 So you'll recall when the Committee of Conference, or excuse me, when H-449 left the House, it contained two major provisions, one relating to the modernization of VPIC and transformation of that into a more independent entity with some board best practices changes in the makeup of the committee. And it included the task force to study pension benefit and plan design over the interim. The Senate added a third reform to the bill, which is in keeping with a bill that Representative Colston introduced and is currently hanging on our wall, but that we didn't have time to take up and do work on, which would call for the legislature to create a pension oversight committee, a joint oversight committee. And so the way you should think of that is, we all recognize that the pension system is complicated and that the legislature has typically not had very close contact or oversight with either the investment side or the benefit design side until and unless something hits a crisis point, which is where we find ourselves this year. And so this ongoing oversight will be three House and three Senate members who can really build a body of knowledge and understanding about how the pension is functioning. And hopefully we'll be able to give the legislature just a little bit more of a view into how things are going so that we don't get so far off the rails and have to hit the panic button like we are now. So we agreed with the creation of this ongoing oversight committee and we offered a couple of tweaks with respect to the VPIC changes that they made, not terribly substantive, but the Senate had tweaked the definition of independent and we wanted to hold firm that in order to be an independent appointee to the VPIC, you should not have a spouse who is a beneficiary and we gave the Senate their request that simply because someone has a parent or a child who's a beneficiary shouldn't impact their independence. We also asked the Senate to put back in the 20 year term limit for the chair. We know that VPIC is doing their own analysis of how to best structure themselves and they may come back with different information in the future about how to do term limits, but for now the committee of conference report has the 20 year term limit for the chair back in which was the house's position. We had the, I think the bulk of the conversation between the house and the Senate was on the makeup of the task force. The house felt very, we felt very strongly that we needed three house members to be on this task force because it is a big lift to bring those recommendations back to the legislature and having three voices coming back to the house with firsthand information about how the task force arrived at its recommendations was really important to us. And so the Senate agreed that they would stay at two members, the house would get three members on the task force and in order to maintain the balance on that task force that was important to the Senate they've designated the treasurer's appointee as being a non-voting member. And so the Senate got their way with respect to the overall balance of plan participant versus non-participant and the house was able to get our number up to three, which was important to us. There was a little bit of back and forth about who the administration appointee should be and the house felt strongly that it should be the commissioner of DFR and ultimately the Senate agreed to our position on that. How am I doing so far, Reps Leclerc and Gannon? Perfect, outstanding. It's bringing tears to my eyes. Oh, super. I know because you're having flashbacks to the long intense negotiations in the committee of conference. That's a joke, it wasn't tense nor was it particularly long. There were a few other sort of miscellaneous changes. We felt that this standing oversight committee of house and Senate members should start their work upon the interim report of the task force so that those three house and three Senate members can also be part of understanding how to bring the task force recommendations back for legislative action next year. So the task force will start in October when the interim report of the task force is due. We, let's see, we changed a few things about the duties of the task force that the co-chairs, that's a house and a Senate member who are co-chairs can create subcommittees because we recognize that there may be a deep dive that we need to do into how to pre-fund OPEB or something like that. And it doesn't make sense for the entire task force to have to be at the table for that. So we'll be able to create some subcommittees. We designated that there could be up to 20 meetings of the task force because you'll recall that the Senate version of the bill extended the due date for the report and we want them to be able to meet weekly during the course of their meeting times. So we've bumped that up to 20 meetings. Let's see. We are renaming the public pension commission so that nobody confuses whether we're talking about pensions in general or only our public pensions. And I think that's it for the miscellaneous changes. Did I miss anything? Oh, Representative Higley has a question and then Rep Scanan and LaClaire can tell me if I missed anything. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just curious, so this oversight committee is gonna start in October. Is there a number of times that they can meet from then until January and what about beyond? I'm gonna have to dredge the details of the bill to know whether there's... They can meet six times during an adjournment. Okay. That's modeled on your typical interim oversight. I don't expect they'll meet six times this year. And their PDM amount is the same as everybody else's, right? Yes, standard legislative interim, yeah. Thank you. Yep, any other questions? Rep Fihotski. I remember that the other question, and I wish I had had the time to follow this more closely, but one of the other places where the House and the Senate came down pretty differently was in the charge of the task force, where did that land? Ooh, I'm gonna have to ask Representative Ganon to help me with that because there were a couple of changes in the Senate version of the duties of the task force. We had, we accepted their range of 25 to 100% of the increase in the ADEC. So you'll recall that we were aiming at trying to reduce the long-term obligation by the amount of the increase from this past year and the Senate felt that it was more important to give a range and we agreed to that. Rep Ganon, anything else that? Most of their other changes was to put some of our powers and duties in more plain English, but they're fairly consistent with what we proposed. Representative Clarke did raise a question because they did take out the part about looking at defined contribution plans or hybrid plans, but we believe that the language is broad enough so that the task force can look into that and the Senate agreed that they thought that that language was broad enough. Thank you. Any other questions, Rep Higley? Yeah, so Madam Chair and Vice Chair, I, you know, to take that piece out, I don't get it. I mean, why would they take out the piece about looking at a possible defined contribution plan? I mean, granted that you're saying that they still feel that they can look at that, but why take it out then? I don't get it. My opinion is they're gonna look at it and I'm sorry for that. Well, I mean, we asked them if we, you know, and Representative Clarke has his hand up. Yeah, good question, Representative Higley. That was one of my concerns and they didn't have a really specific reason for taking out the explicit language, but they were very clear and we made sure that there was no options that are taken off the table by the existing language that they can and will look at everything. But that was a question that was asked as to, you know, why, and we didn't get any real specific reasons back. I think you can surmise that there may have been some conversations that were the motivation behind that, but again, they were very clear that nothing is off the table. Hang on just a moment. Sorry, I was distracted for a moment. So Representative Higley, I wish that I understood the workings in the minds of the Senate Government Operations Committee. I can't say that I entirely understand, but I want to assure you that we've done our diligence to make sure that being able to look at that possible change in benefit design is still possible and it is the intention of the House that we would go ahead and do that analysis during the course of the task force. Any other questions or comments about the changes or reps Leclerc again and anything I missed? All right. Is the committee ready to take a vote on how we feel about the Committee of Conference Report on H-449? All right, I would move that we recommend to the body to accept the conference report on H-449 when you're ready. I shall begin the roll call. Gannon. Yes. Marwicky. Yes. Leclerc. Leclerc. Hooper. A qualified yes. Colston. Yes. Anthony. Pihoski. Yes. Lefeb. No. Higley. No. McCarthy. Yes. Copeland-Hanses. Yes. Leclerc. Yes. So far we go ahead. Was it eight to one at this point? Well, we- Yes, eight to one at this point. Okay. Let's shift gears at this point to the last bill on our list, which is S-25. Representative Gannon, do you wanna talk to us about your technical amendment and then we can figure out how to proceed with consideration of the Donahue amendment? Certainly, Madam Speaker. My amendment is very technical in nature, again, even more technical this time. So there are two instances of amendment in my amendment. The first instance of amendment is to add in section eight, which is dealing with seven BSAs, section 881, which is the rulemaking section of Act 164 in subdivision A1 after subdivision R. This is really important, adding an ellipsis. That's the three little asterisks that tell you that there's something missing from the bill. So it was a very technical change. So we're adding an ellipsis and you'll see those throughout S-25 where we're leaving out information. So that is the person's amendment. The second instance amendment is striking out section 2820, which is the effective dates in its entirety and inserting a new section 20, which reads section nine, which is the advertising section and section 18, which is the substance misuse prevention section, will take effect on March 1st, 2022. The remaining sections will take effect on passage. The substantive change here is adding section nine, the advertising section to have an effective date of March 1st, 2022. And I know Michelle's child is here and so if I get anything wrong, please let me know. Good morning, Michelle. Good morning. Now you've got it. The delayed effective date for that one section is because it pertains to advertising for dispensaries and the new dispensary laws that you passed in Act 164 don't take effect till March 1st. So I just missed that on the first 10 passes on this bill. All right, questions. Representative Hooper, you look like you have a question. I do have a question. And since Michelle raised the point that she missed out on it, the three asterisks, again, John, referencing to some physical feature on the mall in Washington, DC is what? Indicating that we left something out. So when, maybe Michelle can better explain this than I can. Sure. So when we are drafting and you're just amending perhaps one subsection or a subdivision and you don't want to repeat all of the existing language, we use a list in there. And so that's why you see it throughout all the bills. It just means there's language that's not showing, but you don't need to see it. Right. Other questions from committee members about the technical amendment. All right, Representative Gannon, you wanna make a motion? I move to approve the amendment. Draft 1.2 dated May, 2021 at 313 p.m. When you're ready. Rep Colston. I shall begin the roll call. Gannon. Yes. Mariki. Yes. Leclerc. Yes. Cooper. Yes. Colston. Yes. Anthony. Bihowski. Yes. Lefeb. Yes. Higley. Yes. McCarthy. Yes. Copeland-Hanses. Yes. 10-0-1. All right. So, in Representative Donahue's absence, I'm wondering, Michelle, if you could walk us through the effect of the amendment that she is proposing. Sure. So, everybody has the copy. It's draft 2.1 dated the 18th at 518 yesterday. So, in the first instance of amendments, so you might recall, or perhaps not, it was that last year in Act 164, so you had, I think there were 11 House committees that weighed in on Act, what was S54, and many of them did it informally, and House Healthcare looked at it. And one of the things that they recommended to you and that you included in your amendment to the floor, and that was in the House proposal of amendment, was that in the rulemaking, the board is to develop health warnings and consultation with the Department of Health with regard to labeling requirements. And so, in the Senate, their preference was, no, you did it, that it would be the Department of Health, sorry, I got it twisted. The Health position was that the Department of Health would do them solely, and then the board would then adopt them and use them on labels. The Senate position was for the board to do it in consultation with the Department of Health. In conference committee, the House acceded to the Senate position on this right here in this first instance of amendment. And so, what Representative Donahue was doing is going back to the House position prior to the conference agreement with there in the first instance. So it would be including health warnings developed by the Department of Health rather than the board doing it in consultation with the Department of Health. The second instance of amendment is doing the same thing with regard to dispensary. So the first instance of amendment applies to the cannabis establishments for the commercial adult use market. And then the second instance of amendment applies to dispensaries for the medical program. Same thing, same issue. Section 16C. So you might recall that in the adult use market, there is a requirement that there's a flyer handed out by retailers and integrated licensees that has some, a variety of warnings don't drive or operate heavy machinery and et cetera, et cetera, and also has health warnings in there. And that one is that the, you did put it, I think that the board develops it in consultation with the Department of Health. Section 16C doesn't mirror, there isn't a flyer requirement for in the dispensaries, but in the current law for the medical program, there is a requirement that the Department of Public Safety hand out to patients and caregivers when they register for the registry, some health and safety information that's developed by the Department of Health. And so when, last year, when the legislature passed Act 164, that provision was not in there. And that was something that the Senate had not liked the current program and wasn't in there. And so what Representative Donald Hughes doing in section 16C is taking the language from the current DPS regulatory system with regard to providing information at registration and putting that into the new scheme for the medical registry. Representative DeAnon. Thank you. So Michelle, just so I am clear, in the first instance of amendment, that is consistent with the language of S54 when it left the house, correct? Yes, yes. And then the second instance of amendment is new language that was not in that bill. At least I couldn't find it. It was not in the house proposal because you didn't amend anything on the medical program. Okay. But it was in the conference report. It was in the conference report. Yes. As it's written here? I sure hope so. Okay. But I will then the third. Pardon? And then 16C is new language. I understand. Yes, that is entirely new language. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to understand what we had done. Sure. Note to the committee that, you know, we all voted on the conference committee report last year. And that was the final house position was what was contained in the conference committee report. Right. So first instance of amendment is going back to house position prior to agreeing to the conference report. Second instance of amendment was agreed to in the conference. Well, it shows it's going, there was never this amendment because the house didn't have any medical amendments. This was added in the Senate and agreed to by the house. And then the third, and then the 16B is totally new. So madam chair, I have completed reading representative Donahue's email to us. And she did ask if there was another window for her to come in to discuss her. So well, she did not specify a time. She did ask for another window. Okay. We're, we'll need to, we'll need to let the speaker know that we have not yet been able to hear from representative Donahue. Why don't you go ahead and have a committee discussion about the Donahue amendment if anyone needs any clarifying information or context. I'm gonna go off screen for a moment and reach out to the speaker. The representative show. I'm just wondering if last year or maybe at some point on the Senate side we heard about the health department's capacity to develop these warnings. Something tells me in this moment of pandemic they might have their hands full. That's a very good point. I think we did, I don't think last year when it was discussed that obviously it was actually before the pandemic that we worked on this bill. So I don't think their capacity was at issue at that time. And I think that whether you take representative Donahue's amendment or not, they're gonna be involved in the process of developing the labeling language because it was either, either the way it's in the bill now it's in consultation with the department of health or in representative Donahue's amendment. It's the department of health doing it. So, but I do think you raise a fair point about the capacity of the department of health to do it right now. Any other questions or thoughts? So, I just want to raise, we're in a very different position this year than we were when we worked on this language in S54. I mean, the cannabis control board has been appointed by the governor. And this would be taking away authority from a brand new board. And I think that's something we have to consider. Not really sure that the distinction here between in consultation with the department of health and having the department of health write things for an existing board is that important. You know, I mean, you've all heard Chair Pepper's testify. I think he is very open to having a dialogue with anybody that's interested in the regulation of cannabis. So, I mean, I think there is a question of whether we are supporting the board with respect to these amendments. So, I think that's something we need to take into consideration. Representative Hooper, you have a question or comment? Well, I have a comment, I guess. I did perk up a little bit when Representative Donahue mentioned who writes the story on tobacco and alcohol to some degree and that there is a little bit of a intertwine between the people who are going to make money on the board and who are not to a minimal degree. Not enough to influence my saying this should go forward, but it seemed to be on the fringe of a valid point for me. Thank you. Representative Leclerc, you have a question? Well, I think it's more of a comment. I do remember us having a very robust conversation around this and I believe where we wound up was that the board was going to have a lot of decisions they needed to make and that's why you'll see that we expanded the advisory group that they'll be interacting with and there wasn't any question at least in my mind and I think others that they would be looking to the department of health and others to formulate these advisories and warnings going forward. So, I think that they're, the expectation is they were gonna have the input and so I think that that's why we wound up where we did by giving the resources to the board. Representative Bihovsky. My other, and it's sort of a question just to kind of clarify my other question around some of the amendments to the medical piece. My understanding is we're kind of coming back to that medical advisory group and really trying to make a more robust piece there and so I almost wonder if it makes sense to really wait to do any amendments to medical use until we've had that larger conversation. Am I correct in my thinking? Rep Gannon. Sure, so you're right Representative Bihovsky. I mean, we had a long discussion in our committee this year about continuing the, what is it? The committee for marijuana symptom relief oversight committee and that it's our intent that it remains standing up and that it becomes part of the advisory committee to the cannabis control board. And I would think that they would wanna have some input into the warnings that are being developed. I think that's a very good point. All right, any other questions about the content of the proposed amendment? All right, I have communicated with the speaker and she would like us to come to the floor as soon as we can. And she's suggesting that they will move the conference report on the T bill, which before we get to S25, which should give us time to track down Representative Donahue for you and invite her to come back here to committee to help us to help us understand what she's proposing so that we can then take a vote on it. And so unless there's other questions or committee discussion, I think we should head to the floor now and just keeping in mind folks that we need to come straight away back here so that we can get an official vote on the Donahue amendment before we do S25 on the floor. And Representative Colston, I'm guessing that you would like to continue the roll call on several of our votes with Peter Anthony. That is correct, Madam Chair. For H135, which is to concur with the Senate amendment, so far the vote is 10-01, Anthony. Yes. Thank you. And on H122, act relating to boards and commissions to concur with the Senate amendment, our vote currently is 10-01, Anthony. Yes. Thank you. And H25, this is the Gannon amendment. S25. I'm sorry, S25, thank you. And currently the vote is 10-01, Anthony. Yes. Thank you. And last H449 on the pension bill, the amendment to concur with the Senate. Currently the vote is 8-20, Anthony. Yes. Thank you. And thank you all. And I apologize for rudely abandoning the truth. Not to worry, we're glad you're back. None of us saw you leave. We just looked up and all of a sudden you were gone. There's a yellow screen, right? You've been abducted by aliens. Indeed. All right, Representative Colston, does that get us? Yes, I'm all set. Sorry, I was just... What's the final on 337? I think that was 11-0. Yes. Okay, thank you. I'm heading over now. All right, good work this morning, folks. We'll come back and do this all again as soon as we get the okay to come back to finish our work on S25. See you on the floor.