 There we go, we are now live. Good morning everybody. Welcome to House Transportation Committee. It is Wednesday, May 19th, 2021. We are here graciously, some members who have been a part of the Climate Council and others are here hopefully to give us an update and we thank them so much because this is a very busy time. So before we go to the floor, this is a opportunity for us to, oh, it's not like official testimony but it's for us to get a feel for where that's going because we know and we're looking forward with great anticipation of good things that are gonna be coming out of that council before we're back in January. And we'd love to get a sneak preview about what's going on. So before we go to the floor, which by the way, our T bill will be up this morning, our committee of conference and then our work in the committee should be completed for this session. So with that, who would like to go first? We have Julie Moore from A&R and Johanna Miller from the NRC and Jane. Not gonna get your last name. Lizard check, thank you. Thank you to be with us as our guest. Does anybody particularly wanna go first? All right. Yeah, Julie. Good morning everyone for those who I don't know. I'm Julie Moore, I'm the secretary of the agency of natural resources and thought I could give a brief sort of progress report on the work of the climate council. And wanted to introduce Jane and Joey. Jane is the director of the Global Warming Solutions Act. So as you may recall, the general assembly provided three positions to support the work necessary to develop the climate action plan. And Jane is the one we filled thus far, but the most important one and is really the person coordinating the work of the council, the steering committee as well as the five subcommittees that where the technical work at this point is underway. And then please that Joey Miller from VNRC who is a council member is able to join us this morning as well. Understanding the committee may have some transportation specific questions and that's an area where Joey's been focused. So, but thought I could take maybe 15 minutes and just provide a high level overview on the work of the council to date. And then happy to sort of turn it into to more of a free form discussion and hope that between the three of us we can answer any questions you might have. Do I have the ability to share my screen? You will, excuse me, when Lori can make that happen. Okay, fantastic. You do now. All right, great. Oh, here we go. So hopefully everybody can see my screen. Starting to come in. All right. There we go. I'm gonna be able to, oh, here we go. So just a little bit of where we've been before we get to where we're going. As you likely recall, the general assembly passed the Global Warming Solutions Act last September and then had 60 days to make appointments to the 23 member council. That all of the appointments were received by mid-October and then the administration had 30 days to convene the first meeting of the council which was held on November 20th. We did provide a very brief written report to the general assembly back in the middle of January that just sort of really described the efforts we were undergoing to organize ourselves. And all of this is building towards adopting a climate action plan by December 1st of this year. As you may recall, the climate action plan has a number of fairly specific requirements that need to be integrated into the plan, including strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, efforts to encourage smart growth, we're charged with looking at long-term sequestration and storage of carbon across our natural and working lands. There's a requirement to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 across all sectors. We pay particularized attention to some of the challenges faced by rural and marginalized communities. All of this is intended to be done and looking of ways to reduce the use of chemicals and products that contribute to climate change. And then there's also a strong component around adaptation and resilience. So overall, I think of our work is falling into three big buckets. The greenhouse gas emissions reduction bucket, the climate adaptation and resilience bucket, and the carbon sequestration bucket. And can talk a little bit more about that when we get to the subcommittees and how their work aligns with those. The full council has met eight times since that first meeting on November 20th. We had several meetings a month early on, but have now gotten into a cadence where we're looking at meeting once a month because much of the substantive work at this point is actually taking place in the subcommittees. And it's really sort of the council's role is more plenary and focused on ensuring that the subcommittees are continuing to advance their work in a timely fashion that will allow all those pieces to come back together as part of the climate action plan. And then also really thinking about stakeholder engagement and outreach across the full breadth of the council's work. Although it wasn't explicitly provided for in statute, we did end up creating a steering committee for the council that has six members, myself and Secretary Young, representing the executive branch. And then we have two of the legislatively appointed members by the house, two of the members that were legislatively appointed through the Senate for a total of six. And our role is to meet a little bit more frequently. We developed the council agenda meetings and then also have a role thinking about contractor support. And I'll talk a little bit about that piece in a moment on down the line. But that box at the bottom really gets to the point of the steering committee which is to organize the work of the council but not control it. So in statute, we were provided with four specific subcommittees, rural resilience and adaptation. And we've broadened that to have a statewide focus on resilience and adaptation with particular emphasis on the challenges faced by rural and marginalized communities. Cross-sector mitigation, which is looking at the different sectors of greenhouse gas emissions reduction. So transportation versus building heat versus agriculture versus electricity, et cetera. The just transition subcommittee, which is looking at how these policies would impact different communities across the Vermont landscape. The agriculture and ecosystem subcommittee, which I think of as the carbon sequestration subcommittee, but looking at ways we can take advantage of the myriad benefits provided by natural and working lands. And then we did end up creating a fifth subcommittee, which we've termed the science and data subcommittee. And this subcommittee is looking both at the greenhouse gas emissions inventory, which serves as the basis for all of our calculations and is a piece of work that DEC has maintained for more than 10 years now, just to make sure it's actually the right tool for this climate council job. And the science and data subcommittee is also working on an overall carbon budget for the state of Vermont, which will help us determine our ability to meet that net zero by 2050 goal that was established in the Global Warming Solutions Act. So, Julie, may I ask you a question? Please. So if we're so curious, over the summer, we can go back and watch these meetings. You can. So there's a climate council website and maybe Jane can help and paste a link to it in the chat so that you will have access. We'll send it to Lori. She'll give it to all of us. Okay, fantastic. But not only the council meetings, but the steering committee meetings and the subcommittee meetings are all recorded and made available through the website. So there's literally probably at this point, hundreds of hours of us working. Beachside novel and go right to... Right. But, and there's a, I mean, to the extent the committee's interested, I can certainly flag some that I think would be of particular interest, but it's all out there. And we have had continuous public participation in all of the meetings, which is welcome. And I think a reflection of the interest that this work holds for the broader public. Thank you. So just a little bit more on the subcommittees. Generally, they have eight to 10 members. That was sort of our rule of thumb. And it includes a mix of both council members, but we were also given the authority to appoint members that aren't part of the council and tried to use that opportunity to make sure we had the full breadth of expertise that would support the work of the subcommittees as well as trying to improve upon geographic balance as well as some other issues around diversity. Each of the subcommittees is being supported by some state of Vermont agency staff. And then we've had counselors who volunteered to serve as liaisons between subcommittees were necessary because there's certainly places where the work of the different subcommittees meets, intersects or could overlap or underlap. And one good example might be thinking about the role that natural and working lands can play in carbon sequestration, but are also a really important tool for thinking about landscape level resilience. And so just making sure both that we don't have two people doing work in the same space or worse, probably having no one doing work in that space because they assume it's within somebody else's purview. Each subcommittee has two co-chairs, one from the executive branch and one that was legislatively appointed. And each of the counselors indicated what subcommittee they were interested in serving on and generally received their first or second choice and we were able to sort of make these assignments. This is just to give you a quick sense and this is obviously in the slide deck we've sent to Lori so you can take a little bit closer look at it but gives you the membership of each of the committees so you can see both the counselors as well as the members of the public to know who is serving where. In terms of the subcommittee work, most of these subcommittees are now to the point of meeting weekly. They've all drafted a charter and then we went back and matched them up against each other to make sure there isn't overlap or underlap. The subcommittees have established a work plan and timeline for their work and most recently have engaged with our public outreach contractor which is climate action to begin planning how they will bring the public into their work early on. All of this is building towards the climate action plan which as I noted before needs to identify those specific initiatives, programs and strategies and we have developed sort of a sequence for that work. It includes inventorying existing programs then looking at what else we need to do to actually achieve the targets of the act. Thinking about how we're gonna pay for all of this developing a strategy to monitor our progress and make sure that we are making both cost effective investments and that they're having the desired impact. The climate action plan needs to identify rules or necessary legislation that will be required to support implementation and we are barreling towards the adoption date of December 1st of this year but recognizing that this is really a preliminary action plan. It's gonna be heavily focused on the 2025 greenhouse gas and mission reduction target that was established in the Global Warming Solutions Act but there's an ongoing commitment and in fact requirement to update the plan at least every four years thereafter as we continue to build on this work. Just laying out what we see is taking place between where we sit today and December of this year is a lot of technical analysis, pathways and scenarios are the different approaches that would allow us to achieve the greenhouse gas emissions reduction requirements. That review of the greenhouse gas emissions inventory I described as well as a carbon budget. Ultimately, once we have pathways and scenarios that we believe are technically feasible we need to think about the costs of them and ensure that those are also feasible as well as building and monitoring an assessment framework so that we know upfront how we plan to track and measure our progress. All of this is done with a constant theme of public engagement throughout. We know that a lot of the work that's gonna be required to achieve our greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals whether it's in the transportation sector or the building heat sector is really gonna require changes in individual behavior and so it's essential that we get broad buy-in from the public as we are beginning this work and so it placed a great deal of emphasis on that both the public comment and public involvement in the meetings but also having brought on board a contractor to specifically help us flesh out a public outreach and engagement strategy. And that's a nice segue in that we actually have three contractors supporting the work of the climate council. We hired the Consensus Building Institute back this earlier this winter to provide facilitation and process support. They have been a great addition and frankly have been involved in climate action work in both New York and in Maine and so I've been able to also help share some of their gained experience and expertise in those efforts to inform our work. We've recently contracted with Climate Action and Rise Consulting to support public engagement and outreach process and then we are in the final throws of getting a technical contractor underway. We actually started with a request for information back in early January just trying to see if we could get some advice on what we know and what we don't know. We received 15 responses, hundreds of pages. It was incredibly instructive and then really informed the RFP that we then released on April 14th that those proposals were due back to us in early May. We received four responses and hoped to have a contract in place by June 1st and this is going to cover several different areas of technical support, emissions modeling, economic modeling and then helping us think through the monitoring and program evaluation components. And I do have a couple of extra slides at the end but maybe pause there is a great place to start a conversation. And the other pieces just are the overall budget for the development of the Climate Action Plan as well as a little bit of information on the proposals the governor advanced in terms of the America Rescue Plan funding related to climate action. Thank you, Secretary. This is so informative. When people, when we leave, we think we do great work here. Sometimes we try to and work in conjunction. So we're looking really looking forward to the work that comes out of this and it's a great segue for us to end our session and going forward. I see representative Shaw, your hand is up. Oh, good. Representative Burke, welcome. I was worried. And thank you, Madam Chair. For Julie, I guess, good morning again. Early in your presentation, you showed up some slides that talked about your rule of resilient subcommittee and talking about marginal communities. And I'm wondering what defines a marginal community and then hoping economic economically disadvantaged communities are in that list. I will actually turn it over to Jane because I have not been participating in that particular subcommittee but do know that's been a topic of considerable conversation. Thank you. Thank you, Representative Shaw. So, excitingly, the first body of work that's coming out of one of the subcommittees it actually contains the definition of just that and the just transition subcommittee is putting forward a package for review and consumption by the other subcommittees and the council on Monday that will include the set of guiding principles which will be the underpinning to inform the strategies and recommendations that come out of the subcommittees. And included in that is also a definition of impacted communities is the term that they've settled on that encapsulates marginalized communities and speaks to just as you say, economic disparity, geographic disparity, BIPOC communities, impacted frontline communities and communities that face the front of most of the climate change impacts and will need to be considered for adaptation. And the final suite in that package includes a set of questions that take the guiding principles which are very high level and make them actionable for subcommittees to consider as they think about strategies and recommendations development. They're the first series in what will likely become the equity impact assessment to consider on the backend of policy recommendations and strategies. I'm glad to hear that how broad that charge is going to be in quite often down my way. And I know maybe up in the Northeast Kingdom, the economic vitality of many of our communities is very poor. And so I appreciate you considering that factor. When we're looking at that, because those are the communities that are going to need probably more help than those of the larger communities. Thank you. Anybody else? Oh, Representative Burke, I hear that your internet is a little sketchy this morning, I'm sorry. Yeah, and not only that, but I completely spaced out this meeting until I... It's in text, yeah. I'm so sorry. Oh my gosh. Don't worry. I have to go back and watch. YouTube is doing great for this. As a matter of fact, we're learning this morning that all of the council's meetings, it's going to become my summer go-to watch to get caught up. You have no idea, Secretary and others, how often during our legislative session that we've tried to, and I hope that within the work that we've done this year is an attempt to keep advancing goals or activities in Vermonters that help us get to the next step. And that nothing that we've done, I believe has interfered with getting there and making some smaller steps this year and looking forward to really partnering next year with what comes out for what we need to work on. So we're going to look forward to it and get after it. I see representative White's hand up. Thank you, Madam Chair. And as someone who missed yesterday's meeting, I'm maybe feeling a little better about it. I just want to thank Julie and Jane. And then I had a question that you actually were alluding to it, which is I think that our committee has a real opportunity to work hand in hand with the recommendations that come out of this group. And I'm wondering as you look at the transportation bill that were, I don't know, the bow might not be fully on it yet, but like pretty close, right? Maybe this morning, we're gonna, the bow will be glued this morning. He's really stuck to that beautiful package. What your reflections would be on if we're kind of moving in the right direction and I think proactive is the word I would use, assuming that we'll be considering the same ways to tackle emissions reduction. Yeah, I'm happy to start. And then with love for Jane or Joey to weigh in, certainly the T bill contains a lot of really exciting investments and incentives around electric vehicles. And we know that that's going to be a central component of what we have to do to achieve our greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals. I think the most recent report from the Energy Action Network suggests that we need north of 40,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2025, which is a 10-fold increase from where we sit right now. I would say my only concern or frankly reflection is in addition to incentivizing electric vehicles, I think there's a lot of work to be done to incentivize the construction of electric vehicle charging infrastructure that the many Vermonters will have the opportunity to charge at home, but also need the ability to charge on the road. I saw a little something from Drive Electric Vermont where they showed a tool that the federal, one of the federal agencies had put together and it suggests we're also only at about one-fifth of the charging infrastructure we need, publicly available charging infrastructure we need to fully support the fleet of electric vehicles we'd like to see on the road by 2025. So there's an enormous amount of work that needs to take place in this space. Grateful to the committee for the emphasis placed on electric vehicle incentives and look forward to continuing to work with you to help reach those goals. I don't know, Jane or Joey, if there's anything you'd add there. Go ahead, Joey. Nope, okay. Jane, do you have anything on that? No, thank you. Okay. I see some hands have gone up and I am gonna look at my handy-dandy participants so I can see it's representative Stebbins, then representative Burke, and then representatives. Thank you, Chair. Julie, nice to see you. And full disclosure, my firm is one of the, my other job, you know, June through December is one of the firms that has submitted a proposal to do the climate council analysis. But separate from that, what I wanted to ask, with regards to your comment, Julie, about charging stations, what I think is really exciting, you know, I'm always looking for like the triple win is the opportunity for growing jobs here in Vermont related to those charging stations. And I'm wondering how much, I know A&R, there's a reason why we have different agencies and different departments because not everybody can do everything, but I wonder when you're thinking about charging stations and the need for those, how much interaction does A&R have with, say, education or with ACCD so that we can start to connect those dots in terms of, for Vermonters who may have lost their job during the pandemic, are there opportunities there to start training folks to be able to, you know, grow this new industry here in Vermont, so we get both the climate, you know, the savings in terms of, you know, Vermonters not filling up their internal combustion vehicle but then also, you know, Vermonters actually getting jobs from this and I wonder how much you've looked into that and then I have one other question for you. Sure, so we do have an interagency coordinating committee particularly around electric, well, we have many interagency coordinating committees but there's one specific to electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Maybe less of an emphasis on sort of the job creation component and more an emphasis on how we sort of balance making sure we have a good distribution of these things to address what we know to be the public's concerns about range anxiety as well as thinking about how we can use these, frankly, as a tool to drive visitors into our downtowns and village centers where they hopefully take the time while their car charges to get out, walk around, grab a sandwich and enjoy some of our communities. And so there's a team that includes representatives from A&R, from ACCD and from VTRANS among others along with the public service department because we also need different types of power depending on what kind of station we're putting in to make sure that we've considered all of those aspects and attributes that was a group that formed around the VW mitigation settlement monies we received where we dedicated a significant portion of those dollars to electric vehicle charging infrastructure. I think we've been really successful in the way that those charging stations have been placed on the landscape and look forward to continuing that process. In terms of the specific workforce development components, one of the things that we think is really important from a workforce perspective is being able to show a multi-year commitment to some of these different initiatives. A key piece of feedback we heard in regards to weatherization which is another important component of our overall climate action work from the community action agencies was they wanna see multi-year commitments that it was one of the greatest challenges they saw with the ARA funding back in 2008, 2009 was there was this enormous surge in money for weatherization followed by an equally enormous curtailment of the dollars available as opposed to a sustained commitment. And that's one of the things that went into how we thought about the ARPA dollars and frankly how we will think about the recommendations we bring forward for any future federal infrastructure package is trying to demonstrate sustained commitment in these areas, which I think inspires businesses to build the workforce. They actually need to take advantage of those resources. Thanks. Well, so consider this my personal plug that when there are those interagency meetings perhaps there starts to be some discussion about connecting with continuing technical education training facilities and agency of education. And I just wanted to put out a flag there. I have completely understood the rationale of, okay, we're going to have an EVSE within a certain distance of every highway. I'll just throw out there that one of the things that has been discussed in this committee a few times is when you look at the drive electric map, there are certain places that just don't have very many spots. And it was really interesting to hear representative McCoy, I mean, clearly she knew exactly like the four spots in her area, that would make sense because she drives it so often. And so just to think with that interagency or even representative Smith and up in the Northeast Kingdom, where if understanding that the data analytic viewpoint of like we should be a certain distance from a highway, if we don't have highways, we might need to be a little bit more creative and ask the folks who actually live those roads all the time, where are the key spots? Which I'm sure agency of transportation also knows, but I have other questions, but other people do too. So I will stop. Thank you representative. And I know we have Joey Miller and others as well, Jane, so. Yeah, so thank you. This is actually very helpful because even in the negotiations in the conference of committee on the T bill, there was some discussion around and I had a position where, there's a lot of people who look with consultants and to figure out where we should be placing these where it makes sense. And sometimes our willy-nilly approach to it, but there's a middle ground of that, taking that kind of on the ground plus the analytical piece replacement and we're starting to get their representative Burke and then representative Smith. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you to all our guests. Thank you for the work you're doing in the climate council and I apologize for my late entry. I, a couple of things thinking about resources to make this transformation, certainly hopefully we'll find in the infrastructure bill that's hopefully coming out of Congress. And also I wonder, and maybe you've talked about this before whether there's been any discussion in the council about the alignment with the potential revenues from the transportation climate initiative? We haven't discussed that yet. We haven't sort of gotten to that place in our process where we're looking at how we would finance the strategies. We're still very much in the stage of developing alternatives that would allow us to achieve the greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals, thinking about the cost of those alternatives and then we will turn our attention ultimately to how to pay for them. It just seems like there are a couple of possibilities hanging out there with that and infrastructure bill. And I have to say that it just seems to me that this electrification is really starting to using a transportation metaphor accelerate. And with the Ford 150, seeing the news about that is just, and thinking about how our money for the incentives has already been used up for this fiscal year and they're of course doing some bridge funding but it just, to me, it's a really exciting time to be on this committee and hoping that we can work with you as we move forward with our goals. Thank you. You're welcome. I did see that piece on the F-150 last night. It was very exciting. And some of the data that that is the vehicle that sells annually $43 billion a year is spent on an F-150s. Just that one vehicle. And now it's, if it goes light, it's very interesting as well. Representative. I just wanted to add one more thing because they had the woman on who's the engineer for that. And she had been working at Ford since she was 19 years old. She's now in her 40s and she's the engineer. I mean, she's driving this truck, pulling this huge heavy, you know doing all the test driving is pretty. A million pounds. I pulled a million pounds. That was a great segment. Thanks, Representative Smith. Please go ahead. We'll try to contain our excitement. We'll just... Thank you. No, I mean, thank you for letting me speak. That's what I meant. Secretary Moore or anyone, any one of you can answer this question maybe. With these big goals of creating these charging stations and more electric cars in Vermont, how are these charging stations going to put electricity in these cars? Are they going to be diesel-fired generators or strictly wind and water? They will be connected to the grid. And so to the extent that our grid is green and low carbon, the charging stations themselves, the energy provided by the charging stations themselves will also be. So there will nothing going to be generated from diesel or fossil fuels? No. Wonderful, glad to hear that. Thank you. Vermont. Correct. We can't speak for the rest of the country. Yes. Do you have agreements with Hydro-Coback? Do we get a lot much power from them? We do. I would have to defer to the Department of Public Service to be able to speak in detail, but certainly we have a number of the utilities have long-term agreements with Hydro-Coback as well as with Great River Hydro that manages the set of dams on the Connecticut River. Great, thank you. You're welcome, member. Thank you for your patience. Committee, anybody else? So... I don't know if it would be helpful, but Jane could speak a little bit just to what our summer looks like. Oh, that would be lovely. Yeah. No, please go ahead. I'd be happy to. I was also going to add just in follow-up to Representative Smith's comment about electrification is just that obviously the comprehensive energy plan is also being undertaken right now. And I just wanted to highlight how closely we're coordinating with the Public Service Department around the comprehensive energy plan with many of their staff serving on the Climate Council subcommittees as well as Commissioner Kearney herself on the Climate Council. We're meeting regularly. And in fact, right after this meeting, we're meeting with Joey and others to consider coordination around our engagement components of both the comprehensive energy plan and the climate action plan. So I think that it's really well timed and it won't always be like that. The comprehensive energy plan is updated every six years. So we'll come into alignment every 12 years on the two comprehensive planning processes, but it's really nice to be out of the gates on this first one in coordination with the Public Service Department. So for this summer, we are... There's a lot of work to be done. It's hard to imagine a summer vacation for many folks on the Climate Council or the subcommittees, but we're on track. We are embarking on phase one of our public engagement right now. That includes the development of the public engagement plan by the end of June as well as to inform that component, the audience analysis, which will include interviews as well as a discrete number of round tables around key allies and partners in the work as well as a round table, primarily focused on BIPOC members of our community and organizations that represent BIPOC members of our community. So that will be done in June to inform and be distributed and synthesized to the subcommittees to inform their strategies and recommendations that are due to be teed up as a complete package at the beginning of July. That will not have been informed at that point by the technical analysis, which will come towards the end of the summer around the sectors analysis, pathways analysis around the four main components of the cross-sector mitigation subcommittee, which include transportation, buildings, electricity, thermal and non-energy emissions, which the largest bulk of that non-energy is agriculture. So throughout the summer, we'll be continuing along the way with that technical analysis in close concert with the technical consultants at the same time doing the public engagement around those draft strategies and recommendations. It'll mean for a busy fall when we come back in September and attempt to put together the complete climate action plan throughout the fall, which will then include the analysis around the economic components. So trying to understand what each policy and strategy will cost and mean on the ground for Vermonters, as well as including the comments and thoughts from the public over the summer on the strategies and recommendations and further in line with the technical analysis, which we'll be wrapping up in the fall. So we're on target and to put together the comprehensive climate action plan for the December 1st deliverable, recognizing that there'll be ongoing public engagement to follow around that plan come next winter. But our intent will be to move into rulemaking in the winter, as well as consider that no regrets must have policies with the legislature as you reconvene next year. So that's it in a nutshell. And just as far as the technical analysis component, which we've alluded to, that's the final big contract for us to get in place. And that RFP closed last week and we had four excellent proposals, all of which any of them could do the job. And we're moving forward with a contract as we speak. And so we hope by the 1st, June 1st that we'll have that work in place to coordinate closely with all the subcommittees, but in particular cross-sector mitigation that'll be looking at mitigation strategies. Thank you. Definitely wets our whistle about what's coming and very exciting. It's a great way to sort of enter official testimony for the session. I see one more representative Stevens, please, go ahead. Ms. Chair and I, to Julie and Jane, thank you both so much. I'm just, I'm feeling badly because we asked Joey Miller to speak. And I'm just, Joey, you know, you're sort of one of the many volunteers giving your time. I'd love to hear what your experience is, what you're seeing, what your role is. I will be brief. I know you have to go. Thanks, Representative Stevens. And thanks for the opportunity to join you here this morning. You got the very high-level overview from Secretary Moore and Jane. But just so you know, in case it's ever helpful, a little bit more about the structure, I'm the house appointed member representing the environmental community, which is a big task considering the environmental community is not monolithic, but my organization, the Vermont Natural Resources Council, we do a lot of work in coalition. So we are connected to a lot of Vermonters in that way. And another role that we play is helping to coordinate the transportation for Vermonters Network, which is a network of a lot of different partners as you are well aware of. This is my first opportunity to be with you all. So I appreciate the time. And I also just wanna say thank you for all your work on the transportation bill. I have been following that and really appreciating all you have done. And I do hope you tie it up with a bow today. But I think some of the programs that you have expanded on there as we've been talking about and or created, like the Replace Your Ride program are the very things that we are gonna be looking at to further partner with you on and to do more work on as a state. And just so you know, when it comes, Jane articulated it on the Cross Sector Mitigation Subcommittee, I'm taking the lead on the transportation work, building off a lot of the work that has been done to date and really trying to inform that work by following what you are all doing, but also working with and connecting with our regional planning commissions. Representative Smith, when you were asking your question, I just, I was thinking, you know, we have so much work that we have done and our RPCs are really, really important partners in this endeavor. So working with a lot of different folks there. So yeah, we're deep in the work. We've had several conversations with these informal networks of experts and practitioners. And we've begun talking about some of the different strategies that are not surprising to you, like electrification and reduction of vehicle miles travel, higher efficiency vehicles, doing what you've done, like expanding transit, bike and pedestrian facilities, telecommuting. Those are the initial conversations. The Transportation and Climate Initiative has come up and are sort of many different conversations, but as Secretary Moore alluded to, this is in the process of, you know, early conversations, baking this. And we're looking forward to going out to the public for further input in building off the work that we have done to date on the Comprehensive Energy Plans, Historic Climate Council work, including the Governor's Climate Action Commission. I was a member of that commission and helped lead the transportation work there as well. So we got a foundation on which to build and a lot of work to do, as you heard from Secretary Moore and Jane, and that really critical component is gonna be informed by the public as that really ramps up. So I just appreciate the opportunity, Representative Stevens, just to give you a high-level overview. Thank you for the work that you've done. And I personally am looking forward to continuing to work with you all in the legislature in this process to make progress in a really thoughtful, equitable way. So thanks. You're welcome. I see another hand is up, Representative White. Thank you, Madam Chair. And this is a bit of a can of worms as we get closer to the end of this meeting. But so TCI and it's coming down the road. We can see it, hopefully. What role do you think that the Climate Council will play when it comes to TCI and recommendations knowing that that's maybe behind the curtain? And do you have updates for us as a committee that would be relevant as we go into the summer? So as I assume you know, the administrations continued to participate in the TCI conversations. There were just three states, I think, that agreed to sign on initially, but another group that's sort of in that second tier. And that's where Vermont sits. Commissioner Walk from the Department of Environmental Conservation has been sort of our lead in that space and is continuing to participate in the meetings around TCI. I think that is a funding tool that's out there and we recognize that. And in some ways we need to sort of wait till we build up our strategies to see if it matches and that makes the most sense. But absolutely are continuing to pay close attention to the rollout of that program and have been involved in the conversations about how it's structured. So to the extent Vermont does choose to move forward in that space that it's sort of built in a way that will facilitate that. And I know that that's really the big thinking that's gone into the way Massachusetts and the other states have continued to convene these conversations to ensure that that next tier not only has the opportunity, but they've created a structure that would actually support participation by a broader coalition of states. So work continues on that, I would say at this point in parallel, but ultimately the climate action plan will bring those two together as we need to look at how we're gonna pay for the work that's identified as being required. Thank you. I too have, oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Representative White, were you finished? No, I think Johanna Miller might have had a response as well. Oh, I'm sorry, I thought I heard that. One thing I would add to that is just in the transportation conversations we've been having is also looking at models that other states are advancing that are complementary to TCI like Massachusetts. There is a bill that's been introduced, I think too in both chambers that really, because states have agency over how to direct those dollars that really takes it one step further than the MOU and directs like, for example, the Massachusetts bills, I believe have 70% of the revenues going to marginalized communities, more low income communities. And I raised that here for you because if TCI does move forward, Vermont could have the ability to shape where those dollars go and to direct them to more rural places or to places with who carry a greater energy burden. So we're following that. I just wanted to highlight that for you. That's good. I've been following, the TCI conversation was great. It reminds me, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I see it as sort of like where we taxed tobacco. But you would not wanna build your foundation of how you're going to fund going into the future on something that's going to, you hope the taxing of it is actually going to cause it to diminish as its goal is one of its goals. But in the meantime, it has some benefits for what you could do with those revenues. Plus the goal is to get the behavior to change. So the bigger conversation behind that is going to be, I'm gonna throw it, it's gonna take at this rate watching the electrification happening five, maybe eight years from now, we're really gonna have to flip the coin on the funding of how transportation is funded. And there will be no time like maybe in two or three years from now, two years from now that we start to lay the groundwork on the seeds of how and what that's gonna possibly look and maybe something will come up in the new FAST Act of some of ideas around where we're going to go and how long it'll take to get there. But it'll be that continued conversation as the next place. I see representative Stebbins is at your hand is up, sorry. Yes. And then I think we'll wrap it up because we're going to the floor at 10 and I need to be down there, but you guys can stay. Thanks, Madam Chair. I was just gonna say what I think is neat about TCI is that it's to your point, Madam Chair, if you tax something, it doesn't necessarily change behavior. I mean, if someone's addicted to smoking, they're gonna keep smoking. Even if, you know, until you make that pain point, that tax so painful that they just can't afford it. And I think that's one of the things about TCI that's really interesting is that it's not just a tax. It's a cap. It's saying we have this requirement that you can't go past and that you have to. So, and then if you go past it, you take the money and you reinvest it in wherever we want it to be reinvested. So, I'll be really interested to follow whatever happens with those Massachusetts bills because I think it's important to really say TCI is not a carbon tax. It has another policy tool to it that says, this is as far as you can go and that cap piece is really critical. But what I was really gonna say was I heard some concerns that for people who live along the border that, you know, Vermonters might be getting dinged by not participating in TCI because it increases like, it increases the cost but we're not getting the benefits. Joey, if you've been following this, is that making sense or Jane or Julie or? I will just be quick. I know you have to peel. I don't think those that has been calculated yet. I mean, I think you can, so. But that'd be great. I heard concerns and I think, yeah. I mean, are we seeing an impact? And I know it's not in 55, but I'm also gonna see it just, yeah, but there was the, from what I can add to that conversations in the past, even before they went to their next step when the states were looking at it, companies are not gonna just charge New York different than Vermont, different from New Hampshire. They're gonna charge, so if the state's around us, it'll come to like, when is there a critical point if New Hampshire and New York are in it, they're not gonna, oh, Vermont doesn't have this, we're gonna get charged the same and we won't have the benefit. But we haven't, I don't think we've gotten there yet. No, and in this, right now, we're in this sort of startup phase where it's really kind of monitoring sales and looking at what the set point needs to be. The TCI charge isn't in effect at this point in any state. So you can't monitor the reaction? Correct. This is all good. This is really, really good. And I'm sure that many, you know, members will be paying attention as much as we can and that sort of wanes, life will get very busy in September, we'll go, what, there was something really good happening which is like what happened this year. We knew you were out there working and doing great work. We just were in our lane doing this work and I appreciate you coming in today to be able to give us that update and a hint at what's coming and what we should pay attention to over the summer and fall in this area of change. Thank you for the opportunity. It's a pleasure to be here. Encourage any of you to join us for any of our council meetings and see the council itself at work. We meet generally the fourth Monday of the month, the morning of the fourth Monday of the month and our next meeting is scheduled for May 24th. So always welcome people to join us and participate and we'd welcome the opportunity to come back next winter when you reconvene and share further updates as to the work of the council. We look forward to it. Thank you for coming. Have a good afternoon and it's gonna be a great day. Thanks everyone. Good luck with the bow. Bye now. Bye-bye. So committee, we're gonna go to the floor now and I message from the speaker that we're gonna take up our T-bill conference committee this morning. So I hope I'm ready, a little nervous, but I'll try to do my best. And we are meeting as a committee tomorrow morning. Tomorrow at 9.30, everybody, huddle. It's gonna be our last huddle. I'm calling it the family huddle.