amount of time on in the committee is that's also dramatically impacted this revenue situation is a substantial change or the results of enforcement. We've seen the amount of interaction between the police, the state police in particular, took their slogan and found out so dramatically that the literally 3,000,000 per year in revenues on the enforcement that do not happen, that we have a half a million registered vehicles, only $400,000 or dropping inspections. Certainly vehicles and the behaviors of people have changed things so as behaviors in other areas the only problem with intent is you can't possibly cover everything but there is a significant impact, especially the cumulative impact of these changes where we're, you know, 3,000,000 of the T fund will survive a year without the 3,000,000 plus 3,000,000 plus 3,000,000. There has been a massive change in Vermont behavior in relation to the t bill outside of just the gas. I don't know how that would or wouldn't be in there, but I would say that we spent a fair amount of time in the committee recognizing how many fees, how many interactions, how many tickets, how many un now we're seeing a drop in renewed driver's licenses. That's a scary direction. Yeah. What that implies for uninsured vehicles, uninspected vehicles, non licensed drivers, and the lack of enforcement where we're at one third of the interactions that we were at before. Anyway, I don't want to sidetrack too much longer, the there's a significant change in behavior in those. Take a million dollars for inspection fees that aren't happening. You take $3,000,000 enforcement fees that aren't happening. You see a drop in driver's license F and E. You're talking 4 and 5,000,000 a year, which stacks up after three or four years is another bridge and another x number of miles that we don't have anywhere under an intent. I don't know if that's our intent, but on findings, we are finding there's a significant issue there. I don't there's a one sentence, two sentence piece. If we have time, I would certainly like to highlight that that's something our committee should be returned back in similar positions. We're going to spend more time over next year.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I think that I'm seeing nods at that, and I think you came up with a line or two with that to add to the intent would be totally legal.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. And and, sir, just to add to that, we were taking testimony out of the fact that battery electric vehicles were gonna have to show they had their inspection to get registered, and that's sort of a new check. And, you know, our community to well, we should do that for all vehicles. And and, basically, testimony was concerned that people would stop registering the vehicles if they, you

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: know Like they ever stopped.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Well, okay. Yeah. So this is definitely an issue that that I think over time needs to be looked at And then

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I would just say in the intent because this is a sea change in the way that we we do stuff. The feeling amongst the senate transportation for T2E was that some intent thing which would help explain why we're doing this. And I So we tried to state the just facts. And just the related to

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: the amount of user fee. We didn't put any time in the findings, but that's something that we appreciate, Representative Fauci. We did consider throwing that in that center. We didn't take it out of testimony without requiring that inspection for all vehicles on registration.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah, we come up with a couple lines. I think we need.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Especially if we make improvements to the inspection process or DMV does.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: I just wanted to add something. So we talked about a little bit about the reduction in enforcement and it's great that you did more of that. We looked at it in terms of safety also, so that might be something to put in your language.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: There's a lot of them. I had a super speeder discussions and the amount of pay. There's a lot than what we should may or may not be able to do next. May I make some more money? Guess the next step. Thank you for that. I appreciate it here.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We need to talk about the methods of payment amongst ourselves, and then we can get back to you. I I think methods of payment, whether it's 45 or 90 or whether we split the difference, seems to be the only area.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: And

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: we breeze by the idea of the report. I don't think any of us are opposed to that, but we need to talk to

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: related to electricity Yeah. Charging path. Yep. Okay. So it's nice. Yeah.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Just a circle of time. Yes.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Yeah. It certainly caused some reactions in other parts of the building, but we it isn't a bad idea to let people know. We we can

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: go look at it. Yeah. They so we're gonna need a little time to talk on what's your schedules.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Is that we're down to that level? That's where we're at? That's it might be

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

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: 1.7, but that will that down low will fall. That's based on what else happens elsewhere.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah, think you're conferees on big bill would just say yes. It's up to you guys.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Okay. And I see that you switched to covered vehicle, what I

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: can't remember what what you guys said would be the covered vehicle. The house version was BEV's No.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: I know that version. Change, but what are you used to switch to plug in hybrids or still just

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: EVs?

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: No, just EVs. Yeah, we were EVs. Just my understanding is that you wanted to transition to just plug in hybrids, but that would be like a check bag where you'd be from the phone on this. Right. Well, the amount of things

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: you guys got going on.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Well, and I think that as they adjust the the computer system to to battery electric vehicles, I mean, I think they're gonna be looking at how to, you know, what's the process to to calculate the mileage and do that. I think it'll be in much better shape to move forward after we treat through the framework.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: To answer your other question, thank you. We have House floor at ten and we have a Senate further proposal amendment on miscellaneous motor vehicles built here in committee, and then we have the afternoon session. So we

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: should certainly

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: in that lunchtime, we have time between now and, know, depending on when that is, we're trying before ten and then we have some, a little bit of, we have time before the 01:00. It's still 01:00. That's where the one on the floor.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Be 09:30 and then again at 01:15. And we're on

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: the floor at ten. And we'll do the education bill, so it

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: might take a while. So

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: maybe, well, I don't know if I was going take Maybe if we can at 12:30

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: or something. We try to-

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Well, now there's not a brilliant opportunity to have changes to that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Why don't we plan on-

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Everybody wants to make a speech.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Don't we plan on 12:30 And if we get a break and there's something before that, we'll let Megan get a vote of you on. Excellent.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Thank you very much. And we'll talk this

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: soon. We appreciate your flexibility.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Just wanna bring up because we're violent taxing rental apartments, TVs. But was there an issue of not doing that?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I

[Unknown House conferee (possibly Rep. Walker)]: just wanted to make sure that

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: there was like, we're making

[Unknown House conferee (possibly Rep. Walker)]: it worse by not accident.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just wanted to get that because we're fine getting rid of it, I think Ways and Me told us that it might be a bigger headache for that to begin.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sure. Christopher, my recollection of the discussion was, and this was a few months ago, was that there was some concerns that not including a provision for short term rentals that was administratively feasible could cause short term rental fully electric vehicles to be registered out of state to avoid just because it would be very onerous, if not impossible, to comply with it. And I think there was some concern about creating a system where you sort of know on the outset that there's that wrinkle. Having said that, it then came out that there's very, very few vehicles that are fully electric in the state. So I think it's a sort of a question of whether the juices weren't squeezed and spending the money to set something up initially for a relatively small

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: university. Okay. We're fine anyway. Just want to make sure we're not getting notes.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That's true. That we'll talk about it. Firstly, that sounds like we can handle that.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Since we got into a little thing, I'll say not little about it, but the date on the bonding reporting, when the agency was going to deliver the piece, did that get settled once Friday afternoon? I thought it would be, yeah. The date, okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: The date of proposal was on the table and

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: she Yeah, we agreed, we got a date of February or whatever it ended up. January. January. Okay, I wanna make sure we're all set there.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I missed that part, my bad. Okay. Perfect. Why don't we play on 12:30, and to bless you here from us that that's some time just like that. Okay. Thank you.