 All right. Thank you all for coming today. Today's press conference is focused on something I mentioned in Burlington at the Vermont Climate Pledge Coalition a few weeks ago. Today, by executive order, I am forming the Vermont Climate Action Commission. This commission will be advising me on specific policy recommendations to put Vermont on a path to meeting our ambitious renewable and climate change goals. Despite what's going on in Washington, I'm committed to doing our part. In response to the federal government's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, I've joined 13 other governors to affirm the state's commitment to meeting our share of the emissions reductions for the United States Climate Alliance. In one respect, it was an easy decision because in Vermont, we are already committed to going further and I believe we can and will reach our goals of 90% renewables and greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 80 to 95% by 2050. Climate change has proven to be a disruptive force on Vermonters and our economy. The question we have to answer today is whether we're going to let the impacts of a changing climate threaten our people and our economy or are we going to harness the innovative minds of Vermonters to lead the growing climate change economy. Here in Vermont, we've already seen positive growth in renewable energy jobs. This sector alone supports approximately 19,000 jobs, which is a 29% increase from just over three years ago. This is something we can all build upon, but all sectors of Vermont's economies will need to change to take advantage of this economic opportunity. At the same time, while developing solutions that grow the economy and lower our emissions, we cannot leave any part of our state or its residents behind. We have diverse challenges to overcome to meet this monumental task and ensure that Vermont becomes more affordable. I formed this commission because I want to make sure the rubber does indeed meet the road, so I've asked them to develop recommendations that meet fundamental criteria so that Vermont can thrive while we mitigate the worst impacts of climate change. The criteria I laid out are the following. Solutions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions must spur economic activity, inspire and grow Vermont businesses and put Vermonters on a path to affordability. The development of solutions must engage all Vermonters, so no individual or group of Vermonters is unduly burdened and programs developed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions must collectively provide solutions for all Vermonters to reduce their carbon impact and save money. I've asked Peter Wach, the Deputy Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources to chair the commission, and Paul Costello of the Vermont Council on Rural Development to be co-chair. I'm glad to be joined by both of them today. We are also joined by several other members of the commission, some are here, some are not, but Mike Shirling, the Secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, June Tierney, who is here, Commissioner of the Department of Public Service, Michelle Boomhauer, who I believe is here, Descenea, the Secretary of the Agency of Transportation, Maria Dett, Dett's Blue Spruce Farm, representing the agricultural sector, Linda McGinnis, who is here from the Energy Action Network, representing the clean energy sector, Joe Fusco of Casella, representing the commercial hauling or trucking sectors, Bob Stevens of Stevens and Associates, representing the construction or development sectors, Kristen Carlson, who is here, Green Mountain Power, representing energy utilities, Mary Sprayragan, Vermont Energy Investment Corporation, who is here, representing the energy efficiency sector, Johanna Miller, Vermont Natural Resources Council, representing a statewide environmental organization, and she is here as well. Peter Bourne of Bourne's Energy, representing the fuels sector, Les Gamache, Mayor of St. Albans, representing local communities and local government, Adam Nudson of Dinah Power, representing the manufacturing sector, Bill LaBurge, Grassroots Solar, representing small businesses, Bethany Fleischman, Vital Communities, Upper Valley Transportation Management Association, representing the transportation demand management sector, and Tom Donahue is here, Bennington-Rutland Opportunity Council, representing the Vermont Community Action Partnership. Not yet designated, but will be soon, is a representative from the forestry or forest products sectors as well, a representative from the research and development sector, and as we are currently also looking for a Vermont student who is currently enrolled at a Vermont academic institution. If there is anyone who knows of someone who is currently enrolled at one of these institutions and they would like to serve, please contact Peter Walk at the Agency of Natural Resources. The commission will be 21 members total, reflecting the best and brightest from a wide range of perspectives. This group brings a depth of knowledge as to what works, what doesn't, what opportunities we have for economic development, and ideas for spurring action in a meaningful way. In this executive order that I have directed the commission to develop by next July is an action plan. But I would like to challenge them to bring me at least three tangible, targeted recommendations by January 1, so the legislature and I can get to work on them as soon as possible. The decision to form this commission did not come lightly. I say that because I have a tendency to be wary of commissions. I think many of us share the same concerns. We've seen far too many of them form and then result in outcomes that are not realistic. To be honest, I was not immediately convinced that this was the best path forward, but I thought about it deeply and I keep coming back to this point. If we all agreed on the appropriate actions to take, we would have taken them already. So by bringing this particular group of stakeholders to the table, I hope we can overcome this bottleneck and find meaningful ways forward. So I'd like to conclude by saying goals are important drivers of public policy, but we need a plan that propels us toward accomplishing these goals. And this is a serious challenge. It's a serious challenge that I lay on these 21 people. As is critical, we achieve these goals in a way that makes Vermont stronger in the future. So I thank you again for the commission members who are here today and those who are not for your willingness to serve on this important endeavor. And at this point, we'd be happy to take any questions. When President Trump pulled out of the Paris Accord, one of the reasons he did so, he said, was because it was too stifling to job growth. Based on Vermont's success in the green job sector, do you think that the President's view on that was a miscalculation? Well, I do. I think it was a misstep from my perspective when you're one of only three countries in the world that aren't part of the solution. I think you're just on the outside looking in. And I think that we need to add our voice. We need to add our expertise. We all need to be in this together if we want to change the climate of the world. We all have to be there at the table. So I think it was a misstep on this part. What happens if the commission decides that wind is a great way to go for Vermont? And it doesn't square with your own personal philosophy? Well, again, you know my feelings on wind development on ridgelines. You know, I'm not necessarily opposed to wind in some spaces. I just don't feel that we should be destroying our ridgelines. And there have been many other successful wind development projects in, let's say, New York and fields and other areas. But again, I believe that we have an opportunity in the north, particularly in the Canadian, in Canada and the Quebec province for renewable energy in particular to be brought and transmitted to Vermont and through Vermont to other sectors. And that includes wind as well. But they've made choices that I don't think are acceptable for Vermont. You talk about wanting to meet the 2050 goal of 90-10. And I don't remember the exact details, but it seems like you inherited from the Shumwood administration a bunch of intermediate goals. And I don't remember the details of those intermediate goals, but they were much closer, like by 2025 or 2030. And I'm sorry, I wish I remembered the details, but do you back those goals as well? Maybe I could ask Peter. He may have that information. I have seen some of those goals and the steps along the way as well, or maybe it's June. Oh, happy to do that too. They are her plan. There are interim goals or more near-term goals indeed. Like you, I don't have them precisely in mind at the moment, but they did pre-exist the governor's tenure and public policy is geared toward being consistent with them to the extent that that's possible. So you still, I'll go look them up once we get out of here. Yes, you and I both. But you still want to meet those goals as well. In fact, I think that that is consistent with the path the governor is laying out today. There was a presentation by an official of the Public Service Department last fall, not under your watch, that showed that at our current pace we would fall about 50% short of meeting that 2050 goal. And that seems to call for some fairly immediate urgent action. And even if we wait another year, that's another year where we're not, where we're behind that curve and we're falling behind more and more. Do you think, is this a step in the right direction? Well, I do think it's a step in the right direction. Again, I think that it's important for all of us to be at the table to consider different options. But I will say over the weekend I was at the National Governors Association and a guy you may have heard of, a guy named Elon Musk, was there and they did an interview with him. It was fascinating, frightening, but fascinating at the same time. The frightening part was when he talked about artificial intelligence and some of the possibilities there and some of the regulatory responsibilities of government he believes. And he's not a, particularly a regulation type of person, but he thinks there should be more regulation for something we don't even know what it is yet. But on the other side, on the positive side, he feels that in 10 years, and that's part of his vision and I know he owns Tesla, but he feels in 10 years half the vehicles will probably be manufactured as electric vehicles. He feels in 20 years there will be almost 100% electric in that period of time. So my point is technology is going to be part of the solution and we've come incredibly far in the last 10 to 20 years when you think about things we're doing today versus what we're doing then and how efficient even solar panels and so forth have become. And I believe that to drive technology means that we all have to be there asking for this new technology and being part of that could be an economic benefit for Vermont. 2005, Governor Douglas created the Climate Change Commission. 2011, Governor Shumlin created a climate cabinet. Here we are in 2017 with the Climate Change Commission. I wanted to carry on the tradition. I'm wondering if we can expect another one in 2023 and why is this one different and did you maybe look at the other commissions and boards? Yeah, obviously we looked at other commissions and boards. I think it's important to re-establish those commissions and look at what the objectives were of the commissions. I think the commissions that put forth by Governor Shumlin, I think there's two or three to be honest with you. But I think that what we're looking for is they went a long ways and we're looking to move from there forward and trying to again with my vision of growing the economy, making Vermont more affordable and take care of the most vulnerable, trying to inject and utilize that vision, those guidelines and those principles to develop policy for the future. I spoke with an electric utility manager here in Vermont about the cost per kilowatt hour of wind and solar power. You had mentioned the technologies are advancing, but he explained to me as of at least the past few years the cost is substantially higher for these energies. Can you meet both goals economically to strengthen Vermont and to move in this direction for the environment or are they pulling in two different directions? Well again, that's exactly why we're bringing these 21 people together to consider that because they come from different perspectives and I think it's their important questions to ask ourselves and I would add that because it may be expensive here in Vermont to produce renewable energy we've proven, we've seen that in Canada in particular they have an overabundance of renewable energy that they're willing to part with and they're looking for help in fact in different markets throughout the United States and Massachusetts in particular and we'd like to be part of the solution there as well with the new conduit that is all permitted ready to go through Lake Champlain and through Ludlow and into the Boston market so we're hopeful and we're working very hard to be part of that solution to transfer power from Canada to the Boston region. You mentioned getting 80 to 95% of our energy from renewable sources by 2050 are you walking back from the earlier goal of 90% of energy from... I think the 80 to 95 were emission reductions and the 90% renewable is still there and I think I mentioned that in the remarks as well we're still, the goal is 90% renewable by 2050. I see a lot of government officials and a lot of business representatives and I see one environmentalist. Is that enough? Can I ask Joanna Miller if she feels lonely at all? Do you feel lonely? Would anybody like to... I would just point out Mr. Wolters that there are many government officials here who are also environmentalists. We're Vermonters, we're all environmentalists but we've got to hammer out details in line with the Governor's vision for ways to move this forward that are economical for Vermonters and support the future of our communities. At the same time there's an enormous economic opportunity to do this right to be ahead of the curve. There's an international global competition for places that advance clean energy effectively and attract the innovators and the youth that will lead the economy forward. Why not Vermont? And as we know a lot of the emissions lie in the transportation sector and that's why we've asked certain members of the transportation sector to come on board. Yes, absolutely. And when I met with Premier Couillard and Quebec he had mentioned that they were going to have their goal as 100,000 new electric vehicles in their province in the next few years and they're going to double down on that so to speak. And so that's why we're looking at trying to provide corridors for recharging and different opportunities for us from a couple of standpoints. One is to make sure that we're ready for the future but as well when we're asking the tourists from Canada to come visit our state that they have a place that they can recharge. And again that's part of why I believe this particular commission from all different perspectives is important to consider where there's a win-win situation, win-win-win at times as well. So I think it's important that we have all voice at the table much like the legislature where you have the citizens' legislature where you have people from all walks of life to add their voice. We've been talking about it as kind of Neil's question. You know that this can be such an emotional issue on how to do this. Why not have one of the opponents like Annette Smith on the commissioner, did you ask her? She's pretty thoughtful. Yeah, I'm not sure that she's an opponent. She might be an opponent of wind but I'm not sure that she's an opponent of renewable energy. I think that's the point for a lot of Vermonters is that if you can make the case that this is something that we will bring to Vermont to become more energy independent, self-sufficient, I think that tugs at the heart of many Vermonters. We all want to be independent and I believe that we can be and especially if we play our cards right, we can do so in a way that doesn't cost us any more money. And actually we could profit from it. So if you bring in that dynamic, I believe that we can all have something we can be proud of in the end. Which dynamic? Just understanding that bringing in the fact that we can take care of ourselves, be energy independent, self-sufficient. I think that that's the part that sometimes we're missing and I think that more people would join in if they thought about it in a different way. Does energy independence and self-sufficiency include all that wonderful renewable energy from Canada? Yeah, they're just like our next door neighbors. They're not really... But they offer renewable energy. Why do we have to produce everything ourselves when we have such a good rapport with them? It's something that we've been working on. Again, we have a great relationship with Quebec and I believe that with all our efforts we're going to have an even better relationship. So I think it's just a largest trading partner, something that we can both benefit from. Might you investigate asking the state police if they would drive you around in an electric or hybrid vehicle? I think... You know, it will come to that at some point. We know with the BW settlement, in fact I was talking about it this morning that what are we going to do and I've asked our team to take a look and we need to make investments and walk the talk. So we'll see what happens in the future but it's not lost upon me that we need to do better in that regard. Paul mentioned the opportunity for Vermont or other places to be the place that starts generating new renewable sources of energy and your focus seems to be on purchasing it from elsewhere. So it already seems like there's widely disparate views from the co-chair and you on how best to move forward. Well, I'm not sure that we have... that we necessarily disagree entirely. I think we have to have a mix and understand that we're a very small state and that maybe we can't produce everything that we need but I think that again technology is going to come into play and if there's a way for us to do it with new technology that doesn't have an effect on the vulnerable or different areas that don't want that type of power or whatever it is that we should take advantage of it. So we'll be contemplating all that. So is your preference to be a buyer rather than a producer? Again, when you look at what amidst the most carbon in society now a lot of it is transportation so I think we have to look in that sector. If there is a choice to be made between economic impact and environmental progress in some senses things will get cheaper, technology will improve if it's a choice between costing more and holding off is your default in favor of keeping costs down? My first day in office I keep saying this but it's worth repeating growing Vermont's economy, making Vermont more affordable taking care of the most vulnerable and those are my objectives and I think we can have both we can satisfy both of the concerns you laid out. Can Vermont make a difference in the global perspective? We're one small state and one nation and there's China and all these other big industrial powers around the world. If we were to be asked to sacrifice quality of life for any kind of economic setback for this, would it be worth it? Well again, that's why I think there needs to be both a combination of both making sure that we're economically viable that we have our eye on that and we possibly could be able to take advantage of that profit from that and be an example for others. That's why I just think it's important for us to be with the rest of the world as a country but if we can't as a country at least individually the state's getting together to send that message that we want to be part of the solution. Governor, can I add that the reason why China is stepping up and continuing to lead as the U.S. steps away on Paris and other things related to climate change is because they see the economic opportunity and we can lead both regionally, nationally and globally as our state. We may be small but we are mighty. Do you have any favorites in the formula in your race? I don't know all the drivers but I've watched it on TV a couple of times. I think it's exciting. You don't hear the sound which is a little bit of a problem. I think they'll probably have to come up with a solution for that but it's incredibly fast and the technology is there and again I think the future of racing is still bright because it challenges technology and we're doing that. We're seeing that informally. Do you know just how bad the mosquitoes seem to be this year? I have not. I was told to ask you that by the way he's noticed. He's noticed. I spend a lot of time inside. Maybe when he's outside, you know, lounging around in the chair out by on the woods, maybe there are a lot of mosquitoes but I haven't noticed that. It must be going fast when you're outside. Are you racing tonight? I am not. Unfortunately. Since you're brand new finance commissioner here, it looks like he's got some trusty paperwork for them. Can you address where you'll look first with the revenue downgraded expected tomorrow? That was a loaded kind of a story. I don't remember saying there was going to be a downgrade and you said your finance commissioner said so. Well, I think we're going to end up the year in pretty good shape and then we're going to come through with a little bit of extra revenue but acknowledging that we have our challenges in the future in terms of revenue. So we're going to meet with the board tomorrow and work out a solution for the small amount that I believe that we need to react to in the future with a bit of a revenue downgrade. So the budget lays out how to deal with the corporate income tax refunds that everyone expects to come through. Do you have a plan ready to go for whatever the economists say tomorrow in terms of what that number is? We're working on something and I think that we'll be able to make the case and I think everyone will come away agreeing with that. But we'll see you tomorrow. Well, thank you very much for coming. Appreciate it and thank you all for serving. Thank you.