 Just to remind the committee why we're hearing from about building codes and standards, we were discussing the last week's Act 250 bucket was climate change and in there there was a recommendation to add stretch codes, which led us down a rabbit hole of learning a lot about, we heard from the passive house guy and we got interested in weatherization and wondering about how Act 250 could support the state's goals of moving, well, we need to learn more about what state's goals are and how you work to improve that. Sure. Welcome. Thank you. So, can I have some of that over here? All right, all right. That's all right. Perfect. Sure. All right, Micah. I'm sorry. It's your birthday. All right. I'll see you later. Did they even get the idea? Oh, they did. How wonderful for that. So, my name is, sorry. Oh, yes. Okay. My name is Barry Murphy. I'm with the Vermont Department of Public Service. One of my roles there is energy codes. So, I thought I would start first of all with just a little highlight of the Department's authority as far as the energy code to create and update the energy codes. Sorry. Now with our machine. Ah, okay. I've not normally been accused of being quiet, so I will speak up. So, back in 1998, the state decided that we're going to have residential energy codes. So, we've had residential energy codes since then. In 2013, the statute that enabled the residential energy code was amended to include a stretch code that would apply and be the presumptive requirement for Act 250 to meet the criteria in 9F. So, basically, this goes beyond the statewide energy codes and gains additional energy efficiency through better shell measures, better mechanical requirements, et cetera. On the commercial side, I think it's 19... No, it was 2001 or 2005. I forget exactly when the commercial code was approved. But we've had one since at least 2005 that I'm aware of, possibly earlier. But no similar authority to create a stretch code has been granted for the commercial code. So, what we did was working with the Act 250 board was create a commercial guideline. Which they kind of wrote into the rules as being the definition of best available technology, which is the requirement for commercial buildings in Act 250. So, as a result of that, that's what Act 250 buildings have been doing again. It's improved shell, better mechanical, more airtightness, just to basically improve the general energy use and footprint of that building in terms of energy, heating, cooling, lighting. Everything it even includes to set an extent for large buildings, a requirement for photovoltaics or solar panels on the roof of buildings greater than, I think, it's 20,000 square feet gross perimeter. So, that's really aimed at, you know, large box doors, that kind of thing. So, what happened in terms of certification for the buildings is when the code was proposed, basically it became a self-certification process where the builder or the architect or the architect and builder would be the ones that would be certifying that they designed the building to the code and then built that building to that design. So, that requires, you know, a certain level of trust, I guess you would say, in the fact that the architects and builders are doing what they're saying they're doing and they're following the law that would require them to actually meet the code requirements. There is no current review of plans and there's no current inspection of buildings. There's no authority given anywhere to anyone to do that. There is, I believe, within Act 250, a compliance officer, but they generally only respond to complaints. They don't have, obviously, there was one compliance office for the entire region. So, they generally only respond to complaints of a building that might not be meeting their Act 250 permit conditions. Also in 2013, when the stretch piece was added to the RBS code, there was also a few other pieces that were put in there. Basically, for towns or municipalities that have the issue of certificate of occupancies, it became a requirement that the residential building energy certificate became entered into the land records before a certificate of occupancy could be granted for that building. So, that's on the zoning administrators and town administrators to make sure that they follow that piece. As for public, multifamily and commercial buildings that get inspected by the Division of Fire Safety, it is seen as a minor permit deviation, I guess. I forget exactly the correct word. But basically, they will not issue a permanent certificate of occupancy until this is rectified. I think that basically gives the high-level overview in less than five minutes of what it is. So, I guess my question is, do you have questions, specific questions? What is the, why do they use the word stretch? What's that derived from? It's the common vernacular, I guess, for a code that goes beyond what is required for the statewide. Yeah, I'm basically wondering with the Department of Public Service as well, with Barry, the stretch in statute does not define an amount that has to go beyond base. Because that gets more efficient than the base code. So, there's no specifics on how far it has to go beyond. And my question. So, we were going to add and stretch, that's in our draft bill, to the section under the energy codes. And it sounds like, from what I understand, that's already happening. You've already required our 250 projects to include the stretch. So, in the statute where the authority is granted by statute, we require it. For commercial, as I said, there is no specific authority in the enabling statute. Which means that we couldn't require a stretch code, which is why it's a stretch guideline instead of a code. So, it doesn't have the force of law behind it, although it does have I-250 behind it. Which is, it's a slightly different path to get there. That's actually good to be behind it by rule. But I don't think it was adopted by rule. And this had to be from the National Resources Board. So, Barry Murphy is correct. The way that Act 250 has incorporated the commercial stretch code is by relying on the phrase best available technology in criteria 9F. And then we've adopted a guideline, not the rulemaking process, that provides instructions on the two district coordinators to refer to the stretch code under that phrase best available technology. So, we incorporated that way. And so, we are applying the commercial building entity standards. The commercial stretch code right now. And if we add the language, it'll cover residential and commercial. Now, it would be codified if we add it. It would. So, it would address the issue that Barry Murphy identified, which is right now there's no specific authority. Well, I mean, it's actually a two-part thing. So, there's two different statutory sections that relate to residential and commercial building energy standards. The statutory section for the residential building energy standard specifically provides authority to DPS to develop a stretch code. The statutory section related to commercial codes does not provide that specific authority. And the bill right now does not change that. It just specifically signals that in Act 250 apply the stretch code, but it doesn't actually change the ability for it to allow DPS to do that in the first place in development. That's a separate. That's a separate. Exactly. Separate steps. It would learn a better reason. I guess it would. Thank you. Representative McCullough. So, I may not have clearly heard all the conversation, but what I think I understand is if we change the code requirements in Act 250, most especially as they apply to commercial, we additionally will need to change enabling legislation elsewhere in the books to make this happen. It would certainly help clean things up, and the specific statutory section is 30 BSA section 53. You said very specifically Act 250 and residential development of a certain type. I think you are elaborating on when does it cover residential development? I believe and it covers residential developments of 13 or more units. I think it's when Act 250 kicks in and left. I'm not 100% If Act 250 kicks in, it covers it. Yes. I'm sorry. I thought it was a certain scale. No, no. For residential, if it's an Act 250 area, then it's entirely covered for the residential, for the commercial. Again, it's a guideline rather than a code or a definition of best available technology. Can you say that last sentence again, if it's commercial then what? It's not necessarily a code. It's a guideline, but it's the guideline that defines best available technology, which is the requirement in the Act 250. Yeah, representative of things. Yes, who enforces it? Who more or less monitors this indeed is happening, even in a very limited sense? Is the DBR, I want to take a look at the... Well, there is no specific authority that allows anyone to go out and do any kind of inspections or anything else along those lines of any residential or commercial building in the statewide code. It relies on a self-certification process. As I said, where the builder will certify that he built the house or the building to the code, and if it's a commercial building, the architect has to certify that he designed the building to meet the code, and then the builder has to certify that he built the building to the design provided by the architect. We have had some very impressive testimony here that the two major causes of greenhouse gases are transportation and thermal in terms of when it comes to heating. And whereas the transportation sector is much more difficult and much more expensive to deal with and probably take much longer, it seems like thermal offers us the best for now a place to start in terms of putting money in. And I'm just kind of wondering if this kind of information is known to your department. Yes. We are obviously aware of the major sources of greenhouse gases and uses. I mean, we deal with transportation in terms of electric vehicles, et cetera. So we do try... How do vehicles know the thermal? Yeah, well, we do try that. Part of what we do is we do market baseline studies. So we go out and we look at how new construction buildings are actually being built in terms of the code, commercial buildings, how they're meeting the code and things along those lines. But as to the specifics of how the department deals in terms of thermal energy outside of buildings, I'm afraid that's outside of my knowledge base. Sorry, if you guys want to hear again, clarification for the towns like Burlington that have local code officials, they do have the authority to check on energy codes. Yeah, we took some testimony that there's some wiggle room there. That's perhaps, you know, people are playing by the rules. They kind of... They're not getting credit because there's no check. Yeah. So is there a timeline to net zero that's built into our evolution of the energy standards? The Comprehensive Energy Plan has a goal within it. We would be at net zero design for buildings by about 2030. 2030. We are currently almost finished, actually, the final draft of the new administrative rule that would be the commercial and residential energy codes. And that piece was part of the overall gestalt, shall we say, of information that we used to develop the codes. We are, you know, still significantly away, but we're from meeting that net zero design piece. But we still have three more... Two more? Three more, I think, update. But one of the limiting factors that might be in terms of reaching that is that the codes are required to be shown to be cost-effective. To show that there's a kind of positive return on investment for the additional money that has to go into building the buildings. And currently, I'm not 100% sure, but I'm fairly sure that if we were to require net zero building now, it wouldn't show to be cost-effective. But in terms of the cycles, evolution of technologies, materials, etc., it is possible that by 2030 that would be possible, but it is the kind of driving, one of the major drivers for us in terms of how we can design the code is we always have to make sure that it's cost-effective and has a positive return for the owners. Joe, how do you do that analysis to cost-effective? Well, for the residential buildings, we use RemRate software. We use a software called RemRate, which allows us to basically model the building in terms of its energy use, both thermal and electric, in comparison to the baseline, which would be the previous code. Because we're always building off the previous code to get to the new one, and we use that software to determine and dial in how to get the maximum gain, but still remain within that cost-effective envelope that we are required to do. And what timeframe does that software look at? Because we certainly have taken testimony that it's really quick if you have a NetZero building that you're going to see a benefit. Well, for NetZero, yes, you would see an immediate benefit, but NetZero buildings tend to be anything between $50,000 and $100,000 more than your typical construction, mostly because it's a real detail-orientated construction. What are you talking about for a house? For a house, if you were trying to go for a NetZero for a commercial building, that would be really difficult, simply because the types of use, et cetera, of a commercial building might change over its lifetime, first of all. Second of all, you don't know exactly what's going to be happening within that building. If it was an office and going to remain an office, you could certainly do that. But if it was a manufacturing facility... Well, you would always just follow them for just a few seconds, whatever being built for at the time. Well, exactly, but we have yet to define exactly what we mean by NetZero in terms of what that would be defined as within Vermont. Generally, the thought is that it nets out your energy overall, but for commercial buildings, are we just looking at the building operational energy? Your HVAC, your water, your hot water, your lighting, et cetera, are we going to include all the energy that's in that building? Because if it's, for instance, like an injection molding facility, those are very energy-intensive buildings. So reaching NetZero for one of those buildings would probably be very expensive in terms of renewability of the energy source. Well, it'd be photovoltaics, wind, biomass, something along those lines. And the size of that system would be probably cost prohibitive at this time. Hey, sorry, I'm dominating for the moment. I usually let everyone else go. I'm curious if you know about California. Well, my understanding is that California code is that requires solar. I think it only requires solar for residential buildings. I'm not 100% sure, I will admit. My understanding is currently only for residential. And if it does apply to commercial buildings, I would be surprised if it applied to the full energy use of that commercial building and not just the building operational piece that I mentioned earlier. I guess then let's go to residential in Vermont. Is there anything that you would recommend, is there a way for us as a legislature to say to help the building community to get to that zero faster? Because it does seem like one of the things is it's more expensive up front but the cost to the purchaser or the person who's living there might be the same immediately, that's what we've heard. But the sale price would be higher. I'm just thinking about this right now. Is there a way, if it's a real powerful... In all honesty, I am not sure. I would say that right now, if the requirement of all residential buildings had to be built to net zero, it could be done, it would be credibly expensive. There's not that many builders currently in Vermont that have the expertise associated with building to that level. As I said, it's a very detailed orientated building process to the level where if they're driving in a nail into sighting, you have to patch that. You've got to put a little patch over it just to totally eliminate any air leakage from around that nail head. That's the level of detail. Everything has to be taped, sealed, cocked. And yeah, as I said, there's very few builders really within Vermont that have that level of expertise that are able to build to that level. The intent behind the code is to continually improve over time and build that level of expertise that would be necessarily able to do that kind of building. But to go straight to that, I don't think is particularly practical for most house builders in Vermont. But maybe a workforce training program to support building that knowledge over time, not immediately. Again, that's not really something I'm equipped to comment on unfortunately. I have one more on that. The code, how do you measure how far, is there a percentage that we're how close we are to net zero in the current iteration of the code and how many years between redoing the code? The enabling statute requires that when the national model code, which is the IECC gets updated, the department is required to look at it and decide whether or not we want to update to that or modify our existing codes. So the IECC was last updated in 2018, which is why the department is currently in that update process. Everything going well, we should be rolling out the new code to be effective January 1, 2020. That code is somewhere in the realms of about 15% better on the residential side and anywhere between 15% and 30% better than our current code on the commercial. Around about 15% for the residential code and anything between 15 and 30 for the commercial code because obviously the commercial code is a lot more complicated. So there's a lot more kind of avenues you can do. Building size, building type, et cetera, is highly variable. So the savings associated are also highly variable. So we don't know how close we are to net zero? We do have a tentative roadmap to net zero. And as I said, that was part of the information that we looked at when we were designing this code. Everything lining up well and assuming that everything remained cost effective, we could potentially meet net zero design by 2030. But as I said, the limiting factor that we have to deal with or one of the limiting factors we have to deal with is that we have to show that the codes are cost effective. So every time you update it, we have to show that it's cost effective and that there will be a positive return to the homeowner. And obviously that process is a stakeholder-owned process. So we are working with home builders, architects, et cetera in order to design the code and make sure that it meets the needs that we see are required in Vermont. So no percentage that you can give me now? Well, as I said, we have two or three code cycles left to get to to get through to 2030. Oh, we're not halfway. Okay, so are we 25%? Again, it depends on where you're taking your baseline from. Are you? Yeah, that's a good thing. How would you be able to estimate that you think we could make it by 2030? Well, there is available... Basically it shows you the energy use index or the EUI of each code iteration from right about... I think it's 1998 on the IECC. And it shows you the progression including the percentage in order to get down to an EUI, which is roughly comparative with what is nationally recognized as being the net zero ready standard. What I would say is I believe that our proposed code goes beyond the national model code as it currently stands. I would say that our proposed code is better than the national model code for the 2018 IECC. It has deeper energy savings associated with it. So we are on a better track, shall we say, than the national model code in order to reach net zero design. Representing the board. So, I... Do you have something planned? It sounds like you have the stakeholders group with the home builders, architects and so forth. But I mean, are they not just looking at getting to net zero? Are they also looking at what you need for education, for training? Also, do they have the passive home model that they're looking at also? And one last question is, if your software is looking at models based on just the prior code, but we have lots of old housing stock in the state, then the cost effectiveness to do something in an older house would have to be huge to do a small thing. So, I'm thinking, if I'm a homeowner and I don't know what to do, could I look on a website and see a chart that tells me something that says, you know, something that I can go to somebody who's going to make some improvements in my house and say, oh, look, look at this chart. And then, are you a resource for people? I feel like, I feel like I'm able to do way more here. So, efficiency for Mon is the resource that works closely with the department in order to do that. We do have, the code we're talking about is primarily focused on new construction. It does have an existing buildings chapter. It's new construction. Yes, so all new construction. There is an existing buildings piece, which explains when the code would kick in. If you were to be doing certain things to your home, for instance, if you're going to be building an addition to your home, you'd have to meet the new code. But you wouldn't have to bring your entire home up to the new code just because you're adding an addition. Or if you're replacing your roof and you're exposing the insulation in your roof, you'd have to bring your roof insulation up to code. But if you were just replacing the shingles, you wouldn't have to increase your insulation. Or if you're replacing your windows, you'd have to put in the windows and meet code unless it's because the window got smashed or something along those lines and it's technically considered a repair, in which case you could put in the same type of window that you had previously. Those understandings that, obviously, that not all aspects of a new construction code can necessarily apply to a building as it currently stands. As to the educational piece, as I said before, that the department has sponsored and continues to sponsor trainings on code and everything else along those lines. Efficient Vermont is the resource to help people meet. Energy code, they'll go out and they'll do audits. There's a lot of entities, wellerization agencies and builders that are part of Efficient Vermont's. I forget what they call the energy efficiency, the builders and fuel dealers and network. That's the E and energy efficiency network. So they'll go out and they'll do audits and they'll tell you where you can do improvements. You can get people to come out and do blow-door tests. They'll basically show the amount of air leakage that you have in your home and then identify where the major sources of those leakage genes are. Generally those tend to be room joists, your band joists, doors, windows, unsealed cracks. If you have exterior ventilation for a dryer, for instance, that can be a big issue. Bathroom fans that are properly gasketed can be another issue. It's a lot of small things that can make up a big difference in terms of people's wellerization. One of the limiting factors is mostly that thermal work is basically paid from the thermal energy and process fuels fund, which is primarily funded through REGI and FCM revenues. FCM Forward Capacity Market. Iceland, New England runs a forward capacity market in Vermont. Participates in that. And these revenues are used in order to fund thermal energy projects by one. But that is a market-driven fund, so it's variable and it doesn't have a whole lot of money in it. FCM revenues peaked last year and they're declining now. REGI revenues are pretty static at the moment. So there's somewhere between $7 and $10 million available for thermal energy projects that are being run through the Energy Efficiency Utilities, which are Efficiency Vermont and Burlington Electric. Representative McCullough. Barry, thanks for the segue of the need to efficiency Vermont. Most of us understand the global impact efficiency Vermont has had from the early days, starting with just electricity and working now. And the chair has been questioning you about how close we are with the new code you're rolling out next January to net zero. I would ask the same type of question, but I'm sorry, Efficiency Vermont standard. Well, the Efficiency Vermont's high performance building standard in comparison to our code is not as good as the new proposed code. So they would have to update their high performance standard in order to go beyond what we are proposing having in place by January 1, 2020. That's very interesting because so then there is a code in between there and net zero. The name is escaping me right now. Committee, do you guys remember? I didn't do the question. The code between Efficiency Vermont's standard and the net zero standard, we had a presentation that there was one in the middle. Well, maybe it's this. Are you talking about passive health? Yes. It's essentially net zero. Okay. Yeah, you're right. There was an energy star. There were a couple of grades. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah. Well, what you just said is very health-focused. I was thinking of instead of stretch codes going to the Efficiency Vermont code, and I'd be going backwards, wouldn't I? Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Representative LeFave. Have you seen or had any geek on their work that a nonprofit in the name of Heat Squad is doing and going around taking inspections of people's homes to show whether you're losing their heat? I have no professional experience on that. I would say I did have Heat Squad come out and look at my home. The gentleman that came out was professional. I appreciate it. Admittedly, because I'm in this group, his report pretty much aligned with what I was expecting. But beyond that personal information, I have no comment on Heat Squad in itself. No, yeah. I just wondered how effective they are. Well, as I understand, Heat Squad is one of the well-erised agent agencies that does both low-income and market rate. Is it not a problem? No. It's NeighborWorks. NeighborWorks. Oh, okay. Sorry. In that case, I'm mixing up my companies, in which case I definitely have no idea. Sorry, Bear. Sure. The word sardines comes to mind a little bit right now. I'm also as an energy geek thinking about do we have proper levels of fresh ventilation? We are scheduled to be monitored during this hearing because the answer is no. And we have this thing behind you that monitors the actual oxygen level. Really? And supposedly we get oxygen, but often we get exhaust. No, it's not the healthy situation. Understood. My name is Jim Bradley. Currently, I'm president of the Vermont Home Builders, we're actually builders and remodels association. We've recently had a name change. I'm also a passive house certified builder. I'm a partner with Efficiency Vermont as a home performance contractor and a certified BPI auditor and a home performance analyst. And I also build your homes as well. We're also building commercial projects with the company I work for. Hey, we're a design build, like a South Arrow Library, South Arrow Fire Department, Grand Isle Fire Department, and definitely building those to a much higher efficiency standard than was even required by code today. What is important to me is it became very imperative, even as I was sitting there, and I just wanted to leap up a couple of times just to say there needs to be more clarification for everybody involved, mostly just better understanding. There's a lot of fractured elements. There's a lot of really attractive aspirations or titles of what we can achieve for code levels. But sometimes what falls short is an overall understanding of what does it actually all mean and how do we make everything work together. The RB standard, as was mentioned previously, was implemented back in 2000, excuse me, it was first written in 1997, implemented in 1998. And it has a standard that every three years it has advanced to become more robust. And as that happens, there has to be review and oversight and as has been done in the last year, that same oversight was given to make sure that what's going to be adopted is still cost-effective and still has validity for the marketplace. And as the next code comes out in January 2020, one of the new requirements that is going to be implemented in the code is lower-door testing for all new homes. And lower-door basically allows you to quantify how leaky the structure is. Previously, it's been allowed to, yes, you could use a lower-door, but you'd also look at a structure and say, I think it's this leaky. And then certify it. Real weakness right there. And one of the biggest concerns that the association, the Billard and Vermonters Association, along with a coalition of other individuals, I trust everyone got the letter about RB's enforcement. Was that sent out? If not, I have to promise you. Okay. What was that? Under your name? Who's it? No, I was under his name. Oh, from today's testing? Yes. I will have copies. Your testimony's up. Yes. Okay. And so basically it's just to let you know who's signed on to this. The AIA of Vermont, the Building Performance Professional Association, which basically are your energy auditors and health performance contractors, the Energy Futures Group, the Home Builders and Vermonters Association, or now called the BVRA, Housing Vermont Sustainable Energy Outreach Network, which is C-ON, Vermont Green Building Network, Vermont Housing Finance Agency, and Vermont Passive House. Understand that in each of these different signatories on this letter, each of them have their own different level of what they think the perfect building might be or what the most affordable building might be. But we've been able to develop this coalition of individuals seeing that there is real weakness in the enforcement component of the RBS code and that really it's not protecting the public and making anything much greener, if you will, without proper enforcement, that we have seen a need that there needs to be some type of compliance, whether that is recognizing the fact that Act 250 is requiring the RBS code and beyond, or if it's just the standard RBS code, or if you're looking at renovated buildings, there needs to be some sort of checks and balances by a third party certifier. It's not just about developing a brand new legislative arm of the state or enforcement arm of the state that's going to be very, very expensive. There's actually already individuals within the state through a network through Efficiency Vermont and the VPPA of certified auditors, raters, building science professionals that are able to assess what's going on and have the ability to report back what they find and to make sure that the buildings are being properly designed from a prescriptive measure, but also that these design or prescriptive measures are being implemented. You know, as I've said to other people, some can come up with a great design, but if the people on site do not implement those measures appropriately, you can't expect to get the cost savings for the performance of the building on the other side. And so that checks and balances, even with well-intended individuals, within the city of Wellington for a while as a builder, I developed a relationship with the inspectors there that they didn't come out to my buildings anymore. They trusted what I did. That's good from a builder standpoint because you don't have to spend the time doing that, but from a consumer standpoint, there's a little bit of a fall out there. And I welcome the inspection. When I had my first inspection in the town of Colchester many years ago, 15 years ago, I had to come from other states where you have intrusive inspections and there's really great checks and balances in place. I walked around the building, walked out and said, hey, is that it? Was that the entirety? I was really surprised and kind of let down. And I'm looking at the fact that after being an auditor and being in over 2,000 homes in the state of Vermont and doing the blower door test and finding out whether things have been either purposely missed because, hey, let's just cut corners, or ignorantly missed. I didn't know better. And then seeing the customers getting across from the building to fix this problem, not just from an energy efficiency standpoint because a lot of these codes address energy efficiency, but it's also about the health and safety component of the building, along with the durability. If I have to go out and replace siding on a home that's 10 years old because the walls were not properly appointed and the vapor drive is causing premature rot and that rot is turning into mold that's affecting the building occupants, energy efficiency to me at that point is a lower tier item. You've got to make sure people are healthy because the production of those building materials expends a lot of energy and if we're replacing them too soon there's no metrics to quantify how bad that actually is. So I can look at it as a three tier approach when you're looking at energy codes. What is it trying to achieve with the RB's code? It's actually trying to achieve not just energy efficiency measures by increasing the R values for insulation by increasing adding more insulation making the building tighter it's also looking at the ventilation component. Is the building safe? Is the air that you're breathing? A perfect example. When you sleep at night inside your bedroom you should have a thousand parts per million or less of carbon dioxide in there to get really deep restful sleep that's restored. If you have anything above that you're going to be more restless and a whole host of health problems. The reality is most people will shut their door close it and they don't realize the levels. So I went in there and took the test with the CEO monitor when I turned off my air exchanger we peaked over 4,000 parts per million and that's not unheard of. Part of it is my building is really tight it doesn't leak a lot and a lot of homes being built today are being built much tighter but if you're not taking the ventilation component into consideration and making sure that safeguard is in place you're setting up a the scales are out of balance again and it's not properly trained it was mentioned here or requested how do you make sure people are properly trained that's another issue how do we make sure that workforce development is there I personally decided when I saw that these problems were going on not only did I become an auditor but I said let's go to the passive house level because that's really the top tier passive house level is a standard international standard where you can actually build a home that we use 90% less energy than a code compliant home today so you think wow that's great saving and that's what happens on 6 that even if you lose heat have no power whatsoever in the house no form of heat you as an individual become a 100 watt heater just because that's what the human body puts off the house will never drop below 55 degrees you'll never have a frozen pipe and that's been demonstrated and verified through monitoring that this actually occurs with a passive house construction so it is very robust but as was mentioned by Richard Fezy of Energy Futures Group it's a standard baseline and you jump up to high performance or stretch code you're going to be going into a 15% increase if you then go up to the passive house that's another 15% so let's quantify that if you have a $400,000 home you make that first leap that could add $60,000 to the cost of the home affordable housing comes into question then how do we possibly do that and make it more affordable on the other side of that if you go to the passive house again that's $30,000 to the cost to make sure it meets that passive house level because when you build to the passive house standards it's not just about your insulation but it's about the insulation the air leakage, the ventilation and all these different components have to come into play but it does make a house more durable and the replacement factor basically is decreased by how often you'll have to perform maintenance on the home whether it's a roof system or shingles or windows the challenge though is having that workforce is trained to actually implement these type of homes or construct these appropriately there are groups within the state the passive house alliance the Sion group out of Ratterborough is at this point in time it has a training program for tier one level contractors to know how to swing a hammer but also how to tighten up a building at the same time and insulate it appropriately to make sure it's durable but that's on its beginning stages so some of our goals are way up here and they're admirable because it's not properly in place right now with workforce development and the economic factors that come into play with how much more expensive it may make a home but additionally some of the building material manufacturers have not caught up to speed yet we in case at the south thrill library we're making a very robust wall assembly and we could not find a nail gun that would shoot a nail that was long enough to go through the layers of insulation to attach this site inappropriately to make sure it was maintained yet and so in this is the Larkin building over off of the interstate and South Burlington should come off the exit there the big buildings there they ran into the same problem so there's not a solution yet so as the goals increase we also have to have the infrastructure support those goals the main thing that's really important to us with the coalition with the home builders association is the fact that the one thing we can do right now is make sure the law that's on the books currently the level of Arby's that's here now is make sure there's proper compliance where things go astray or awry is the fact that I as a builder want to build to that standard and be owned but the other builders say there's no checks and balances and I have a six year statute of limitations after six years if I'm not caught then hey it goes away. I've been involved in two cases as an expert witness because when I heard this going to play that Arby's was going to be adopted to the next standard back in 2015 I raised my hand I said where's the enforcement litigation and then I had this epiphany that as an auditor I'm going to be in these homes that are one or two three years old with problems and I'm going to be on the hook for this and yeah it cost a lot of time and money for me to go testify to these things in both those cases the customer never came out whole one prevailed with the $50,000 judgment had $20,000 in legal fees but yet had over $50,000 in repairs that needed to be made so only came out $30,000 ahead that's what he netted and so he didn't have enough to make his home run plus the whole psychological effect of going through the litigation process another customer they built a home up in Iowa Mon it was a company from out of state they came in they built everything they said everything was certified it met the res check standards and everything else but it just performed terribly they weren't even living at the home full time they were spending over $3,000 a year just in heating bills to keep it at 55 degrees they were having burst pipes several other problems with the home with the home and then we came in we did an energy audit found the problems documented the problems went to court it's been six years $100,000 plus legal expenses just on the plain side and no one's made hold they prevailed but then the other side appealed and so it's still stuck in litigation and so it's not really providing that level of protection to the consumer that the law was meant to have and so what we're hoping to see is that someone can take a look at this as we're moving forward to look at the fact that there are excellent professional building groups out there to all different standards that want to make sure that this enforcement is there because if another builder does not choose to build to that standard they can have a little price point but how do we get to the carbon reduction goals and energy standards that we're looking to achieve in 2030 and in 2050 if we're not addressing these appropriately so we have to level the play field and also offer that consumer protection that the law was meant to to offer in its implementation a few other things that Richard Fasey did testify that currently we are already missing some of the goals that are set for us in achieving net zero and another thing with net zero I can build a passive house but it is still using 10% of the energy of another home and it's not creating energy but it's not net zero so passive houses aren't necessarily by default net zero but it's really really easy to get there I can still make a old leaky log cabin net zero if I put enough photovoltaic cells out in the field and call it good and say I've achieved net zero so understanding that terminology that we have to understand how are we achieving those goals I look at it this way when you're doing home performance contracting or you're doing new construction what are the things that are most important I think that if we can stop the existing housing stock from performing the way it has been thermally very poor and we continue to make those upgrades that's the easiest low-hanging fruit to achieve along with new construction and a new construction to make sure that we're pointing those homes appropriately the renewables in my thinking usually would come second in that tier because if I look at a windmill project that's near me in Cambridge it was a $22 million project life expectancy of 20 years the windmills look really great because it looks very over thinking the same way that was spent there that has a finite life expectancy that was put into over 2200 homes and made them energy efficient and made them use significantly less energy made them healthier homes and the cost benefit would be much greater it's just you don't see it behind the scenes because as a good home performance contractor or a good builder who does nice work your work is kind of just like hidden you know the nice grand kitchen countertops or the wonderful living room those are things readily seen but the other work on how the building performs as a system is in the background is incredibly important making sure that the current builders that are out there understand these principles and implement them appropriately is important we have to have some type of infrastructure to allow for that education component to come into play I know Vermont Technical College does offer a building program they do offer certification programs for energy auditors but when it comes to the building program they kind of stop with the hammer and nails and fiberglass insulation they don't go to that next tier of the system and how in a longevity standpoint it's going to last beyond the 50 year mark before major repairs are made or even the 20 year mark and so there are a lot more factors to look at here what we want to do is partner with the legislature as much as we possibly can to develop that workforce to develop that understanding with builders and come up with that enforcement program to allow for the proper checks and balances to be in place we welcome that opportunity so that the consumer is truly protected so that other builders that standard are brought that way where they're not in business any longer it's that important for what we did and with that I'll stop but I'm definitely entertaining any questions well, yeah, so we don't need to create a government bureaucracy we have the certifiers how does that look so there still needs to be I'm going to use Efficiency Vermont as a model one thing I really like about Efficiency Vermont is being a partner is the fact they already have a database where you're going to go do a home performance job first of all to be a partner with them you have to assign a code of ethics you have to be properly insured if there are any complaints against you they have to be investigated and you could possibly be dropped from the role so they make sure that there's quality individuals as part of their EEN network and then with that as you put a program in it gets reviewed by one of their building performance excuse me program managers and they'll make sure that it looks like a viable project they'll put that through the process then on the other end you have to test out and verify the results they then have a quantifiable savings of BTUs for the house and energy savings as well and the nice thing about it is if you want to go back and see what was done before they keep a database of that and so that the framework is there I'm not saying that they need to shepherd the whole thing I'm just saying taking that model to the state level and having a code enforcement officer not the code enforcement officer that goes to every new construction site but then receives the information from certified insured individuals as building performance, you know home performance auditors or building performance professionals that can do these audits can submit the data appropriately and make sure that the data is being collected but also that the design is being implemented appropriately that you're checking the installation levels you're checking the performance of the windows and you do that test now Brandon what would that add to the cost currently I do those tests for a builder in about the land and check how much the house is and really it's just that's the level I don't have to certify for the installation levels at this time that's about $200 in the process if you actually did the full prescriptive measures and make sure all those standards were being followed for installation levels window effectiveness and air tightness you would probably be looking at more like a $400 charge $400,000 house that $400 charge is not that exhaustive and then all that reporting can easily go digitally to a code enforcement officer to make sure that database is being maintained and if that individual says it doesn't pass then they would have to make sure that they're brought into that standard just to be sure I understand so you're saying that every house they got built in the state of Vermont would need to have a certified person like yourself come in and do a pretty thorough inspection it would take how long to do that you may get out on site but see they don't want to just do it after the fact one thing about this we don't want to be reactionary because then we're on bad footing in the up front if you're going to be doing a development through Act 250 you have a set of plans for a certain type of house that you may be building go through that design process make sure that the proper measures are being implemented and then test and verify the end that they were it doesn't just look good on paper but it was actually implemented and then the performance can be verified that's what I find to be very important here before construction not during construction some measures need to be inspected during construction and here's the other thing this is just the energy side of things this isn't the code enforcement part where did the hammer the nail right was the trust designed appropriately this is just one component of it but it's a very important component because it's how the house is going to perform as a system which is going to affect energy uses and health and safety and the durability of the structure so while the house is being constructed when you're being rated to make sure you're meeting the passive house standard you do have to look and you have a passive house certified designer make sure that these different measures are being hit prescriptively then you get inspected by a raider in the field who then does the final door test to make sure those measures were implemented so that could add a little bit to the cost but it's the one way to ensure I mean to add to the bureaucracy of developing a whole different wing of the government to do that that could be much more expensive and in place in the state through the VPPA and Efficiency Vermont I think it's a great resource to tap into the other thing it does help create jobs at the same time and maybe some of our young people to encourage them to stay because you have these auditors you have the ebbs and flows of the energy audits you know it's like a the frog in the boiling pot of water if it gets cold outside and I'm uncomfortable I'll call or if I get that energy bill oh my gosh it prices a fuel up down up can't afford this I'm going to call for an energy audit you know so that's the way it's been you know because people wait for that to happen if we can have that happen on the front end instead I think it would be much more beneficial personally I used to say that before a house is sold it should have had a full complex energy audit this is an existing housing stock before it's ever sold and have an expiration date like within the last 15 years because things do change inside of a house I think that would be a great measure to have implemented today I do not know the exact number I know it's a little over a hundred and that could cover quite a bit in this state well thank you so very much I will also say thank you to the the now VP the BBA for for like climate change I think the BBA has changed and I applaud that I'm struggling to remember a day when the association came in here with good news for me and thank you for that I have a couple of specific questions going around we've gone through the process so that should we require this and we strengthen it through statute in 30 of the SA section 53 around the codes and then simultaneously require those codes to be certified having been complied with and the final test the building fails would you support then a because if it fails you're not doing an occupancy permit if the electrical inspector comes by no way no occupancy permit same thing for the for the provider the utility no occupancy permit and so that would be in my mind the final the final catching then would you how would you proceed would you say well then okay based on the cost of the building there's a percentage charge that goes to this is my idea so I'm floating it by you so based on the the building a percentage would be then charged and those dollars given to the the house the state house warming program through to be administered currently by efficiency so how do we deal with that as an issue and how would you recommend moving forward in the case of failure verification is hugely important with that the homes that I'm testing currently every once in a while you'll see that one doesn't hit the same standard that you would have hoped for it doesn't mean an ultimate failure but because proper building techniques are being implemented by builders who are aware how to achieve that you'll get the anomalies you're not going to get the whole sale failure and it's all about the education process and as you walk around with the lower door and the infrared camera and or just the back of your wrist and you feel where the air is looking from you know you say we'll address that this time and the next time they go through with it they get even better so you do the checks and balances and so it's using a carrot instead of a stick to bring them into that process but they welcome that opportunity the builders I've worked with once they see that it's an aha moment and they get better at it and they're improving that so failure there is less likely in Vermont it has a ton of renovations nicely pointed to a house some cob down to the side and there you see a lot of air bypass problems where it wouldn't pass a blurry door without fundamental changes but that all helps making the builders smarter and so I think that if you have that verification by a third party individual you're allowing for that to be pushed aside and proper home construction to be accomplished whether it's renovation work or construction so what I think I just heard was maybe not it's unlikely there's a total failure so then likely the technician will say well you failed here or here and it could be corrected prior to new construction prior to Anak exactly the one house that we did testify to that builder really didn't have the understanding that a house in place did not understand all the bypasses that come into play where knee walls are concerned or running heating pipes through a knee wall that's cold didn't really understand that he's been doing this strangely enough before he went bankrupt for about 10 to 15 years that was the way out of the court case so once again he claimed bankruptcy and so with that these things can be headed off and when you're working in tandem with auditors instead of a punitive measure it's a resource and that resource makes us all better would you say that right now quality builders such as you represent are not on a level playing field? most wholeheartedly because we're building to that standard but we can put a bid out there but as far as $60,000 compared to the next person and they're thinking just of how do I get my mortgage because even the mortgage lenders right now have not been completely up to speed to recognize the value of a home that's properly appointed so see the whole industry has to go through this paradigm shift it's from the mortgage lenders saying that house has more value because it's going to last longer that means the life of the home they're going to be able to make their mortgage payments because they're not paying for other repairs prematurely perfect answer I appreciate that you see the wheels spinning maybe smoke coming out it's good you mentioned roof trusses trusses and rafters does the new code anticipate structural strength that will support KV if you're doing the proper due diligence you should be I don't know that the new code actually addresses the structure as much but you know a lot of the homes that we're building have a design engineer or possibly a design professional like an architect and they're taking these things into consideration but you can still go do a standard subdivision and do a set of house plans that you have in your repertoire and implement all those and it may not now every home is being basically appointed or fit up with the ability of going solo let's hear from Mary so the new code does anticipate that PD would be installed under so it's a requirement that they have to show that the roof structure would be suitable for having a PD solution and in order to level the playing field and get this done right it's been brought out by many we need training more training and associate general contractors of Vermont partnering with the state of Vermont to train machine operators to work in rivers and streams and I would welcome your association working maybe in concert with Vermont technical college and the state of Vermont for this kind of training to train certified auditors and to train the builders and carpenters themselves is that something you think you're raising? In fact part of the shift of the VBRA during the leadership that I've been given the opportunity to have is shifting the whole dynamic getting it to the point where we have that educational opportunity and bringing the resources out there that already exist there's such passion in the state of Vermont but there's also a lot of fractured elements that no one's really working under the same umbrella of the way that they could not sure if it could and so with that it's recognizing who can do what well and also who can help with the resource that they may have whether they're going to be an instructor that says I am a builder or I am a building science person but I'm not for that professorship at Vermont technical college to give that understanding and working together so what I was excited about with the people who signed onto this letter was the fact that you having a lot of those fractured elements that are coming together for the same purpose and so I think that opportunity is there and that education component has to be developed and definitely that's what we're working towards doing. Thank you very much. We have actually a list of OD Bates My question is maybe we can get some more bankers association in here to see what they look at and they get out their mortgages and just have a talk but that's great. Success. So this is kind of for my own information it is is there a way we can apply what you're talking about to existing homes and the reason I ask that is I live in a very old town Bennington and we have a lot of aging homes and I live in one of those aging homes and I'm curious to know if we can somehow this is great for the new construction I'm all for this but for the aging homes how do you how can we apply something along these lines for that because I've just thrown out some containers for windows our house has a full load of windows in a league and you know to help the older communities with this and to get a return on it so I'm an older guy and where how would I get my return I probably wouldn't put the next home in this way. And so with that I think the biggest word that I or fundamental element I think is missing from the whole dialogue is that of stewardship because when I sat across from people they said I don't get my ROI my return on investment and so why does that matter to me well you're going to then pass off a house to somebody else and you're going to do something I mean it's our stewardship it's our responsibility to do things right and so with that when you go into a home that's of existing stock and you do that energy on it you're supposed to quantify not just what's been the most beneficial for your company to make money what's most beneficial for the home you know that's the integrity you should bring to the plate with that it's the ABCs of Arab ceiling the A being for attic B being for basement and C being for the center of the home and usually the attic is the best measure you can apply but sometimes you have the old leaky basement the best where it tells you to be directed but normally that process of ABCs and you develop a plan that maybe not everything gets done all at once but if you have a leaky attic just addressing that the whole house is going to be significantly more comfortable because you stop the air leaking out and prevent more air from coming back in this cold and so having that done yes there are ways to do that and the cost benefit can definitely be demonstrated before the work is ever done and then you'll get the performance on the other side and then later down the road when more money is available then you get to the B of the basement or then the C of the center of the house but is there a way we can make that part of this whole building issue that you're talking about well see what we're talking about with Arby's you know because Act 250 is a huge element and this is just a component of Act 250 but the residential building energy standards currently is for new construction and renovation work where you're adding an addition not renovation excuse me but for more so the additions onto a home so for the home performance side there's no real requirement at this point in time it would have to be something like it's volunteering it's what you'd like to do so I mean definitely more investment there I think it's usually important yes sir yes can you tell me what is the size of an average residential or housing project is how many units are projects that varies drastically I mean sometimes you can be as little as two units you can be as high as is a hundred I mean there's some in right now they're definitely over the hundred unit mark so it can very wildly are there a limited number of contractors who are capable of doing that kind of work to the subdivision yeah higher yes it's not every contractor is doing that we were my associate will be testifying later we were talking about this on the way up there the reality in Vermont is when you get a trades person who is really good at what they do usually they get good enough and can advance only so far they go out for business for themselves but then there's not another person to help them so they're really just going to be the one or two person operation and not be the bigger company that can handle the larger projects so they may be able to do a nice custom home or a couple of the smaller residential projects but they're not going to be able to do a host of homes in the process just because they don't have the workforce available I'm just wondering how many contractors would more or less take on some of the changes and reforms you're advocating in terms of making a building tighter whether or not you know what you were talking earlier about the lack of expertise and the lack of knowledge and what would that really take that you know where it would have enough so you would make a discernible difference well the good thing about it is efficiency Vermont has already said that they are willing to extend the training for the Army's measures and other classes that they have to interested parties a lot of times they just say we just want to fill seats because we are already doing this training so it's not like the state has to fund extra training as they said for our association that they would allow our members to be trained so that can be something that can be accessed immediately in the next quarter as far as quantifying the savings certainly that there's a way to do the mathematics around that the metrics to make sure that you're getting the savings by the prescriptive measures but there's also when I've gone into a home and they've been keeping it at 55 degrees and struggling to keep it warm and being uncomfortable you do an energy improvement, weatherization you go in there and now the thermostats at 70 and they're not recognizing the same savings that they thought they would get well because the house is being treated differently so that is a harder measure to quantify but you can definitely do the due diligence up front with the design of a new home to know what measures are being implemented and get a pretty reasonable understanding of how that's going to perform and you're basically giving us information from the residential sector right? mostly not the commercial one well the same doodling science principles apply whether it's residential or commercial and the same challenges for a builder would be there and as far as the occupants you know making sure they're in that safe and healthy and long lasting building you're looking for the to hold a cliche the biggest bang for the smallest buck you know in terms of coming to grips with some of this thermal loss is there a big more sense now to concentrate on what kind of criteria you have for commercial properties I think commercial is definitely a wonderful opportunity there for savings you know and there are already those who are stepping up and winning awards for the designs that they're achieving and so that's great but there still is that fallout where it's not being done completely and that's why you know making sure that standard is in place and properly enforced is I think crucial I do appreciate your testimony yes sir yes we highly appreciate it Sony thanks for coming in we need to give your colleague time if you have one more question there may be two two specific to Act 250 but what I heard yesterday if I were to write is a dwelling could be a multi unit development for a nursing home and Act 250 applies to that so so would the residential code apply to the nursing home as a dwelling I'm not sure how that would be interpreted just off the face value I believe since it's a place that is actually performing operations for you know money in a sense probably more in the commercial code than it would in the residential Laura I'm wondering if we could check to see if she's a little bit flexible because we're a little behind I think that's awesome and then in the meantime we'll hear from Cameron so I'm Cameron I'm the CFO of BlackRock Construction we're a residential commercial real estate development and construction management company I'm also on the board of the Vermont Builders and Remodellers Association and I also I'm an associate of Howard Williams Vermont which is the largest real estate brokerage in Vermont so I'm pretty well connected to the real estate industry in general most of what I'll be discussing today and commenting on is tied to some macroeconomic principles of the impacts to the home buyers and some of what's being discussed some of the changes that are being discussed and then we'll get to technical I know you guys heard a lot of technical data from experts an extended period of time including many attorneys yesterday addressing some of the de novo processes whether it goes to board or e-court a whole bunch of information really my focus is on the practical impacts of the proposed amendments as well as some of the other considerations that are being undertaken to the Vermont economy overall and certainly the home buyer and it's a particular focus on what I would call a moderate income home buyer sort of the workforce housing home buyer it's the teachers it's the police officers it's your median income earners and families which are the driver of the Vermont economy and certainly a key demographic our company employs eight people Howard Williams employs either directly or through an independent contract about 180 people we have a large number of subcontractors and vendors when we do calculations on full-time job creation as part of some of the requirements there's FTE calculations so we certainly are an important part of the overall jobs market as well so having an understanding of the practical impacts of Act 250 and the proposed changes to Act 250 on the Vermont economy and the home buyer and on jobs creation is pretty critical to consider and I know that one of the big concerns in Vermont and certainly at the legislative and administrative level is the cost of housing and the available affordable housing for what I would call that workforce your moderate income of individuals so that's really where my focus is today so I'm hoping to bring the table is a little bit of a filter of how to view these potential changes it's certainly important that we do apply energy standards and we do create the enforcement of those energy standards what needs to be recognized is the increased cost so there was testimony from Barry about getting to a net zero that he associated with that Jim also alluded to the increasing cost of getting to certain standards well that cost most critically is actually passed on to the consumer it's the home buyer so while the developer may pay the impact the builder may pay the subcontractor to get to that standard ultimately it is the burden of the home buyer to absorb that cost and if we're in an environment where we're trying to create more inventory of affordable housing for working professionals for moderate income families it's critical to understand that as we talk through increasing cost of construction associated with energy efficiency that we're looking at ways to balance out those increased costs when we're bringing new inventory to the market I'll also discuss and I will try to be brief because we are running a little bit over the other impacts that it has on the existing inventory you don't need to finish it excellent, thank you I'll still try to be quick I tend to be a little robust but I appreciate the extra time there is an impact on the existing inventory so while Act 250 really governs the creation of new inventory there's impacts that Act 250 and the proposed changes may have on the existing inventory in the existing home sales market so when we're talking about the cost of the home buyer resulting from Act 250 what the piece needs to be looked at is where those variable costs are coming from so to some extent lumber concrete materials those are all relatively fixed costs there's variability from house to house but ultimately your 2200 square foot house in Williston will have the same material cost as 2200 square foot house in Bennington there's little variability there so the cost cost coming from and some of that actually has to do with the entitlement process with Act 250 and some of the impact fees associated great example is the prime ag mitigation fee has doubled and closed to tripled in certain zones in the last two years those increase in costs while they're floated by the developer or whoever's doing the subdivision ultimately they become a cost to the consumer so as we're looking to enact or enforce existing standards and or new standards it's important to recognize that there's a series of pieces that are creating increased cost yes to the developer but ultimately the developer is merely a conduit to having the consumer the home buyer pay those costs and I urge the committee and others to consider that as there's a enforcement and a drive towards an excellent goal of reducing energy issues with new inventory coming to market that there may be some consideration of offsets or reductions in fees perhaps even at the transactional level with the home buyer there's property tax pre-bates these are the types of things that could be considered at the transactional level where perhaps the developer has paid that impact fee and then it can then be a credit at a closing for example to that home buyer bringing down that cost so the fees are collected can be utilized but then the home buyer is not adversely impacted there's also some challenges with Act 250 on the technical side increasingly technical so you require third party experts whether that be civil engineers attorneys all sorts of different folks become part of the team that dramatically increases the cost the history of Act 250 came when there was far less robust local level municipal and town level zoning ordinances and it's certainly intended to protect the pristine beauty that is from I fly fish I kayak all the time I respect and understand the critical importance of protecting our scenic beauty the piece that used to be weighed into that is if we are increasing the cost of home buyer through those protections who will be able to remain to afford to stay in the state to actually be able to enjoy those things and that is the fundamental is when you're doing a $2 million house $15,000 worth of prime ag mitigation fees depending on lot size and impact in material it's at that price point this sort of average housing price point let's say two to four hundred thousand where that becomes a significant material impact so as Jim was indicating there can be 15% increases associated with the cost of the home meeting these higher energy standards well at some point the workforce and moderate income individuals your average the average person in the electorate is not going to have the ability to meet those costs coming from an area where it's not unusual for a house to sell for $100,000 what you're saying is a very good point it's and from a percentage basis again if you look at Chippin County admittedly and our company we build higher end homes part of that is predicated on the fact that the cost of actually getting the lot and infrastructure in place believe historically towns used to putting the roads themselves at their cost now it's the cost of the developer and we hand it off ultimately the cost to the developer should always be considered it's not a cost to the developer so when select works talk about impact fees for upgraded water infrastructure well the developer will pay for it nope the developer floats the cost the cost ultimately passes through to the home buyer so as we talk today about the proposed amendments which are excellent we need to strive towards creating a greener Vermont and continuing to maintain the natural and scenic beauty of our state there needs to be offset somewhere else to not create this additional burden on the home buyer so so I think we heard testimony that if you were doing the improvements that the building more efficiently that if that were according to you to go up 15% on a hundred thousand dollar mortgage that someone's paying thousand dollars a month for they and that was 15 thousand that's 150 more monthly could they look at that and say all my energy costs are going to be over the course of the year save that money because that was explained as a way for someone to afford the yeah so I think what you're driving at is a little bit the cost of ownership versus the cost of possession and those are fundamentally two different things so a bank is not actually going to take into consideration utility savings generally speaking a mortgage underwriting process doesn't really count utilities in a debt to income ratio okay so they wouldn't be able to under their current structures and I happen to use to work a bank commercial lending not what it's lending but I know a little bit about this they wouldn't be able to actually give you the benefit of the cost savings because they're in essence in the future and they have to be determined the other challenge comes from and you alluded to this question earlier is the valuation situation is how is there a valuation difference between this house where you spend an extra 50 thousand dollars to get it to stretch code or some other higher standard it's actually not at the bank level it's at the appraisal level and that is dictated by market conditions so the appraiser is taking fair market value determinants by comparable sales to make a determination of the associated value the bank then relies upon that appraisal to issue the amount of the mortgage the challenge may come in much like when you do an upgrade and you put the granite in the kitchen because you got rid of the four mica often times the cost associated with that is not a one to one ratio for the appraisal so you may be in a situation where you're spending $60,000, $50,000 in upgrades to meet efficiency standards or stretch standards you're not necessarily being able to recoup that money in the open market so we would have to look at this also systemically and ask the appraisers to come in here and banks to come in here and we would have a page going toward the same goal so and then well that's an idea and then we were talking about in the beginning some of the costs for impact fees prime ag mitigation fees ultimately gets passed to the consumer but I'm asking you does that assume that only if you build where you have to mitigate what could you do to avoid having to mitigate so the it is my understanding and I am not an expert on this I will admit it is my understanding that the prime ag mitigation fee is or the prime ag language states that it is there to protect the scarcity of Vermont's agricultural soils it is also my understanding that there was a study done that indicated that there is a very large percentage of soils in Vermont that are prime agricultural so I had heard a number from that study upwards of 70% I again I'm not an expert so certainly please don't rely on this speaking specifically to Chittenden County and this is a generalized way of addressing this as the criteria 9L which was sort of for lack of a better term the anti sprawl provision this is the creation of the intent to create more density in areas that are already developed to preserve the outer areas what that creates is an environment where you now have limited land availability to support this increase in density so you now have parcels of land that are really the only developable portions in these areas where it is seemed to be an area of development density development I'll give you a real life example we have a 40 unit subdivision in Williston that attaches to an existing several hundred unit subdivision it's 50 acres we're conserving 22 of it as wetlands we're not impacting it we're putting up split rail fencing to prevent access it will be professionally conserved as wetlands the other portion of the parcel has been deemed to be prime agricultural soils this is a parcel that in all reality would never ever be farmed again it is part of a existing several hundred residential unit development for the first 19 houses in the first phase we're paying a $103,000 prime agricultural mitigation fee and again that's not going to pay it but ultimately that will be priced into the cost of the home so $103,000 by 19 that's not an insignificant number in a contributory cost to the house so well yes I apologize potentially some inaccurate information as it relates to that study fundamentally it actually has to do with the available property and the available property we'll be farmed land the entirety of the retail outlets that was Lang Farm there's a lot of what has been created particularly in Chippin County and admittedly we're in Chippin County so I can speak more to that it was farmed land historically some of it hasn't been used as farmed land in over a hundred years and some of it has been reforested but they're still considered prime agricultural soils the reason why there is a need to impact it is as the state and the local governments have said we want you to not continue to expand out but go to a more dense development model those parcels happen to be within that dense development model you know I don't know so if you were to say well the more you condense the development and the more land that you don't touch like you said some of this perpetual concern would it be a good thing then if you were to say well for everything that you compact lead development and for the more acres that you would it be a great thing then to say then your mitigation fees would then be lessen that would be a wonderful thing to have occur so there is no acknowledgement of our conservation of the 22 acres of wetlands there is no offset to the prime agriculture of course there are two different things you can't have wetlands that are distinct from the prime but ultimately it's from a sitting 100,000 feet in the air that's 22 acres of land that's being perpetually conserved and we're still incurring significant fees that will be passed on to the consumer on a per-unit basis again the other idea you put forward which is the home buyer would get back the permit fees and be closing from what fund? wherever the money goes in your opinion in your provisional opinion realistically can you build an energy efficient home like we're talking about whether it's the energy star one or efficiency remind can you build in the media you're talking about I'm just kind of curious what kind of home that truly is like what bedroom size and the whole thing I'm just kind of curious the reality is it is really challenging particularly in the region in which I have my expertise so I truly can't speak to this other one but within Chinden County and to some extent Franklin County as well we have a number of people contact us looking to do new construction at a moderate price point let's use 300 to $350,000 the challenge is actually having a parcel of land that can be purchased at a price point where you can build anything I got it so you and I haven't had the opportunity to dive into the testimony about the impacts of Act 250 and the inventory challenges that it creates but there's a limited amount of inventory that comes to market and so when you have supply and demand economics plus the underlying costs and risks associated with development it puts a substantial premium on anything that has achieved a permitting status so you now have a situation where there's such high demand for these lots that's driving up the prices there's a recognition that there is an essence of restriction on outward growth which limits the amount of land even available to be permitted and there's a recognition of the landowners who are looking to either develop themselves or sell to the developers so you now have to increase demand for a lower supply there once it actually makes it through the entitlement process the appeal process is can be burdensome for a developer it's certainly a rightful process because I'm not somebody looking to remove some of these appeal rights though you could have a situation where you're half a million dollars in capital expenditures at risk out and for 295 dollars somebody can find on a field and see everything and you slow you down I don't know if you're looking for a project all of that creates a situation where you may have a half acre lot in Essex that's $150,000 who's coming to get a $350,000 house it becomes an incredibly difficult conversation and you really can't meet a reasonably sized home for a family and hit those energy standards and arrive at that price that's what I was getting at thank you it was a long way to get there thank you we need to now be aware of time Cameron might probably as I did have to leave the room just as you were arriving are you representing BlackRock with your testimony or is this more testimony for VDRS? yes the next question is first a quick statement offsets also a great tool that a lot of people purchase field efficient energy efficient electric vehicles put in solar panels and what have you that are funded in part with offsets that got the whole thing going and so I like your idea about that so does VBRA support the creation of offsets for sale and part one I can't speak to VBRA's support of that BlackRock construction certainly would support that the VBRA I haven't had detailed discussions about that concept I would imagine that the VBRA would have general support of any amendment or change that will create an environment where more and more affordable market because it will have a net benefit for all of the members of the VBRA I like the first answer given that I did not find your answer to the representative's question just following money I need to be more specific where do we find the money to do that do you have an idea of what program we could establish where those dollars might come from and I think an ideal situation would not have to be collected in the first place admittedly to prime ag mitigation is an excellent for you to talk about and it's an aggregation so when you talk about let's say energy efficient improvements you can do little weather stripping that's a few dollars here or there and then you can add an increased installation that's a few dollars here or there it becomes a death by a thousand paper cuts type situation so prime ag is one where in particular it's sensitive because of the dramatic increase in that fee recently right traffic impact fees certainly are important as we have roadway challenges and then there's an idea of being able to have the developer still pay but then crediting back perhaps on an income basis or a sales price point basis right without necessarily having to go capital a regulatory affordable right we have a tagline we'd someday like to roll out we don't build affordable housing we build housing that's affordable the challenges is the underlying costs of securing land the entitlement process and certainly the construction process to make it challenging to achieve that thank you very much I appreciate the opportunity yeah thanks so much for coming in thank you thank you let's take a minute break can you submit written testimony no I didn't I have prepared this moment here we'll send it to Laura back home if that works okay my name is Marcy Harding and I thank you Madam Tear and Committee members for the opportunity to speak with you today I'm going to summarize my background quickly I grew up in Shelburne, graduated from UVM worked for Vermont Bank for 26 years in commercial marketing and credit in 1993 Governor Dean appointed me to serve as a member of the Vermont Environmental Board after a rather turbulent time for the Board in 1997 when John Ewing retired Governor Dean appointed me to be chair of the Vermont Environmental Board and at that point I left my position at the bank I remained in the position of chair until early 2003 after Governor Douglas was elected I then worked for the Vermont Land Trust as a paralegal working on conservation projects until 2014 when I retired in the spring of 2011 Governor Shumlin appointed me to the District 4 Environmental Commission that's the commission that looks at projects in Chittenden County in May 2017 I resigned from the District 4 Environmental Commission but only because I was out of state caring for a family member for an extended period my experience with the Act 250 program is long but with some interruptions when not serving I've tried to keep abreast of changes in the law and with important cases but I admit to being somewhat rusty on certain details so I hope you'll forgive me for that I have tremendous admiration for the law and the people who administer it there have been many changes in Act 250 since it was enacted in 1970 the changes generally have made the law more complex and I think the bill you are working on will continue that trend that's not to say it's bad it's just more complex one of the more significant changes in Act 250 was just after I left the Environmental Board Chair in 2003 it was then that the appeal process was moved from the Board to the Environmental Division of the Superior Court it might have been called the Environmental Court at that time but it's the Environmental Division of the Superior Court now changes in appeal rights were made at that time too among other changes my understanding is that the change in the appeals process and changes in appeal rights were sort of a package deal one would not happen without the other I think there was strong support for changing appeal rights and the proponents of that change acquiesced to the change in the appeals process I don't think the change in the appeals process was broadly embraced by proponents of the change in the change in who could appeal this is just a little aside you can bear with me Patricia Moulton-Powden was my successor as Chair of the Environmental Board Governor Douglas had vowed to reform the permit process during his campaign a framework for a bill had been drafted but was not yet public I recall Patricia coming into my office to get an overview of the job she was taking and I was the one to inform her that if the permit reform bill passed which it ultimately did the job she had just accepted would be very different as the Board would no longer hear appeals I hoped that she would oppose the change but she did not have enough time to experience the benefits of a citizen board before she was immersed in the legislative process and the bill was enacted having observed firsthand the degree of effort put into the decision making process at the board and staff I thought it was a serious mistake to move the appeal function to a court where just one person would make the decision on cases which often involve much complexity I was part of deliberations at the board I saw the diligence with which board members would read and hear testimony and evidence consider the law and case precedent lay the merits of the arguments and reach a decision but not always the board also had the benefit of staff attorneys who would provide briefs to the board members on the law and case precedent however it was always the board that made the decision not the staff attorneys if you bear with me here I'm going to just run through the list of people that I served with on the environmental board and their background that they bring valuable and varied experience so running down the list and these aren't really in any particular order although as I get toward the bottom of the list some of those people served for only a short time while I was there so Jack Drake was a U of M geology professor he was the former chair of the district for environmental commission George Holland was a civil engineer he worked for the Navy if I have that right I'm saying that right and he was a Vermont technical college professor Sam Lloyd some of you may recall was a former house member and he was a former business owner and Weston Vermont the Weston Bowel Mill and he was an actor John Ewing was a former bank president former chair of the district for environmental commission and an attorney Arthur Gibb was an investment banker and former state senator his picture hangs on the wall somewhere in this building and he's a farmer he was a farmer and I say that because the last time I saw him with his sight impaired he was on his tractor mowing a field on his farm William Martinez was an electrical engineer CPS and former water resources board member Ellis Olenek is an attorney from the matter of her Valley Becky Norav was from Manchester a former district 8 environmental commission member Don Sargent as an IBM engineer and had very long service to the environmental board Gene Richardson this is something I found on the web the IBM professor producer organic inspector consultant on rural development agriculture and environmental issues Nancy Waples was an attorney she's now a judge Lawrence Bruce was an attorney is now a judge Gregory Rainville was an attorney is now a judge Steve Wright former fish and wildlife commissioner Robert Page medical doctor district environmental commission member I believe and John Farmer had had some business some kind of business background I don't recall the details and he was a former state senator I'm quite sure and if I have any of those wrong forgive me I took that mostly from my own memory but I think I have it right in short message today is that I think nine heads reach better decisions than one we had nine on the environmental board and we had some alternates as well but compared to the environmental court where just one person is making decisions I believe that the board model was much preferable I'd like to say one decision that you may be familiar with a large mixed use business park was proposed at the I-89 exit one in Harford the regional plan regional plan applied to this project it contains specific language stating and I quote here principal retail establishments must be located in town centers designated downtowns or designated growth centers to minimize the blading effects of sprawl and strip development along major highways and maintain rural character the question in that case turned on whether the proposed project was considered a principal retail establishment and with 35,000 square feet of retail space the supreme court found that it was reversing the decision of the environmental division I believe that if nine board members had considered they would have reached the same conclusion as the supreme court and the district three environmental commission and I encourage you to read that case if you're interested this is only one case but there are other decisions I could cite my point is just with this committee when you have a group of people together all focused on one or more questions you will generally get better outcomes with just one person a citizen board will bring expertise, experience and perspectives gained from different disciplines I'm sure you've heard from attorneys who prefer the court process some might criticize the board processes being too informal I beg to differ I'm sure there are citizens who appeared before the board that found it too formal all citizens were represented by an attorney I believe the board struck a reasonable balance between being accessible and being formal always giving parties due process I suspect the cost to applicants and parties before the court is higher than before the board and I reluctantly say that may be an unstated reason that some attorneys prefer the court process one clear advantage to having appeals within the act the 50 process was the coordination between the board and commissions that resulted and the guidance the board was able to provide I can think of several examples where the board developed the guidance developed guidance based on a case it decided either within the decision or as a separate policy such guidance became instrumental in helping the commissions decide similar cases and often was eventually enacted into law examples include prime agricultural soils and traffic impact fees lifting jurisdiction is another such issue that you are now considering in the proposed bill now on some specifics of the bill you are considering it's a long bill and I read it but there's a lot in it I'm not sure okay, section 02181 he says candidates who have experience expertise or skills relating to the environment or land use I think it's beneficial to have some members who have such experience expertise or skills but I don't think it should be a requirement for all members and I say that because I think it would have been a stretch to convince someone that I had those skills and as a side I presume that prior service on a district commission or on a house or senate natural resources committee would suffice to meet that requirement I hope which section was that again? 0602181 now if you go toward a professional board which I think might be under consideration I might feel differently about that but if it's a citizen board with nine members or a large number of members I don't think everyone that serves on the board needs to have environment skills relating to the environment or land use section 6026E 6026E provides for former commission members to sit on a case if current members and alternates are disqualified or unable to serve and I think that that language is simply moved from another section so I don't think it's a new requirement but I would suggest expanding this to include current commission members from other commissions who may be more knowledgeable about the current state of the law and I say that because my recollection is that there are occasional cases where the entire district commission is conflicted and another district commission is called in to hear the case that's just kind of a little technical section 8403A consolidates that 250 appeals with appeals from ANR permits I understand the advantages of doing this and I don't necessarily oppose them but I would like to say that I think this change will make it more challenging to find good willing candidates to serve the board it takes time and effort to learn the act to 50 law, process and precedent which of course is always changing and adding on top of that at least 23 additional permits governed by different sections of statute would be a little daunting I wondered why you included review in the name of this board the Vermont Environmental Review Board and not just the Vermont Environmental Board you probably have reasons I just wondered and I also made a note that that additional staffing at the board level would be required if this change was to be made there's certainly less staff there than there was there's less staff there now than there was when I was there and when the board was considering appeals so staffing would need to be adjusted and in closing on a very personal note I'd like to say that it was very disappointing to me when the appeal function was moved from the environmental board I was gone when the bill was enacted but I still took it very personally and it gives me great pleasure to know that the legislature is now considering reversing that decision and I applaud you all for doing so I think if you were to make only one change to improve the permit process for the next 50 years this is the change you should make thank you thank you thank you so much Marisa for coming in for presenting once again a perspective from people who've been there and done that and with the vision to look forward to how to bring that to our state in the future I want I I want to put an exclamation point I think on the early part of your presentation where you listed we could say the Magnificent 7 but there were more than 7 I didn't count and for our committee I'm sure there were at least several names everyone in this room would have recognized I recognize many not all but I think it's especially important coming on the heels of yesterday's testimony by the legal community who prefers the status quo who always respectfully talked about the former NRB but also at the same time downplayed the citizen board as their citizen board and they did a good job they did the best they could but they couldn't be expected to perform as good as a judge and so I think it's really important that you name these luminaries if you will and for our committee to hear that so I just want to put an exclamation point on that so the hurdle we always face when we do things in this room is FTEs how much is it going to cost the department in employees to do a good job and that's usually a very effective way to kill a bill it wouldn't surprise me in the soon weeks we hear from the administration that this will cost some outrageous number of new employees and so we possibly can't do that you did mention we will need more staff and the attorneys yesterday downplayed the staff some importance in the decision making because it was the judge and actually actually I think said that the staff have an unusual opportunity to affect the outcome by their findings that they present so two parts first would you comment on that and secondly is there an opportunity to get staff from the existing bodies to flush out the verb okay taking your first question first in terms of in terms of the legal staff the findings they present and I just want to correct you the legal staff does not present findings the board makes the findings the board hears the evidence the findings the findings the legal staff would write what we call the bench memo that would summarize the issues that were before the board because the board didn't hear didn't consider all 10 act 250 criteria they considered only the issues that were on appeal so it might just be a question like exit 11 did the project comply with the regional plan and so the staff attorney would write a bench memo outlining the issues and then summarizing the law and then summarizing the case precedent that we should be aware of as we consider the merits of the application so the staff attorneys never steered the board toward a certain decision effort the decisions were made by the board the staff attorneys were then directed to draft the decision and the board would review it several times before it was actually issued quite often several times before it was actually issued to make sure the board's decision so I really wanted to spell the myth that the attorneys on the staff were making decisions that were not in terms of staffing you know I'm not involved in the process at this point in time but when I was at the environmental board you know attorneys changed I was trying to count I think there was a chair and there were four staff attorneys John Grofman came to help me with this one was there was somebody that was assigned to the waste facility panel there was another attorney that was kind of half funded by ANR doing enforcement maybe fully funded by ANR I don't really remember the specifics but there were definitely more attorneys than there are at the board now I think there may be only two attorneys at the natural resources board now somebody can correct me if I'm wrong on that and there were four there when I was there and and of course if you were to make this change the load at the environmental board would be lightened and so there might be some opportunity to move resources around but really I'm probably not the best one to figure all of that out but I do think if you changed the appeal function to the environmental board that you would need more stuff than you have now as you had in the past you're welcome so I have a question for you one of the things that I found very compelling when we were doing our commissions work and one of the reasons we came out of favor of this suggestion is that the idea that the board had the authority to do the appeals would provide to the district commission but we also need to understand the line that that creates the sort of wall between the board and the district commission and if you could flesh that out for me explain how that worked when you were there because that's just a piece of it that so I want to understand how it worked so the district commission makes the initial decision and then if the decision was appealed to the board the board would not consider and not even see the district commission decision the board had no contact with the district commission in terms of the decision it made it was a de novo appeal we heard the evidence new as I said earlier only considered the issues that were on appeal and we reached our own decision if in the unusual situation that one of the board attorneys had been contacted for some kind of legal advice during the district commission process that attorney would be completely insulated from the case before the board there was a wall if you want between anything that happened at the district commission and the board the board didn't even see the initial application the board would consider the issues that were on appeal that were presented to the board and the parties would file new evidence and testimony regarding those issues and then how did that also though because you mentioned that you felt that it provided better oversight administration how does that create that so the board would reach a decision it might have guidance within the decision or it might say based on this case and to others like it we really need to develop some guidance in this particular area and it would draft a guidance document and then about every six weeks I think there was a district coordinators meeting where all the coordinators would come into Montpelier and the attorneys would provide training for those district coordinators in whatever the issue was it might be traffic impact fees or it might be the new regime relating to primary agricultural soils or something else there was a fairly good amount of training to the district coordinators and they would take that guidance if you will back to their district commissions and then to the aspect of whether this board if we do go this route to be voluntary you mentioned technical some of the changes we have might be more complex or technical is it realistic for us in this time to ask volunteers to step into that role again did they participate in those trainings did they how much time did the volunteers give to this the board the board members you're talking about at this point they were incredibly diligent we would milk crates we would carry cases around in milk crates that's how much documentation, evidence testimony there was we required pre-filed testimony just like you like to get pre-filed testimony in your committee which I'm sorry I didn't provide but there would be there would be a lot of information to read in advance of the hearing and our members did that and I might add I noticed there was something about per diems in this bill preparation was not compensated with a per diem only the time you actually spent in a hearing or a meeting but in spite of that I always felt that our board members were well prepared they asked good questions they understood the law they understood how to research case precedent we had something called the ENO index which listed kind of the key legal conclusion from all the environmental board decisions going back to the beginning of time 1970 and they would do the research I think they were I think they felt privileged to be part of the process you think that we could expect that of volunteers in the year 2020 I think you could would that be your preference as opposed to a professional or quasi maybe there's some middle ground a combination with some full-time more than one when I was there the chair was a full-time staff person I was a full-time employee the other eight board members only served on cases they would be called for cases and we had monthly meetings every couple weeks I can't remember but we'd have regular meetings where all the board members would come and we would deliberate on cases that we'd heard and issue decisions quite often we would hear in those meetings we would hear oral argument from parties whose case had been heard by a hearing panel of the board so one or three members of the board would hear a case and draft a decision and then the parties would have an opportunity to come in and argue for or against the decision and they would do that before the full board so that's another thing we did in just regular monthly meetings and yes I think you could find members would be happy to participate and again maybe a combination of some maybe three full-time staff professional board type people and six citizen board type people or maybe something like that would work I really haven't given it a great deal of thought but I do support the citizen board Representative Lefebvre Good morning When the change was made to go from the citizen's board to the courts one of the reasons that I am aware of driving that change was to expedite the time it takes to achieve a permit and I'm wondering now in terms of that argument that was going on at the time and resulted in a change under the Douglas administration if you had any testified anybody from the board or if you have any sense of how long those permits really did take I think there's statistics on that I was not so Governor Douglas was elected he had run on permit reform the writing was on the wall for me I knew that I was not going to be reappointed as chair I didn't know that until he called me and told me that but I did remain hopeful I have to say but I wasn't surprised when I got the call and Patricia Moulton-Powden was the next chair and in terms the bill again it wasn't even public when I met with Patricia Moulton-Powden she didn't know what was in the bill and I left she came I stepped into another job somewhere else and I was on a very steep learning curve once again in a new field of environmental issues namely land conservation and I was not involved in the 2003 changes I was disappointed in them but not involved but your question was I had something more to say about it help me to rupture but I'm drawing a blank on what the rest of it was what you've said already can I just jump to the question of if you served as chair of that board could see now that also you could be replaced by a change in governors wasn't the board more susceptible to political pressure and then a court would be I mean a court a judge basically has a six year period of service and then he has to come before the legislature in order for us to keep his job and I'm wondering what kind of what was the checks and balance on the board and clarify only the chair served at the pleasure of the governor the other eight members had terms that were established generally I think four year terms and they were all staggered so a new governor could not change the makeup of the board significantly until those terms rolled off so so I think that's the response to that question but you also asked about timing so I believe there are statistics about that I know we had statistics when I was at the environmental board about how long cases took to process and I believe there are statistics for the environmental court as well and I don't believe the environmental court has speeded up the process I think if anything it's a little slower but I'm sure there's somebody here in this room that knows specifically the answer to that question but yes thank you has your observation has it I think it's more than my observation I think there are statistics that show the average time it took to process a case at the environmental board and at the environmental court but I'd also like to say at the environmental board we would consider the Act 250 permit only at the environmental court with consolidated appeals they hear appeals of zoning decisions Act 250 decisions and ANR decisions and quite often let's go back to the environmental board model someone might apply for an Act 250 permit and be denied let's just say an appeal to the appeal to the board the board could hear that decision when the appeal was filed and make a decision and maybe the board denied the project as well maybe at that point the developer said I need to do something different here the way it is now the district commission might deny the project it goes to the environmental court and there's a zoning application in process there's a stormwater permit that's needed from ANR there's other permits that may be needed and the environmental court I think waits until all of those permits have been obtained which cost the developer money getting the local zoning permit and the ANR permits before the court will consider all three of those cases let's say and maybe the court denies it as the environmental board might have and the I think that whole process costs the applicant more it takes more time because you have to wait for those other permits which will ultimately be consolidated to be issued so it can take more time and I think it most likely costs more money because you're in front of more if I can just set that up you I'm sure you're aware we have at least four judges in here he's given us testimony test lawyers rather given us testimony and one of the things that I was impressed with with the courts handling the situation of the environmental court was that one of the lawyers said in the event a permit was denied I can take my client and I can lead him down the reasons because the environmental courts seem to have a much more either judicial or a narrow way of saying these are the things we're looking at here and you have to show each one in order to prevail and I can say to my client well our argument on how to prevail on this point did not carry so I could not do that in front of the board it was much more difficult and so you know I'm wondering now if that level of satisfaction of knowing that you've been treated pretty fairly and independent when you appear before the court you know is going to be it's been lost, will be lost in the event that we go back to our citizens panel but there are reasons for rejecting you it can be more very let's say more more diverse and so consequently you don't have that kind of nice checklist where you can say this is what happened here well we would issue lengthy decisions on the issues that were before the environmental board we would take them up take up each issue generally it's several different criteria we would make findings of fact relating to the criteria and then we would write conclusions of law that laid out the analysis that we did and the conclusion that we reached and I would have to say that I think any applicant would be hard pressed to read our decisions and not know why not understand why they have been turned down I I don't I guess I don't understand that comment I think you can go about all the environmental board decisions are on the website and you can go back and read them or read a few and see how they were drafted and issued and I just find it hard to believe that me or an applicant couldn't read our decisions and understand where the flaws in the projects compliance with the criteria I I don't I guess I just don't understand I wasn't here yesterday I didn't hear the comments I well I think the idea was when one person is making a decision you can go back you can review why that decision was made but nine people are making it become a little more let's it's not we didn't issue nine decisions it was one decision generally unanimous not always if it was not unanimous there was always a dissenting opinion written and again I think the decisions were pretty well written and pretty clear representative McCulloch so sort of on that and on some of the questions I've already had as felt as comment that my friends and several yesterday our personal friends presented very skillful and and represented the NRB as very good but they were promoting way way better and so that was their job okay they they presented the former NRB and likely the new verb as being tougher for citizens to go and present their cases against then the court system that exists now yes really so I'm just not your answer I think thank you it surprises me we had citizens appearing before the board often sometimes represented by attorneys not always represented by attorneys they also I feel that did not like depositions that prefiled stuff they thought that added to the cost and added to the the expense and added to the time you mentioned that I think you've mentioned that prefiling was a practice and that it worked well could you comment on this right there in some cases the more controversial or complex cases they would require prefiled testimony we would have a pre-hearing conference we'd talk about what the issues were to be decided who the witnesses were going to be what a time schedule would be and we would build into that time for the attorneys to prepare prefiled testimony for their witnesses and I think both sides appreciated that because they what the testimony was going to be before they got into the hearing there was prefiled testimony there was also re-bottle testimony built into the system but our time frames were pretty tight we didn't delay cases 6 months or 4 months waiting for people to do prefiled testimony it was 2 weeks and then another 2 weeks for re-bottle and then we'd go to hearing that I think the parties appreciated that there's been a concern raised that the new verb would be in an awkward position as also if you will an educator maybe providing some training educator training and to the district commissions and then be hearing appeals made by the district commissions I think you've already touched on that this morning but would you put an exclamation point on that? the way that training normally worked was through the district coordinators so the attorneys at the board would meet with the district coordinators I as a staff person would not be in those meetings I might stop in at lunch to just say hi to these people who worked out in the district offices but I would not be involved in training but the attorneys and the district coordinators would discuss whatever the issues were you know quite often it was new changes in the law or the district coordinators would raise some issue that they had grappled with in their commission to look for input from other district coordinators on how they might have handled something like that it was that's the way the training happened it was not the board meeting with district commissions the only time we met I take that back there were two times there was an annual meeting in the fall and there was spring training in the spring and those we invited district commission members and coordinators and board members and the legal staff at the board to those meetings and talked about bigger picture issues there might be a debrief on in the spring we often included a debrief on whatever changed in the law at the legislature that year that kind of thing was there a firewall for recusal for recusal of a member who may have had an issue who may have been more intimately involved with a particular district commission decision there definitely were times when a member would recuse him or herself it didn't happen often one one case I recall in fact one case I recall involved a development along the shoreline and one of the applicants maybe it was the opponents witnesses was a geology professor at UBM and Jack Drake who was also a geology professor at UBM and worked with Paul Bierman ended up recusing himself kind of at the last minute because we didn't realize that Paul Bierman was going to be a witness but yes and there were four alternates so we could bring in alternates some sort of conflict of interest but it didn't happen frequently we filed a testimony to help we did have that oh yeah as far as Paul Bierman played thank you very much you're welcome we did not thank you so much for coming in thank you for having me one last question would you favor if we go back to the east for the number of members on that board to be repeated as nine I thought nine was wonderful again you got to hear so many different opinions and you had the expertise of people in areas where you might not have had much expertise but you knew that there was somebody else there that could help on that issue and I thought nine was a wonderful number seven probably be fine eleven might be a little unwieldy get down to five five is a lot better than one I mean my message really is just like with your committee if one of you had to be deciding what to do with active 50 for the next 50 years compared to eleven of you I think you're going to reach a much better decision with eleven of you at the table and is it a four year service as well on the commission on the commission I'm sorry on the citizens board yes yes I believe our terms were four years but I remember the chair served at the pleasure of the governor so the chair could be removed and you could be reappointed yes and we had pretty good stability on the board there was change during the years I was there but not a lot and we had some people with very very long service who were wonderful in terms of I don't remember this case back in 1970 whatever and they could talk about something that would be relevant to what we were considering thank you again committee we will be doing markup tomorrow with Ellen on the active 50 sections that we've been focused on the let's see I guess I would ask you all for your input we can start with what we just have been doing which is the administration and appeals but we've also heard from the building association this morning because that was followed from last week focused on the climate change aspects part of the bill so what's your pleasure what is your mind in terms of active 50 and the ability to dive into it I'm looking for what we just covered it's fresh yeah okay administration and appeals I would have requested that we hear from a judge on the appeals I know Brian Greerson who's the administrative judge and was I believe a spirit court judge asked me why no one had to contact them to give testimony and so I just bring that up I heard that you talked to him yesterday just on the hall so I would you know even the fact we're going to choose whether or not to keep your presence is going to change it since he is part of the presence of that system and his office himself you know I wasn't sure about that because judges are not political and I guess I gave it some of my own thought but I'm hoping to hear what others think I didn't think that was necessarily appropriate Representative McClellan with Chris if it's fresh in our mind we've heard excellent testimonies both sides of the issue if you will the issue being what's in the bill currently I guess I would put forth that we do markup tomorrow but Harvey said some weeks ago it doesn't have to be cast in stone it would be we don't close the book on that section and move forward it's for the purposes of the next iteration and we could modify what we did and another markup and session prior to voting on a particular bucket if you will and I hope I'm paraphrasing your thought correctly pretty close so I propose moving forward with a markup tomorrow I'm and would invite the rest of the room to think about what we've heard and think is it A or is it B or is it a combination of A and B meaning what's in the bill and versus the status quo maybe it's a combination of the status quo and what's in the bill and that's where I'm leaning and I hope it presents some sort of offer in that regard for consideration as part of the work I would agree with that I think that I'm not ready to do final markup when we're ready to vote on this thing because I think for a long ways from that but I think it would be good if we try to pull together something on some of the sections that we've had quite a bit of discussion on so that we kind of rather than we've heard a lot of information I mean this week we've heard this one this way this one this way this one this way so I think if we can do some routine markup so we've got a guideline that we can work probably good so help us identify gaps exactly I think that's what I'd like to spend a lot of time well Friday and then next week and so I would encourage if you have moments after this evening to read the sections of the bill that are related to this that we've looked over so we can all have it fresh in our minds and I think creatively tomorrow so just to be clear you think it's not a culture to bring the administrative judgment by if you ask me why I wouldn't know why yeah fair enough I'd like to hear from other folks I guess I well that's what I think I think it's a excuse me? I mean committee members okay so what happened then I mean if we're going to bring the markup and then just wondering at what point after the after the markup well we also I guess we need to do some markup we don't have it scheduled we can talk about whether or not the committee wants to hear from them right now or if it's not appropriate as you indicated then we shouldn't but if it is it would be nice to hear the other side I was checking in with the judiciary committee on this recently and it was like well I don't know I didn't think that was necessarily appropriate and there was agreement on that so I they are this is a new territory for me but that was my instinct and I followed through with some folks who know more than I do that's you if you would like to so they were apparently willing to so yeah we had a conversation I would like to hear I'll talk to the legislative council we can put it around and just start with some markup and we can take all sort of requests alright we will adjourn for lunch we'll be back after the floor