 I apologize for being killed a minute late. So I think we have kind of friends from the Northeast Kingdom here for an hour, speaking on a variety of issues. And I appreciate you guys just generally coming to the state house today, but also making time for our committee. If you wouldn't mind introducing yourself for the record, we record our hearings for the record. And welcome. I think you have a slideshow too, which I'll pull up. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Evan Carlson. I am an entrepreneur and resident at the North Co-working, but also one of the folks behind the NK broadband working group, which is working to develop a CUD across three counties in the Northeast Kingdom. So I guess I will start out by thanking you guys for actually taking the time to speak with all the wonderful witnesses we have here today. And I'll quickly introduce them before I give you a little spiel. So today we have Chris Campbell from Tilson, who's the principal consultant there, and has been doing some work with our NK broadband group. Michael Berenbaum from Kingdom Fiber. Ann Lawless from NAKER Works and Eat Squad. And Jack Sumberg from the Glover Energy Committee. And Nick D'Agostino from RTC or rural community transit. So they will speak with you briefly. So I just want to start by saying a year ago, almost to the date that I was in here telling you about the feasibility study that was done by the Linden area, kind of the broadband working group, since then we have had many, many group meetings and have expanded with the help of the NAK collaborative to be a much more inclusive group that includes representatives from over 26 towns to help develop a CUD that will hopefully bring broadband to every household in the Kingdom. We have some pretty aggressive and lofty goals over the next couple of years, but really our end goal is to deliver 100 megabits per second symmetrical service to every household in the Kingdom. And we know that this is lofty, but we think that with the grant opportunities that are available and public funding that they already exist, there's ways for us to be able to get to that goal. And we also think that it's going to take us 10 years to get to that place. So starting at the 25-3 record that's in place now or the speeds that are in place now is not the best place to start if we're going to be building this out in 10 years. So we were fortunate enough in the past year to be able to have NVDA receive a USDA World Business Development Grant, which we used to be able to do some pre-feasibility studies to really look at what's the best configuration for a CUD. And I imagine that Chris will elaborate on that a little bit in testimony. And this CUD will be 26 towns to start. That's the current number of towns that are going to be voting on March 3rd. And we have a pretty aggressive timeline after that to be able to get some grant applications in and look at things like half-true funding to be able to really accelerate the build in that area. We can't understate the importance of broadband in our region, but we think that the formation of this CUD is the first big step to being able to make some progress on it. So with that, I will turn it over to the first witnesses and ask you a question. Good question, yeah. Sure. Is this a fiber broadband building up? We're looking, we're going to try to be technology agnostic at the moment, but fiber is what we believe is going to be the best option for it being able to deliver long-term infrastructure that will really serve the needs of everyone from now to the future. How much trouble do you have on the place already? Well, if we were to form the CUD, there is existing assets between what was built with ETA. Through Northern enterprises, there are some potential assets that might be an option to transfer. So there are some large assets that could be potentially included in the CUD that is formed in a pretty short order. Any other questions? Let me ask you a little hand, don't you? So from here, I will turn it over to Chris Campbell from Tilsen Club. Oh, sorry. The one other thing I should mention is that behind you, you can see the list of all the towns in green here that are actually planning to tow in March. Yeah, I really want to congratulate you all on that. That's a big deal. And it's a lot of work. And it is not going unnoticed. And I will tell you in line, neck of the woods, I'm pointing to the kingdom and saying, you know, if you're doing it, you can do it, guys. So thank you. The thing that we tell everyone is that this is obviously the first step in a very long process and a very probably harder process for this. So thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you. For the record, my name is Chris Campbell. And I'm a principal consultant with Tilsen Technology Management. Let me just take a moment to introduce myself. Most people in this room don't know who I am. So Tilsen was retained by NVDA in the Northeast Kingdom to do what was called a pre-easeability study for a CUD or CUDs in the Northeast Kingdom. One of the principal focuses of that study was how many CUDs and to address potential funding sources. Briefly as background, Tilsen is a company that does telecommunications network services and consulting broadly. In our telecommunications network services, we do design, engineer, project management, maintain virologic and wireless networks for network networks. So a lot of our clients in that space are range from cellular companies in telcos to wisps or municipalities. Utilities are also a big part of our practice there as well. On the consulting side, we work for organizations who are planning or looking to fund or build telecommunications networks. And our clients range from state broadband programs such as New York, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maine, counties, municipalities, and private investors who are looking to make investments in telecommunications networks. As for myself, I've been with Tilsen approaching five years. I work out of Montpelier, Vermont. The companies across the country, but I work out of my home here at Montpelier. Before I was with Tilsen, I spent about 18 years in various roles with the state of Vermont, the last of which was executive director of the Vermont Telecommunications Authority. But I also had stints as the telecommunications director of the public service department and a brief stint as the assistant CIO for the state. So as Evan introduced, these towns in the Northeast Kingdom are considering forming a communications union district. And obviously, there's a great concentration of unserved locations in the West and half for meeting the current federal standard. And part of the reason that I can say that with some confidence is that the state of Vermont has continued its broadband mapping efforts. And I just want to point out that the broadband maps that Vermont has and has continued to maintain throughout these years would be the envy of some of my other clients in other states of the state through public service departments for their really good job maintaining that piece of information. So I think it's fair to say a desirable state in the Northeast Kingdom's CUD would be a broadband network throughout the district, maintained by professional staff, and that produces an upper revenue to service the state although the question is really how to get there. And in our study, we concluded that a region-wide CUD, not splitting the region into multiple CUDs, starting with the towns that are ready to vote this town meeting and getting a little bit about why that's important, would have the best opportunity to take advantage of some vast approaching opportunities and overcome some of the barriers that new CUDs are likely to face. So I want to talk a little bit about some of those barriers, some of the key assets and advantages that are in the kingdom, and one important key opportunity. So CUDs have some challenges before they get off the ground. They're born usually with fewer-no assets. They have a major tool in revenue bonding, but they don't have any revenue to start with. And they don't have a network they generally just start with. They rely heavily on the Vietnam volunteer talent. And before they get their operations off the ground, they don't really have a track record as an ISP to show potential funders. So all of those are substantial challenges to overcome. Part of our recommendation was based on the belief that it was going to be easier for the region to overcome those challenges once, to build on those successes, than to try to go through that multiple times. Now, in addition to challenges, there are some advantages. And there was a question already about one of the more important ones, which is the Northeast Kingdom fiber network. This is the network that was created through a variety of organizations from a variety of federal funding sources, was assembled by the Vermont Telecommunications Authority. It's currently maintained by the Public Service Department. This network that is in place and passes through many of these towns would give the region a head start, a leg up on a network that would ultimately need to be built. And we have several advantages, not only is it an initial piece of the network that would need to be built, but it also helps create opportunities to do chunk up projects and do them assigned to different funding sources. So it's a really important asset and advantage to the region. The town of Craftsbury and Kingdom fiber are two organizations that have been working already to put pieces of that network to use. I once spent a lot of time on that because Michael Bernbaum is here, and I'm sure he'll talk more about that project. In addition, there are quite a few electric utilities, and we felt that there would also be some potential for cost sharing projects between the CUD and those utilities that could be cultivated and developed. We also, in our report to the NVDA, identified a number of potential funding opportunities. I want to focus here today for the purposes of time on one of the larger and one of the more fast approaching opportunities, and that is the Federal Communications Commission's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. If any of you are familiar with the Connect America Fund and the CAF2 auction, you could think of the RDOF as CAF Phase 3. Essentially, this is the FCC's proposal for how to allocate the next wave of Federal Universal Service subsidies for broadband in rural areas. The FCC has indicated that this is going to be a reverse auction. It's very similar to the way that they did their Connect America Fund reverse auction. Reverse auction means that there's a certain amount of subsidy available for an area and bid down to take the obligation for lower and lower amounts until finally their winners declared in the areas that qualify for subsidies. We've helped other states navigate earlier rounds of this. It includes Pennsylvania and New York. And we're currently assisting the state of West Virginia in helping potential bidders get ready for the upcoming RDOF auction. Members of the Broadband Consulting Practice, we'll go ahead. I'm sorry to interrupt, but you mentioned working with three states, but here you'd be working with NECA, right? So we haven't, at this point in time, been engaged by them to do that. Certainly that's in our wheelhouse to do it. But this would be an application by that particular CUD rather than through the state of Vermont? Great question, yeah. So actually, one of the important observations is that a new CUD is not going to qualify directly for the RDOF auction. Basically, youth need to have been either an existing ISP for a certain period of time or an electric utility in order to qualify. However, we do think that a new CUD, if it undertakes a public-private partnership with an entity that can qualify, that's a way for it to participate. So you're essentially, you'd be breaking up a project into a services layer and an infrastructure layer. And the infrastructure layer. In concept, this division created an infrastructure layer and services layer is very much like how the most advanced CUD in Vermont currently operates. EC5 has an infrastructure layer. They have a hired network operator that provides a services layer on top of it. So that kind of arrangement wouldn't be anything unusual, I think, in terms of CUD operations. And it's the most common way that municipalities that we work with, very few municipalities that we work with, are sort of in-sourced ISP. The most common arrangement is a public-private partnership divided along those levels of infrastructure and services layer. Thanks. Yeah. Could you, again, say what Markoff is? Yes, Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. Sorry, that's a mouthful to say, which is quite insane for RDOF. And the FCC is a federal communications program, communications commission program. And the FCC has put out a proposal for how the program will work with the voting on at the January meeting this year. So a few things to know about RDOF. First of all, it's big. The program is proposed to be $20 billion with a B nationwide program. $16 billion of that is expected to be auctioned in 2020. At least that's what the FCC proposal of the voting on this one says. For context, the Connect America Fund Phase 2 reverse auction, which was no small program itself, this is more than 10 times that program. We haven't seen the map of what will be eligible, but it's reasonable expectation that large swaths of the Northeast Kingdom will be eligible land. Likely to be won by somebody. The auction rules that are now out to be voted on would favor bids from gigabit providers. But they could also go to a satellite if there are no strong bidders in an area. And really important that this is a limited, a time limited opportunity. This isn't an annual process. Areas that are bid on in one in this auction won't be available again for another 10 years. So this is really a time imperative opportunity for anybody who wants to see a high quality network in this part or any part of the city of Vermont. Excuse me. Is this also a basic census block coverage or is it going to be different? Yeah, so I'll give you a short answer in the elaborator. Short answer is yes, okay. So the basic bidding unit, at least for the first round of every census block, that's the proposal and I would expect that would carry me. However, bidders will be required to be on collections of census blocks aggregated up into block groups or tracks. So you'll have to bid on all of the eligible blocks in a block group or a tract. And the FCC has done some data collection from existing Connect America fund recipients that's address level data. And they've indicated that they are likely to use that data where it's available. So the round that their first round may include some partial census blocks where they have the information to justify that. And they've also indicated that they want to do some additional data collection. And the second round will focus on partial census blocks. However, I think it may be difficult, more difficult for somebody who hasn't bid in and won in the first round to bid on partial collections of partial blocks that are adjacent to it. It really seems like if you want to participate in this program, it's a good idea to try to get organized to do it in the first round. And then the second round, if you, you know, if there are additional areas that become available. So just speaking as a, as a Vermont or if I were able to wave a magic wand and say, you know, one thing that the state could do this year that matters this year and won't matter so much, you know, in subsequent years, it would be really to create state, assistant state incentives that will help high quality bidders participate in the auction and stay in the auction until the funding is cleared and the money can come to Vermont. That's very similar to the work that we did with the state of Pennsylvania in the Connect America phase two auction. That effort won't matter so much next year. It may matter, you know, quite a bit to potential bidders this year. So as I said, we've completed this pre-feasibility study. Some of the next steps, and these are really very near term next steps, obviously the vote to form and organize the CUD happening this town meeting day, but also it would be a feasibility study where you start to get at some of the underlying economics of a broadband network in the Northeast Kingdom and ideally, you know, tied to some of these geographic units that are gonna be eligible for various hunting sources. So let me stop there and just see if there's any questions and if not hand it off to the next witness. I just have a general question about, I don't know if there's an accepted number or metric as you're creating a CUD and you mentioned earlier that you've chosen not to bifurcate or trifurcate that got a very large area that you're serving. From a business standpoint, is there a scale that you aspire to in terms of customers, in terms of geographic area? Is there kind of a diminishing return size that you're cautious about? This is a huge piece of Vermont and probably the most rural part of Vermont. Let me sort of deal with this the last piece of that and then go back to the first one. I think one of the things that we acknowledge, freely acknowledge is that the number of potential towns in this has the potential to create governance issues that the CUD would have to deal with. It's not trivial, right? We just felt that the benefits outweighed the disadvantages. Now, that said, 26 towns is in the neighborhood of the size of EC-Fiber, which is a seven, so it has been done. And I think that there's an opportunity with that initial set of towns to set some rules and processes around governance that how you would deal with an organization that's large. I mean, I think you could not have a 55-member board if you got all towns and you couldn't have everybody involved deeply in every decision, right? You'd have to rely on committees and a certain amount of delegation. So as to the sort of critical mass size, I would say that there isn't one magic number. It's not a bright line. I will say that we looked at, for instance, possibility of dividing the region up in the North-South configuration, which was done with a group that was about 10,000 times as fast. We felt that that was kind of at the lower end of the range of sort of minimum desirable critical size. So from a size perspective, it seemed like you could do it. Frankly, you could probably try to do small networks. People have done small networks. I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm just saying it's harder to do, that's all. But at the end of the day, there are a whole host of things that any organization would have to do to get off the ground in organizing itself, finding vendors or partners, going after grant applications. And some of those just get multiplied by the number of organizations that you have. I'm assuming though that there's an economy of scale there. Yes. You've got one organization that's supporting that. Whether you've got 25 towns or whether you've got 45 towns with the support of that core mechanism. Right. You know, it's arithmetic. Right. And at the same time, I know as somebody who's been an EC fiber, one of the challenges is, what mouth gets fed first in that CUD? Right. And if you've got a small organization, maybe it's easier to attend to all your towns. Clearly, there's countervailing forces, but you're advising. Yeah, and your concerns are not, I would not dismiss them, right? I mean, I think that they're real. I just think that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks of this case. You know, I think too, with some of these funding opportunities that are happening now, it's not a foregone conclusion that the region has to choose between go big and go fast. Right. And there may be a window where it can do both. Right. Which would be sort of the best of all the odds. And there are some unique advantages to the way the existing fiber is laid out, that sort of argues in favor of a correct amount, a large entire N.E.K. CUD. Exactly. Yes, yes. I mean, the existing Northeast Kingdom fiber provides an opportunity to help get some initial operations up and running. And generally speaking, we think it's going to be easier when you have existing operations up and running to extend that to additional areas. So even if it was a phased approach, I think that there's still a good argument that even if you're not first in that phased approach, you may still be faster than if you went alone. Yeah. Or went separately. Make sure that we had a chance to get everyone else the... Yeah. I got it. We're all set. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Michael Barnbaum, I'm from Plainfield, not the kingdom, but I spend all my time in the kingdom these days. I have two companies, a wireless ISP in central Vermont called Cloud Alliance and a fiber ISP in the kingdom called Kingdom, fiber, and that swabs for me on my time in the kingdom. Before we go any further, Representative Sebelia thanked Evan and the committee for all the work they did together as far as they have. I want to thank this committee. This committee in Act 79 did a remarkable thing. And thank you very much for everyone in the state. So last time I brought a real big poster board, I think, and showed you the map of the Northeast Kingdom Fiber Network that you've heard about twice now. That is the basis of my company. We were the only company early on to agree to commit to serving Fiber to the Home off of that network. And as a result, we were able to get a very favorable leasing arrangement with the state of Vermont. And it's mostly in the form of options, which we haven't exercised yet because we will do them as we develop different sections. But we're poised to exercise the options on most, if not all of it this coming year. So the first project we did was we worked with the town of Craftsbury, which independently sought federal grants and one of them to build a municipal network in their town. They got money from USDA Rural Development and Northern Board Regional Commission. And even the town put up some money of its own. And my company put up a considerable amount of labor, engineering and design and construction management. And ultimately, the town of Craftsbury ended up with a network that it owns. So it's a municipal network, which covered about a third of the roads in the town and half of the population of the town. And 90% of the businesses of the town. And the federal grants favored covering businesses and job generation. It would have been nice to cover the entire town, but there wasn't funding to do it. So there was triage involved and selections were made. That network is built up and running and there's service available throughout that network. In addition, all of the state network that passes through the town of Craftsbury is also up and running and services available along that. So, last year it was aspirational. We were close, but we couldn't say we were offering service. Now, everybody can get service along those networks. The next step is to extend Kingdom Fiber Service along the rest of the licensed fiber in the Northeast Kingdom Dark Fiber Network, which is 170 miles. So, that will happen this year. So, we're a private for profit company, but we're working with, in this pality of Craftsbury, the state of Vermont in terms of the Dark Fiber Network, we're working with other public entities with very much a public-private partnership directed company. We can succeed without public input and funding and the public entities need an operator that can make it happen. And so, the partnership is a wonderful idea and we don't see this proposed Communications Union District in the Northeast Kingdom as a threat, we see it as an opportunity. The CUD is going to need an operator. We can't guarantee that they will select us, but we want to be positioned to be very helpful to them so they can be helpful to us and so that we can serve as many locations as possible. So, we're interested in the ARDOF, which Chris was just talking about. We're interested in developing Vita funded projects from Act 79 and we know that we'll be competing with other entities for that position, but we think because of our favorable lease on the Dark Fiber Network that the state owns or operates at least, we'll be in a very good position to help the CUD and the CUD will be in a good position to work with us. And I'll stop there because I know you have questions and let's use the time that way. And you can ask some of those same questions you asked Chris of me, because I might have somewhat different answers..(audience laughs loudly.) Go ahead, Robin. My question is, what ones do you have different answers to?.(audience laughs loudly.) None of them in totality, but all of them in subtleties, okay. For example, I don't think it will not work to have the 55 town CUD, but I think it would probably work better if there were a couple. And I would design one of them around the Northeast King Dark Fiber Network and one of them around the southern part of the Northeast King, which has more population, St. John'sbury, London and so forth. And those two might be good dividing points. However, NVDA and the Northeast King Collaborative is taking Tilson's vice and they're going that route. And I think it'll work. It's just, we talked about the advantages and disadvantages. And one thought I had was that perhaps after their up and running, because of the potential governance issues of having so many people on a board, it could bifurcate later. It could become two or three. So that's one answer. So I've got a question, looking at the map, you know, like Irisburg is kind of out there in the nowhere land, Eden, how do you connect the, what are you? Well, it's actually on the list to vote on that. But, and it's connected at Albany, but there's no connection as far as roads go. So how do you get through those towns that may not sign on? So the company doesn't need to go only where the CUD is. The company can go wherever there's demand. I'm expecting that most, if not all towns will join the CUD over the next two years. Probably, you know, after the first round, you know, under the law to form a CUD, you have to get voted in at town meeting day. But after that, select boards can join. It's going to be easier to grow that CUD in this town in person. In terms of how you get there, the Northeast Kingdom fiber, dark fiber network touches 22 of those towns. It doesn't get to low, but it's not that far from low. And it doesn't get to Eden, but it's not that far from Eden. And so many of the towns can be expanded to. There's some other ways to expand, and that's utilizing Velco substations because Velco has an extensive fiber network in the state. And we're talking with them and they are open to cooperating with us, both at the CUD level and at the company level. So that you don't necessarily have to have one town continuous to another to get to it. You can skip four towns, pop up on their fiber network in that town far away, and develop in that area. So any town can be reached. Let me throw in another thing. The CUD's goals are 100-hundred symmetrical, which is the state's goal by tomorrow. And RDOF says you have to achieve 25-three, which is the current broadband standard in federal. There's no reason not to consider getting 100-hundred wherever you can with fiber and 25-three wherever you can get to easily, quickly, with wireless, fixed wireless, and then overbuild with fiber later to other areas. No one needs to be left behind. Some people may get the 100-hundred sooner. It's way more expensive up front. And fixed wireless ends up costing just about as much, but over a very long time. The capital expenditures aren't as high. And so you can get to those places sooner using fixed wireless. So a hybrid approach is certain, I mean the CUDs are going to certainly consider that. I left out that I'm on the board of CUD fiber, the second CUD in the state. And we've been working for 18 months on this and we've won one of the disability study grants. And we are going to look at a hybrid solution, but emphasizing fiber. I want to be attentive, as Evan said, to the other guests that we have. So thank you. My name's Anne Lawless, and I'm here representing the Heat Squad. And I thank you very much for hearing us. Heat Squad does home energy audits. And my title, I'm the Outreach Coordinator for the Northeast Kingdom. Heat Squad originated at NeighborWorks of Western Vermont and that's still its home. NeighborWorks is an affordable housing agency similar to our own rural edge in the Northeast Kingdom. But NeighborWorks developed this Heat Squad program to help people save money and make their homes more comfortable through having an energy audit. So that's kind of where we started. We came into the kingdom in 2018. And we're also in four other counties. It started in Rutland, then it's branched out into Addison Windsor, which are sort of nearby. And then Bannington and now the Kingdom. So how does the home energy audit work? Well, it starts with a three hour visit from our auditor. She does a comprehensive look top to bottom, inside and out through the home. Looks at the attic basement heating system. Also does a health and safety check. We look out for mold issues. You know, it's your house built in the 90s or 2000s and it has moisture issues. Maybe not enough ventilation, not like those wonderful fresh air 19th century farmhouses. We all love so much. So we provide a written report. Then we help the homeowner find the right contractor. So our report functions sort of like, it's almost like a request for proposals. That works really well. Another important thing, we're a neutral third party. We don't do the audits. I mean, I'm sorry, we don't do the work. We don't do the weatherization projects. We just do the audits. So a little bit about our impact. In since 2010, in those other four counties, well actually including the Kingdom, we've done 5,000 home energy audits. 2,000 of those folks, those homeowners have gone on to do a finished project with, you know, where they hire weatherization contractors. In the Northeast Kingdom, our success rate is a little stronger. We've done 154 audits and 75 people have gone through with a full project. And that's just since June, 2018. So we collaborate. We collaborate with everybody that we can. And Efficiency Vermont is our primary partner and they're so important I'm gonna circle back. But I just want to tell you about some of our other partners. We work with NVDA, our Regional Planning Commission. They help communities, they help towns put energy goal, get those energy goals into their town plans. We work with Rural Edge. We work with NIDO, which is our state funded weatherization assistance program. And other climate action organizations are also really helpful. We work with community organizations at the grassroots level. We go to a lot of festivals and farmers markets and work with chambers and realtors and employers, as well as the local energy committees to get the word out about why this would benefit you and your neighbors. So now just dive in a little bit more about Efficiency Vermont. And your help through the legislature, Efficiency Vermont, you know, had some nice funding last year. And I'm not here to ask for more funds now, but primarily to say thank you. And that support for Efficiency Vermont has come back to us in a way because we have a new partnership, a new contract that we just signed a couple of weeks ago with Efficiency Vermont. So everyone knows about the rebates for weatherization that Efficiency Vermont provides. That's the carrot. That's pretty important. I wanna tell you a little bit about the new program. First a little bit about the old program. To be a contractor to do that work, to get your customer the rebates, you have to be part of Efficiency Vermont's Efficiency Energy Efficiency Network. That's a process that a contractor would have to go through to get vetted. And not all contractors have the wherewithal to go through that bureaucratic hoop. So with this new process, we are gonna be recruiting, working with Efficiency Vermont, recruiting new contractors, mostly probably smaller contractors, who aren't up at that level yet. And we're gonna be reaching out to them and asking them what they need and then helping them with training in weatherization techniques and building science so that there will be more people out there doing the work so that we won't have such a big backlog. And that's a huge, that's gonna be a huge economic development driver we feel. So that's our approach to workforce development. It's gonna be good for the contractors because they are gonna get the recognition that they need. Their customers will be really happy that their contractor is helping them draw down the rebates. So we will still be involved, but it's a much more streamlined process. Instead of the full audit that takes three hours at the home and then another couple of hours to write the report, the customer is not gonna get a 12 page report. They're basically just gonna get, okay, you need the most likely, the typical projects are you need some more installation in the basement around your rim joist where your foundation meets the wooden part of your house or most likely you need some more installation in your attic because you're losing all that hot air that you have paid to eat. It's just going right up and through. So we think this is gonna be really beneficial. Yes. So when you train these additional contractors, how's that training paid for and? This is part of the contract that Efficiency for One has signed with us. So I think that we will be doing, that we will be probably working with them to do the training, but I know we're reaching out to recruit new potential contractors by asking around and putting up signs that contacting lumber yards and things like that. Is there a fee for the contractor? Is there a fee for the contractor? The contractor, there's no fee to be involved in the training, I don't believe. So did they get a certification or anything at the end of the training? They are gonna get something that I'm not sure what it's gonna look like, but it will, they'll come under our umbrella because we are in the Efficiency for One network as a home energy auditor, but they will be able to kind of come under our umbrella so that they can then get their customers to rebates. So if there aren't any more questions, just a little bit more about gaps and opportunities and of course opportunities at the funding. So we've been very fortunate. Pete Squad got its start with Department of Energy money back in 2010. Right now we're operating under a Northern Border Regional Commission grant and that's gonna run out pretty soon, but we've been invited to go back. And I think the most wonderful program that really touched me pretty deeply was V-Lite funding. That comes through our, through Velco and that was a project to support low income for monitors. So that was great. This summer and fall, customers who wanted to get a monitor could, they were subsidized, they could pay only $50 instead of 150. That makes a huge difference. And then V-Lite threw in another thousand in terms of that they could get for rebates for doing after they did the work. And that's supplementing the Efficiency for One money. So we're hoping that you all will continue to support weatherization efforts in the state. We feel that this is, this is, it's really economic development. It's preserving our rural environment because we have this beautiful but slightly dilapidated housing asset. We don't want that to go away. That's important for, it's important for tourism as well as for people to come and live and work in the kingdom. And then of course the infrastructure to support workforce development. Thank you. My name is Jack Sunberg. I serve on the Glover Select Board and also the Glover Energy Committee. I'm here to talk about a project that the Glover Energy Committee got involved in starting in the summer of 2018. We learned about a nonprofit in Maine called Window Gussers that produces insulating storm window inserts that go on the inside of your windows and that do air sealing as well as increasing the insulating value of your windows. And they have been running program in Maine that was quite successful and they were thinking maybe it could work in Vermont. They were looking for a group that could be the test run for it. And Glover Energy Committee was looking for something practical that we could do that might help local people make their homes more comfortable, burn less fuel, contribute a little bit toward mitigating climate change. And so we met with people from Window Gussers and we said, yes, we'll do it. We'll be the first. So this is a sample of what the Window Gussers actually look like. It's a pine frame wrapped on two sides with a heat shrink film, custom measured for each window. And then it just sits like this in the window. Most of the actual windows are larger than this. Yeah. So we did that in the fall of 2018 and January of 2019. We got our first community workshop, one of the interesting things about this program is the way that windows are actually built. They, you enter all the measurements into their software, they do all the cutting of the wood in their shop in Rockland. Then they put all the materials together, send it out to the local group, which could be a church group or a range or an energy committee. And the local group organizes, finds the space, gets volunteers, including the people who are gonna have the windows in their homes. And they all get together for three days or a week, depending on how many windows there are built. And they build the windows using the material sent by window dressers. So we did that in January and Glover, January 2019, and built 170 windows to go in 26 homes over four or five days. That part of it, I think is my favorite part, that people getting together, doing something that is gonna make a difference for themselves or their neighbors. And you know, we've talked about higher technology in the early parts of this hearing, this is pretty simple technology. And so then this year, seven towns that are monitors doing it, one in Bedford, one in Charlottes, Montpelier, Bristol, and Craftsbury and Greensboro. Craftsbury and Greensboro. So in September, early October, Glover, Craftsbury and Greensboro did it together in the Glover Town Hall because it was Craftsbury and Greensboro's first year, so we had to mentor them. And I've been going around to the other towns on their first day of the workshop just helping them get started. There's just one left in Bristol at the end of this week. There's quite a bit of interest from other towns in Vermont for next year. So we'll see it, you know, maybe 15 or 20 towns in Vermont next year. So it's something that started in the kingdom and is moving out. And we partnered with Efficiency Vermont and got them to approve that these would be eligible for their DIY rebate. So this year, people who purchased more than three, three or more inserts could get up to $100 rebate. To help cover the cost of those inserts. Typical insert, you know, prices based on size. Typical inserts about $40 in the pine finish, $50 if you want it painted white, come up with wood-fired painted white. One of the nice things about a window dresser's program is that they, through grant writing, they managed to give away 25% of their windows to people who can't afford them. And we've done that. We've tried to do that as well in Vermont. We had, Glover had a small grant, a smart grant from the Vermont Community Foundation. Energize Vermont gave some money to other energy committees to help fund. And so that is, that would be a goal in Vermont as well, to make these available to people who can't pay for them. The other goal is to try to, you know, to get a little more experience with this in Vermont and then try to figure out, do we set up a sort of branch of window dressers in Vermont? Do we develop an independent organization? They have, this is their ninth year. They've made, probably at the end of this year, they will have made almost 40,000 inserts for Maine. And they figure that you can, a window insert is depending on the quality of the windows that it's going into can save up to a gallon of heating fuel per square foot of window for heating season. So they pay for themselves pretty quickly. So, well, how it'll go in Vermont, we're not sure that's what we're trying to figure out. If we stay with them, if we support several organizations, they have also developed an amazing array of very clever home-built jigs and tools that make it easier for volunteers to build these, to do a good job of building these windows. And the workshops are a lot of fun. So I want to make sure we have time for Nick. Yes, yes, so I'll stop there. Well, I didn't realize that that's where my town town had just done an extensive amount of work on this. Right, that's pretty strapped for to build 240 inserts. Yeah, it was huge. And it was like a barn raising. But we don't have much experience with how happy customers have been. You've got a year on us. How have people done it? I'm one happy customer. They've made a huge difference in my house I wish they had 20 years ago. And yes, we get excellent feedback from people. They don't work for everybody. If you have a cat that likes to sit in the window and bat it, cluster flies, they're gonna be a problem. The plastic film can take this kind of pushing but sharp objects are a problem. So you also need to have places to store them. It's good to take them out the last long to take them out in the summer and open the windows. So you need space to store them. So they don't work for everybody but they work in a lot of places. And they can work in old single pane double hung windows. They can work, they can really improve the performance of older double pane windows as well. Great. Just quickly, any idea about durability? Window dressers, people say age 10 years. If the plastic, if anything happens to the plastic bring it back to any community workshop. They'll strip the plastic off, recover for 10 bucks. And we'll put it back to work. Except a little tear. You can just put a piece of clear back and tape on it. Thank you, Jack. You're welcome. So my name's Nick D'Agostino. I'm the executive director of Rural Community Transportation. And we're a private non-profit, 501c3 public transportation provider. We cover all of the Northeast Kingdom and we also cover LaMoyle County. And so we operate fair free shuttle and commuter routes. And we also handle a lot of demand response or non-emergency medical transportation. We're the Medicaid provider for the Northeast Kingdom and LaMoyle County. And we also have funding through VTRAMS obviously. And we're a sub-recipient of federal grants that's administered through VTRAMS. Medicaid is a huge part of our funding as well. And then we also have some other programs that we do the last transportation. Last fiscal year we provided over 300,000 rides in our territory. And about 225,000 of them were considered demand response or non-emergency medical transportation. So as you can imagine, it's pretty challenging to run a bus company in the Northeast Kingdom. It's so rural and we don't have the population density in order to make routes efficient or cost effective. And there's very few large employers in the region. In fact, 21% of the working population of the Northeast Kingdom leaves their county, their home county in order to go work somewhere else. And also because of the ruralness, hospitals, critical care, dialysis, grocery stores, substance abuse recovery centers are all centered in the town. So they say Johnsbury, Newport, Morrisville, we're not even so much Morrisville. So the population is very transit dependent. So one of the ways that we have combated that is that we have air-free commuter routes. One of the routes goes from our most popular routes from St. John'sbury to Barrie, Montpelier. It also now links up to a bus that comes from Morrisville through Hardwick and Woodbury, Needs and East Montpelier and that will take you into Barrie. We also have a commuter route from St. John'sbury into Littleton. And last year we provided about 12,600 rides to commuters which is the equivalent of eliminating 162 tons of carbon emissions. And we also have fair free shuttle service in Newport, Derby, St. John'sbury and Lemonville as well and provided over 64,000 rides on those shuttles. And all of that again is fair free. So you can just hop on the bus for free just like the capital show here. Most of the transportation we provide is actually through our volunteer drivers. We have a pool of about 100 volunteer drivers that are utilizing their own vehicles and donating their time. And they're providing door-to-door transportation service seven days a week. Sometimes the trips are from Newport to Boston if it's that kind of a hospital trip or if they can be very long and very, which is very long trips. We also participate in several pilot programs. I raise my hand for transit every time. So I guess there's a program called Rides to Wellness which we work in partnership with Northeast King and Human Services. And that's designed to try to close the gap of any kind of transportation needs that Medicaid may not cover for any of the other programs. And we also just recently launched a program that's funded by a research grant from the federal government that's designed to help those in substance use disorder, recovery and for job access as well. And that has taken off so quickly that we provided over 300 trips just in November. And it's an $80,000 grant. We're going to use it up within 12 months of the launch. So it's a great success, but it also just goes to show just how dependent folks are in our area on transit and what it means to people's lives. Since we're frequently taking folks from Newport or St. John'sbury to Brattleboro Retreat when they want to go into recovery, the time is then to get them there and we're utilizing this grant to be able to do that. So we're also at the very, very beginning stages of working with VTRANS and VIC to test electric bus in our region. So kind of raising my hand for that so that I don't know if it's going to work well or not, but we're certainly willing to give that a shot. And that's basically what I wanted to say to you is that ride the bus if you can support public transit. I'm not here to ask for money. I did that with the transportation committee but just keep in mind that any time you're thinking about climate change initiatives that there's a hugely trained dependent audience and population in the workplace can do that. Just a quick question for you. In terms of your customers who have medical needs, is most of your demand because people don't have dependable transportation? Is it because of a medical condition they're not capable of driving? It could be both. So about 60% of our rides are funded through Medicaid. In order to qualify for Medicaid transportation, just because you qualify for Medicaid doesn't mean you qualify for the transportation part of it. You can't have a registered vehicle in your household. You can't have someone who's living in your household who is able to bring you some. So that's a huge number of people and each number of rides people who just can't fit in there. I just wanted to say that so it sounds like the real focus is transportation and any greenhouse gas, thank you, emissions or reductions might are a sort of a fringe benefit. So it's kind of, there's kind of like two problems. One is the commuters that obviously those folks, about half of them have cars, may choose to ride the bus and that's great. The other part of it would be the non-merciful medical transportation. Unfortunately, reducing carbon in that case is probably secondary because they have to get them to their appointments. If everybody had a Tesla and we could drive around electric cars all day, that would be wonderful, but that's not the case right now. Thank you. So the volunteer drivers, are they using their own vehicles or do they? Yes. They use their own vehicles. How do you go about recruiting volunteers? I beg. We go to different groups. It's usually a lot of referrals and word of mouth. So is there a list and people are available at certain times or is it just hit or miss? Yeah, no, exactly. It would be that the idea would be that we have enough volunteers. They can make their own schedules. So if they wanna work Monday, Wednesday, Friday from eight to five, volunteer, I mean not work. Then we would have that in our system and they could basically do it as they choose. How do people request what? Do they call a central office? They call our central office. Yes. And then we have a large call center of folks that are handling calls, folks calling and they're scheduling the rides and then we have the dispatch team that basically puts the puzzle together every day. We try to do, everything has to be done at the lowest cost possible. So we have a lot of ride sharing going on. So there might be three people in one vehicle. One's funded by Medicaid, one's funded by the Elderly Ensaber Grant, one's funded by a private pay but they're all riding in the same vehicle going to, we might be dropping them off along the way to the final destination. Last question is, yeah, just quickly. I was wondering about technology and sort of a little bit of type of the service. How do you envision that? So right now, the V-Trans just rolled out statewide, a technology that we haven't been using for a few years and that's that our buses, since several of the other vehicles have GPS trackers and you can utilize the transit app and see where the bus is, if it's early, if it's on time, if it's late, what the next stop is, things like that. You can also contact us and we can serve as your Uber in that case as long as we're not utilizing a federally funded vehicle. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time. So thank you for joining us, Matt. Thank you. Appreciate your time today. Thank you for the time today. We've just had about an hour of testimony but not from some guests from the Northeast Kingdom and speaking on a variety of things, we are going to turn our attention back to H688, which is something we've been focused on, I guess this is the third, maybe yeah, probably the third week we've taken testimony on this and you've been able to hear some of that so appreciate you being here to offer your thoughts. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. You can introduce yourself. I appreciate it. Yes, my name is Matt Koda. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association which is an organization of fuel retailers and energy service companies that do business in Vermont. This is my 16th year working in the state house, 14 as an advocate for energy retailers, two years as a reporter. So I know many of you and many of you have heard me testify before and so I try not to repeat what I did before but I think it's important for me at the outset to say to this committee, thank you. It was 11 months ago that Chairman Briglin disinvitation allowed me to bring in four of my members who were upset but I felt delivered testimony in a calm, rational way. You may remember Casey Koda, Bellas Falls, Judy Taranovic, a proctor, Peter Bourne and Morrisville and maybe Fletcher of formerly of Montpelier. He was the big bald man who grew up here in Montpelier was from a truck driver to a heating tech to a regional manager. Now he's a trainer and a safety consultant. I look for Files Brothers out of Orwell. And you know, it was his story was that of a Montpelier high school grad that barely got through high school but became a successful enough working in the propane industry that he sent two of his kids to college the first in his family. And that's really what I'm trying to convey here is to recall that sentiment which is there are a lot of good people out there that sell oil and gas, a lot of good companies that provide for their families and their employees that pay their taxes and are contributing members to our economy. And they're frustrated because they've been vilified up by this committee. I thank you for hearing their concerns but by this concern about global warming about climate change about this climate emergency that we're in and frankly they're frustrated and I'm the voice of that. So I speak to you. I appreciate the opportunity about this issue but just know that there is a concern outside this building for the people that are delivering oil and gas that their government doesn't want them. And that's confusing to them because the government is our biggest customer. We sell 20 million gallons. The government pays us $20 million. So about 15 million gallons of heating fuel to low income for modders through the fuel systems program. State of Vermont uses our fuel to heat their buildings and to power their plow trucks and their police cruisers. We think we sell a fuel that's very important to our economy, to emergency services and to keeping people safe, warm, alive. And we know that things are changing. We know that 300 million gallons of gasoline that we sell every year, we are going to sell far less. There's gonna be 50,000 electric vehicles on the road most likely in the next 10 years where we will sell 40 million fewer gallons. But we'll still sell gasoline. We'll still sell, we'll just sell 40 million gallons less over the next 10 years. We can see it. We can see the trajectory. We can see what's happening with our convenience stores. They're focusing the smart ones are starting to focus on groceries and other sales. But we're gonna have energy deserts in our rural areas where we won't be able to keep gas stations open because there won't be the volume because of lack of sales and people travel longer distances in order to get gasoline. That's just the way it's gonna happen. There's gonna be more consolidation in the industry. We're feeling it now. We'll continue to happen. And we'll continue to sell less heating oil. Back in the 1970s, heating oil was 80% of the homes were heated with heating oil. Now we're about 40%. We've lost half of our market share in the past 50 years. And we'll continue to lose market share in gallons as people use less of our product because they have more efficient burners and boilers and furnaces. The homes are better weatherized. They have more alternatives to supplement their heating sources be it electricity or biomass. So for our perspective, we don't see a future in which we're selling more gallons. We understand that we're going to sell less. And we understand that we are vital in that transition to renewable future. We understand that it will not happen as fast as some of the advocates, some of the young people that care deeply about this, which we understand in respect. It's not gonna happen as fast as perhaps we want to. It may not happen as fast as the Global Warming Solution Act requires it to, but it is happening and we are part of that transition, whether we like it or not. That's why you're seeing diversification from eating fuel dealers. That's why you're seeing gasoline marketers think about the future in a world in which they're selling fewer gallons in which stores to keep open, which retail outlets to keep open. We have to, it's our business model. We have to think of it that way because I mean, there's 87 signatures on this bill. But our question, getting back to the underlying reason why you invited me here is, what is swift and decisive action in 2025 if we don't fail to meet our ambition reduction goals? So I'm skipping ahead, not to the details between now and then, but what happens if we get sued, the state of Vermont gets sued? Luke is a, Luke Marlin is an excellent attorney and I've heard his version of it, but we know that these bills go to the other body and they get changed and amendments added. These are just general questions, not based on the original bill, but based on the concept of a global with swarming solutions act. So forgive me for that conceit. But does, if we just sue, what agency is responsible for implementing this? We touch agency and natural resources just a little bit. Fuel on the ground is regulated by them. When it's combusted from a point source pollution, yes, but A&R doesn't touch combustion of automobiles. They don't access fees on cars, that's the DMV. So with A&R under maybe not this version of the bill, but on a future version of the Global Warring Solutions Act, be able to restrict the sales of combustion engine vehicles, the DMV, or put a fee or a tax, or would that have to go before the legislature and the governor for approval? These are all questions that we have if we fail to meet our climate reduction goals as stated in the Global Warring Solutions Act. What happens next? Would we possibly have a recommendation from the 21 member climate committee? There is one fuel dealer spot on it, thank you for that. But would there be a recommendation of 20 to one to tell the agency human services to spend all the fuel assistance money on weatherization or electric heat and not on fossil fuel heat? Would a judge implement that? Would the climate committee recommend that A&R enforce some sort of fees or fines on oil heat equipment or put a ban in place? It's happening in Brookline, Mass in Berkeley, California? And these are the questions that we ask, what is swift and decisive action? We understand the calls, we understand the bumper sticker call for reducing emissions now because we're in a climate emergency. What we're trying to figure out is for our businesses, for our livelihoods, what we're trying to figure out what that would mean in five years from now. What could a judge order the state of Vermont to do in what recourse would have someone who was opposed to that action have? Would they be able to lobby their legislator or governor in order to change that? Or would it be implemented without a voice of the legislature? Without a voice of the legislature and without approval of the governor in 2026 or 2027? I don't know the answer to that, I'm not a lawyer. But, what's your questions that we have? I'll talk to the other one. Sam? I know one of the folks that testified last time was transitioning to some biofuels, both wood pellets and mix of biofuels. Do you have an idea of what percentage of either your retailers or wholesalers are switching to a combination of, well, I guess generally non-fossil fuel energy sources could be electric for gas stations being putting in electric charging stations or the wholesalers switching business models to accommodate what they see coming. Yeah, that's a great question, Representative Chase, if I've had, I think on the gasoline side, liquid, liquid, renewable gasoline doesn't show much profit. So we're talking about say loss of gas at all, which we simply don't have, and we don't know if we will have. The much more common path for light duty vehicles that currently use gasoline and combustion engine is electric, we understand that. That makes a lot more sense from a business standpoint. From selling the stuff that makes the car go standpoint, the retailers, we know, or we assume, we're making assumptions based on studies and lots of people that get paid to figure out what the next business model is gonna be. The 50 to 60% of people that have an electric car are going to fuel up at home or at work. So the opportunity to recover those lost profits of reduced sales of gasoline through the installation of electric car charger, there is some. You get them there, you sell a little bit and make a little bit of money, maybe you get them in the store in the body of sandwich or something else, that's there, but nowhere near what it is currently under the combustion engine gasoline model. Switching from diesel fuel, the future is bright for diesel or it's not as dim as gasoline, I should say. Gasoline, we're clearly going to see significant declines, but diesel fuel, we don't have an adequate replacement for the diesel combustion engine. We can't move milk with electricity, we can't move grant electricity, we can't move wood products with electricity. We need a diesel engine tractor trailer truck for our buses, for our plow trucks, for our graders, for all that works the wood. We burned 300 million gallons of gasoline here in Vermont. We're using 100 million gallons, 60 million of on-road diesel fuel, another 40 to 45 million of off-road diesel fuel, it's the same stuff, every year because there is no adequate replacement for diesel combustion. Yeah, except for, you can use the same engine to do with biodiesel. So what you're seeing is you're seeing in states which either have a low carbon fuel standard like California, or you're seeing states like Massachusetts that have a renewable energy mandate, or in cities like New York City that have renewable energy goals, you're seeing the use of biodiesel, both in transportation, in off-road use, and in heating. So could that be one of the ways that A&R, agency natural resources, adjust the rules or the climate commission recommends that in order we achieve our climate goals? Yes, the path is laid out. Path is laid out where you could see the climate commission saying, well, we can't replace tractor trailers with electric tractor trailers and we can't replace all, you know, the half of the monitors that use heating oil, so let's mandate the use of biodiesel blends in that and we can show the reduction in carbon and that will probably happen. You can see it happening in the future. So anyone that comes to me and says, like Global Petroleum or SPRAG or Maravito or any company that has large tanks that sells to smaller dealers, they're saying, what's the future, Matt? Is the legislature gonna require this? Are we gonna have to make a significant investment in tank heaters to make sure that we can keep that biodiesel flowing? Are we gonna have to make a significant investment in tanker trucks that can bring biodiesel from Nebraska, from Missouri in order to meet these mandates? I say, I don't know. I'm watching and I'm listening. So that's part of it. On the propane side, yes, there are some newable opportunities but not like you have a distiller. Same thing with gasoline. So it's a mix back. So we're gonna jump in here on that just to follow on that question. What are the supply dynamics in that market? You mentioned it coming from Nebraska but in some pretty large metropolitan areas that are drawing on that supply, whether it's Massachusetts, whether it's New York. What's the supply of that? Well, so the key is the pipe, right? The most efficient way, the most cost-effective way, the least carbon-intensive way to ship any liquid is by pipe. So you gotta get to the Tepco pipeline which goes from Texas all the way to Albany. And as long as you can load it, as long as you can have a pipeline operator is going to make sure that there is a customer at the end of the pipe. As long as that's there, then that's happening. So right now we're having a situation where they're not going to load it unless they know there's demand. Right now it's just a simple arbitrage. You know, everyone asked me how much biodiesel is in my feeding fuel supply. I said, well, go to the Wall Street Journal and look what it was two weeks ago, three weeks ago, and find out what the price differential is between D100 and an USL number two oil. And I can guesstimate how much biodiesel is in your truck or in your heating oil tank because it's simple arbitrage. Except for in areas where, like California, which has a low carbon fuel standard, which it's meeting its carbon reduction goals through renewable diesel and biodiesel, or in areas like Massachusetts, which incentivizes biodiesel. Now here in Vermont, we have something like that, it's called Tier 3. 2015, we successfully were able to include biodiesel both for transportation and for heating as one of the Tier 3 initiatives that the utility could adopt in order to meet their goals of reducing carbon emissions for their customers. We're having some limited success with that, but they aren't required to do it. And frankly, it's more in their benefit financially to sell more electricity through electric heat pumps and electric cars, we understand that. So that's what's happening. Great, Laura, let's go. I'm just wondering what you might be seeing nationally in terms of best practices with small fuel dealers and their transitioning and how we might think about supporting them going forward. If there are other states that are kind of and thinking about this and innovative programs that we should be considering. I appreciate the comment because it is happening, right? I mean, the olden days where the dairy farmer just used to sell milk doesn't happen anymore. And the days where the fuel dealer just used to sell oil doesn't happen anymore. They're diversifying their products, maybe it's propane, maybe it's biodiesel, maybe it's biomass, whether it's pallets or chunk wood, it's heating and plumbing services. I have a very large marketer in Addison County that is diversified into hemp. Others that are doing alarm services and lawn care, it's just, you have something of value that's not your depreciated trucks or buildings, but it's your customer list. And that relationship they have has sometimes stayed back a hundred years, literally. So how do they, in an era where they're using, where they're selling less of their product, how do they do that? Quite frankly, it's different for everyone. Some will sell out. We're seeing fewer and fewer fuel dealers, that's clear, because I collect their dues every January. Ian, so that's happening. Others will diversify into other products and services. A lot of them are installing heat pumps. Some of them are doing weatherization, but nothing will replace the volume and the profit that liquid fuel sales do. So how, one of the ways that I get asked, particularly when I'm in a commerce committee, how can we support fuel dealers, local fuel dealers, that understand that we're passing policies that will limit their ability to sell the products that they haven't been selling for a long time. And honestly, the biggest thing that my members, the fuel companies that ask me to represent them in the Statehouse asked for is, we need people that can, we need skilled trades. How can you support, and I know, I was in a space where you did a lot of work at BGCC on this, and others have worked on skilled trades, but finding people that can go from tech centers to our school, I lobby for fun, I run a school, we train 1,000 heat techs a year. How can we get them through the realize that they can go from a tech center to a VFTA training program, straight to a job, at the age of 19, they can make $50,000 a year. That's a real thing, but we are having tremendous difficulty finding techs. And once you have a good tech, not only can they work on an oil burner, but they can install a coal climate heat pump. They can install a solar panel. They can install all the things. So it's finding people, that is the best way. If we have good people, we're fuel neutral. You know, we don't, you don't blame the Toyota dealership for selling more Tacomas than Priuses. We don't own an oil well. We're interested in providing services for our customers, but we can't do that without the skilled technicians and drivers. And that's, when people ask me, you know, we understand your sentiment, which is very real, how do we help your local companies? How do they get ahead in this new economy? And frankly, part of it is skill trades. We need support there. And not just for our little corner of the world, but for diesel techs and, you know, that type of thing. So that's my little, sorry for speech behind, but. No, that's great. I mean, that was basically my question. Also is how your folks are transitioning from selling a product to selling a service, to selling comfort, to selling, you know, and that's enough to crack. And you need people who know how to do that and you need text. So since you answered that question already, I'll ask you another one. What proportion of fuel sales are, transportation fuels versus owning fuels, roughly? Sure. You know, depending on the year. Of course, with heating fuels is a weather variant, but with transportation, you know, you've got between 320 million gallons of gasoline, 60 million gallons of on-road diesel fuel. You've got 40 to 45 million gallons of off-road diesel fuel. That's for trains, that's for skitters, that's for construction equipment, tractors, farm tractors. You've got 100 million gallons of heating oil sales and 100 million gallons of propane sales. The heating oil side, it's 70-30 residential, commercial, 70% residential, 30% commercial. On the propane side, it's 40% commercial, 60% residential. But essentially, we sell 600 million gallons of liquid fossil fuels in the state every year, give or take 25 million. Great. I thought that up here. But you're being those first numbers again. Sorry. Which ones? Right down the road. Yes, on-road diesel, off-road diesel. Yeah, approximately, changes from year to year. But the round number, 600 million, half of which is gasoline, then you sell 100 million gallons of, heating oil and diesel fuel is the same thing, it's just colored, that's the one that's different about it, in c-tane. But 100 million gallons of diesel fuel, whether it's on-road or off-road, 100 million gallons of heating oil, and 100 million gallons of propane. Roughly, give or take. 20 million in every direction, you know. Mike. Abram. I'm sorry, was that your question or not? No. I don't know. Okay. That was a wait. What? You're out. You're out, no more. Sorry, sorry. Just lost my place in the queue. I wanted to have you look into your crystal ball. Because there are a lot of areas where we have said, we can't replace fossil fuels. And we have, with heat pumps or with, I mean, Cassella trucking, Amia's product, with that said, liquefied natural gas, they're using that. There is liquefied natural gas in some applications and not. And, you know, we're looking at material handling, like forklifts being increasingly electric. Where there's a lot of torque necessary. So there are, we are switching away from fossil fuels in areas where we didn't think we could. I just wonder, I mean, I see that increasing, but I don't, I have less knowledge of it That is true, but we're also moving to less carbon intensive fossil fuels in some applications. I mean, we're selling a lot of propane lowers, you know, so propane has less carbon at the burner tip than. Like the trucking. Yeah, and a lot of those forklifts are propane powered. So that's happening as well. You know, so there's police cruisers that it can be outfitted as for propane and school buses for propane as an auto gas. You know, it's still a fossil fuel, but it's less carbon intensive. So yeah, I mean, gasoline is the obvious target, right? So gasoline, there is a pathway for electric cars if the manufacturers produce them. And if they don't, you're still gonna want us around to sell gasoline. And on diesel fuel, not so, not so. You can, there is not a affordable tractor trailer truck that can haul lumber out of the woods or granted out of Barry or milk out of Martin. I mean, it just doesn't exist. So, yes, there are different applications where you can have electric lawn mowers. That's a good example. But, you know, in terms of heavy duty transportation, you're always gonna need number two fuel oil to run the trains that haul the goods around the state and around the country. And you're always gonna need it to move stuff in a tractor trailer, at least for the next 30, 40 years. I don't know what happens after that. My crystal ball, it's a little fuzzy. Thanks. Beautiful. Ever. Just curious in terms of you talking about his business as your members in all meaning to planning for the future and transitioning on. I, if you could say something, at least in general terms, what portion of the non-transportation fuels in the amount of being sold by, I don't know how to define it, but the smaller, the mom and pop, the local, the family versus the urban energies, then the large companies. Yeah, well, the large companies are consolidated as much as the small companies. It's heavily broken up into a third, I think, in thirds, from my perspective. You know, third of the gallons are the large companies. Third of the gallons are the in-state operators that are providing multiple surfaces, diversified. Think of borns or Code and Coda or Blanchard. They're selling multiple products and services, including plumbing, heating and all that, weatherization, all that stuff. And then the third are, you know, just trucking. Just on the trucks. And they're local, and they're real local. Meaning they're very small territory. And people ask me, what's the future of my industry? And I said, it's just gonna be more of the same, just less of it, right? I mean, there are gonna be fewer of those companies, but it will always be someone with $40,000 that can go buy themselves a used truck and get themselves a cell phone and work their tail off in the wet dirt and deliver fuel. They'll always be that. They'll always be those companies, local companies, that take care of their employees, that have that loyalty from their customers, who say, I'm not going with this guy or that guy or this woman or that woman. I am going with this company because they've been here forever and they provide great service. And then, of course, major MLPs will always be around and will always be a player, wherever they are, because they're capitalized to do so. Like suburban in America, or something like that. Mike. So, I acknowledge that the fuel dealers and your services and businesses have a lot of value in this, because it's always gonna be at demand for some amount of fossil fuels that these will pass land or whatever. The fuel dealers aren't the problem, right? I see, it's the impact that burning fossil fuels has on the environment that's really a problem. And I hope I have a good relationship with my fuel dealer because I expect them to deliver fuel when I need it. I've had good discussions with them and I get the sense that there is a reluctance to acknowledge that we have a problem, that climate change is a problem. I don't know how to deal with that because I think that every, no matter what business you're in, no matter what fuel you're in, change requires adaptation and the ability to either learn new skills or develop another service to fit the evolving economy. And I would hate to see them, you know, be the buggy with manufacturer that refuse to stop making buggy whips when the automobile and the combustion engine came along. So, I think that what we're trying to do with the Global Warming Solutions Act is put in place a roadmap where we can achieve the greenhouse gas reductions that we need to address a real, a real essential global problem and we have to do our part. So, I would like to see us work with the fuel dealers to try and figure out what that appropriate roadmap would be. I appreciate that sentiment. And if my name is Chairman Briegeland, to address the first point, which is, this is my 14th year representing the fuel dealers in legislature and they're all my children and I love them equally. But just like your constituents, there's a wide range of views and I don't know which ones you bump into from time to time, but I can tell you that there are no climate denialists on my board of directors. I can tell you that I spent last Tuesday night in Jericho at Mount Mansfield Union High School with a group of Republicans and a group of climate energy committee people. And I was somehow the moderator of the debate where I found myself in the unique perspective as an oil lobbyist of explaining to the Republican Jericho committee that the climate emergency is real. The science has settled and here's what's happening while explaining to the climate energy committee that we cannot stop selling this product because it's vital to our economy and to our health and safety. And we're not gonna ban the combustion engine. At least I don't think we should. So that's a weird spot to find myself in. But I credit my board of directors who have tolerated me for 14 years and understand that what I speak, I speak from here. So there's that. Yes, can we work together on a process? I think that's happening, but I'll be quite honest with you, representing on that. The bill that came out last year, the first version of the Global Warming Solutions Act, that was me telling my members to sell their company in five years if this pass has written where they could be sued, a citizen's right of action could happen and they could be sued for simply selling a legal product. That was very serious moment when I said, you pay me to tell you the bad news and the good news. Here's the bad news, sell your company in five years if this passes. So now I come back with them and I say, here's the second version of the same title to bill. You don't have to sell your business, but for me to get them to endorse it, not gonna happen. Not going to happen. Can we work within the parameters? Yeah, we're gonna have to, right? Save you seven signatures on this bill. One would assume it has enough to pass. But we have real fears, we have real fears that swift and decisive action in five years is unknowable right now to us and I can only make assumptions on what it could be and it could be possibly, depending on which legal, which lawyer you talk to and I'm not a lawyer, bans on combustion, bans on burners and boilers and furnaces that use fossil fuels, bans on vehicles that consume fossil fuels. Could be new fees or fines associated with combustion of fossil fuels. I don't know. I don't know what swift and decisive action is in five years when it's mandated by a judge. I know ways that we can reduce carbon emissions in heating and transportation. I don't know if it'll be as fast to meet the goals of the GWSA. But I certainly know what swift and decisive action is. We've seen it in other communities that have afforded regulations or legislation that essentially puts a time stamp when this activity can no longer happen. That's tough. So something I want to be sensitive to is we've got other guests who are following me who have traveled here and I know we have the benefit of you having you around so we can also head back. But we've run 10 minutes over now and I'm the one guilty of slowing us down. So I think we're gonna cut this off now and I'm happy to head back in the coming days to complete us a complete member set question. So thank you very much. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Casey Whiteley and I'm here on behalf of 350 Vermont. I want to thank you, Chair Brigham and the committee for the opportunity to give testimony on H688, the Vermont Global Warming Solutions Act of 2020. As I said, just said my name is Casey Whiteley and I'm here today as a parent and a grandparent because I care deeply about our environment and about the precarious future in store for the next generations of Vermonters due to the climate crisis that's upon us. I'm a member of the 350 Board of Directors and I currently serve as the board's vice chair and I'm here representing our statewide constituency. 350 Vermont's a grassroots organization formed in 2011 that organizes, educates and supports Vermonters to work together for climate justice. We are an affiliate of 350.org which is an international environmental organization addressing the climate crisis. We greatly appreciate that this legislation was initiated and has been co-sponsored by 87 House members. This broad support is a positive and hopeful sign that the legislature takes this matter very, very seriously and means to act, to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and to set Vermont on a course away from fossil fuel reliance and toward renewable energy sources. Again, we're grateful for the opportunity to submit testimony today. The breadth and scope of H688 addresses many concerns and 350 Vermont shares. We're here to highlight areas that we feel need to be strengthened in order to meet the challenges of the climate crisis. With our limited time today, I'd just like to give an overview of our primary concerns and offer some ways the bill can be strengthened to be aligned with the urgency of this task. We strongly recommend that you use the most recent intergovernmental panel on climate change generally known as the IPCC report as the guide to set the greenhouse gas emissions reduction requirements in the bill. The IPCC provides scientific assessments on climate change and is the best and most current science available. Second, we think it's essential to accelerate the timeline for action. H688 calls for a planning period of over a year to July 2021. Rules for implementing the plan will not be determined until July 2022. This means if there's funding that needs to be found to enact the plans adopted under H688, we could very well be delayed until the 2023 legislative session. While we recognize the importance of an up-to-date and a comprehensive plan, we cannot afford to wait two or maybe even three years to begin to take meaningful action. Given that the vast majority of scientists around the world all agree that we have little more than a decade to implement drastic measures if we are to hope of preventing the worst impacts of climate change, we urge you to accelerate the timeline of this bill. We simply do not have two, possibly three years to devote to planning before taking any action. We believe it's essential that the legislature put some immediate action steps in place, and there are many steps that we know are essential and effective that we can make now. For example, in active end on all new fossil fuel infrastructure, we need to resist the pressure to use and transport tracked gas in Vermont so that we can begin to move in the direction of renewables. Weatherization of inefficient buildings begin with all municipal buildings and the homes of people at the bottom of the income scale. Strengthen our focus on building local renewable energy generation and storage of electricity. Empower citizen input and local decision-making. The bill's current structure is top-down, and we believe the impetus for change most often comes from the bottom up. We need to listen to Vermonters most affected by climate change and empower all Vermonters to act in their own communities now. We would like to offer an expert witness to the committee to address what we see as the severe inadequacies of the right of citizen action section of the bill. We look forward to providing additional testimony to help ensure 688 is strong and effective legislation. And I'll thank you again for your time and your commitment to this critical issue, and I'm happy along with my fellow 350 Vermont board members who are here today to answer any questions, but would also like to give the floor, since we have limited time to our young people who are here today to testify. So thank you so much. Thank you, that'd be great. If you wanna join us here, or pull out the chair. And if it's okay, chair, can I pass around a copy of the testimony? You're welcome to, and I would say what would be even more helpful, it is if you- Give it to Daniel. Yeah, if you make sure that Daniel wanted it, because we like to post it to our websites so that everybody can see it. Right. Got you. Thank you. Little web paper, favorite treat. Hello, my name is Evelyn Seidner. Thank you for this opportunity to give testimony on an important piece of legislation, the Global Warming Solutions Act. I am a senior at Burm Burton Academy, a resident of Middletown Springs, and an officer of the Vermont Youth Lobby. I'm here today because we are facing a threat to humanity and the world unlike any other, the climate crisis. Every day, the consequences of climate and action become more dire. According to the consensus of scientists, there is no longer time to stall or debate certain policies. Now is the time to accept that we have pushed the facts of science aside for too long, and now is the time to do whatever it takes to save the planet. We are nearing the point of no return. If bold climate legislation does not get signed to law very soon, we will have failed the only home we know. We will have failed future generations, and we will have failed my own. Our Earth has provided everything for us while we have exploited and destroyed it to its breaking point. Together, we must do all we can to save what is left of the home we know before it is too late. Everyone must do their part, Vermont included. While outsiders may view us as a green state, our carbon emissions have risen since 1990 while emissions in our neighboring states have fallen. Vermont may be small, but what we do matters. Passing strong climate legislation this session would show the rest of the country that the climate crisis is an existential threat and should be treated like one. The Global Warming Solutions Act could do this. This bill takes an important first step towards positive change by making reductions goals into requirements. It also directly cites the IPCC in its legislative findings, legitimizing the bill with real science and facts on which to base our actions. However, the Vermont youth lobby and the Vermont youth in general believe that the timeline in place for making these reductions in emissions happen is still not aggressive enough. Last November, the Youth Climate Congress brought together youth from all over the state to call attention to the seriousness of the climate crisis. From that day came a climate declaration. Youth wrote and voted on the declaration and in it, the goal to achieve net zero by 2032 in accordance with what science is telling us. While the Global Warming Solutions Act does acknowledge the destruction our state, country and world will face if we continue to delay action, the current reduction timeline doesn't fully take into account the importance of acting as fast as possible to reduce emissions and support a transition into a carbon-free state. On page 4.3 of the bill, there is information about the vital importance of substantially reducing emissions over the next 10 years, but the bill has emissions being reduced by only 40 over the next 10 years, which is not enough. The reductions timeline doesn't reflect what science is telling us or what the youth who will be the ones left to deal with the consequences believe is necessary. I am fearful of what my future will look like in 50 years if action is not taken now. I don't have the luxury of pushing aside the need to act on climate because for me, this is going to be my life. Inaction is worse than action and we all need to do our part. I urge you to do yours. Thank you. Thank you, Chair and Committee for allowing me this opportunity to speak today. I appreciate you guys hearing my voice. My name is Seth Fisher Olvera and I'm a coordinator with the Youth Lobby. As a member of the youth, I can say with certainty that the climate crisis is on our minds. The headlines from Australia and California are hard to ignore and make it clear that action needs to be taken immediately. Vermont has too long lagged behind in the fight against climate change and it is time we stepped up. The Global Warming Solutions Act would be an undeniable step towards saving my generation's future. The bill would promote job growth in our state, create a realistic and comprehensive process to achieve important carbon emission targets and push legislators towards even more action in the future. With that being said, I believe that the targets set in this bill do not go far enough. At the first annual Youth Climate Congress, more than 170 of Vermont's youth from college students, high schoolers and middle schoolers stated that they want Vermont to be net zero by 2032 whereas H688 doesn't have us reach that benchmark until 2050. Again, thank you for listening to my voice and I implore you to remember the youth who are not here today, whose features are also at risk. Do you mind all of you being available for questions? So I have a highly technical question for you and I ask this with a straight face although people may, in this bill, in terms of the group of people that we, or this bill would propose to bring together, we're looking for someone that would kind of fill the youth seat, if you will. And I've gotten questions from people offline on the committee that said, how do you define youth? Is this someone who's in high school? Is this someone who is under 25? Is this, but as you pull together a group of youth activists, how do you define your group? And as literally if this bill becomes law and we look to, I can't remember if it's the speaker of the House of Representatives or the Senate that appoints that youth seat, how do you characterize who fills that seat? Is that a high school student? Is that a college student? Is it, I don't know. How did you characterize your group in terms of the Youth Congress as to who could participate in that? Was it only high school students? Or was it, is there an age limit? I think I can speak to that. Yeah, and I think that's a good question. I hope that me being here today, Evelyn being here today of the Youth Climate Congress, I don't think it is about age. I think the youth representative, it doesn't need to be a college student, it doesn't need to be a high schooler. I think I hope that we're proven today at the Youth Climate Congress that it's not the number of our age that matters. I think what matters, the person who would be best to fill that spot is someone who shares the vision for an economy that is clean, that's net zero, and eventually hopefully we could decarbonize. I hope that that person who fills that seat is not judged on their age, but rather their ideas and how willing they are to push the legislature and have the vision that's gonna bring us towards a healthy earth. And I would say that actually falls in line with other testimony we've taken that if we do have a council, people who would serve on that council shouldn't be representing an industry or a part of the economy, they should be bringing a perspective. So that's actually helpful, I think in terms of perspective, I don't know if Evelyn or Casey, you wanna add to that? Yeah, well, I mean, I can speak to what we did for the Climate Congress, which we had ages ranging from elementary school to graduate school. So as Seth was saying, I don't really think it's about pinpointing a specific number of what youth is, but I do think that under 25 would be considered. That's what we consider youth, yeah. Thank you. I'm sorry, Robin. Do you have the phone number? Yeah, please go ahead, Edamona. So thank you for being here and thanks Evelyn, for being my neighbor. I'm sorry. But I have nothing to do with getting here. The challenge that we're looking at is what, we're looking at a transition that is by nature, by design, disrupting our economy, the way we function, the way we do things, and replacing it with another economy and society. And that disruption can be managed or it can be catastrophic. And we're looking at a tight timeframe, recognizing that we've heard we have 10 years, I doubt that it's that long before action changes is irreversible. But I'm just wondering, as when you said it's your lifetime that we're looking at, and we're looking at either managed chaos or unmanaged chaos, and I'm just, I guess, wondering as the people who bear the brunt of the transition as well, how big a disruption and transition are you willing to put up with? And I realize that doesn't have an easy answer, a clear answer. It's more just expressing to you the balances we're trying to find that I'm interested in your perspective on that. So just to clarify, you're talking about a transition to a green economy, not the transition to more chaos. No. I just wanted to. They will not be mutually exclusive. Yes, right, okay. The way that I look at what we will have to do in order to mitigate the climate crisis in a way that is effective enough to stop the damage, like the most damage that we're seeing, I kind of see it as inevitable, not in that it's going to happen, but that if it does, it has to be really big. And there can't really be an in-between, like, oh, well, you know, we tried. So that counts for something because it doesn't really, because if we only go halfway, that's still failure. We kind of, we have to go all the way or else it's nothing. With this threat, it's all and nothing. So for me personally, I think, I mean, I know that it's going to be a huge change and it's going to be a lot of work. And it's, I mean, it's rethinking the systems that have been in place for hundreds of years. Thank you. I don't want to tell you guys about that as well. Yeah, I think everyone covered a lot of it. I think it continues to be, this process is like, you know, like we're saying, we want it to happen as quick as we, you know, we want the timeframe is short and we want action as quick as we can. And that's part of what H688 does is it's setting up that timeline and it's also pushing legislators for more action. This isn't a one and done deal. The Global Warming Solutions Act isn't going to solve climate change and in and of itself, the Global Warming Solutions Act acknowledges that and part of it is about pushing for more change. And so that's what we want to see and because we know the change is gradual, it's not going to be all at once. And, you know, I think I can't speak for every member of the youth in the world, but I think that, like everyone said, it's all or nothing and so we're willing to go for the all. And I think we'll do whatever it takes. Thank you. Well, I'm just following up on Ron Robin's question and the same topic. I think sort of at his base, the question is what do you want to give up? What do you enjoy about the current economy that is something that you can imagine? When you imagine what change is going to look like for you and for your lifestyles and for the lifestyles of your cohort in the next 10 years, what do you imagine would be the hardest thing to, the hardest change to cope with? Do you see where I'm going to add? Yeah. For me, quantifying that is really hard because of the perspective. The perspective for me is that, like everyone said, it's all or nothing. So whether or not I'm going to be filling up my gas tank, whether or not I can drive 400 miles on a tank instead of 500, it's meaningless to me because I'd rather drive 400 miles and have the earth that's uninhabitable. I'd rather drive 400 miles. I'd rather not be able to fill up my gas tank. I'd rather become posting and focusing on that, whatever. The myriad of things is not having access to natural gas. I'm willing to give up those consequences or I'm willing to suffer those consequences and I can't quantify that because I understand the perspective is, it's that or it's nothing. Like everyone said, it's all or nothing. And with that perspective in mind, I think that's what allows us to look past the shortcomings, the chaos and to really just focus on managing it because that's all we can do. Yeah, I mean, I think that that question also kind of pushes you to think about your own, what you personally are willing to give up. But, and I mean, sure, like, so I don't fly anywhere anymore because planes take up a lot of, hardly admit a lot and there aren't electric planes yet. So I give up that and I can't like buy clothes from everywhere I want anymore because the fashion industry is extremely harmful to the planet, so maybe I only buy secondhand. But all those personal choices are things that I'm already thinking about and I'm already willing to give up. So I think that what we need to be thinking about is a bigger change to the whole system of how we're living right now so that it's not just about your own personal, your own personal choices, but it's actually about the whole world and how we can restructure it so that it's not a choice anymore, it's just your way of life and it's everyone's way of life. Right, so I guess my question is really, do you feel like your cohort, your age cohort, is on board with that? Yes, I do because I think the alternative is a planet that we can no longer live on. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you guys very much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm Steve Crawley. I'm here representing the Vermont Sierra Club and I've got to say that's a tough act to follow. A few things about our Sierra Club, Sierra, whoops, okay, a few things about technology. This is the technology community, right? There we go. Okay, all right. So we're a national organization Sierra Club, four and a half million members and supporters nationwide. We have about 3,200 members. Did I change that? 3,200 members in Vermont. And we're mostly volunteer driven. We do have a staff person. A lot of you know Rob Kader, staff person. But we're mostly volunteer driven. And I have been the energy, I've been active with this chapter for 30 or so years and energy chair for most of that time. Also on behalf of the Sierra Club, I've worked regionally with our different chapters around the Northeast. I was the regional vice chair for the Sierra Club for a number of years. And we did a lot of education and policy work regionally. I led the campaign to make climate change a national issue for the Sierra Club and I chaired our national climate campaign for three years, which put me in a position of working with chapters all over the country on developing policy ideas and campaigns. So, you know, in a whole range of, you know, political environments and policy environments. And most recently in the last couple of years I've been working a lot on the issue of adaptation and resilience with the Sierra Club. I chaired a national task force to figure out what role can a group like Sierra Club play in that whole issue. And it really varies a lot. But we have done quite a bit in different chapters, very like Hawaii, for example, our chapter there played a lead role in having a lot of the same discussions that are going on for a month about how do we rethink emergency management and redraw our flood maps and all those things. So a lot of that, and it varies a lot around the country. So it's interesting to hear how much is going on here in Vermont. And I'm pretty encouraged by what we have done. I think the fact that, you know, we have a concerned population of strong democratic streak, meaning a small D, democratic streak participation and, you know, Irene obviously pushed us one out. So I'd like to focus on a few things here. I want to talk a little bit about the basic choices we have in front of us and then address some of the issues that I see with 688. I guess before I get very far, I'll say I really strongly support what you've got here and I appreciate the evolution of this from what it looked like in the spring time when I was, had a lot of concern. And I think there are a lot of great things that have been added to it. So you've seen this slide before. Lauren Oates talked about this issue. And I just wanted to put it up here because I think it says a lot about what our basic choices are. These are basically two model runs or it's more complex than that, multiple model runs. But there are two scenarios. They're kind of a what if scenario. If you plug in certain, and particularly our CP means represent a concentration pathways. So is this a low emission scenario or a high emission scenario? One on the right, the 8.5 there represents business as usual, that's where we're headed. The one on the left is essentially the two degree scenario that's mentioned in the IPCC. It's actually a snapshot of the end of the century. So two degrees by the end of the century. But it shows what kinds of changes are in store for us in those two scenarios. And to me, it represents both the adaptation side of thinking and the mitigation side. The mitigation side is really which path are we down? Are we down this path? And we don't worry about how much carbon dioxide we've put in here. Are we on this side where we do the really hard work of reducing carbon dioxide? Either one of these, as you can see, shows big changes for our part of the country. Maybe I can't quite match the colors here, but I think we're in the 20 to 29 range here by the end of the century, 29, 20 to 29% increase, you recall Lauren describing this in how much water is in the biggest storms over the top 1% of the storms. So how bad are the biggest storms? How bad are the storms that we really have to plan for? This one is a 40% increase. So that's kind of what we're talking about in terms of choices for how aggressively we reduce CO2 and how hard we have to plan for adaptation. This next slide is similar. This is today observed. This is the two in the middle of the low scenario, low emissions, mid-century and end of century. And here's the end of the, mid-century, both mid-century, sorry. And here are the two end of century. So by the end of the century, we're talking about either a temperature increase, now we're talking Fahrenheit degrees here, about, I think it matches with the three or four. I guess I'll call it the three. And this one is up in the eight degree range for increase. So again, that's the choice. Are we, in the end of the century, just a three or four degrees or eight degrees, which is a huge difference in terms of how that disrupts our climate system. What kinds of storms, the frequency of storms, the droughts, the fires, everything you've been seeing. So, let's see. So I thought this, I know it's been a lot of time, but I think there are a lot of great things that have been put into 688 that weren't there in the springtime. So, just, I know we're gonna be short on time here, so I'm just gonna move beyond this. So there are a few areas that I want to address where I think that there are improvements that could happen. There's a set of questions here about what are the goals. And as I read the bill, it's a little confusing to me. The goal that's stated there for 2050 is 80, not less than 80% by 2050. I'm not sure what that means. The way I read it, I think it means that 80% is fine. Period. There's other language, talking about net zero, and language about 20% alternative reductions are offsets. And I think it's meant to mean that it's really net zero, but with 20% offsets, you get back to not less than 80%. I'm not sure if that's correct. But I find the fact that I can't quite figure it out to be maybe, maybe could you do some language in there. So the other aspect of that that is concerning to me is that the whole subject of offsets has plagued carbon reduction systems around the world since they have started. And it's meant impacts that weren't intended. It's meant, it's hard to manage. Some of these are very hard to measure and enforce. So it's great that there's language in there. This language I think comes from the Reggie program, which saw some of those problems and tried to fix them with this kind of language. And that's really, really important. But at the same time, we would like to see that 20% number reduced to 10% to make sure that the reductions are happy because they're so important. So, well, here's, this is close to language I would promote that it's, that the target is really net zero with as much as 10% achieved through offsets. I think offsets are important. I think, you know, that you need a safety valve of some kind for a program like this. So to some degree, that's great. I will get back to this later that in fact, the IPCC one and a half degree report stresses that in order to achieve those, to give ourselves a better chance of avoiding the runaway climate impacts with the feedback systems and everything, we also need to remove carbon from there beyond 100%. So I'm calling this beyond net zero, beyond 100%. If you look at that study, you'd see that it's calling for things. And some of them are out of our control now and don't even exist. You know, the technological approaches to carbon dioxide removal that are costing like $100 a ton right now at best. But that's going to evolve and sometime that's gonna be part of, I think our best bet right now is the nature-based carbon dioxide removal that's been discussed. Just a question. Yes. Do you mind if I get your questions? Steve, talking about the offsets, I'm assuming that you mean an actual carbon offset as opposed to something like an alternative compliance payment. Yes, yes. And I guess I should mention that typically, and in my written comments, you'll see this, Regi, for example, has a system where if you have a project that, and they've only approved one. There's Regi, it's been around for more than a decade, but they have only approved one offset potential project and that happens to be a landfill methane in Maryland in some of these. And if you can't, and that is certified for a certain quantity of carbon offsets allowances for reducing carbon emissions. I don't think anybody has taken advantage of it yet, but the idea is that somebody has a concept for carbon reduction. They get it approved, and then emitters, I don't know who would do this, the state or some private emitter, I don't know how the system would work out, but they would pay that project for its carbon allowances. So that's a piece of the puzzle if it's, I'm seeing some confused faces here, but I think it is confusing. I think it's something worth looking at and it's a missing piece in this. It might have to come later, but how does anybody contemplate seeing an offset system work? We've talked a little bit about this and you may have been here for some of the testimony we took in that this really is an evolving area. And whether we're talking about some of the natural solutions that Vermont maybe has access to that frankly some more suburban states might not, New York very specifically, and I'm totally reading between the lines that they struggled with this in their legislation, their Global Orange Solutions Act. And one of the things that they really tried to focus in on was these offset type programs that again, they'd be real enforceable and also there's a localized element to that where you have a, for lack of a better term, a polluter that is challenged in transitioning to a cleaner fuel for whatever reason because of constraints within the industry that they can move to an offset program, but it's got to be local, it's got to be new, it's got to be auditable. There are a variety of things that I think New York can look to but it seems to be an evolving area. I think some aspects of the problem with offsets are not things that face us here in Vermont. Like in some places, let's say you have a factory that is polluting a neighborhood right next to the factory and it might be, typically it's a neighborhood where people don't have resources to fight it or do anything about it. So you have a real environmental justice problem in that neighborhood. But that plant is allowed to keep going because it can buy offsets in some forest in Indonesia. And that displaces a group of people that are living off the land and now they can't. So there are problems that happen with these things. In the local context in Vermont, you don't have too many of those kinds of communities here that are directly downwind from a factory. So let's see. Okay, so next I wanna talk a little bit about the greenhouse gas inventory. I think there are some issues here. Probably the, I think you've identified, it's probably listening to the testimony about that. You know, it's a three year delay right now before we get the official inventory. And that's tough when you're talking about a five year cycle for compliance. You know, for the last year or so, people have been talking about how our emissions have been going up, they've been going up. But in fact, three years ago, they started going down. And so, does that make sense? And so that it makes it hard to be right on top of things because it's delayed. I think there is, oh, I guess a point about 30 years is that once we get started on this system, it's gonna be really important to have the system as good as it possibly could be because it's gonna stick around for a while. It's gonna be difficult to fix it later once things get rolling. So I think it's worth getting it right now, putting some extra resources into it. I think we're probably gonna be helpful. In my written testimony, I pasted the Section 582 at the end of that written testimony. And you can see some of the law in statute. In one section, I think it's 582 GE, it says the agency natural resources may make rules about this process. In 582 G, it says they shall make rules. And they've gone with the may and they haven't made rules to guide the process. And I think that's super, super important because I see rulemaking as bringing the best science, shining a light on it so that people can see what's going on and provides input from all points of view to get that right. And it makes it stay consistent. So I think that establishing rules that guide this is really important. And so I think that could be cleaned up. And there are three areas here and there are actually others to that, some of which I listed in my written comment, but there are a number of places where there are hidden emissions in our inventory system. And I've listed up here fugitive emissions from methane. We count, they say the burner tip, we count the carbon dioxide emissions after you burn the methane to produce electricity, which we import from other states or in homes. But when we don't count, we count a little bit for distribution system emissions, a tiny, tiny portion. But we don't count the extraction emissions, the storage system emissions. And people have done some really good studies of these to using special photography and see the plume of methane around a storage facility or extraction facility. And it's dramatic. Methane is important, you may be aware that methane over a 20 year span every pound of methane is 86 times the global warming impact as a pound of carbon dioxide. So it's super important. And it turns out that if you really do take that overall picture into effect, the impact of natural gas is twice what it's assumed to be just from the combustion, so double. And that's an important part of our inventory. Yeah, Steve, when we talk about fugitive emissions that occur at the well end or whatever, that's outside of Vermont because we don't produce any methane in it. So if we were to count that, will we be double counting if those are counted in another state's emissions? That's an important question. And the answer is yes. But I think it's, but because of that, I think that it almost works out that we need to have a double counting system, two sets of books, one to recognize the impacts of our use and another to recognize the impacts of our sources. We already, it actually is in law that we count emissions from out of state. So when we import electricity, we count the methane emissions from those power plants, even though we don't, they're not here. We count them. And Reggie only counts in state. So there's two sets of books right there. So it's not hard to do. And as long as you're clear and you're not cheating about it, it's okay to have those two sets of books. And the other reason the question is, you're measuring which set of books need to use. And when you're reporting to the state for this purpose or when you're reporting to the international, we're part of the IPCC based reporting system. And so the double counting is important to recognize if you get it right. Yes, I think that's a really important point. Biomass, I think you heard our A&R inventory guys say that they do not count biomass in their inventory system. And we know that biomass is not carbon neutral. It used to be just accepted that it was. But study after study, in fact, I've attached a study that the gentleman from Massachusetts, David Cash mentioned biomass. He said that they had assumed it was carbon neutral, but then they had studies done and discovered, oh wait a minute, sometimes burning biomass for electricity is just as carbon meaning as burning coal for electricity. And they have, the study is pretty dramatic that way. It does depend a lot on forest practices. It depends on which wood are you using. Forests vary and practices vary and plants vary. Power plants vary. So there's a huge amount of variation in that, but it was enough of a concern that they shut down the program in Massachusetts. They said, no, we're not gonna have this big biomass enhancement program. And we're talking particularly about biomass for electricity. The numbers are different and the sources are different when you're talking about burning wood stove or getting your pellets for heating your school or something, but now for electricity, it's a big deal and we don't count it. And then the other one there is large hydro. Large hydro has huge impacts both in terms of the amount of forest that you have to clear. We're talking here about enhancing carbon sequestration in forests. And at the same time we're talking about 12,000 square miles of forest has been cut in Canada to accommodate the reservoirs. Our percentage of that for Vermont's electricity might be about 100 square miles. But still we're talking about sequestering carbon as an asset, but we're ignoring the fact that we're cutting hundreds of square miles of forest to provide our energy, our electricity. The other aspect of that is the reservoirs. The reservoirs themselves emit carbon and it varies from place to place. If it's a forest that's been underneath that reservoir, that's one set of conditions. If it was a peat land that's been building up for many thousands of years, that's another set of maybe two or three times the emissions. And some of it's in carbon dioxide, some of it's in methane, but it's ignored. It's all assumed. I think I wouldn't be surprised if most of the people in the room assume that carbon, that hydrogobeck, for example, provides a carbon-free resource and it really doesn't, in both perspectives. So we aren't gonna ask you to adjudicate that whole thing and figure it all out, but I think it should be specified, especially because A&R chose not to look at those issues that when they get charged with, go make this set of rules, that if you spell out that these sets of emissions get included in their rulemaking. And then when they do that, they will have to develop the science and it's part of their rulemaking process of it. Here's the science we base this on and provide opportunities for input from the right sources. So that's a recommendation that we have. The last thing here is that I actually think that it will be helpful if this particular part of the rulemaking gets separated out from the rest of the rulemaking that goes through the council and the agency over the next couple of years. Because it could be done faster, it's a fairly well-defined field and I think it would inform that planning process about, you know, this is a pretty big sector that we're talking about here. You know, I guess a perspective on how big the sector is if we're successful at everything else we're talking about with electrifying thermal energy, electrifying transportation, this becomes our biggest carbon emitter is these things that we are not looking at at all. If we really successful at electrification, then this is super, super important as far as a percentage of our emissions. So with regards to the large cycle, given that the dams are already there and the source of power is already there, we're not going to drain the reservoirs or anything like that or get back to forests and all that. So why not count that seen as how we aren't burning because replacing fossil fuels will otherwise burn? Why not count that as a positive ring of energy? Let me first say, in this, I'm not really bringing up the question of renewable. That would be a whole other discussion involving, you know, what are renewable definitions about things growing back faster than we use them. And that's, I don't, in my view, that's not possible. It just, I can't make sense out of that in any way that forest is not growing back. The fishery resource that's, you know, poisoned with methylmercury is not going back. The wildlife is not. So those are the resources that's being used up and nobody even thinks that's going to grow back. So I would stay away from the renewable question, but the carbon issue, it's, I guess I'd say two things about that. Certainly the forest is not absorbing carbon anymore and the reservoirs are still giving off carbon. So both of those things are so happening. Plus, when you think of the whole situation in the Northeast where everybody's looking for places to get clean energy and people are talking about power lines and so on to get more power from the North and there's no question that the provincial power, you know, Hydro-Coback and Nalcor, which are both, you know, youth and women in the Labrador, power companies are growing and they want to build more. They're just finishing a couple of plans. Each province is just now finishing one and they have more plans. So every bit that we do to add to the demand is pushing them to build more. And we're part of the Northeast region that's all doing the same thing. So, you know, I find that a difficult question to answer directly, but I think that, you know, part of it is the fact that it really is happening and it's just a matter of recognizing it's happening. And secondly, there's the growth that's happening. Let's see. So, nature-based adaptation. I want to bring up a sector of considerations that I think are missing from the charge to the council and from the rulemaking. And you've heard some of this come up already in relation to forests and forest carbon. But I think that these several pieces fit together well and would constitute a fourth sector. First of all, this concept of ecosystem support, you know, nature's got to adapt also. The plants and animals around us have adaptation challenges just as we do with the changing temperatures and precipitation patterns. We're in the, people say we're in the middle of the next great extinction. And this is part of, you know, it's happening here, too. There are, you know, other opportunities for us to provide migratory connectivity for wildlife in Vermont. What do we do about exotic species? Does this change how we think about invasives? Where, you know, things are migrating because the climate is migrating sort of. So, how can we know the difference? Between an invasive species and one that's just stretching its range, adapting to the new conditions. So there's several of those issues related to what I call ecosystem support. Just recognizing that our ecosystems are victims of this as well. Farms is another issue. Whether it's too much water, too little water, longer growing season, soil considerations, are there things that, you know, our farms are going to need to do some changing over the long haul? Our food supply is a huge issue that we don't talk about too much. But when you look around the world of where we get our food now, let's say the Central Valley of California is a huge source of food for us. They're facing long-term water stress. If you look at the Midwest, that line between arable land on the east and desert on the west, that line is gradually moving east. So we're losing land. People predict that for key crops. We're probably gonna see a decrease in maybe 20% of the amount of food that can be grown. At the same time, our population is growing. So that loss of food supply region is gonna bite us. And I don't know how many decades down the road that is, but I think what it means is that where we will have water, if not too much water, we aren't gonna be a desert. And so how can we adapt to that? How can we prepare? One of the issues I see with that is every time I see another piece of farmland that gets eaten up for development, I think, well, there goes my granddaughter's food supply. We have an incredible community of people in Vermont that are looking at better ways to manage soil. Capturing carbon and soil, improving the nutrient capacity, decreasing pollution runoff from soils. So it's very possible that some of our soils that are run less productive will become more productive. So there's a lot in this arena that, and we had some great people in Vermont, what I'd recommend is that this be added to the list of concerns as a sector. I think I'm gonna, well, this is sort of bad. But just on the question of forest, carbon, and the IPCC report talking about going beyond net zero, this is essentially their 1.5 degree pathway, showing that if we, you know, here's the zero line, it's not enough for us to just get down to zero, we have to add and add carbon dioxide removal. And a lot of the yellow, I think, here is some of the technological based, but there's an important role in the green strip there for nature-based carbon dioxide removal. And I think that's, you know, we have a great opportunity for that here in Vermont. So my last recommendation is gonna be about the, and you don't have to read this whole list, but this, I just tried to, you know, brainstorm, well, what are some of the areas of expertise? And I'm sure that when you came up with your list of 21 people to be on the council, it was really hard to get it down to that. And I think it's important to think about, I'm gonna recommend expanding that. I wouldn't recommend expanding the council itself. It's already pretty big. And so what I'm gonna recommend or suggest, let me put it that way, is a slight variation. And this suggestion includes keeping the climate council pretty much as you've already defined it, but then making these subgroups more important and perhaps larger, inviting additional people into the subgroups. So right here, cross-sector mitigation, just transition and rural resiliency and adaptation, those are the three that you already have in the bill as the three subcommittees. And here's my fourth recommendation. But for what I'm gonna suggest is that on each one of these subcommittees, you have a couple of people from the council itself, probably the chair, a chair. I would suggest including agency staff, not necessarily the secretary of the agency, but the people who are hands-on working on those issues. Because this stuff is so important that it's, I think that provides a connection to the reality of how this plays out in the state. It provides the state's expertise. But also, I think this stuff is so important that you have if this is gonna be more or less volunteer driven, you have to make sure that there is a core there that's gonna pull it all together. So that's why I'm suggesting that you have some staff people on these subcommittees. And you could add people. And you could, what I would think of doing is looking at each one of these subgroups to think about, well, that's where I'd look at where I want the expertise. What expertise do we need here? What expertise do we need here in each one of these? And then out of that, create the council. So that's just, I know that there are probably a thousand ways to set this thing up. And this is just one set of suggestions here that, and I think it's, one of the values of this would be that we have this complex problem and it's gonna take everybody to be part of this. It's, everyone was saying it might be about using used clothes. It gets into, it's everybody that has to be part of this. So the more people who can be on board as part of the solution, the better. And I think that that enhances communication, enhances participation. So I think that's the way I think of the kind of transition we're facing. This seems to me to be the kind of structure that would, oh, oops, there we go. Okay. And my final point here is that in and of itself, World War II Solutions Act isn't going to do much. It's gonna be almost like steering the ship in a way, and it's gonna be the accountability mechanism, but it's really all the other programs and efforts that are gonna make this happen. If you look at the report, there was a report actually, I attached it at the back of my written comments from Massachusetts about their implementation. And you look at where the implementation, where their carbon reductions, et cetera, coming from, it's not from the act itself. It's from all the other programs that are related to it. So the first one that comes to my mind about kicking things into gear quickly, which our students were talking about is the Green New Deal concept, where you actually figure out a way to find money that will, and it's gonna take investments. So that's why I've listed that there. But then there are others. There are others, the handful of bills that you folks are proposing and have on the table that all will contribute to this. So as soon as we move, both more effective and less expensive. So that's my last plea to you folks. I think what you're doing with this is really important. Probably in the years that I've been working on the climate action here in Vermont, I think this is the most important and greatest potential for any of those proposals so far. So thank you very much for... Thank you so much. Thank you. So I'm Ed Larson. Yes, ecosystem. I am representing the Vermont Forest Products Association. And I thank you for the opportunity to testify and speak to H688. I'm a slave forester, a licensed forester. So I'm a practitioner. I have two temporary sales going right now and I've started the third one this week. So you know where I spend my weekends. Which is great. But I mean, here all week I can brown myself and be out with the forest, do my thing. But I am one of them. I live there in a life higher than me because I am one of them and I think like they do. I kind of have a pretty good idea of what their challenges are. Like I know what their challenges are. And how we move forward. We had our annual meeting this past Saturday. And I gave them a good rundown on some of the things that are going on up here. This was one of the bills I brought to their attention. I have to say that I'm not positioned to be all that helpful to you in moving this forward. I had about 50, just under 50 business owners were there at this meeting. And I didn't get a single thumbs up for this bill. They are very mindful of your goals, support your goals, but are also very fearful of what that means to them and their businesses and their ability to move forward. And there's a lot to this. It's a very complicated subject. Something that I can't say I can get my brain around easily. I can deal with current youth taxation and all those details. I've done them for many, many years. This is a little bit of a different animal. But I'm gonna do my best to represent them here. One thing that you did learn from our commissioner, Mike Snyder of Forest Parks and Recreation, that his fact that he has that 47% carbon emissions from Vermont are being absorbed in Vermont's forests. So in my simple mind, I'd like to say, hey, because of us, we're halfway there. And that is part of our message that the forest matter, the forest are important, no matter what other people say or think. And in a big way, in fact, the only way is because we have an industry that is there to keep our landowners happy, give them money for their trees, have an economy that supports our rural communities. And we didn't know that we were doing such great work storing carbon all these years. We didn't know it was that important till now. And so that is definitely an important component to your process, your thinking, our thinking, of how we capture this. So my role is to continue to talk about how we can make that more than 50% of the solution and maintain a very viable forest products economy. And I think it's doable, I think it fits. I think it fits very well. But this bill has a lot of fearful components to it that could displace some of our efforts to grow our businesses. We have the same challenges everybody else has. We're a grain economy, we're a grain workforce. Finding young people to invest, the millions of dollars they need to invest in equipment is a big challenge. I am seeing, I had two loggers retire on me two years ago and I had a hard time finding anybody, but now I have three 30-somethings that have bought equipment and are now operating in the forest and are enjoying it and are doing very well and have good business sense and are making a difference. And so it's making my life a lot easier and I notice a few other foresters are kind of pleased to say that they have found some new blood in our industry. So that's a good positive thing. Very important thing to see. And can I ask you about those people? Sure. About those three foresters? About loggers. Loggers, excuse me. Are they Vermonters by birth? Did they move here? Is this a family trade? Can you tell me a little bit about them? All three are locals. I've been such a Vermont, I live in my palier. Two of them are out of Bairy. The other ones out of Hardwick. And yes, they grew up here. They were born here. Two of them are generational. One is not. So yeah, it's a little appalled. But no one came in from out of state to buy the equipment and then work here. I didn't know how that happened. Was there anything in particular that was helpful to them in terms of picking up the business? Was it finance? I don't know the answer to that. I really didn't ask them what got them started. I don't want to get too far off. Where did they, did you inherit money? Or how did you finance your business? And I didn't ask any of those questions. Did you want to make sure they had a insurance policy? That they're safe, that they pay their bills, and they leave the land the way that I expected it as a practicing forester? I represent, by the way, all sectors of that economy, landowners, loggers, foresters, sawmills, paper mills, biomass plants, and all the other value added. So from the stump to the consumer, we have members from all of those sectors in our membership, in our association. So we are the only one in Vermont that really represents the whole gamut. And we're the only one that really comes in here and has someone here every day working with you to do this work. So I've been the go-to guy for 28 years, and that's great. Okay, thank you. So, Ed, what do your foresters and loggers see as the threat that the Global Warming Solutions Act poses to the industry? Well, as you heard from Mr. Coda, diesel is our lifeblood. It really is. Bio-diso doesn't really work out in the forest with our skitters, because they don't operate when it's cold, it gels up. It's terrible to work with. I suppose we could put heat or tank heaters on them, but they'd have to be on all night long while we're not there with them. A truck, you maybe you could put into a garage or something to kind of keep it from the weather. So moving away from diesel is a very painful process for us, because there's nothing to replace it. And so we do, it's not only in logging, it's in hauling the wood, pulling the wood, hauling the wood, and in the manufacturing process too, many places. I had a sawmill back in the 80s, and I was incentivized to buy a diesel generator. And there's still many of them out there. And most of them are back up now, but they're still there. So we have diesel is our lifeblood. So that's why TCI is such a concern to us, because moving, we'll be trying to move us away from diesel when there's no alternative. That's very, that's just one of the issues. It's the next step. It's the question of what happens when we don't reach our goal, our mandate. What happens then? Where are we left? And it's the fear of that kind of unknown. And I think we all share that here, but we're asking questions and we want to get some answers. It's important that we do get those answers. So that's a couple of the points I wanted to bring up to answer your question. So in the bill itself, I wanted to bring your attention to a few things that I flagged. My first one is actually on page eight, talking about the membership of your council. You have the Senate committee on committees, appoint one member to represent farm and forest sector. I would recommend you add one, one ag and one forest. If you, in that position, is an agriculture specialist or an expert, I think we lose the message of the forest. I think we lose that perspective that you're looking at. We haven't been suggesting from someone else. Yeah, I think you did hear that. Yes, and that's good because I think that's key. I think you also heard from the same individual that you should be someone in the manufacturing sector. Manufacturing is a big part of what has value to our forest and that we have an economy and we can compete on a global marketplace. And so having representative in the manufacturing sector, it doesn't have to be a solid or a forced products enterprise, but I think having that person would be helpful to all of us. I didn't get to, I didn't flag a whole lot about your charge in what you're asking the council to do. I think that the subcommittees are very important. I would even agree with Mr. Crowley that maybe more emphasis on the subcommittees and their expertise would be more important than a big old council. I kind of get that. I've been on a number of councils. I've been on our regional planning commission. I've been in small groups, our board. We had 35 on the forced products association board. When I started, we were now down to 18, a much more manageable number. So I get that and we do depend a lot on outside sources for information and we create subcommittees which does the deep dive. And so yeah, I think having that, I haven't really thought about his recommendation of an ecosystem agriculture subcommittee. But that's certainly if that was created, we'll do one, I'd be paying a lot of attention to it. We try to chime in on this, which is accurate. But I haven't really thought through whether that's important or valuable or whether that would endorse or support. But it's an interesting thought. So the rulemaking process is, it's difficult for me to try to get my brain around. I've been involved in rulemaking and with legislative actions and authority to direct an agency to make rules and promulgate them and then been involved in the rulemaking process. This seems to short circuit a step. I think you heard this testimony too before. Seems to be a short circuit a step that you have the commission actually direct the agency to write rules and you're giving them the authority to do that. I'm asking you not to abdicate that. That really should stay with you. Let the council do their work with the subcommittees do their work, make their recommendations, put together what their programs and projects are, identify what the rulemaking authority would need or legislation that you would need to have. But bring it back in here and deliver it through here. I think that's important. It's a president that kind of takes me back to pre-AP-AP's and actually I was here a little bit before that administrative procedures act was made into law which really kind of helped put bumpers on that whole rulemaking process to kept agencies really addressing legislative intent and keep staying away from arbitrary decision making which would get that whole law was intended to do. I'd hate to upset that. I know it may slow things down and I understand the impatience that people have and we're very mindful of all that. We could even share some of that but getting it right, having a good deliberative process and holding to people who we elect accountable is how our government should operate. So that's a principle that we will defend. And one of the fearful statements in here is the judge saying, I'm going to make a foreshake prompt and effective action. That how do we get our brain around that? What does that mean? If indeed you set a goal that we all want to aspire to and we all feel is the way to go and is right, we're all going to row in that direction. We're all going to put an order in the water and go in that direction. To sue ourselves because we're failing at making that doesn't seem productive to me. First of all, it's going to cost us money to defend ourselves and second of all, that money could be used to actually figure out how to make that plan work. So I'm not a fan of this call, this action page, this whole cause of action, citizen action, citizen things like that. Just like we're not a fan of statewide resolutions either. We like to work with the experts, we like to work with the leaders, the people who make the decisions and find the answer and find the solution. I'm fearful of a judge just saying, do it and we don't care the consequences to parts. Rural communities, to our citizens, to our economy, to our business owners. He just reads the law, she just reads the law and says, do it. And you folks have a chance to, should have a chance to. Okay, we're all in it together, we're not quite getting there, how do we get there? Let's not put ourselves in front of a judge and go through all of that, I cannot support that. And can I ask you about the prompt and effective? I just want to make sure I understand your concern. It's mostly that I just don't understand it myself. Yeah, yeah, well that's fine and that's telling you that's else. But on page 20 of the bill, it's one of the places that I think you would say, which is the cause of action section. That's for not promulgating the rule, right? And then the second one on 21 is for not, for the rule not reaching the goal. Right, same language. Right, same language, yeah. The consequence of not making the rule is just telling you shall do it. Okay, you know, fine. But the consequence of failing to reach the goal that that rule was intended to make, that's a different animal. Right, and okay, so on page 21, again I just want to understand what's not clear or specifically the concern. So at the bottom of page 21, if the targets aren't met, subsection three here, the targets aren't met. And then the language that you reference is the last sentence of three, which is if the court finds that the secretary is taking prompt and effective action to comply, the court may grant the secretary a reasonable period of time to do so. What I thought I heard you say was that it's incumbent upon the court to direct the secretary to take prompt and effective action, whatever that is. Well, doesn't that imply that in that sentence that if the secretary is not taking prompt and effective action that the court will say, you shall do so? What I, okay, and this is important because how you read this. Right, I'm not a lawyer, I'm just trying to figure it out. Neither am I, we had a lot more on this building. So this can be clarified, we want to do that. But how I read this is that in the instance that a court finds that the secretary here is in fact just taking prompt and effective action, that the court may grant the secretary a reasonable period of time to do that, but. Right, right. So, I'm flagging that. I think it's missing a step somehow. Okay. All right, I think it's missing something in there. Yeah. You're the second person that I use this one. You're being sued. Yeah. If the secretary is being sued, I guess, directed at that individual, we're all being sued because we're all in the state. But if that secretary changes something very quickly, what is that? Okay, because maybe I would assume that that individual is being sued because the action is not prompt and effective. Okay? And then all of a sudden, boom. I'm stepping on the gas and I, terrible analogy. I'm moving forward to implement this rule and I'm taking prompt and effective action. And the hell with the soft and gentle way I was trying to ease this into the economy could be very disruptive. So that's a fear. And then if the secretary is just moving along in the same pace and is being sued for moving along at that slow pace, what does the judge say? You're not moving promptly and effectively. You shall do so. What is that? So that's my whole question around that whole paragraph. It's clear what it says. But I'm deep diving this thing. I'm looking, what is this really? Me and how is this? If it was a reality, how are we gonna play out? And how are we gonna read it on the front page of the newspaper? And paper is good. Paper is good. And paper kind of blends itself to my next question. So as you know, our forest economy, our wood sector is definitely susceptible to regional and global market forces. Definitely so. And so one of the things that I worry about as a world remonder representing rural districts is regardless of what happens in this building, the effect of adaptation to climate change that is happening in our country, in New England and the globe, and how that may impact my constituents, how that may impact your loggers. And so my question for you is, do your loggers, do your folks have any kind of working group or planning process or anything that is thinking about those future, the effects of those future economic and current economic forces on their activity? And to me, that's really important because I wanna understand how we can best support this critical industry. Well, I can't say we have a working group that's identified or is meant to do this, but we have some very talented, thoughtful and smart individuals that have the capacity and those conversations take place. Saturday was a very interesting day talking about the future, talking about how we adapt. I think I represent some of the most resilient people in Vermont, the work and the way they work and the weather patterns that we deal with. I try to be a fair weather forester, but I don't always have that choice. And I'm out there working in the rain and the sleet too, like I was last Sunday. So, but we have the capacity to be at the table with you, try to figure those things out. As you know, our biggest challenge right now is the lower grain low quality wood. It makes a lot of sense to take that wood and find a market for it while we're in there taking out the high quality saw timber because we're trying to make it sustainably. I mean, sustainability is a huge principle for us. We want our children and grandchildren to have nice saw logs for their economy, for their wood uses and wood needs. So we got to get rid of the low grain so that there's room for us to manage the forest sustainably. So we need markets for that because you know, right now a lot of two of my older loggers sold their chippers and it used to be great because you're bringing the whole tree. And I know some environmentalists think that we're ruining the soil, which is totally wrong. The soil's fine with the whole tree process. But we bring in the whole tree and it cut the saw logs out, you cut the pulp up and then you put the tops through the chipper and you set it to the biomass plant. And that added a few hundred dollars to the project every day, which made a huge difference. But they sold their chippers because you're not getting enough money, the only person making any money is the trucker. And we're not, we don't have enough truckers out there as it is, so. You know, I want to follow up. We adapt. Well, right, I want to follow up on this just a little bit and maybe put this out as, you know, maybe to be continued. I recognize the stress that rural Vermont and rural America is under and you do represent a really critical industry in our state, in our country. And so how can we support that industry adapting? So I would really like, if you have, if your members have really solid thoughts around that or ideas or suggestions or want to sit down and kind of work through that, I'm happy to sit with them. I'll take that charge to the group. Please do. And we'll come back to you and maybe you'd like to come to one of our board meetings or something like that. I'd be happy to. I'd leave my pillion during the session so that I don't have to direct too far. Very nice of them to do it. So they all come from all around the state. Thank you. I've got a question I have too. So this is just one bill. And I'm sure that Act 250 potential changes are critical to the group as well. Maybe even bills on the walls and a number of different committees. So how are you treating those as far as? Well, it's a very busy session, representative, it's a very busy session. Act 250 does have a bit of a, for the lack of a better way, a target on our landowners. And I'm very concerned about that. We're all worried about fragmentation. We worry about it too, but we're the answer. Regulation is not. We are the only answer to maintaining foreign blocks and habitat connectors. Given the landowner money for the landowner's trees is one of the best ways for that landowner to keep growing trees. Once they lose markets, which he just had a conversation about with the civilian, he represented the civilian, and the landowners start to think about the things. So your landowner has a hundred acres. He's desperate for money, for whatever reason, health care, education, whatever it is. He finds a developer who's willing to buy 20 acres. Okay, turn it into 10 months. He says, jeez, Mr. Landowner, I have to go through an additional review for fragmentation. It's gonna cost me another $10,000 to get that permit. So I'm gonna give you $10,000 less for your land. What, will you buy 30? That's how landowners think. I don't even want them to have to go there. We want them to not even have to go there. Happy growing trees, because there's markets for everything. They've got a forester that's managing their life, puts money in his or her pocket every 15, 20 years. They can pay their taxes, they can pay their bills, and they feel good about having that property, and they're making a difference, and they're storing carbon. Again, in my mind, adaptation can only go so far if, on the other end of things, they're cutting off at the knees. And that's the story I bring a lot to the table, trying to understand those consequences, and try to convey them to you. The carbon sequestration study that just took place has some promise, cautiously optimistic that that could be it. I'm looking at it more from 10,000 feet. Like I said, 47% for our carbon is being absorbed in our forest today. We think it could be a lot more than that. I think there's a lot more than that anyways. I think it could be a whole lot more than that. And if you do it right. But of course, if we sell all of our credits, then you can't count that. So I, you know, it's, which is the best way to go. So if you look at that, and I think that bill may come here someday. There is a bill in the Senate right now which talks about adding staff to the department to look at enabling such a process. Think big. Careful. I want to give landowners money, but I don't want to give them money and then lose the opportunity to make a difference. So it's gotta be mindful of these things. I've got a couple of math questions that may not be answerable directly, but I would like the information on as we're discussing the overall economic impact of the state and so forth. I was hoping you might be able to give us an idea of what the cost or profit difference per acre might be between what you currently do as a best practice. Excuse me, what you currently do as a best practice and what we're proposing as, I guess, an ideal carbon management practice. Like how would that impact the dollars in the pocket of the landowner or forester or whatever? Because I know it's not a lot more economical to clear the entire acre and process the whole thing. And if we're talking about strategic management that profit per acre presumably goes down. I can give you some of those numbers. Do you have any? Yeah, pretty much on the top of my head. I don't have the back of the envelope, but it's pretty accurate. And actually the current use program, there's a formula for how we assess the raised value of forest land for purposes of property tax. So a lot of these numbers go into those formulas. So I look at those quite regularly. We are now figuring that on the average forest land in Vermont, the average acre will generate about $15 per acre per year, sustainably. Okay. So if you cut every 20 years, that's what $300 an acre that the landowner would get as it proceeds. And of course, a lot of it makes about four times that. And then again, it's quadrupled again as it goes into the economy. So there's a lot of value at it. But $15 per acre per year is about the rule of thumb we've been using. I was operating at 10 when I started, so we moved up a little bit. Definitely haven't caught up with inflation there, but it's better. Management costs runs about $5. It doesn't matter what kind of management you're doing as far as whether you're whole tree cutting or selective, same individual tree selection or if you're doing a shelter wood or even a clear cut. $5 is about the same on all of those as far as per acre per year management costs. Because you got to put in culverts, you got to put in bridges, building roads, all those are included in that $5. So it's a net of 10 to the landowner. And they're paying about $3, maybe $4 per acre in property taxes, they're in use value. So the rest can be theirs. And then they cover findings costs, things like that. So there's a little bit there for the landowner. And every 15, 20 years they can capture that. Amortize that over the life of that cutting cycle. Climate prescriptions, what I'm seeing is it's recommendations to go to longer rotation cycles, longer cutting cycles, grow the trees a little bit bigger for a little bit longer period of time. I'm not a scientist percent, I'm a forester of biologists, if you will, but not that knowledgeable of the differences, but there may be a little bit of a gain in longer rotation cycles, cutting cycles. But if the forest is already overstocked or well stocked, which statewide we are now fully stocked, that growth rate and that carbon storage rate, I don't see it accelerating, I see it slowing. By moving some of those bigger trees out of the way, make room for new trees that are more vigorous, real faster. That theory to me still makes more sense. So I don't see the gain in longer rotation cycles and cutting cycles, especially when you're going to frustrate a landowner and put that landowner in an epoch and make choices that we all want them to make or her to make. If I'm understanding it correctly, it's not a huge financial difference based on the cutting cycles or patterns. Well, it wouldn't be much of a financial except that you have to wait longer to get paid for, because if you're going 30 years instead of 20 years to enter that stand and cut, or if you're going to wait 150 years instead of 90 years for a climax forest to mature to the point where you will clear cut starting at, which even age management is a pretty good, a valid prescription for a lot like white birch, aspen, really successful trees, which the birds love. No, the manager cost, I don't think it's any different other than the longer time wait period for the money. But I was storing more carbon that way. And I don't see that we are, maybe a little bit, but not enough I think to warrant. So I would say that what we're doing is pretty darn good right now. And the management clients that you see that we are writing for eligibility to the Use Value Precious Program are pretty good right now. So I'm not asking to change that. I will be at the table to talk about that. And if I'm proven wrong, I'll stand corrected. But I don't see how that gives us a gain. The second one is fuel related. As I understand it, all the logging products need to leave the state in order to be processed. We have 16 sawmills in Vermont. When I owned my sawmill, there were 55 of us. Okay. It's a big change in 30 years. But we still have some markets. The three jobs I have going right now, well I have two going one certain this week. I have to guess a little bit, but I would say half of it's going to Canada, up to mills. 20% maybe going to New York on one side and then I got a little bit going to Maine and New Hampshire on the other. But we are shipping up to the pine. It's going to stay inside Vermont. And some of the hardwoods are going to go to Bristol and the mills into Vermont. So the real high value stock is going to stay in Vermont. The low value stock is going out. We are a net exporter of our raw material. That's true. But we do import a lot too. Particularly in our softwoods, we import a lot. Well hardwoods we import a lot too. There's a study that's done every couple of years by the Northeast Forestry Association. I haven't seen one in a couple of years. So we're due to see a new one. If I get that, I'd be happy to share that with you. It shows the inflows of raw material, the blocks in and out of the state, where they're going, how they're coming. So it's a very interesting study they did. I was kind of wondering if we could kind of get an idea for the amount of fuel consumed extra by having to ship stuff out of state to process. But it sounds like it's kind of a give and take and weak process for other states that don't have. Well, no, but you have a valid point. You do. And we would love to ship more of our wood locally. Which is why we're looking at X-250 as an opportunity to maybe encourage our investment in Vermont bills at secondary manufacturers. We'd like to keep it low because freight for logs is about half of what the cost of that material is. If you're getting $250 to $300 a thousand, about $100 of that is just the freight. So we'd like to get that down and we'd be more efficient. And we're doing everything we can. I mean, if you do nothing, we're going in the right direction. Every year, logger sell the skater. Some logger sells their old skater and buys a new one. Every year, some trucker sells his old truck, buys a new one, upgrades, lower particular matters, more efficiency, less fuel usage. I mean, we're going in the right direction, as it is. So anyways. Okay. So how can we encourage more use of that raw material that we're cutting in Vermont, in Vermont, I guess it's a question and one answer is, is that $250 in making that bus? I pay a lot of attention to the cost of doing business. That is our biggest impediment. We are the highest in our region on a per thousand per ton basis of managing timber in our region. We are the highest cost of doing business. So we are at a competitive disadvantage. So regulations are important, taxes are important. All of other general business issues are very important. Worker's compensation is very high. We have a deputy commissioner with Sam Lincoln looking really carefully at that and doing a great job. I think he's going to make a difference, but it's still going to keep us pretty high on the spectrum of where we stand with our favorite states, Canada. So it's the cost of doing business. Sure. But if we can squeeze a third of the cost of the finished material out of the cost by limiting the third or a sixth. Something never, by processing locally, right? By avoiding the shipping costs, right? Lower shipping costs, you create more jobs. Sure. You've got more investment. But NIMBY is a very strong and very modest, we all know. Who wants to saw mill in their backyard, you know, back to 50s, pretty powerful, you know. That's a lot of reasons. We had one mill try to expand his mill and the conditions he put on his permit are unworkable. He can't operate certain hours and he needs to survive. And he can't truck in one direction or the other. He has to go one on one way and just market the other way. So he has to try through the village, find a place to turn around and go back through. I mean, just, it all heads up. Yeah, oh. And I am in here trying to tell a story and try to keep your folks to be cognizant. I think that we have done a great job of understanding how important the forest is. I think we've all agreed that the forest is very important. It can do a lot for us, okay. But it's the people that I represent that are making it happen for you. So I'm asking you to be careful, pay attention to them and do what you can to empower them and not frustrate them. Simple message. Hard to accomplish, but a simple message. Thank you. Thank you, I appreciate it.