 just like we didn't adjourn, all both. Now our new committee room. We have a little more room for guests. A lot more here, which is the goal. Why don't we go around into discussions of the committee members, and actually maybe the room too, so people can know who's here. Ellen, would you start? Sure. Ellen Tchaikowsky, Office of Legislative Council. I will be the legislative council on Act 250, natural resources more broadly. Jim McCullough, I serve as representative of the Brave Little Hamlet of Willis. And I'm Kerry Dolan. I represent Washington 7 District, which includes Wheatsfield, Warren, Payston-Mortown, and Duxbury. Leland Morgan, representing Grand Isle County and Westville. Carter Smith, from Addison County. I represent the Towns of the Haven, Waverich, and Brickville. Paul Levee from Newark. And I represent Eight Towns of the Mooseeskin. It'll take a long time. I can remember them. I represent Little Bray. Trevor Squirrel representing Underhill Jericho. Chris Bates, Bainton 2-1. Matt Hill, I have Johnson Hyde Park, or Wilkett and Beledere. Carol Odie, I'm at the Confluence of the Mooseki and Lake Champlain in Burlington, the New North End. Tom Tarrant, Zinni, Rotlin Town. Hi, I'm Mark Grimes, I'm the new committee assistant here. And if it's OK, I'd love to go around the room. So just say who you are and if you're representing someone. I'm Hannah Johnson. I'm interning for MMR. Marcy Gallagher, I'm with Deeper. I'm Karen Blake-Lockham within the crossing group. Good afternoon. My name is Chris Cockham with the Department of Housing and Community Development. Peter Walk, W. Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources. Miliartru, Vermont League of Cities and Towns. Kate McCarthy, Sustainable Communities Program Director at the Vermont Natural Resources Council, VNRC. Diane Snelling, Chair of the Natural Resources Board. My name is Helen Van Beck. I'm interning with Vermont Transportation Agency. John Brabant, representing Vermonters for a Clean Environment. Headstand at Grittard State Employee. John Dylan, Vermont Public Radio. Jane Clifford, Morris Government Relations Group. Greg Volvo with the Natural Resources Board. Evan Meenan, also with the Natural Resources Board. Michael Snyder, Commissioner of Forest Parks and Recreation. Andrew Brewer with Down's Ratlin Martin. Lauren Oaks, newly with the Nature Conservancy. Nancy Lynch, the Vermont Association of Realtors. I'm sorry, who's with the camera and where are you from? Hi, Orchimedia. Go back, can you access? Great, what's your name? Adam Blair. I'm Jim Dandenall. I'm with Trevor Piper, Eggleston, and Cranber here on behalf of the city of Erlington. Brian Schuch, Executive Director of the NRC. I want you to be like Koster at the agency. Great, thank you all. So with that, we are going to do a review of our committee bill from last session with Ellen. And then we're going to hear about some new work that's been done over the summer, after that from the Administration and Vermont Natural Resources Council. Without further ado, Ellen, take it away. Great, just as a reminder, Ellen Shakowski, Office of Legislative Council. I'm here on 19-0040, which is your committee bill, an act related to changes to Act 250. So when last we spoke, I was here in April. And this is the committee bill that you have spent quite a bit of time on. But to review where we came from, in 2017, Act 47 was enacted to create the Commission on Act 250 the next 50 years. There is a big, beautiful compilation of the report over there that I'm going to reference briefly. But six legislators spent a year and a half looking at the history of Act 250, the original purpose with which it was enacted. And the legislation asked the Commission to look at how successful the Act had been at meeting the original goals of the findings. So the Commission had 14 advisors, and they spent a year and a half engaging with the public, learning the history of Act 250, and looking at the changes that have happened in Vermont in the last 50 years. Act 250 was enacted in 1970. So now that it is 2020, we are approaching the 50-year anniversary. And the Commission looked at what could be ahead for the next 50 years of Act 250 and what changes might need to be made to reflect the changes that have happened in Vermont. So the report came out about a year ago. The Commission made 33 recommendations and also produced a draft piece of legislation to incorporate those changes. And your committee spent time looking at that draft bill and all of the recommendations and deciding which ones to focus on. So I'm going to bring your attention to the chart in a minute, but you worked through multiple drafts. You heard from a number of the technical advisors from the Commission, as well as a lot of members of the various agencies who were involved in Act 250. And you took a significant amount of testimony from the public and the private sector on Act 250 and the proposed changes from the Commission. So when we left off in April, we were on draft 9.2. That document is on your website. I am not going to do a walkthrough of it. I'm going to walk you through this chart that's on the screen. And this chart, you have seen a version of it, I think last February I had a draft of it for you. And it does a high level overview of what the changes are that incorporate the recommendations into this bill. So the first major set of changes have to do with the capability and development plan. That plan was part of the original Act 250 and it was called for in section 6042. So the first major change is in the bill adds a new finding. The capability and development plan is a set of 19 findings that list the details that are to guide the implementation of Act 250. So this one adds a, so the first change adds a new finding to address greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. The next change amends finding number two. Which adds ecosystem protection to the already existing section related to utilization of natural resources. The next change in the bill adds a section 6000 which adds a purpose section to Act 250. It explicitly references the capability and development plan as well as the goals of the municipal and regional planning which is chapter 117 of Title 24. So I think, stepping back, we're gonna look at this chart broadly and I'm not gonna do a specific walkthrough but if you have questions we can talk about them now or I will definitely be here more in the future for the specific language questions. So the next change updates the maps. So it requires the county level capability and development maps to be updated to reference for reference in Act 250 review. They have not been updated in a while. So you will also recall that there are, so those are a couple of the minor changes but there are some large categories of changes. So the first one being amending the existing Act 250 criteria to address climate change. So this is accomplished in a few different ways. So first, there's an amendment to Criterion 1 to separate out air from water pollution. Currently Criterion 1 addresses both air and water pollution. So first we make Criterion 1 just related to air pollution. In addition, your bill adds subcriterion 1A to address air contaminants. And it also adds subcriterion 1B to address greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Next, the newly created Criterion 2 is for water pollution. And so it updates the definitions to reflect the Agency of Natural Resources extensive work related to flood hazard areas and river corridors. So the definition section is updated to match and reference the water regulations and Criterion 2 is amended to reflect that as well. Next, the existing Criterion 2 and 3 are combined and those are both related to existing water supply. Next, Criterion 5 is amended in two ways. That's the traffic criteria. So first it is amended to require review of projects for safety and congestion impacts to both bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. And also it clarifies when it is appropriate to require transportation demand management strategies. Also amended is Criterion 9F and that is amending the energy criterion to include explicit reference to energy efficiency and stretch codes. It currently only references energy conservation. So the next major set of changes relates to forest fragmentation and habitat protection. This, you will remember that this work originally related to a bill known as H233 which came out of a few sessions ago but you did amend it a bit. So you amend Criterion 8 to include a new sub-criterion 8B forest blocks and 8C connecting habitat and it adopts an avoid and minimize strategy for fragmentation. You did remove the requirement for mitigation in April when we last spoke. Another change is the burden shift. The burden is shifted so that the burden of persuasion under Criterion 8A is on the applicant now. Currently under statute it's on the person opposing the application. So remind us what 8A is and what that really means, the burden of persuasion for real time. Sure. We rewrote the whole burden section. 8A has to do with wildlife and so currently under statute, a person who is opposing an application has the burden to prove that there are adverse impacts to wildlife habitat. The committee heard testimony that this is a difficult thing for an opponent to prove because the landowner is in control of the data related to the actual project site. So having the burden be on an opponent to an application is difficult. So this requires that the applicant has to provide enough information to persuade the district commission that they have not caused adverse impacts to wildlife habitat. And another change requires the Agency of Natural Resources to include forest blocks on their resource maps. So the next set of changes relates to interstate interchange protection. It does a series of things related to interstate interchanges. It adds a new subcriterion, 9I, to protect the area in interstate interchanges that are outside of existing settlements. It also adds a jurisdictional trigger for development that is proposed to take place within an interstate interchange that is not within an existing settlement. And you add a definition of interstate interchange area. Also it adds a change so that permits can be denied under the traffic criterion five if it is located within an interchange area. Next change is to criterion 9K which is the public investment criterion. And it updates this criterion to include forms of public investment that have been developed since 1970. Next we get into some changes related to planning. First, regional plans. It requires, your bill requires regional plans to be approved as consistent with the statutory planning goals. It also clarifies criterion 10 so that regional plan provisions apply to a project if they meet the same standard of specificity that is applicable to statutes. And this came out of recent case law which requires that a regional plan be clear enough to be understood by a person of ordinary intelligence. I'm not sure what that is, but it's not. I'm not sure. Next, it also requires the regional plans to include the location of critical resources which we will talk about shortly. Next, municipal plans. Your bill requires municipal plans to be consistent with the statutory goals for municipal and regional planning. It also amends criterion 10 so that it can be used to be used in Act 250. A municipal plan must obtain approval from the Regional Planning Commission. Next, you added the road rule as a jurisdictional trigger. That is a former piece of Act 250 that had been repealed and it has now been added back into your bill. And then next is one of the other major groups of changes that both the Commission looked at as well as your committee. It's the idea of multi-tier jurisdiction combined with enhanced the designation. So as part of a balancing of interests to support economic development in compact centers while promoting rural countryside and protecting important natural resources, your bill amends jurisdiction to allow municipalities that ensure compliance with the criteria the criteria in centers to receive an enhanced designation under 24 BSA Chapter 76A while increasing Act 250 jurisdiction in critical resource areas and at interstate interchanges. So those two things are together. It also creates an appeal process for the designation decisions. So your bill adds the definition for critical resource areas and any development within a critical resource area are subject to Act 250 jurisdiction. So your increasing jurisdiction in areas that you have determined to be critical while exempting development that is located within an area that's been given enhanced designation. So you added the definition of critical resource area and you also added the definition for rural and working lands and development or subdivisions within the rural and working lands area trigger Act 250 jurisdiction depending on the number of acre or lots. So then related to enhanced designation. You establish an enhanced designation program. So a municipality with a designated downtown village center, new town center or growth center are eligible to apply for this enhanced designation. And the municipality that has one of those areas must demonstrate that its bylaws comply with Act 250 criteria that has the capability to review development for compliance with those criteria. And they must identify the critical resource areas in that municipality. And if a municipality can demonstrate those things the state board can grant an enhanced designation which would allow for development in that area to be exempt from Act 250. Enhanced designation decisions are appealable to verb which I will talk about in a moment which is the new board your bill creates and it exempts the projects within the enhanced designation area. And it also repeals, your bill also repeals the exemption for farming, logging and forestry if they are located within an area that's a critical resource area. So that is a brief summary of the changes related to multi-tier jurisdiction. Next, you add a definition, clarifying a commercial purpose so that it is not necessary to determine whether monies are received. Whether monies received are essential to sustain a project. Also, your bill requires the development cabinet to meet regularly. And I will point out that last session, another committee repealed the development cabinet entirely so if you wanna move forward with that change we'll need to either reenact that statute or do something else. Next, you also increase the per diem rate for the district commissioners to $100 from the current $50. And then we have the new board. So your bill proposes to replace the current natural resources board with the Vermont Environmental Review Board, or VERB, which would hear appeals from the district commission decisions and the agency of natural resources in addition to their current duties. This board would be a five-member board appointed by the judicial nominating board. They would, the with members having four-year terms and the chair is full-time. The Environmental Division of the Superior Court would continue to hear enforcement issues as well as local zoning permit appeals. It also assigns the risk of non-persuasion to an appellant in an appeal. And then... Could we have clarification? Risk of non-persuasion? No. I'm at risk for that all the time, I think, but... I think that's just... I can't speak to it at the moment. I need to refresh my memory. All right, that works. Because that... So another change made is related to the supervisory authority of permits. So it reaffirms the supervisory authority of the board and the district commissions in matters under Act 250, which was the original intent of Act 250. Next, there's a set of changes related to permit presumptions. So your bill revises and clarifies the statutory authority on the use of other permits to demonstrate compliance with the criteria. And ensuring the reliability of those permits. So to get a presumption, the board must determine that the permit was issued as part of a program that reliably meets its goals. It lowers the standard for rebutting a presumption and no presumption is allowed for permits that allow for the discharge of pollutants into impaired waters. Next, we have a series of changes related to slate quarries. So slate quarries under your bill, under your bill slate quarries cannot be held in reserve if they are not in use. Registered slate quarries must provide notice to their adjacent property owners. And the agency of natural resources will add the registered slate quarries to the natural resources atlas. In addition, your bill requires that owners of pre-existing pits and quarries of other rocks and minerals submit extraction data to the board in order to establish a baseline against which substantial changes may be determined. Your bill also creates a process under which property can be released from Act 250 jurisdiction. And finally, some of the most recent changes that you made in April relate to a racial equity review. So the session law provision in your bill asks the executive director of racial equity, the racial equity advisory panel and the human rights commission to conduct a review of the processes, procedures and language at Act 250 to assess the extent to which Act 250 has contributed to adverse impacts on racial equity and diversity within the state. Members have questions or everyone understands it all? We have to go back to the municipal plan. Sure. Where it says required municipal plans to be consistent with statute protocols for municipal and regional planning. What exactly is that again? So under 24 BSA 4302, there are a list of goals and requirements for municipal plans. And currently municipal plans may be consistent with them. So your bill changes the may to a shall so that they have to be consistent with those goals. Okay. And they have to be consistent with those goals in order to be approved and accepted and then therefore part of Act 250 review. Yes, the regional planning commissions then approve the municipal plans as consistent and then they can be used under criterion 10 as to evaluate whether the project complies with that. One more thing. So how does that work for like Bennington? If we don't really follow, we're parallel to Act 250 but we don't actually follow it. So how would that work for Bennington or it doesn't? It would work for something like Arlington where they would follow it. So, and I am not an expert but I do know that Bennington has a pretty detailed town plan. And so I don't know specifically to the extent to which it has been approved as consistent but because there is significant detail in that plan already. So when a project would come up, the project would be evaluated against criterion 10 to see if it is consistent with the plan that Bennington has in place. Okay, perfect, thank you. And is there, Chris, would you be able to speak to whether, do you know anything about the Bennington plan? Bennington's plan is approved so it would play into Act 250. Yeah, I was just kind of wondering how, because when I talked to Dan Monks, he says one thing then I come here and I hear another thing and it's kind of confusing. So both the region and the local municipality have plans that play into Act 250 criterion 10? Perfect, thank you. There are town plans that have been adopted that have not been approved as consistent. And so I think that is sort of the space that this team is looking to address. Counts of adopted plans but they aren't consistent and so they haven't been approved. Can you tell me about sense of how many plans that might be, I realize that's a total, maybe someone else in the room knows how many plans about, we won't. I'd have to, it varies. In the majority, I want to say 80% of towns have, this is all part, have plans that meet the requirements. Yeah, 80%. And there, oh, how many towns don't have plans? A smaller set, a certain community, a very small subset of towns just don't have plans and then there's a smaller subset that has, they may have a plan but they don't have a set of plans. And I can get you the data on that in part. Yeah, that would be good, okay. Any other questions for Ellen? Any questions? Sure. On the slick quarries, we have, did a lot of go out to the stakeholders and they were going to meet over the summer and then come back with a report, am I, is that correct? Yes, this committee did send a report, or a letter to the stakeholders. Yes, and did that result in a report from the stakeholders? I haven't heard anything, I don't know. So what's being proposed here, this was, we received what we were talking about in terms of sending the letter out, is that correct? Yes, this is, the last time you made changes to 9.2 was in April, I think it was April 12th. So that predated the letter. All right, thank you so much. Thank you. Warm and air. The folks by the thermostat can just turn it down a little bit towards cooler, it'll go pretty quick. We're going to be co-presenting, we're actually going to be going to some of our customers. Okay, we're going to be going to the chair. No. Okay, look at that, he came with one. Okay. And now he brings it wherever he goes. Are you ready? Would you like a copy of the system? Yes. Actually, for the future, everybody would like a copy of that. No, so we, I think you'll get to know our particular estimate. Mark, come on, come on, come on, Brian, this is what I'm going to say, overestimate. The moonlight to the moon. We have a thing out of stuff. Yeah, the star thing is going to go out. That's right. That's right. We're going to go to Boris Robinson, it's going to be cute for supporting her. Okay. Oh, you want a date? Very good. I see. Maybe for Mark's benefit, the folks who generally like to have paper copies, could you raise your hands? Yeah, I want to do that. Very good. Thank you. Are aware by now that the administration, represented by Peter Walk, and the Monanta Resource Council, kind of representing the environmental community, if you will, has been hard at work all summer long on looking at our draft bill and trying to find some ways to create a bill that many of us can support. They've been checking in with me along the way, and so I thought it would just be helpful for all of you to hear where they're at, and then we'll see where we are. Today's review is going to be a little bit more similar to what Ellen did, high level, and then we are expecting actual draft language on this. Tuesday of next week, a week from today? Yes. Great. For the record, I'm Peter Walk. I'm the Deputy Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources. And Brian Schup, Executive Director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council. We really appreciate the opportunity to come here before you today. I'm obviously the first day of session and really excited that you guys are getting back into this immediately. We are talking about one of the most consequential historic laws in the state of Vermont and necessary updates to it. We appreciate the opportunity to come here and talk to you. Your work last session, as Ellen discussed, built on the work of the Act 47 Commission and raised critical challenges and opportunities to modernize Act 250 and to meet the contemporary issues that we deal with today. As the chair mentioned over the course of the summer and fall, the administration along with Vermont Natural Resources Council came together to see if there were opportunities to take where you guys finished off and see if we could make progress to an area where we could reach consensus on certain issues. And in doing that work, we relied heavily on both where you got to and then the intent behind the work that you were doing. What challenges and problems were you trying to solve? And so some of the things that we will present to you today will look very similar and some of them may vary but comply with the sort of intent behind your deliberations. And so with that, I'm going to hand it over to Brian and we look forward to walking this through with you and then hearing everything. Just as a reminder, some of the issues that really prompted the legislature to establish the commission and start this work included just that the law is 50 years old. It's dated some of the environmental challenges that we recognize today really weren't widely recognized in like wildlife habitat connectivity and forest fragmentation, climate change, what have put a large issue. There's been changes in the law over the years that have resulted in it losing some of its consistency across the state in elimination of the environmental board in 2004 or five has made the districts a little bit more unwieldy than they were. Projects are more complicated and the process has gotten more complicated. And a little bit, it's become more challenging for folks, especially folks who aren't really experienced in Act 250 or represented by attorneys to participate in, especially the appeal process. And the changes in state permitting and local and regional planning and state designation programs have all, those have evolved considerably since the early 1970s when Act 250 was written. So this is an opportunity to align the law with kind of where we stand today with environmental regulation and land use planning. As Peter said, we really relied heavily on the work that the committee did. Although we did agree that we would keep an open mind and agree to kind of revisit some of our past positions in an effort to see if we could come up with new ideas that haven't been talked about. And I think we've succeeded in that and we'll tell you about those. So as Chair mentioned, we're going to be prepared to provide a more detailed draft bill to you. Matt Chapman from the Agency of Natural Resources, John Groveman from former NRB Chair and from VNRC, Greg Buble, the General Counsel for the National Resources Board have been working with Ellen on drafting a new bill to put some of these ideas into draft statutory language. So we're going to organize our presentation into five categories similar to what Ellen did. Changes in jurisdiction, modernization of the Act 250 criteria, the structure and function of the NRB, updates to Act 250 permitting and permit conditions, and then some additional work that we feel is warranted on some of the issues that we weren't able to resolve, but we think with further time and deliberation, we can come up with some additional changes to complement the work that we're proposing. So the, probably the area that's in some ways most similar to what Ellen walked through was jurisdiction. We all, from early in the process, I think the states have acknowledged that the state's land use and development goals are for that kind of elusive settlement pattern of compact settlements around the lay open countryside. That's been on the books in various forms since the 1960s. The state has created some designation programs and planning processes in order to try to achieve that pattern, that smart growth development pattern. And we feel as though, like the committee decided last year there's an opportunity to align Act 250 to reflect those goals and those other programs that are in place. So what we were proposing similar to what the committee did was we exempt development and designated downtowns and neighborhood development areas from Act 250 review. Those are the areas that are generally the most carefully thought through and the most rigorous designation processes for the state with some environmental protections associated with those processes. And we think that it's inappropriate to send a signal that this is where we wanna see our development occur and our designated areas to reinforce those historic settlement patterns. We also though, there are other designated areas that don't have as rigorous review process but do have certain benefits associated with them now. Growth centers, new town centers, village centers are all treated different for priority housing areas or priority housing exemptions. Just for affordable housing and mixed use housing. I don't wanna get into the detail now but we propose no changes to that continuing to maintain those programs to support priority housing in those other designated areas. Forest fragmentation and just general resource fragmentation has been a big challenge. This committee has recognized that as a goal to deal with it. Ellen mentioned bringing back the road rule. I would characterize it differently. I think the road rule wasn't particularly effective. It had some kind of it resulted in some perverse development patterns as people tried to avoid it. So we looked at a more kind of comprehensive encroachment rule that would look at that combination of roads and driveways with a larger length to trigger active 50 jurisdiction. We'll get into detail about that. So it's a form of the prior road rule but we don't feel as though we feel it's a much improved one and it will do a better job and not result in some of the adverse consequences that happen with the old road rule. We also agreed to a variation of jurisdiction around the interchange areas with the caveat that some regional planning commissions and municipalities do planning around those areas and if they're in document that they are, they change the boundaries from the arbitrary 2000 feet that we would suggest that there be a process in place to allow the municipalities to do that with their own local regulations and we've outlined that in the draft statute or the draft legislation. And then finally, there was an issue that the administration brought before the committee last year about exempting transportation facilities from Act 250. We opposed that. The committee also didn't agree to go along with that. What we've agreed to do is identify for jurisdictional purposes the acreage requirement necessary to trigger Act 250 review. Just a reminder, in some towns, that's a one-in-one issue with public processes, 10 acres of new area. We agreed that we would exempt already developed area. If it's a road capacity increase, you don't look at the existing road that's already built. You only look at the new area to trigger that review with the understanding that any new accesses to controlled access highways to our interstate system which would not be subject to that, would trigger Act 250 review because of the growth and development that's associated with that. So those are the jurisdictional changes we propose. Oh, I think I missed one, yeah. You also struggled with whether to lower the 2,500 foot elevation trigger for Act 250 review. Currently under Act 250, anything above 2,500 feet triggered Act 250, I believe in the draft, Bill had lowered it to 2,000 feet. After a lot of map reading and analysis that we did with the agency and talking to a lot of other stakeholders, we thought that we should not treat everything equally that we should look at the physical characteristics of the land in determining jurisdiction. So what we agreed to with the administration, and this is supported by some of the folks who we've been sought advice from on this issue, is that we define ridgelines in that we identify ridgelines over 1,500 feet as triggering jurisdiction but just the ridgelines not all land over that. So a high elevation plateau, I know in some towns there's a lot of development at about 15, 16, 1,700 feet because it's not a defined ridgeline, old hill farms, so we exempt those areas and we're still kind of working through how that definition would work and how it might be mapped to provide guidance to the district commission. So again, ridgelines over 1,500 feet, areas around interchange areas and a combination of road and driveway construction would all trigger Act 250 review and it would be exempted in neighborhood development areas in downtowns and we would continue to treat growth centers and designated village centers and new town centers as priority housing areas. Seeing the elevation one here. It is tucked into the question, what we really frame this around the issue we were trying to tackle and the question was sort of connectivity habitat and forest blocks and so it's third goal together with the road rule section and ridgeline jurisdiction. Okay, oh I thought it was great. In some respects the two are related because generally you have long roads and driveways to access our remote areas. Just one quick clarifying question. Did you indicate that the definition for ridgeline would include land above 1,500? Is that elevation? The intent is to have a ridgeline above an elevation. So if you have to be above a certain elevation and it has to be on a ridgeline to qualify. So it's 1,200 foot ridgeline would not trigger Act 250. That level of details down here will walk you through in the language. I think it's going to be easier. There's going to be, this is as you see this is a big package. We want to walk through and sort of walk people to talk about all the concepts and discuss them with you and then go and get into more details we go through if that works for the community. Representative Odie, it's the very last couple of words in the third bullet. How much page are you on page two? Any other questions? So I'd like to talk about the sort of updates to the criteria component. You'll find that many of these are similar to what you worked on already last session. One of the challenges that you worked through and there was a long section in Ellen's spreadsheet around climate change, we believe we found some ways to address those through existing criteria and updates and some other updates as well. So if you'll go to page three of your packet there. First we start with, as you did updating criterion 1D to incorporate river quarter and flood hazard area concepts that is consistent with the way the agency of natural resources use those resources, the update to criterion five to address walking, biking and transit concerns. The same with forest blocks and connectivity connecting habitat and criterion eight. We suggest that it would be appropriate for the board to issue rules around how to comply with that because it could be something that could be complicated and therefore it would make sense to have very clear and explicit instructions from the board on how to prove compliance with that criterion. We propose to add lands that are conserved by the Vermont Housing Conservation Board to the definition of public investment in 9K. And the same with the change that you made to only those approved towns that have a approved plan would receive that deference under criterion 10. I have a question, it's maybe just for the lawyers who do this in the room about that. The town plan, you go to the town plan now under active duty review. Is that only when the zoning is not clear? Am I remembering that right? No, I think it's the opposite. Other way around. The district commission is currently going to the town plan and if the plan is vague in the big U.S. they look to the zoning for clarification. I see if it's clear. And that's based on case law. And the zoning doesn't need to be approved. That's true. And just for the committee's information, currently a plan does not need to be approved to have a standing under criterion 10. Right. That is a proposed change both in the committee bill and with the pension. And presumably though, if it's approved it would have the clarity that would allow it to be useful to the review. Not necessarily. Simply. Sometimes municipalities are reluctant to be too prescriptive in their plans and that leads the decision makers to look elsewhere for clarity. They're too prescriptive. No, they're not prescriptive. Yeah, right. That's been the problem historically. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. And then the final piece relates to the work around climate change. You talked a lot about residential building development, commercial building development and energy standards relate to that. The good news is that the public service department is working on the RVs and the CVs as the residential building energy standard and the commercial building energy standard. There'll be updates to those by this coming fall. And so we believe it's appropriate to build those into the meeting that criterion. And right now meetings, the stretch code is sort of the only way to comply with that portion. But then we suggest making it explicit so it's easier for everybody to understand. And those are the, and I will say it so that the other piece that is really important is many of the active 50 criteria address the adaptation to climate change related to river corridors and other things. And we expected, we propose some clear indication that we want is that active 50 would look to see site design and building design that made sure that the property was resilient to a changing climate, which I think is appropriate. Moving on to the middle of page three, the permitting and permit conditions. This is, we do took significant testimony on these topics last year. These are ones we believe are pertinent to discuss and there's some new concepts in here that we wanna consider with you. The first one you've heard, this is part of the, part of this was in H197, which was the administration's bill last year on proposals on changes to active 50 relating to conditions on the activity of forest-based enterprises. We've built on that proposal and worked to address some of the committee's concerns about the private property rights of abutting landowners while still addressing the need to create reasonable hours of operation for changing land conditions under the operation of these facilities, right? We have a changing climate that is preventing our forest processing facilities from operating at the same length of time that they did throughout the year, because the ground simply isn't frozen, we can't get logs out of the woods. So this changes that opportunity and makes some changes that we think that the committee will appreciate and we look forward to moving forward. This is the next one is a new one that's the last paragraph on the bottom of page three. The Public Utilities Commission requires for certain projects a 45 day notice process and so what essentially a notice of that you intend to file the application, what that gives those people who are involved in the review time to do is to get together and talk to the applicant about the project to understand where the issues may be so that we can all talk together to see if we can resolve them well in advance of them coming up for actual application. We have found that process to be significantly helpful with project applicants who have opportunities for change before they get to the sort of full permitting process that is really helpful and it helps make sure that we're getting the resource protections that we need in order and having it work on project applicants' timelines. So we propose under Act 250 for all major permits or permits that would likely be majors to have a 30 day public notice process. The next piece is the inclusion of the provisions to encourage industrial park master planning that was in the 297 I believe every most people felt comfortable with in this room. And then one of the issues we've heard from stakeholders is the amount of time it can take for district commissions to get feedback on criterion six and criterion seven. We propose a simple change to establish a timeline for that feedback so that there is some knowledge of when that's going to occur so that the applicant has some clarity as to when that is gonna happen. Finally, you talked a little bit, Ellen talked a little bit about the idea of the presumption that A&R permits are afforded under Act 250 currently. In H197, the administration proposed to change that presumption. What we've instead done here is to expand it beyond the current list of A&R permits which is established by board rule to all A&R permits under the same presumption scheme that currently exists. And you'll probably be able to give us a list of those different permits. Yeah, yes we will. Is it just because new permits have come online and they were never added, or is it still the interesting to see what will happen to support that? So one of the reasons that initial scoping process is important because we really took a new fresh look at the administration of Act 250. And this is probably the most significant change from the bill that you considered last year. And it will be, if it went into law, would be a very significant change to Act 250. It would probably be as significant as the elimination of the environmental board in 2005 when appeals were sent to the court. We've been concerned all along that there needs to be an accessible process. It needs to be fair. It needs to be consistent within reason across the state. And it needs to be relatively predictable in terms of at least how much time is required to get through the process. So very much like the verb, what we're proposing is an enhanced natural resources board, which would be three members with representing different professional backgrounds, not only law, screened by a judicial nominating committee and appointed to six year terms. However, in the significant thing about that natural resources board is they would not be in appellate body. They would replace the district commissions in the review. We were concerned, however, when we talked about this, that we need to keep some regional representation. So the review would be conducted by professional board and two regional members who would participate in certain aspects of that process. So there would still be a regional review meeting with regional representation, but you'd have a standard review by the three member natural resources board. And those decisions would be appealed to the Vermont Supreme Court. So that's significant in several respects. It replaces the district commission process with a consistent statewide board representing a broader range of perspectives, which was a value of the environmental board when they heard appeals. This would only apply to major projects. We would define what a major project is. That determination would be made by the regional coordinator, the district coordinators that exist now, although we are proposing some restructuring of the districts and how they're configured and the number of them. And those decisions on whether it's a major or minor would be appealable to this board. So there'd be oversight over the district coordinator, but they would be responsible for handling the minor, much like a zoning administrator handles a minor. They really are writing the minors now and district commissions play a minor role in reviewing and signing off on those decisions. So that's, I'm gonna back up again. So that's very, very significant change, eliminating the district commission, replacing them with a professional board and enhanced natural resources board with district for regional representation for major reviews. And that would eliminate a step in the appeal process. Currently, if the district commission makes a decision, it's appealed to the environmental court. Their decision is appealed to the Vermont Supreme Court. So original jurisdiction that the local, at the natural resources board, and that's, because it skips a step on its way to the Supreme Court. We're still writing some of the rules around making sure that citizens who aren't represented by attorneys would be treated fairly and have access to the process, which is an important principle that we think we can achieve through this board. So, can I also add that the plan is the way we have drafted now is all hearings for those major permits would occur in the municipality where the project is located, right? So that is still a local process, but the consistency is occurring by having the same three individuals making those determinations around the status, the application of that law. And then you looked at volumes of major applications and whether a single board would have the capacity to fulfill the review requirements in a timely manner. We have talked about that and we have agreed that this needs to be absolutely resourced. We feel though it can do it. One other aspect of the Enhanced NRB is the ability to appoint hearing officers. So if it's a major project, but it's not especially complicated or heavily contested by different parties, a hearing officer could review and conduct the review, write the decision, and then the board could decide whether to sign off on that. This model is other than the local representation which is a new component and we think it's particularly important for the jurisdiction of Act 250, but the sort of board process and the hearing officer process models very closely to the public utilities commission's current process and we rely heavily on the existing precedent there. And some of the feedback we've gotten about the PUC is it's not as open to citizen engagement, so how would we be addressing it? So we address that through, as Brian mentioned, the work to help it make it a more accessible process and to be having all the hearings in the local area where community members can participate. In that early dispute resolution process, or that early process is, I think, more meaningful than the public utility commission. They often have a pre-hearing, but it's not on the record. It's not anything that really feeds into the decision-making and we view this as an opportunity to work out some of the disputes before they get to the board. And are you imagining that district commissions still exist? No. Not at all, but the district coordinator positions still exist and then? There would be district commissioners still appointed or how did we label both? Regional commissioners. Regional commissioners appointed to be the representation from those. So in Middlebury, for example, there would be two Addison County or however the district configured, it would be multiple counties, representatives from that region who only review projects in that region in conjunction with the natural resources board. Did you take testimony from members not to serve on the district commissions? We did not take testimony. We met with prior and existing district commissioners, prior and district coordinators and some of our partners out there. This is not a consensus piece. It was agreed among us that it would be a workable solution to some of the issues that have been dealing with. Well, you know, it seems to me we've gone, we've been asked for about 18 months now. This is the first time I've ever heard it. I mean, it's that in commission, the five, six member commission never came up there, never heard it in any testimony that people appeared before us. We had all last year, we had this bill in front of us. Now all of a sudden we're presented with a whole new ball game and it's my feeling it's weird, we are the legislators, we're the ones who supposedly write policy. Suddenly we're now being, you know, confronted with something like a fee of complete. This is what we're proposing. This is, everyone here is saying that we get along with this fine. I just feel we are being left out of this process. No, well, if I could respond to that, I would say that's not how I'm looking at it. I'm looking at it as this, we will be reviewing this and this isn't, I think this is the single biggest thing we haven't, it's the single biggest new thing in this proposal and I understand like this may need more vetting than we are capable of doing in this session and that's what we're, so that's why we're doing a high level walkthrough today and kind of processing that as a proposal. The reason that I said yes, let's keep this on the table when they came to me is that we didn't get a lot of traction on the verb that was in our bill. We had a pretty big split on the committee, on our committee on the changes that were in the draft bill and this one to me starts to address concerns on both sides and I understand if it's sort of, I don't know where it's gonna take us but I think it's worth just hearing it out. I don't see any of these proposals as fair or complete. Right now we're just hearing what folks with more resources to work year round on this issue have done to help us move forward and if we decide it's not helping us, that's fine but that's the way I see this work. I don't think either of us wanted to create a perception that we expected the board just to accept this as a fair or complete. Again, our goal was to try to take a fresh look at how to resolve both sides of the issue and it was one that the administration couldn't agree to in a certain portion of the environment. I'm not even saying representing there's other groups who may not agree that it's a good idea. We thought that we could accomplish kind of our various goals. Representing McCullough. So I'm curious, and my question is about this last topic. Did you get feedback from the people you worked with about this particular change other than myself who said it viscerates Act 250's original intent? We did get feedback from some. I'm not gonna represent anyone other than DNRC and as like you, it was a mixed bag among some folks it has support and it doesn't. I think our perception is the appeals process especially is not accessible. It's time consuming and it's expensive and this is a way to resolve that while still maintaining regionalism and more professionalism in the review process. Sounds like you're describing the legislative process to the 180 legislators. I'm not describing the legislative process, I wouldn't do that in front of you. I think it's also, to speak to the representative of Lefe's earlier point, what we're presenting to you is a package of things that we could come to terms on. There are portions of it that individually we may not love, but we come to you today to say that we are trying to do some work and present it to you in a way for your consideration but to know that we've agreed to present this together as a package and it certainly doesn't represent a fait accompli, it just represents where we got to in our work. Terence E. So did you, people speak to the local districts about this proposal to basically take away their power and put it into action? There, as Brian mentioned, there was a number of conversations around with individual members both past and present, but we're not gonna speak to the sort of full range of current and past issues. Well how many boards did you talk to? I can't answer that question directly. There have been multiple conversations from multiple people, so I don't know that number. Board members and district coordinators. Speaking, did you talk to anybody in Rutland County? Yes. Who would you talk to down there? I'd rather not represent anybody else. I'd rather not, and I think there's gonna be plenty of opportunity for witnesses from Rutland County to come in and testify, but there will be help. The issue last year before us, in terms of whether or not it was not in terms of the commission hearing a project, it was what happened on a fee, would it go to this verb or would it stay with the environmental? That was the issue that never got resolved. Now all of a sudden, both those issues are out the window. I think there were broader issues that you were considering as well, and I don't wanna speak for you, but I think you were considering issues of consistency, a consistent application, oversight of the district commissions and the individual processes that were going on in those commissions, and we feel that this change would address many of those concerns. There are very few permits that are appealed, and this would create consistency across all of the permit reviews, rather than just those that were appealed. I think some of us felt, at least I felt anyway, that the district commission level, that was where the people got a chance to voice an opinion, and I have some status in terms of what they offered as to what they thought about the project, and then the district commission would make its decision, and then if that was appealed, and then this would go to the environmental court, and it was being offered as a verb, as it's alternative, and they would take a very close look at what the issues were, and if the appeal should go forward. I just don't, so if this professional board analysis no go, then you're looking at a Supreme Court case. So for it, yes. Yes, sir. Representative McVillian. So gentlemen, I don't want my pointed question, which divulged my position, the overshadow, the great work you have done. Very appreciative, and the process has been a good one, and I thank you both for that. Many hours, I'm sure, of sweat and angst went into what the bullet points are here, and there's more work to come as it becomes legislation proposals, and I do thank you for that. One more section four. Oh, sorry, that's me. So bottom of page four, these are areas where the topics of conversation during the commission process during your committee hearing last year and some other topics that we believe are pertinent to discuss. First and foremost, the discussion that you had and that Ellen mentioned around the critical resource area piece, one of the critical components of that was river corridors. There is an existing river corridor permitting for an flood hazard area permitting program now within the Department of Environmental Conservation at the Agency of Natural Resources. We would propose to align the permitting jurisdiction. So one of the things you were considering, let me step back, one of the things you were considering was expanding active jurisdiction into all river corridors. As a counter proposal, we would suggest that it makes more sense to align the river corridor program or the river program with a direct permit to address that rather than pulling all projects into active 50. So right now, we would propose we're able to move forward within the program to create a, if you needed to comply with 1D under current active 50 jurisdiction to get that presumption, you would come into ANR to get a permit from the river's program. And we do that now? No, not for all projects. The same level of analysis happens as the river program comments on during the active 50 process, this would create a specific permit that aligned and created presumption. Okay, because it's part of your three steps. Yeah, the second step would be, we're in the process of mapping high priority river corridors across the state. We would propose when that process is done and we've had time to figure out how the program will work to increase jurisdiction to those high priority river corridors. And then we would propose a third step of sort of stepping back and evaluating to see whether changes in jurisdiction from there were needed. So that is the proposal we propose to make with regards to river corridors and how they interrelation with active 50 and beyond. What makes a corridor high priority? I'm happy to provide a river scientist to provide that analysis. That is not my expertise. Representative, question about the mapping. Mm-hmm. Again, to my disgruntlement, agency mapping work of course blocks and connective corridors, we've been told is not to be used for jurisdictional purposes. We need a specific, I believe, statement that says mapping that you're doing in this regard is to be used for jurisdictional purposes. Is that your intent? I think I want to be clear that we use mapping across the agency in multiple forms, some of them are jurisdictional, some of them are advisory. In this particular instance, it would be jurisdiction. Thank you. Then we propose two planting processes to occur or stakeholder processes to evaluate a couple different components. One builds on whether or not the A&R permitting presumption should change. We'd also like to include in that review of A&R permits on the record. That has been something that was under discussion under Act 150 of 2016, and the legislature directed us to make some significant changes to the way we conduct public processes and other components. We believe it's time to evaluate whether on the record review is appropriate for A&R permits. The next step really involves many of the plans that you heard about through Ellen's discussion is looking at many of those topics, how they're approved, how the findings associated with them, et cetera, and putting those together into a broader stakeholder process to go through that. We think that there will be a significant period of time needed for that, but we, in our work together, did not feel that we were ready to come forward with any recommendations on those, and so we think that, and obviously we are only a small component of the relevant stakeholders and want more people involved in that process. And I think that Vermont, have the Vermont planners been working on some of this as well? I believe they are constantly working on some of this, but yes. But I mean, on providing us input, I think they are. Yes. Also, it would be remiss if I didn't say very clearly that what you might see as missing from this proposal is a proposal from around trails. We want to make clear that a trail component of this is a key part of the package. We, the stakeholders continue to work to develop that proposal, and we and the administration will continue to provide technical and support and feedback to that group, and we believe that the topic can be resolved in time to be included in a package that moves forward. On the house side? Yes. Good question. Never really. Believe is a relatively weak word. Nope. And yeah, so can you tell us what the sticking issues are? Summarized, what's happening? This process has taken a lot longer than any of us anticipated. Where are you asking specifically? I'm asking you, but if there's someone else in the room that you think would be better able to answer, that's fine. To hear from them as well. I'm happy to look to my, I would presume to look to my colleagues or some of the stakeholders in the room I'd like to speak to it, so that I have not been directly engaged in that discussion. Sure, Jim. Philly College of Regents and other resources. So you might recall that at the end of last session, representatives from the Vermont Forest Partnership and the various trail user groups asked for time to work together to see if they could negotiate an alternate review structure for a range of review of trails. That work commenced through the spring and into the summer and late summer, early fall. They provided in our conceptual proposal on what that might look like. We spent some time in the fall trying to flesh it out to what an actual program to support that concept would entail. That process identified a number of fairly significant gaps and questions in that conceptual proposal that we brought back to the stakeholders. They're concurrently working to resolve those issues and determine whether they have agreement on how to handle them. We're also working on a slightly different approach that we think can bring conclusion to this issue in a more expedited way. So we hope within the next week or so to wrap that up and that's what Pierre I think suggested we would hope to bring back, or believe we would. Believe. Believe. So it's- There's two parallel things happening if- We've got a plan B. A plan B. I don't like to have that B. I should say that. Okay. So if we make- We'll get one or the other or possibly both. Yes. We'll act to 50 still have jurisdiction on trends. No, you're- I think it depends on which one of these avenues emerge at the end of the week. Just for why maybe one reason was a little time consuming. The force partnership is five different organizations with different perspectives. The trail groups are- Oh, there's mountain biker associations. There's those big statewide trail groups. There's motorized trails. So there's different perspectives that have different issues associated with the different trail organizations that we've been talking to. So it was more complicated than just, you would think, talking about trails. And it took longer than I had to be at home. And to all their credit, they work extremely hard and did a remarkable amount of work kind of bridging those divides and getting to a place where they could negotiate in good faith around the details. But just all that with those many participants took some time. Maybe, just don't want to put you on the spot, Jamie. Jamie Fidel has been our point person on doing that, if you have anything to add. Jamie Fidel with BNRC, I would just say that we've spent many, many hours on this and we're taking this really seriously. And there's a lot of different organizations that have invested a lot of time. And I think even more than just that diversity of the organizations, it's just, there's a lot of complex questions to ask. A lot of different scenarios, a lot of different good questions that the agency asked our groups to further clarify. And our goal is to try and speak with one voice and offer the agency and you and the legislature the most comprehensive, well thought out package possible. And so I know that from the Forest Partnerships perspective groups that I've been working with, we have answered all the questions and shared them with the trail groups. And right now we're hoping that we're going to be able to come to consensus and quickly get that feedback back to the agency. And then in a best case scenario, allow for there to be a legislative proposal that could be part of this package that would allow the program to be built, which would ultimately create an alternative program. Are you aware of what's going on now? Any support for the trail of the bone, bike trails up there? Yes. You know, I mean, that's created like a seizure or a crack in that whole kind of sport that everybody thought was going to be very, have a very benign impact on the environment. And it was very much a big money maker for those towns that they don't have no industry whatsoever. And all of a sudden it appears to be in jeopardy. If someone else besides the town of Victory objects to these trails going forward without an actual 50, then what's going to happen to the existing friends? You know, I don't know, I guess those are legal questions, but I know it's created a lot of unease. And it's added to, I might point this out to it, it's added to a lot of people's dissatisfaction with the 250. So I'm hoping you take those into consideration and the impact is having up on that area especially. I appreciate that. I would just be from our perspective, we're aware of that. And we have discussed that scenario and how it could be addressed through the work that we're doing. Any questions? Other questions, thoughts? The other thing I find nice is I appreciate you all working together to help us move forward with a more thoughtful, more collaborative bill. I mean, this is a very complex bill and to have the coming together, you all over the course of the last few months that will help us address some of these important issues that are having an impact across the state is really commendable. Thank you for that. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Yeah. So, Kleeney, let's take a break and then just come back at 2.30. I mean, yeah, no, I don't know about that. This is great. Our committee assistant. We're back on the record for a little bit more. Do committee members, that they're interested in sharing with the whole group at this time knowing that, yeah, do you have this with the overview, introduction, and then we will get the specific language? But are there things that are on your mind right now? As I was listening to the conversation, I think it's important to go back and think about what the Act 7 Commission will set out to do, which is to look at the fact that the status quo back to 50 in many cases doesn't work. And that we set out a track to be able to modernize back to 50. We certainly, 50 years later, have a better understanding of the environment in the natural communities of course, representation. We, I think, came to the understanding that, through testimony, that the district commission process in many cases is inconsistent. That doesn't work that well, particularly for majors. And we've listened to a lot of testimony from a lot of different stakeholders, and we heard more testimony today from the administration and environmental groups, other stakeholders. And I think it's important to listen to what they have to say. What they're saying to us is not necessarily what we're going to do. We as a committee decide what's going to come out of this committee, not the stakeholders. They have expertise, they provide that expertise, and that's our job to reach some consensus that we can really move forward with this process. Those are my two cents for everything. Yeah, good. Thank you. Others? I'm just glad to know where the administration is and where the NRC is, and then we'll make our decisions, but at least we've gotten that far. Notwithstanding my observation about evisceration, I think that the summer's worked, so this is a duplication of what I said afterwards. I think the NRC and others along with the administration have done Yeoman's work. It is up to us to take all the input we get and come up with the best product we can. And I think it's important that Trevor's two cents be recognized for at least $1.98. It was good advice for all of us and for myself included in that all of us. So I look forward to a renewed focus this January. No, starting immediately two and a half hours ago of getting this bill as good as we can get it and pass it with a good voice out of this committee and get it on its way to the Senate with a good voice on the floor, they will have their work cut out for them no matter what we send them and guaranteed what we send them cannot be perfect. Anymore they'll be perfect when it gets out of their end, but we really need this focus and I'm looking forward to all of us working together for that. Other thoughts before we move on? I guess I would just say the process right now that I've outlined was this orientation today put Act 250 on pause till next week when we get specific language. I'm open to hearing if there's something that you all feel like you need to hear that's not in this or that you have questions or concerns that our council could be working on if you could bring them up if you know them now that would be great or if that makes sense to you that's what I'm thinking is that we would be revisiting Act 250 again in a week unless you're ready to hear from others. As pointed out in the break this does not represent all of the stakeholders on either or any of the sides of the issue. I thought it would be most productive to have specific language presented before we started to hear from others on this but if you have other ideas I'm open to how you want to go forward on this. I don't know that this comment is exactly to back ask anything about the slaters that's still glaringly absent and I understand a letter did get written and the sooner we see that we can start thinking about the impact of that letter the better. Well that letter did not result in the administration pulling together the process that we requested that was sent in June and they didn't do it and Diane just left. I was thinking of having Diane in to tell us the current status but it could be also that is Billy here still? Greg is here. There's really not a lot to report from the board's perspective there is no reports there is no stakeholder process I think the chair is really interested in completing the mapping of all the slate quarries certainly exists pursuant to the exemption at 250 about 90 percent this may not be news to you but about 90 percent of the quarries have been mapped at one point about a year and a half two years ago ANRIT took it on they had an intern who was studying GIS at UVM who was able to do the vast majority of the work and as I understand there's about 10 percent left to map which is that either Diane or the agency has right now I would suggest that we need that kind of testimony and what does mapping mean because they were all mapped a long time ago on a dinner napkin so we need a better understanding of what that means and then we but I would also say we don't need any more testimony on the slate valley I think we've heard it all a lot from the administration yes you want to hear testimony from the investors yes on the slate issue I am wondering if we could have a map of the affected homeowners and other owners' properties to see how many people are we talking about how many homes are we talking about or is an issue with noise for trucks going by and so forth is this 15 houses is this 28 houses I'd like to know that have you given any thought to whether or not we should try and get another deadline on the trails I guess the whole physical team would be ready to have something when this bill package of people passes out and I'm just wondering if that's really feasible I guess the trails has been in motion for quite some time and if we don't get something back it stays away it is and I think then it's a bigger issue we could we could set the wheels in motion in our bill for a requirement for planning for trails or whatever we identified as the blockades in our bill but if we don't do that I would say it stays away it is and we move the rest through and then it's something we can take up later next year so just cut it out and really I have a very sure understanding of what the issues are on the major issues resulting in causing such a long delay of such a long prep process before we define them maybe we'd have something to report to our constitution can some of the folks involved in that conversation to that request we did ask for we got a nice answer earlier but it wasn't very specific what are the issues that are hanging this up we're not ready to talk about them now would you be able to talk about them next week if you haven't actually been able to address them yes so one way or the other we're going to hear something back on trails that is specific either specific ideas for solutions or specific outlines of the challenges okay that's a promise that's good news schedule that in okay great so as as Harvey pointed out we're all getting in legislative shape again which requires a certain different set of muscles we will adjourn probably now for today I would like us to come back together tomorrow morning for more of a committee planning session to talk about other items you have maybe I hope noticed that on our agenda is Thursday an overview of S54 which is the marijuana tax and regulate the reason that's on our agenda is that last year when we thought it was in a hurry I worked to get some environmental provisions included into the bill with the folks and government office working on the bill and I would very much appreciate the more in-depth review from our legislative council on the bill and the process has been set up and then to have you all review what we put in there and ask questions and see if we want to be more specific in what we recommend that goes into that bill the growing of cannabis in other states has created unforeseen environmental impacts and we can learn from what the other states have done and not go down the same rabbit holes if we can help it that's my hope is that if we're going to do this let's try and do it right and having our brains in the conversation now I think can help make it more specific what's in the bill in terms of environmental protection we're going to do that on Thursday tomorrow I'd like to start off the day with a review of the reports that we get every year and then ideas for how you want to follow up how many of those reports do we want an actual testimony taken on and a presentation on obviously last year we worked on a lot of stuff that will come back to us so the plastics working group report will be on for next week when we have time an update on PFAS we are going to ask I think that will be you Peter probably two of us combined so we'll get an update from the agency of natural resources on the PFAS water to quality testing that we started report we passed last session and I'm out of that legislative shape because my brain is tired already from the day stuff like that so that's what we'll do tomorrow morning and then I expect tomorrow morning before lunch you will have free time to take care of stuff if you're like me I have a new phone I need password on it we're all supposed to be transitioning to new iPads time to do homework that you need to do to get yourself back in the game here nine yeah so generally same schedule as last year like nine to twelve on the morning session when we have committee time and one to four thirty on Tuesdays we all have other meetings on Tuesday evening and then Thursdays we may four thirty or five I would count on and Friday generally three might expand for adjournment that'll make sense alright thank you all