Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Trucking outside.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: You're live.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. This is. You are. This is Senate Transportation. We're back to live. We're talking about our favorite hill, for a little while more. And mileage based user fee and Patrick, we're hoping you had a chance to catch up with what we did yesterday. And you're on.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Okay. Thanks very much, Patrick.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I see that, the UVM group just joined also.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Just to play our the other guys can get a lot of people. Sure.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So for the record, Patrick Murphy, state policy director of the Agency of Transportation. I was able to catch after the fact some of the testimony yesterday in the discussion, and so I've put a few slides together to address some of the questions that did come up. I'll start by just first noting again that the agency, I have not in this chair or over there, ever said that this program is going to be perfect from day one. We recognize that there, there will be issues that come up and that we'll have the ability to deal with those in the transition plan that we've outlined, and there is a reason for why we're dealing first with just electric vehicles. I won't go through those all right now, but one of those is certainly that this is a smaller group of vehicles that had not until 2025 been paying any sort of funds into the transportation fund. So that's important context for all of this. I did want to share though that, you know, it is an imperfect system that we have right now. And so from the start, we are trying to work towards a system that is more fair. Begin by sharing some slides here. Can you see this okay?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: You might wanna make it Yeah. Present mode. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So I won't go through all of this, but when we first started on this in 2021, there were range of guiding principles that the stakeholder group had adopted. And principle among these has really been to make it a fairer system. And a part of that is also making sure that it's enforceable. If people are to pay roughly in the in a way that reflects their vehicles use of the roads, you have to have a system in which everyone is actually paying their full share. Simplicity of compliance is it is big piece of this as well. You want people to be able to understand what the system is and how to be able to effectively pay for things. To be able to meet the end goal which is to have not only a fair system, but one that generates the revenue that's needed. So there was a question yesterday about how did we come to the compliance mechanism that we are proposing with this language? Going back to our study that was conducted in '21 completed in '22, compliance and enforcement was a big piece of this. We had considered, you know, a couple of different tools that are available to the Department of Motor Vehicles. The first is license suspension, and the second registration hold. We were very clear from the opening that this should relate to a vehicle's use of infrastructure, and not to the individual driving the vehicle, so that there was not a desire to suspend a license and therefore suspend the ability of someone to drive, to work, to meet their basic needs, but to make sure that the vehicle itself was paid for in terms of, you know, addressing its impacts on the infrastructure. So that was a key decision point. It was also, you know, important to recognize, I think, that built into our grant, built into our whole proposal is that compliance first coming through, you know, robust education, public education, and building awareness through communications. That is the the first and most important piece to all of this. But there does need to be some sort of mechanism for the long term to be able to make sure that people are actually going to the inspection stations to get their odometer readings and make the system work because that is what it is based on. We can't receive any revenue if we can't apply a fee to data that isn't there. So, we talked about not just compliance as part of decision making points, but also how we reflect on that after the program has been implemented. It's our intent to continue to look at how things are working and to be able to identify ways to be able to help them work better, and that will be true both in this initial phase for electric vehicles and whatever comes afterwards. There was a question about existing DMV penalties for failure to obtain certain required elements. So this is just for your benefit, a $162 is the fee if you don't obtain a registration, 105 for an annual vehicle safety inspection, and then up to $500 if you don't maintain the minimum insurance coverages. Is all

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We have a question from Senator White.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: So just so I understand, these are the existing things, and you would also have these penalties if you were participating in MBUF. If you were found that you didn't have a valid registration because you couldn't pay the MBUF, you would get the 162 fee. If you were avoiding inspections so that you knew that you didn't want to pay the MBUF, you'd get 105 and then you'd also owe the MBUF as well. So you potentially just immediately have 162 or $105 if you delayed or pulled over and had paid your MBUF. So you'd be owed $267 immediately, and then you'd also have to pay the AMBA, for example, if someone was being pulled over properly prosecuted or properly enforced.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: If I'm understanding your question correctly, will electric vehicles still be subject to these fees that currently exist in law?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yes. My question is, in the scenario yes. So in the scenario

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Only if pulled over or basically identified by a law enforcement officer.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay, so you would most you'd have to if you did pay your

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: The language that you have before you doesn't change any of this. These are existing penalties. We're not proposing to change these.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yes, and I guess what I'm saying is that already seems steep. So can I follow-up? So, Patrick, I heard you say if you get pulled over, but if you just go to DMV and you're, say a year late, would these penalties apply?

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I'm not sure. That's a good question for DMV folks. I don't know if there's an an administrative application of that penalty.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: I think if you send it in late, you know, by the Saudi that are in the phone, we know. If you send it, you send it in like, I think I sent it in like, there's a late fee or you fail the thing because you're registering at that point. Think this is all made to get pulled up.

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

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Because you have to be operating the vehicle because you can say, Oh,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: right. Alright.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: We need parking lot.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: My particular case. Yeah. Yeah. Am a car that has been sitting for ten years that's not registered.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: A lot of reminders of that. Some of them go into

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: the house. Mine's half. Okay. Have a point.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Got to do something with it once we get out of here because it's sitting and Joan doesn't like it sitting there anymore.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: But I do have a question. You probably don't know Patrick, but I assume when they do the tractor trailer highway inspections, they do the still see if it's the proper taxed diesel fuel. I forgot if the tax is died or undied, but they're they're they still check that part of the check. Yep.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: You're right. You're right that I don't know. But I know that there's probably someone in the room that does.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Because I wonder what the fee because that would be the equivalent of not paying the tax.

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

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: If you were caught driving your diesel vehicle with unpacked fuel. I wonder what that fine is. That's, I can tell you, because I had Have you been caught before? No, can't tell you that, but I did have a diesel commercial truck that if they did check it. Right, okay. Yeah, when you put it on the rack and then, yeah, they put a stick in there and you know, they do it. Is it dying or not that it's taxed? It is Dive is off road. Dive is off road and yeah. Fill up with off road here. But you don't know if it's what the fee is, the fine outside is though, I never experienced that. Yeah. It's a good dream. Yeah. So I think it's heavy. Well, yeah. That's what I'm I assume it's pretty heavy. Think at that point, it's federal.

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

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: A.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Our mystery. Our our mystery. Yeah. Like Google, but.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Okay. I think it's something to.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: No. Thank you. So there was a question around what what are the consequences now for failure to pay a road usage charge? Obviously, if you don't pay the gas tax, you can't operate the vehicle, maybe there's something different for diesel. Failure to pay the infrastructure fee right now just means that the user can't proceed with the registration process. And that's how it works in Hawaii because you're paying your mileage based user fee at the registration process. So if you don't pay, you can't move forward. Failure to obtain an inspection for the mileage based user fee, what we had proposed is essentially that you could proceed with the registration process if you ended up paying the default flat fee. So it's not saying you you absolutely cannot move forward, but if somebody's, you know, forgotten to get their vehicle inspected, they get to the DMV, the odometer the last odometer reading isn't there, they would still be able to move forward that day with the registration process. There are some in the bill language as it is now. There are some interest penalties that would potentially apply. If no fee was paid, individual wouldn't be able to move forward with the registration process. The new language that we've proposed in response to some of the concerns of the committee is that if the user after having paid that default flat fee, if the user were to obtain the inspection within sixty days, that the difference between the fee that they've paid, the default fee that they paid, and what the actual mileage fee would have been, that difference could be carried forward as a credit. Because what we really want is for people to be in the system participating, getting the odometer readings that we need to eventually apply them, you know, mileage based user fee. And so in this way, the the penalty is more of a it's a a temporary sort of hold until you are able to actually get your vehicle inspected.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Senator White has a question.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Thank you Mr. Chair, and thank you Patrick. So this is in the new language that Damian emailed us this morning?

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I don't believe it made it into the new language this morning. We've gone back and forth and so that is language I've provided Damian some comments within the draft that he submitted late yesterday. Okay. So this is, I think he would wait for the committee's thumbs up or down on that.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Because I was like, I'm not seeing that in the language you were describing, so I was confused. So that makes more sense. That's later. And then really appreciate this kind of softening of the penalties move that you're making. I think that was responsive to some of my concerns from before. So I really appreciate that. But my point of confusion is I thought we discussed that you could just get an odometer reading at registration. So you were already submitting your odometer reading. So how would you why would you need to get an inspection if they could just read the odometer at time of registration? Or you have to submit your odometer is what we said your your reading

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Oh, at the I thought it did. At inspection.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: They said you couldn't do it too.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: You could not do it. Oh, so Yeah.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: It's true as well. I mean

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Right. It's I think it's always been in the draft is that inspection.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Bob, you were saying that let's say you were getting your registration, you have to report your odometer at highway registration, correct?

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: On a new car.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: On a new car. So if you okay. So the dealership wouldn't need to get like, a dealership wouldn't need to get an inspection of the vehicle. They could just report on a new car at time of registration.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: They usually inspect it themselves.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Oh, so they do an inspection and that's how they do the odometer reading. I just want someone to have it. We talked about how new vehicles don't need to get an inspection and it's not worth it. And then we'd forcing people to buy a new vehicle and then go get an inspection. I mean,

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: the new vehicle, when you drive off the lot, is usually inspected. So they either got the inspection when they acquired the vehicle, it's the used vehicle, or they inspect it before they sell it to you.

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

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So there are two things at play. There's one, generally, there's going to be an inspection, but there's also on the sale documents, there's going to be an odometer reading. When you register the vehicle, there's that initial odometer reading.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And that would have to get an inspection to verify that.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So, but when somebody goes to renew their registration, it's not as if DMV staff at the counter are going to go and then take an odometer reading. That has to happen through the inspection process.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: It's a bummer it can't happen with DMD staff though, because that seems like such an easy workaround. Like if our other option is people taking a photo, why can't someone go out and do that and sign up registration?

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Well, so keep in mind that the inspection process is still required. The annual inspection is still required by law, and so what we're saying here is that even though you haven't obtained what is legally required, you will be able to proceed with the registration if you pay this higher flat fee and what you you all have proposed is really not that much higher. So it's not that big of a barrier. And then whatever difference is may arise from your actual inspection reading will then be credited to the next mileage reporting period. But it is still a required thing that people go and get their vehicle inspected for a variety of reasons outside of the mileage based user fee for the safety of the vehicle to operate on the roads.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I guess what I'm trying to say is if I had gotten an inspection two months before I need to register my vehicle, I would have to get an additional inspection afterwards? Is that what would have to happen or no, I could use the one that happened prior to my registration and use that odometer reading and then

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: So if you're registering

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: sorry, if your inspection has happened and it closes a MIOS reporting period because you've had a prior inspection, so there are two data points within the system, then there is no need to go out and get a third inspection shortly after. There you wouldn't be in the situation of having to pay a default flat fee. Right? You would already have the data. So we're not, like, we're not talking about the same scenarios here.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay. You're talking about the closing the loop inspection.

[Claire Nelson, UVM Transportation Research Center]: Yeah. And I'm just gonna jump in super quickly right here. For the record, Claire Nelson from the UVM Transportation Research Center. When Patrick gets through this, I'm gonna show a series of infographics that should clear up a lot of these questions about order. So if we wanna maybe hold any additional questions for Patrick until then, that might be helpful to just help him get through these last couple of slides.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Thank you, Claire. I think we'll, at this point, it would be good to have the examples that you're gonna, and that's what you said you would do and we appreciate that. I think we'll try to hold the questions and wait till they put that up and then we'll Sure. So, Pat, do you wanna keep going? And when we get to probably when Claire can samples would be good?

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Sure. Yeah. I wanna try and run through this, and then I do think it'll be helpful for the committee to to actually see it and how it is sequenced. So any any other questions on this?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I'm not supposed to answer.

[Claire Nelson, UVM Transportation Research Center]: It's what I heard.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I think, you know, if the examples will help clear it up

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I'm gonna wait.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That's not telling you not to ask questions. That's just I think that okay.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yeah. I mean, the the whole point of these slides are to Move us along. Answer some of the questions that came up yesterday to be responsive to you all. So just wanna talk about the default flat fee and the cap, you know, so we've proposed to automatically assess that default flat fee if you don't have odometer reading data. I mean, that's just there's no real good way to to obtain compliance without having something to be able to charge in the absence of it. But that's still allowing a user to be able to proceed with the registration process. So we're not seeing that as punitive. We're seeing that as actually enabling somebody to be able to still register their vehicle and then have it reconciled if they get the vehicle inspected within sixty days of having paid that default flat fee. So there's, you know, within the logic of the system we're developing, we will be able to easily do that so that we it it would just be a temporary mechanism for user convenience and compliance. I wanna speak specifically to the default flat fee, which I understand you all would like to set at a $178. I think that's fine until we get until we get to 2029 where the committee has proposed including vehicles beyond just battery electric to go to plug in hybrids, conventional hybrids, and those just fuel efficient vehicles, I think, is the naming of them above 25 miles to a gallon. So there are circumstances, I think, maybe that hadn't been considered where some gas powered vehicles would end up having paid in excess of that amount in gas taxes alone. And then would would would therefore owe money, would be owed money by the agency, by the state

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: at the end of the year. So I've I think we wanna avoid that and in trying to avoid that, I think you would want to set in 2029 a flat fee and cap that's We

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: just remind me. So we would set the fee that would be in place for 2027, would we in the drafts we've set up, are we going live in January 2029? For the That is

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: that is the draft that yeah. For the fuel efficient vehicles and up to

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: To get approval from the legislature, we would need to have something put in front of us from the agency in a recommendation in the session of 2028.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: That's right.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: K. But the the 178 would be in place for 2027 and 2028.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yeah.

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

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I think you just don't want to leave that in place

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: if the agency will make their recommendation for us to move along in, at 2020. I'm just trying to figure out how we weigh in and where, and make

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: sure the draft reflects that.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yeah, and so I just also want to clarify that I think it was said yesterday that the agency had proposed a cap of $202,125 dollars, and we we just we haven't we hadn't proposed a cap. I believe that $2.25 came through the drafting process with you all. Yep. So in the similar vein, I think when you get to 2031, the language contemplates moving towards all vehicles being included in the mileage based user fee. And at that point, I think you definitely want to eliminate the cap altogether, and you wanna be able to increase that default flat fee to something closer to what we initially recommended, which is the ninety eighth percentile. Because you will have the the many more situations, I think, of gas vehicles that that are paying in excess of that amount in gas taxes alone. And so then there'd be lots of refunds at the end of the year, and I I don't think that that's the intent of the committee or legislature. And then I've put language in in my comments to to Damien that this could also, you know, be contingent upon the agency establishing a reporting option that allows for vehicles to distinguish between in state and out of state miles. The

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: agency's proposal does include refunds though, right?

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So, yeah, I want to be clear. The agency's proposal includes refunds and credits, a system of credits. In the event somebody has just sold their vehicle and there's you know, there's no desire to continue that registration, then we'd issue a refund. But what I'm talking about here and what's contemplated in this bill language is also a system of fuel tax credits. But what I'm talking about here is I don't think that you all necessarily had anticipated that the fuel that had already been paid that the that that would any part of that would in fact be reimbursed. So and that's the situation that might be created by a low flat fee at $178 and all gas vehicles, you know, included in the system.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: So

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: this is just going back. We shared this before for reference, but Utah has been in touch with us a couple of different times. We've reached out to Hawaii a few times as well. So this is looking at sort of side by side of the of the existing MySpace user fee programs. 1.4¢ is, you know, pretty pretty much within the middle of the pack here in terms of Oregon being higher. Utah will be higher in 2027, moving to 1.5¢ per mile right now at 1.25¢. Hawaii, as I've said, is based on a fuel tax that's quite low statewide, but has a system of county DMVs that apply their own additional gas taxes. And so they too will be able to apply additional mileage based user fees, which brings that number to far higher than what actually the state of Vermont will be proposing. The flat fees for these dates, a 180 in Utah for this year, which is right in line with what you've proposed yesterday, but that will rise quickly to 280 in 2027. Oregon is proposing to to move to 340 in 2027. In Hawaii, discussions with the program manager there. The plan is to propose a higher flat fee that, you know, somewhere at least at $80 and potentially higher. So that just gives you a sense of what you know, how things fall in terms of the proposed rates.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Go ahead. Patrick, can I just have a question for I have a question for you about that last slide?

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Sure.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: So none of those are currently mandatory. Is that correct?

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Correct. Hawaii's moving to to mandatory in 2028.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: So that's the soonest mandatory program in the country. Other than ours?

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: That's right. Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. That feels a little concerning to me because I think we heard a lot of kinks were worked out in the first few years of any of these states. And I'm also so that's just one commentary. So yeah. And then my other point is, see that of the other states that have this, at least two of them have a 40 plus mile per gallon charge that they have instituted and we and that's the same as the plug in hybrid EV? Is like that supposed to be the same kind of group of people or are they going after gas cars as well with the 40 plus miles per gallon range? Like, it can only a hybrid get there? Like, what are we trying to get the same group of people with those different ways of regulating it?

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So you're referring to Oregon, which includes in its pilot program

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

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: High mileage vehicles? Yeah. And what what is the question?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: So is that just plug in EV, hybrid EVs? Like, are those the only vehicles that you get? There

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: are conventional hybrids, Priuses that get high 40s, some exceed 50 miles to the gallon.

[Claire Nelson, UVM Transportation Research Center]: Okay, thank you.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: And I would just say that, you know, yes, many of the programs have been in effect for quite a while, and that's provided a lot of lessons that they've learned from, but also that we have. And so one of the biggest flaws that a voluntary program in a true sense of being voluntary just has not worked well. It has not panned out in the way that they would have hoped. And so there's all kinds of dynamics at play that that influence policy decisions that you might not make if you're actually working towards that eventual goal of getting all vehicles to to pay roughly the the equivalent amounts. There was another question about driving in or out of Vermont. It move excuse me. Moving in or out of Vermont. This very quickly, vehicles have to be registered in the state, you know, if it's not necessarily if they're temporary living here, but if they're establishing a permanent residence here, they've gotta be registered within sixty days and then inspected within fifteen days after that. Moving out, there's not necessarily a process for this. So a vehicle owner can go into my DMV or go to the DMV itself and cancel a registration. The requirement is to return plates to DMV. There's no real penalty for not returning them at this point, but there are other ways to potentially gather this information so that on that form we can modify it to be able to to include a self report option of the odometer reading, But as I understand it, the DMV now has an opportunity to be able to validate some of that data through the national titling system where before we might not learn about a vehicle that had moved out of state until registration renewal. Now I think the DMV might receive that information more in real time. There's a question about who's on, you know, how many people are opting for a one year versus two year registration. So the top is just giving you a sense of where all vehicles are at. For new vehicles, it's about an eighty twenty split with most favoring just a one year registration. That changes with the renewal slightly, but still the majority renewing at one year only.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Battery electric vehicle owners. They're the current if I'm looking at your chart correctly, the group of people who's more likely to renew every two years are folks who already own a battery electric vehicle and are renewing at any point before. Nothing that they wouldn't have renewed. There would have been fewer people who

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: would have

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Guess I'm not getting the information here.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yeah. So battery electric vehicles in new vehicles registered in 2024 opted roughly in the same proportion for one year versus two year as the general vehicle groups, and that trend continued into 2025. The the one blip here is in 2024, and so there could be a variety of reasons for it. The early adopters of electric vehicles tend to be more affluent, and so they might be more likely to pursue a two year because they have the ability to pay more upfront than a one year. But but maybe what's going on here is just anticipation of what the legislature approved in 2024 for a new EV infrastructure fee. I'm not sure. Yeah.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: But but

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: that you might have seen the the sort of percentage of the shift a bit knowing that there's a fee going in in effect in January 2025. If I just renew now for two years, I'll avoid that amount for the next year.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Maybe we can fix I don't know if we can extrapolate that from these percentages, That's a good theory.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I'm not.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: The reason we did it wasn't to avoid it because we timed

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: our

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: things based off that. We are very organized. So I don't think you can totally ascribe it to there's more wealthy, actually, AV drivers who are avoiding taxes.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Just to be clear, I was not saying definitively one thing or another. That's just some of the possible things that popped out to me when I saw that. Your question not yesterday, or may maybe yesterday as well, but in earlier testimony this week about the communications strategy, one of the questions is about whether it was realistic to provide what our communication strategy might be by September of, you know, fifteenth of this year. I think the answer is yes. We will have to have started really our strategy by early summer, and so I think it's fine to be able to present that strategy as it's been developed, be able to have feedback from you all in September, provide updates on what we're already doing and how that's working. I think that's fully in keeping with what we're able and to within the milestones that we have for our grant.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So Patrick, this is really awful. It looks like about $860,000 is going to go towards outreach and education. If when you start to think about, you must have thought about what are the kinds of things that you're gonna include, in that, any outline of some of the things that you might be doing, if we could get those results to be helpful.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Sure, and that's what I've shared with, Damien, which I think he incorporated into this draft.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I think he did, but if I had him if somebody stands up on the floor, if I'm pretty clear that one of the first things you're gonna probably do is directly contact through mail and email the population, but just some sort of an outline of the things that you're thinking.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yeah, definitely before this gets to the floor, we'll be able to provide some one or two pagers on different questions that have come up so that those folks who haven't been in either committee room and haven't heard all this testimony over the course of multiple years, that they'll be able to kind of quickly get caught up to the key details.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah, I can hear somebody stands up saying, how are people gonna know?

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Sure.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: So,

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: we definitely have a plan for that. I I would also just clarify that 862,000, that's obviously an estimate within our grant budget, but system implementation task two also contains elements of what has been laid out in the language here that that you all, Senator Harrison had talked about it early in the week about making sure that it's not just public outreach to make people understand what's going on. It's also to involve them in the design of the systems to be able to make sure that it is something that's usable. So there's both at the front end and post implementation, the the feedback to evaluate how the program is going and to be able to have that feed into the next iterations of it. So there is there is more than just what's in task three in terms of public out outreach education and engagement.

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

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: And so that's the gist of it. I think it'll be good if there aren't questions for me right now to dive into what what Claire has been able to put together based on all the moving pieces that we've talked about over the past week.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We need then to see examples from Claire. We've got about ten minutes, Claire. So I'm sorry. And we can put that in of us, if you could give us some of your examples and go to the heart of what we put together please.

[Claire Nelson, UVM Transportation Research Center]: Yeah. Absolutely. So I just had to request permission to share my screen. I'll do my best to get through this in ten minutes.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And thank you for doing this.

[Claire Nelson, UVM Transportation Research Center]: Yeah. No worries. Okay. So can everyone see this?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Okay. Great.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: What's that?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I think it's we lost some detail.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: I think she's gonna

[Claire Nelson, UVM Transportation Research Center]: Oh, yeah. I'm gonna it's gonna be I'm gonna walk through it slowly.

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

[Claire Nelson, UVM Transportation Research Center]: Yeah. Because it's it's a lot to view at once, so I figured we'd kinda take it step by step. So as soon as the mileage fee program begins in January 2027, there's two different timelines that might appear for drivers depending on when they get their vehicles inspected or registered. So what could happen is that somebody gets after January 2027, the first thing that happens is that they get an inspection. This is gonna establish their baseline odometer reading. So at this point in time, they'll have, say your odometer says a 100,000 miles, that will be your baseline that future mileage fees will be based off of. So, then they get their registration because they haven't achieved two inspections, we don't know how many miles they've traveled yet, they just pay that $89 road usage charge like normal. So, all through 2027 in that first year of implementation, nothing is gonna look different for drivers. It's not until they get their second inspection that allows us to actually calculate the amount of miles that they've traveled, and then they see a mileage fee bill. This will be available on their MyDMV account. They can pay it on their account, they can pay it in person. They only have to pay it The mileage fee bill won't be due though until their next registration. So between that inspection and registration, they can not pay the bill, they can pay the bill, they can pay it at the desk at registration if they want, there's a lot of options for how somebody chooses to pay this. Then the system kind of continues from there, so every next inspection that you get, you'll have until you're following registration to pay that mileage fee amount. The other option is that somebody might get their registration first when this program begins. In this case, again, nothing would look different for them, they'd pay that regular $89 fee. They get their first baseline inspection. Again, their next registration, there's not two inspections yet, so they pay their normal $89 fee. And then when they get that second inspection, their first mileage fee bill will be available. So, in this instance, they've gone through two registrations before they ever see their first mileage fee bill. And same as before, the mileage fee bill won't be due until the following registration. Does this make sense to everybody?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: It's definitely the clearest explanation. I think it's still complex enough with just the variable markers of when you're getting an odometer reading and when you're getting an inspection that I'm confused at why we are doubling down on inspections at a time when we heard so loud and clear that the very least people wanted to to be changing. So it seems like you have to get, you have four inspections for every year.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So you'd

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: still do every year. We- Oh no, no.

[Claire Nelson, UVM Transportation Research Center]: This is one inspection a year. It's

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: We the have same four inspections during the time period that you outlined on your thing is what I'm trying to say.

[Claire Nelson, UVM Transportation Research Center]: Between three and four. Which is no different than what anybody does currently.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I'm understanding of that.

[Claire Nelson, UVM Transportation Research Center]: I think something that Patrick and I talked about too is an alternative where it's not a full inspection, it's just an odometer reading check. There's a lot of options to make the system more accessible if there's concerns about inspections. Really all that's necessarily here is Can anything after

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I just say you'd also have to pay the inspection fee on top of that? So you'd be paying anywhere from 75 to what we heard at max $2.50 for each one of these inspections already. So there is an additional cost for every inspection as well, which should maybe be added to your chart, what you would pay at inspection. I know that everyone pays that now, but it's not like it's a free inspection that you'd have to get.

[Claire Nelson, UVM Transportation Research Center]: Yeah, the odometer reading is already recorded at these inspections, so this is just taking advantage of an existing system, but I understand your point. I'm going to move forward with some examples of what this actually looks like in terms of billing people's accounts. So, here's an example timeline of when you get inspected, when your vehicle's registered. When you pay that first registration $89 fee, that will show up in your account as a credit. So this $89 will go towards paying whatever your first mileage fee is. At your second inspection when you get your first mileage fee bill, in this case it's an $154 bill, What will show up in your account is the difference between any credit that's in your account, dollars 89 in this case, and the $154 bill. So you'd see a $65 bill in your account. You can pay this at any time before your next registration. At that next registration, either at the desk or days before or months before, you have to have your bill settled in order to move forward with your registration. Then, at your following inspection, you would get your next bill that would show up in your account and same system as before, you would need to settle it by your next registration. So that's an example for a one year registration, typical driver. Another option, because we have this, there was conversations about this cap for high mileage drivers. Here's an example that walks through what this process would look like for a high mileage driver. So in this case, their first mileage fee should be $182 based on how much they traveled. However, if in the language that the AOT is proposing, whether it's before 2029 or 2030, I think is really up to that. The AOT in this case, it just says 2030, I wouldn't focus on that too much. The mileage fee should be $182 but in this case, there's a cap of $178 until some point in time when the program has been fully onboarded. So they would only see an $89 fee in their account. They have to settle that again by their next registration. Again, when they get their next mileage fee from their inspection, in this case, it should be $189 but there's this cap of $178 so they would only see $178 bill in their account. They have to sell it by their next registration. After some point in time, however, this cap would ideally disappear so people are paying for the actual miles they're traveling on the road. And in this case, they would see the full bill in their account. If somebody misses an inspection, everything happens like normal up until that missed inspection. When you go to register your vehicle, because there's no odometer reading data to imply what the bill should be for that period of time, then they would be charged the default fee. So in this case, it's $178 before some point in time until the program is fully onboarded. They would then have sixty days in order to get reimbursed if they traveled any less than that. So in this case, the driver would have had a mileage fee of only $168 They paid $178 at their former registration, so they get a $10 reimbursement if they go and get their vehicle inspected within sixty days of that registration. Are there any questions about this so far?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: No. Cell phone. It's very Great.

[Claire Nelson, UVM Transportation Research Center]: Another option is prepayments. So, because this is just going to serve like an online account at MyDMV or in person at the DMV, you have the option of paying into your account really whenever you want. So, in this case, this driver has opted to paying $40 each quarter, roughly $40 each season. They've built up a credit of $160 in their account. In this case, if they still miss inspection, now instead of an $178 fee at their registration, they have $160 in their account, so they'd only see an $18 fee. So they've kind of staged out their payments. This will be an option available to anyone. They can pay lump sum prepayments, they can pay quarterly prepayments like the example shown here, or they would have the option of paying monthly prepayments as well. And again, even with any sort of prepayment, they still have that opportunity to get reimbursed if they get their vehicle inspected after missing any inspection. Claire?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yep. We are Our light is on for us to be on the floor of the Senate.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay. No

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: worries. They and I'm really sorry that we didn't get all the way through this. I suspect before the end of next week comes, we'll probably try to get you and Greg back on the screen again. Okay. But thank you so much. This is Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: It's great. It's wonderful. Thank you.

[Claire Nelson, UVM Transportation Research Center]: Absolutely. And just a quick last point. We're putting together with Patrick a one pager that should hopefully help you talk to some of your colleagues on the Senate floor.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That would be awesome. Yeah. We're going to have to break now because we're late.