 Great. Thank you, Matthew. And welcome everybody to the afternoon of January 20th. House Energy and Technology Committee. We have with us this afternoon, Secretary Moore, Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, and welcome. Thank you for joining us. We are going to have a discussion this afternoon of a couple of things kind of woven together. In the last year, this committee did a lot of work on and the Legislature passed the Global Warming Solutions Act. One of the first parts of the Global Warming Solutions Act to go into effect and go into action is the work of the Climate Council, which Secretary Moore serves on. And as part of the Budget Adjustment Act, which is one of the first appropriations activities to go through the Legislature this year, there is a request in that budget adjustment for a million dollars to support the work of the Climate Council. Secretary Moore is here today to give us a little update on the work of the Council, as well as this budget adjustment request. And for members of the committee, and for folks listening on YouTube. One of the things that policy committees of jurisdiction will typically do is to make a recommendation to the Appropriations Committee on issues that are kind of in our policy bailiwick, which this obviously is. So with that brief introduction, Secretary Moore, thanks for being here. Appreciate you having, I appreciate you making time for us and also want to welcome Representative Feltas from the Appropriations Committee. And this is an area that Representative Feltas covers. So thank you for joining us as well. And Secretary Moore, you have control of the screen if you want to pull up some information. Great. I just want to start by introducing Emily Byrne, who's ANR's Chief Financial Officer. And so to the extent you have detailed questions, she is here to help assist with those as well. Great, thank you. You're welcome. So I will share my screen. Maybe if you can just confirm for me that you can see it. Yep, just came up. All right, fantastic. Oh, that's not going to work if I move it over. Never mind. I'll just, you'll get me in profile while I walk through the presentation. Okay. So as you indicated, Chair Brighlin, I'm going to start by just giving an overview of the progress report that was submitted to the General Assembly this past Friday, and then get into a few details about the budget adjustment request. Just as a refresher for folks who may not have thought about the Global Warming Solutions Act, a whole lot over the last four months. There are a series of specifics related to what we ultimately need to include in the Vermont Climate Action Plan that go beyond just reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but also looking at ways to encourage smart growth, looking at opportunities for carbon sequestration, trying working to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. And that is a little bit different than than the other requirements of the Global Warming Solutions Act, which set explicit greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets. So we need to be looking at both of those pieces, reducing energy burdens of with particular emphasis on rural and marginalized communities. Looking at opportunities to reduce or limit the use of chemicals that contribute to climate change, and then seeking efforts to build resilience in Vermont's communities with a particular emphasis on natural and working lands. In addition to sort of the initiatives piece that we get at those requirements, there are a series of objectives that are identified also for the Climate Action Plan includes including looking at cost effectiveness, making sure that that we sort of spread the requirements across all of the different sectors that can contribute to greenhouse gas emissions reduction or greenhouse gas emissions currently. And then focusing on trying to avoid or at least minimize negative impacts to marginalized and rural communities, ensuring that that this is a statewide approach in all regions of the state benefit from these efforts, trying to support economic growth, while doing greenhouse emissions reductions, including looking at both the industries and the technology and the training that will allow us to take advantage of the work that that lies ahead, not only for Vermont, but for the nation and frankly for the world. Looking at ways to support the use of natural solutions to sequester carbon and then maximizing our involvement in interstate and regional initiatives. So, there's, there's a fairly aggressive schedule that's been established in the Global Warming Solutions Act, as you may recall the act was passed over the governor's veto on September 23 and the Global Warming Solutions Act allowed 60 days from enactment for the assembly to make appointments to the climate council the climate council is comprised of 23 members 15 appointed by the general assembly and then eight representatives of the administration. And once the administration received the final appointments which we did on October 23 we had 30 days to convene the first meeting of the climate council. And our first meeting was held on November 20. We then did submit our first annual progress report. Just last week, the draft of the climate action plan needs to be prepared and available for public comment by October 1. So we have an aggressive schedule in front of us. And then we'll be moving to adopt the climate action plan by December 1 of this year. So to date the council has actually met four times, although the meeting on the 14th of this month was a rather abbreviated meeting simply to review the draft report before it was submitted to the general assembly. The inaugural meeting of the climate council was really what I would call State Government 101. We did introductions of members and then talked about open meeting law requirements, requests for public documents, as well as conflict of interest. Then the two meetings, the one on December 21 and the second on January 4, were really focused on the inventory of the state's existing activities. We received a presentation on the 21st from the state climatologist, Dr. Dupigne-Jeroux from UVM, as well as an overview of our existing emissions inventory efforts and current strategies that state government is utilizing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Then at the January 4 meeting, we had a presentation from Susanna Davis, the state's executive director for racial equity, about equity considerations in looking at different climate change solutions. And then received a similar overview of the inventory of existing state efforts related to resilience, as well as work that's being done around quantifying both the ongoing and potential for additional sequestration of carbon on our natural and working lands. So really forests and agricultural lands. We do have another meeting scheduled for January 25, so this coming Monday. The intention of the council is to meet the fourth Monday of the month going forward, so that will be our standing meeting date. On the 25th, we have actually engaged a consultant facilitator to support us but the purpose of that meeting is to both hear some lessons learned from other states that have recently undertaken a similar planning effort so we have folks joining us from Maine, Massachusetts in New York, as well as the US Climate Alliance. And then we're going to have a facilitated discussion about process design and sort of the overall organizational structure, and my hope is will come out. The end of that meeting with subcommittee assignments and plans for the first meetings of the subcommittees which is where we're really anticipating sort of the substantive work will take place. The sequence of work is really established in the the the act itself, and we've just sort of massaged it a little bit as as we've begun the process of thinking through how we'll actually conduct the work, but it is this idea of inventory existing programs, and then evaluating the need for and opportunities for new strategies and programs including cost effectiveness, thinking about how we're going to pay for this work. And then there's a similar set of efforts around the necessary steps to build resilience, developing a monitoring strategy. And the engineer and me would tell you that it's really important to do this work as part and parcel of program design so that you already have anticipated what you're going to seek to measure while before you've actually built the projects. And then ultimately we need to identify the rules that the agency of natural resources will need to adopt, as well as any recommendations we will bring back to the legislature, regarding change regarding changes in statute. And all of those things need to be laid out in the climate action plan, which will be adopted by the council on or before December 1 of this year. And then the plan is to be updated every four years thereafter. As I indicated, there are four subcommittees included or specifically called out in the Global Warming Solutions Act, and this is really where we anticipate the majority of the substantive work will take place. And then there will be this information will be brought back to the council and they will seek to integrate it into an action plan. The four subcommittees identified are the rural resilience and adaptation subcommittee, the cross sector mitigation subcommittee which is really looking at cost effectiveness of different solutions. Just transition subcommittee which is is where those equity considerations will find a home, and then the agriculture and ecosystem subcommittee. There's also an allowance within the Global Warming Solutions Act for any other subcommittees identified by the council is necessary to our work. And we have had at least preliminary conversations about the idea of forming a science and data subcommittee. I want to talk a little bit more about what I'm envisioning there if that would be of interest to the committee. Maybe pause there before shifting gears and talking about the specific the funding that's available currently to support our efforts under the Global Warming Solutions Act and what we believe it will take to fully fulfill the requirements. I have a couple of questions. Secretary Moore, and that's actually probably a good time to ask them a couple relate to some things you've just talked about. And then one, actually to this slide right here so I'll hold on to that one. My question is you had mentioned some of the coordinated discussion work conversation that's going on between perhaps it's your office perhaps it's the it's the broader climate council with other regional states that have done this work or maybe it's been long in this work main main in Massachusetts in New York certainly may I think Maine and New York are maybe a year or so ahead of us. What's your sense as to how the process that they've gone through in particularly Maine because it's certainly a more similar state to us than I would say New York is but how that work might inform the process that we're going to take on. And, you know, what, what can we learn from things that have worked for them, or have not. So, I have had the opportunity to talk with both the acting commissioner of their Department of Environmental Protection so essentially my counterpart for Maine, as well as a woman named Hannah Pingree who works directly in the governor's position as the governor's lead on on climate action. And I do think that there, there's a lot that we can can glean and gain from their experience and frankly I'm really grateful that they're going to participate in the discussion on Monday and provide an overview. I think, you know, some of the things I took from the conversations with them thus far is the the importance of thinking about equity considerations early on that that hadn't been a focus of their climate action planning. And so now they are bringing those considerations in as part of the implementation work. And it's more challenging, I think if they had it to do over, they probably would have chosen to, they would choose at this point to do more of it on the front end. I think there's an important distinction between the way our act is structured and the way Maine is structured and it sort of hinges on that point which is that that they, I would describe their plan sort of stops at the what here are a series of strategies that could be used to help achieve these greenhouse gas emissions reductions goals are, I would say our global warming solution back to actually requires us to get to the how not only what are we going to do but but how are we going to do it in terms of changes and rule and changes in statute programs that need to be established, etc. And so we have to sort of go to that that next step whereas there they've kind of, they're in the process of thinking about what that second step looks like from there and the other piece. I know they spent a lot of time on which has less less connections for us was was spent a lot of time wrestling, how to deal with sea level rise, and the impact that that that could have on their overall program and changes in land use policy in particular that needed to flow from assumptions they would make about expected changes in sea level conditions. The other piece they they talked about was sort of the public participation and engagement and the importance of that. I think that there's a sharp contrast between the way main approach this work in Massachusetts approach this work from that regard which was Massachusetts sort of developed their action plan within state government, and then took it out for public comment, as opposed to this council type process that main use which is very similar I think to our process here that that sort of engages the public from the get go and makes public participant broader public participation not just the council but overall more clearly an expectation of how the plan will be developed. That's helpful. The sense would be that, you know, the process of incorporating that public feedback and public input is really important, and also time consuming. And that may have affected mains calendar one way or another in the process that that they went through. I'm not as familiar with what Massachusetts did. The main it indicated it took them about 14 months to to get from sort of go to having a their their action plan but as I say their plan I think stops a little bit short of where ours is anticipated to stop right now. I wanted to pull up my notes the other thing that that Hannah had shared was the actually ties nicely into the second part of this presentation which was, they hadn't really made or plans for modeling and in particular the cost analysis she said sort of early enough to be done early enough on in their work, and it actually became sort of a pinch point. As they were, as they were getting to the place of having identified a series of strategies and then wanting to do the work to sort of evaluate and analyze those different strategies. They didn't actually have the modeling contractors in place and on the timeline they wish they had and so sort of had to wait for those pieces to catch up because that part of the evaluation was both really central to to prioritizing different strategies, and also not within sort of the capabilities I guess I would say of state government. And I don't want to lead the witness but I'm guessing this is going to get into some of the money discussion that we're going to have in a few minutes. One quick question on the work within an hour and it might be within the Department of Environmental Conservation I can recall where it exists at an hour. Hopefully the greenhouse gas emissions inventory comes out and last year it was around this time of year I can't remember exactly but do you have a sense as to when that the next one might be published. Is that clear yet. I don't have a specific timeline. So it is within DEC that that work is done. And as part of the presentation that was given at the December 21st cap climate Council meeting. The staff did preview what they are anticipating I think it's important to keep in mind that those inventories lag by several years and so if I'm not mistaken. The extended predictions they offered were actually for 2017 and 2018, and that we haven't published those data sets yet but I'm happy to send around the link to that presentation which which does have those those forecasted elements in it at this point or I may actually I can probably bring it up while we're talking even once, once we get through the. Okay, and I don't mean to interrupt your presentation, but I would welcome that if, if that's something you could email along or text and I'll make sure that it gets in the committee. You know the committee website, just as an aside. You know sometimes reports that the legislature gets go to a central office someplace. I don't know where that central office is and there's a delay in those coming to committees. I'm not sure if we've actually seen the climate council report yet in our committee. And again that could be stuck someplace in the system and just hasn't gotten to our, our committee yet. So, I will make sure to send either a copy of the report itself or a link to where the report lives. Representative Yantatchka, did you have a question I see your hand up. Yes. Thank you Julie for your presentation. Speaking of the Department of Environmental Conservation greenhouse gas emissions report that probably will not reflect any effects that the pandemic had on emissions right. Not at this point in time we really is it lags by several years in part because we rely on regional and national data sets to inform certain parts of the inventory. And so the, the most current data we have which is I would call it provisional it's not we haven't finalized it yet is for 2018 so we don't yet have the ability to look at the impacts of the pandemic on greenhouse gas emissions. And anecdotally there's certainly stories that that news stories that talk about fairly significant reductions as a result of the reduction at largely in vehicle miles traveled, but we won't have benefit of that information and sort of our current emissions control format, probably for at least another two years. Thank you. I don't see any other hands up, Secretary Moore so if you want to. All right. So maybe turning our attention then to funding. As you may recall the General Assembly appropriated $450,000 into a and R's base budget to support the work to accomplish the goals of the Global Warming Solutions Act. I think that money was had sort of three stated purposes attached to it one was to hire three staff positions and provide a modest operating budget for the staff positions those positions are a project manager, a project technician or program technicians so some entry level position to help with research and other work, and then a lawyer to help as we move into the second phase of the Global Warming Solutions Act and the rulemaking component. We have made an offer to somebody to serve as the Global Warming Solutions Act project manager and hope to be in a position to share all of that information publicly by the end of this week. We are in the process of we're working through the process with DHR right now to get the program technician job description posted and anticipate hiring or putting out for the lawyer position later this spring. Given that timeline we are anticipating we will use about 194,000 of the 450 for the salaries and benefits and associated operating costs associated with those three positions. In addition, we've budgeted $46,000 for per diems for the Climate Council, and that means there's about $210,000 in our FY 21 budget available for contracted services. The types of contracted services, we believe are necessary to deliver the climate action plan I would put into three big buckets. One is technical so it's it's modeling. One is facilitation, and then one is communications and outreach. As you may have seen the Budget Adjustment Act includes a request for for $1 million for the Global Warming Solutions Act. This is really a one time money request, and this is what we're looking at overall in terms of contractual needs so we have that $210,000 in our FY 21 budget. And we think we need 1.21 in total of 850,000 of that is for technical support. We're modeling the economic and cost benefit analysis, and then we're helping us work on that framework for monitoring and program evaluation. We issued a request for information, about a week and a half ago now, trying to sort of hone the scope, as well as our cost estimate. What is put out is drawn from the experiences gleaned from other neighboring states, but certainly our scope has its own aspects and attributes responses to the RFI are due February 6. My hope is that we will be in a position to turn around and issue the formal request for proposals before the end of February. We ideally have folks under contract to help us help with this work by the end of March. The facilitation pieces I've broken into two. We did issue a small contract to an entity called the Consensus Building Institute CBI that also facilitated mains climate council process, and has previously done work in Vermont largely with the agency of agriculture to support our January 25th meeting, including both meeting facilitation but they're also doing interviews with council members this last week and this week to inform and support that meeting. I believe that these types of services are really going to be essential. It won't be full time facilitation for every meeting of the council and its subcommittees but certainly to have them available as a resource, and helping ensure the process continues to go move along, as well as working with what we are anticipating will be a steering committee that will sort of guide the larger plenary sessions that the council will hold in the coming months. We've anticipated a fairly significant budget for public engagement. We know that that was an important facet of the way the Global Warming Solutions Act was structured and there's a need to sort of get out to all corners of the state and solicit public comment and input on the plan once it's available. We're envisioning that we will want to provide opportunities as the subcommittees are in the throes of their work to have that to have a public process associated with that as well. This table provides just a bit more detail and how all those those costs sugar off for this coming year. This shows that the total we're estimating is this 1.45 million. I would note, not all of the one times expenses will be incurred in FY 21, but it's also really hard to draw the line between what's an FY 21 and what would be an FY 22 expense. The work will need to be complete by December 1 when we deliver the action plan. And so it seemed like this was sort of the most thoughtful way and most straightforward way to present our request. Going forward, I just want to be clear that once we get through sort of this initial push. I do believe that the annual appropriation of $450,000 will be sufficient to cover those three staff positions operating needs. The per diems and other costs associated with regular meetings of the, the climate council as well as delivering the annual report to the general assembly that's required as part of the act. And that's really, none of that's final to the governor delivers his budget next week. But, but as I sit here today, I believe that that will be the case. Secretary Moore, I don't want to interrupt you I wasn't sure if that was that was that was the end of your presentation representatives to be, I'm sorry, I can stop sharing the screen to see everybody again. I saw representative civilians and go up, go ahead Laura. If that is not the end, it looked like we were at the end, Secretary Moore, are we? Yes. Okay. So I have a couple of questions. Is the RFI up on the website? Is that something that we can see? I will include that in what I mailed to you. It's not, I don't think it's on the climate council website that the agency of administration has established, but it is available on like the business registry website. So I will make sure to send you that link. That would be great and the, the things that I'm curious about Secretary Moore are the facilitation and communication and any additional detail you can provide about what's envisioned there. Sure. So the facilitation one maybe is easier in part because I've spent quite a bit of time over the last week drafting that request for proposals. And so, in a position to, to share at least with you might my considered thinking, which is that the real pieces of the, what we're looking at is, is to provide this ongoing process support both to the council and to the sub committees, as they work to develop the plan. So leading the monthly meetings of the Vermont climate council and then providing support to both the steering committee, which I am expecting we will form following the organizational work we're going to do on Monday as well as support to the sub committees. And I think there's probably going to be different needs in terms of process support, particularly as the sub committees work to develop recommendations. And, you know, we're going to have co chairs for each of those sub committees that probably will have a variety of experience professional experience and capacity on on how to sort of guide a consensus building process around complex issues that are sure to come up. And so it is our belief that having these facilitators as a resource for the sub committees will help ensure their success. And then the last piece is really working with the council and the sub committees to think about stakeholder meetings and public meetings where they make sense, and then the communications and outreach firm they're sort of a hand off there. And then they would actually help develop the materials that would be used for public to guide, excuse me, public participation, as well as doing a lot of the organizational work and logistics around scheduling these meetings thinking about where we should have them when we should have them and how we can get the greatest participation by the most diverse group of stakeholders possible. Given that I think a lot of the recommendations of the climate council are likely to have ties into to sort of personal behavior whether it's the type of vehicle you drive the type of heating system for your home weatherization initiatives and so it's really going to be important to do that that I think that the subcommittees have a lot of direct engagement with the public solicit have robust opportunities for them to provide review and comment, and hopefully be able to successfully address and incorporate their feedback into the the council's ultimate recommendations in the climate action plan. And I think that there will be an important role for the facilitator in that consolidation and how we make decisions we're going to establish charters for each of the subcommittees, trying to ensure that there isn't significant overlap or underlap in the the scopes of work that they'll each be undertaking. But I think knitting those pieces back into a cohesive overall action plan is going to be a significant role in that. And I think that there will be an important role for the facilitator and that consolidation and how we make decisions we're going to establish charters for each of the subcommittees, trying to ensure that there isn't significant overlap or underlap in the the scopes of work that they'll make that particular cohesive overall action plan is going to be a significant undertaking and we will benefit from having having somebody help facilitate the council's work in that space. That does help. I would just offer with communication. I really hope and I and I have actually spoken to a few council members myself. I really hope that the greatest effort will be made to go to the places that are not ready to have this conversation that are that don't want to have this conversation, because those are the places that are going to be the most deeply impacted by this conversation. And so we've got to be creative in our outreach and consistent and make sure that they that we put places out there for them to connect to. I couldn't agree more and and I think that that message was also loud and clear and Susanna Davis's presentation to the council earlier this month. Thank you. Thank you for your work, Secretary Moore, not just with this, but for everything you've been doing during the pandemic. It's greatly appreciated you and all of your team. Thank you. Representative Pat. I thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I don't have a question. I want to just simply say that I know this is very so early in this process with this in large group of council members and all of the diversity and the membership of the council, as well as the efforts, you and others have been talking about public engagement, and it feels very much to me from your presentation and what I've been hearing that this is being started out on very much in the spirit of the of the bill that we worked on that that's now law, and I greatly appreciate that. Thank you. You're welcome. Secretary Moore, could the biggest part of this one time appropriation through the, through the budget adjustment act, the $850,000 for the technical support. I'm not going to pretend that I'm going to that I would understand all the, you know, kind of granular undergirdings of that but in in layman's terms, can you give us a little bit more background as to what, you know, what, what does the modeling work mean, and what will that give you at the end of the day similarly with the, with the economic modeling what's what's that going to present the council with. Sure. So the emissions modeling I, I was a water quality modeler in my past life so if I get into jargon please stop me but the it's it's, I would say at its core it's scenario building right so if we're going to pull together different parts and pieces of eight different strategies right how many apples do you need versus how many oranges versus how many pairs versus how many bananas so in this case, how many electric vehicles do you need to see on the road by date certain to meet the 2030 target established or requirement established in the global warming Solutions Act, how many heat pumps, how many homes do we need to weather eyes and how many anaerobic digesters do we need to build for example, and then it's a it's a big optimization problem right to figure out. Okay well we've said it's not possible to have more than 200,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2030 so we've capped that one and maybe we need to turn the dials on these other three, and then you're constantly sort of looking at the balance you've got to talk between the different types of strategies you have available and trying to get to both something that reflects the most reasonable cost, but also something that that's actually feasible to implement. There's also some work likely that needs to be done around just sort of how we track emissions in general. We built our current emissions inventory for a fairly specific purpose and that purpose was was is also established in statute. It's not clear that that inventory is exactly the right tool for actually being able to measure our progress towards the goals of the Global Warming Solutions Act, and so one of the pieces were going to ask or at least I would anticipate that we would ask is for some some real deep thinking so to speak in in that space about what it makes the most sense to have the part of the the inventories and how we will then use that information long term. And then the other piece I'm envisioning that that will be part of that conversation is, I think we are likely particularly as we start to look at the 2050 requirements to potentially need to consider strategies for things that don't really exist yet. In the beginning there, there's an R&D component, and then how you represent that and account for that in terms of building out what you're going to do in the early years to make sure that you're doing enough things that that we're making the necessary progress towards the requirements of the act, but at the same time, don't go so far in one particular area that we end up doing things that that we might later regret or at least be proven not to be cost effective. And so having the ability to use the model to think not only about the tools that we know that exist today but tools to estimate the benefits and impacts associated with tools that that may not exist yet will be another important piece of that work. Does that help? That is helpful. And this follow up question is not meant to question, frankly, the amount that that's going to this sort of work. It sounds extraordinarily complex and specialized in putting these models together. But a question I do have is, I know that there are some Vermont entities that have been doing this type of work, maybe it's in a much more general fashion, as to not be as granular specific to suit the needs of the work that the council is doing. But I guess I can't help but ask, you know, is some of that work supportive of the work that the council is doing at least at this point? I think it will be. I am hopeful that that some of those organizations may choose to respond to the request for information and help us better understand what tools may already exist. I know that there's work that's been done sort of jointly by UVM and Lyndon State, for example, that may have real utility here. Certainly the Energy Action Network, the regulatory assistance project, and then there are a handful of sort of, I guess I would call them consulting firms that also are headquartered here in Vermont, the Energy Futures Group, and there's a second one that are both located in sort of the Richmond-Hinesburg area that seemed to have some particularized expertise that may be quite helpful to us. The other piece I am hopeful will be able to take advantage of is, frankly, similar work that's been done in adjoining states. I know that, for example, Columbia University has been doing a lot of work in support of New York State's climate action planning, and I am hopeful that some of the things that they've done to look both regionally at emissions modeling as well as some of the cost-benefit work may be able to be brought into the evaluation we need to do. That $850,000 number is the squishiest of the ones I presented, and that it really is sort of a swag based on what we know a typical hour of consulting time costs and what we've heard from our neighbors in terms of the level of effort that was required for their plans. But as I say, none of these are identical, and so my hope is that the RFI will provide some insights there that will allow us to refine that number a bit. But obviously the timing of all these pieces is a bit challenging too. Great, thank you. Representative Sims, I see your hand up. This is incredibly helpful. As a new member, I'm getting myself up to speed here. So I apologize that this is sort of a question, but could you share a little bit more about how the modeling and investments around innovations are around mitigation of climate change, reduction of emissions versus sort of resiliency and like planning for the impacts of climate change here in Vermont? That's a great question, and it's one I think we're going to need to wrestle with a bit as the council. Certainly there is several books of work. You know, if you sort of put them in the biggest possible categories, I would say it's the mitigation, right, the emissions reduction work, the adaptation and resilience work, and then the carbon sequestration work. And each of those has sort of areas of overlap and connectivity to one another, but they're fundamentally sort of three separate books of work. The way that ACT is structured, the sort of legal obligations, at least to my agency, are all tied to the mitigation work. So I think that that's going to be something we'll need to wrestle with in terms of how much weight to put on those different sort of opportunities and books of work. And ensuring that we are both meeting the requirements of the law, and at the same time, sort of the clear intent, as well as frankly our moral obligations to look at ways to build resiliency across the landscape. So that's a great question and very much an unsettled matter right now. Any other questions for the secretary? I don't see any hands up. My understanding is that you are presenting Julie to the Appropriations Committee, I think later this week, and we'll keep our ears peeled for that as well. And if there aren't any other questions, I will say one more thank you. Really appreciate your work and all that you're doing on the council, but as representative Spillier and said, just, you know, keeping the wheels on the government wagon, as we kind of operate in the pandemic now really appreciate all your attention and work to this matter in particular. Representative Spillier, I see your hand, you just got in under the wire there. Sorry, and actually, Mr. Chair, this question is for you. How would you like the committee to, are we planning to make a recommendation? Do you want to act on that today? Is that something we'll do later this week? Yeah, so I will check in, Marty, unless you've got any direction to give us, I was going to check in with the chair of the Appropriations Committee and certainly wait until they had heard the secretary's presentation. What I'm hopeful to do is to carve a few minutes out of our schedule on Friday to have committee discussion on this, which certainly Marty is welcome to join us, join with us in as well. And then, you know, in the past we've written something as formal as a letter to the Appropriations Committee, you know, it can be an email as well, but fundamentally what we are being asked to do is to make a recommendation to the Appropriations Committee on this. So, you know, my sense is by the end of the week we will do that. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I would say that, Tim, I would say that that's what the Appropriations Committee is waiting for. Yeah, you were instrumental committee in developing this legislation, and you understand the legislation itself, obviously better than our committee does, but the requirement or the request will be are these, I don't want to use the word legitimate but are these reasonable expenses that need to be incurred in order to appropriately administer the act that the legislature passed. That's the question that needs to be considered it, you know, certainly from from the Appropriations Committee we sometimes get a little annoyed when we pass legislation and then we don't put enough money in the budget in order to do it and people come back later and ask for more money, but the legislature passed the act. And so we need to determine if this is a reasonable request, and if it's needed in order to implement the legislation that was passed. And your recommendation of how to handle that and then we'll have to obviously work it in with with other needs and determine the best way to do that. Of course, Marty, do you have a sense as to if we if we come back to you by Friday that that would be sufficient for the work that you're doing. That would be sufficient. We will be working on this on Friday and probably Monday as well, I'm sure we will. We would like your recommendation after you've had a little bit of a chance to think about it. Great. So it would be fine. Yep. So, as I mentioned earlier, we will plan on taking some time on Friday to collect our thoughts on this and then I will formally pass those along to the to the chair of the Appropriations Committee. So good. Thank you for joining us today, Marty and and Julie really appreciate your time. And I believe committee that we're then our next meeting is tomorrow morning at at 9am. When we are going to have three guests, we're going to continue our connectivity discussion with some folks who will be joining us from the distribution, electric distribution utility industry. Next week today it's, it's, we started off a couple weeks ago talking about cybersecurity. We had the first year of a master's degree in electric utility stuff on Friday we've had a continual discussion on connectivity. We're talking about greenhouse gas emissions and resiliency issues related to climate change. It's been a pretty, pretty broad swath of things we've heard from in the last couple weeks so they appreciate your focus on this stuff and any any questions or comments or thoughts. Laura. Yeah, one more Mr chair just around the reporting that. So I know Matthew is looking for that report and Secretary Moore has pledged to send us additional materials. How, what will our protocol be will we should we expect that Matthew will send that to us that we'll get an email that it will be posted to the website. Do we know is that something we should share. It's something we're discussing right now. All right. As I mentioned, it's and Matthew. This is something we should get clarity on, you know, January 15 is kind of a magical date I feel like there's a flood of reports that comes to the legislature at that time. Some of them go to some magic office in the legislature and then are distributed to committees. Some of them I feel like come directly to me as a committee chair and you know maybe I'll pass them along to Matthew some of them might come directly to Matthew. Some of them are distributed to our entire committee and all members of the committee get an email on them so there's no real kind of universal protocol on how this happens. And this is an example of, you know, somewhere this fell through the, through the cracks I'm not. I'm sure that an hour got this report to us it's just you know where is it in the ether, so to speak. So, what I would suggest just because of the timeliness of this that Matthew when you get that report. I'm going to email it to everybody on the committee, as well as what was the secretary going to follow up with the RFI. Right, I'm sorry the RFI, which I think is posted on the climate council website. But Matthew when you get that if you could share that with the committee as well so for this instance, let's make sure that each member of the committee, get an email of that. Obviously we've got the secretary's presentation, because it's posted on our website. And, and obviously with this testimony today that's the information that will take some time to discuss this on Friday. I will also also add I believe I found the correct report that Secretary Moore is referring to and it should be up on the committee page now under the reports and resources tab, assuming I found the right one. But yeah, I will send that along in an email later this afternoon as well so that everyone has it. Great. That's helpful. And, Matthew, again, I feel like I'm a relatively new committee chair and you're certainly a new committee assistant. I would welcome if you might check in with I'm not sure if it's Mike Ferrant or who the point person is in the general assembly for when a report, a required report comes out of it's usually the executive branch but but comes into the general assembly. Where does it go and how is it disseminated because there are a few reports that occasionally fall through the cracks. So that would be helpful just to for your edification and frankly mine as well. I'll definitely yeah I'll touch base with Mike and pass along what I learned. Cool. Good. And we do have the report up on the website now. Yeah. Good. So without further ado, let's adjourn and we'll see y'all tomorrow.