 So the Senate government operations, it is Tuesday, March 30th, and we're going to hear. The first thing on our agenda today is to, there are some emergency management issues that need to be cleared up, and I'm not exactly sure what they are. Deputy Commissioner Herrick brought them up to me a while ago, and I said that as soon as we got past crossover that we would take them up and see where we went with them and what we needed to do. So I think we have with us. So I'm going to suggest that we introduce ourselves because this looks like a crowd that isn't usually with us. So we'll introduce ourselves. I'm Jeanette White from Wyndham County. Hi, I'm Anthony Polina, Washington County. Ryan Collamore from Rotland County. Keisha Rom-Chittenden County. We will be joined, we hope by Senator Clarkson from Windsor County. So Chris, do you want to kick us off here and tell us what these are? I'm just going to say this because it's a new group. We don't use chat in here because we consider it a sidebar conversation and if we were in the state house, we would ask you to go out in the hall and have your conversation. So what we do use it for though is if you refer to any documents or anything like that, that you can send them to Gail and she'll post them there or any links. Okay. Thanks. Chris. Great. Well, thank you, Senator White and committee. My name is Chris Herrick. I'm the Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety and as Madam Chair indicated, I spoke to her some time ago about some issues that actually Director Borneman had raised regarding the local emergency planning committees. There's been a lot of work at the State Emergency Response Commission, so we have representatives from there as well. They want to educate you a little bit on some of the issues that they're seeing, and with maybe some proposed solutions. So without any further ado, I will turn it over to Director Borneman. I know she has a presentation and I'll let her carry the water on this. So thank you. Thanks. Okay. Director Borneman, do you want to fill us in here? All right. Thanks Deputy Commissioner Herrick. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Erica Borneman. I'm the Director of Emergency Management, and we are very happy to have the opportunity to talk with you this afternoon about local emergency planning committees and the State Emergency Response Commission. With me this afternoon, I have Tori Littlefield, who is with Two Rivers Aduquici Regional Commission, Chief Pat McLaughlin, who is the Chief of the Hazardous Materials Response Team, and Kim LaPierre, who is the State Emergency Response Commission Chair, and is with Suburban Propane. So if I could, I'd love to share my screen so that you could see our slides. Is that something I can do today? I'm going to try it. Yeah, I think Gail might need to give you, I'm not sure how that works, but Gail knows. Gail, am I allowed to share my screen here, or I think you've also put some meeting notes in the chat? I just, I just made you co-host, Erica. So you can share it, are you ready? Awesome. Okay. Okay. So, okay, can you see a, yes, it looks like you can see my screen. Perfect. Okay. So today we'd like to talk to you a little bit about some of the exciting plans for local emergency planning committees, and a path forward from the State Emergency Response Commission. And, and like I said, joining us today is a number of the folks on the State Emergency Response Commission, and they're going to do most of the talking because they've done quite a bit of work on this concept. And really we're, we're just looking to have this be an open discussion. And to talk about some of the, some of the future plans for LEPCs and how they intersect with some of the statutory changes we'll be looking for. So today's purpose is to present an overview of the state hazardous materials, emergency planning organizations and planned shift to single statewide local emergency planning committee. And again, like I said, we're just providing some background information on these as well as presenting a justification and rationale for updating the relevant sections of title 20, under which the local emergency planning committees and state emergency response commission is housed. So we'll give you a little bit of the history of those and their current status as well as detail what the role of the responsibilities of LEPCs are. And as well as how they're funded through the has chem fund. And then we'll talk a little bit about the way ahead. And we'll do our best. We will do our level best not to speak in acronyms, but I have to warn you that we are an emergency management bunch. And we do a lot of acronyms. So we'll keep, we'll try and police ourselves on that a little bit. Okay. So I'm going to say that if. Would you prefer we ask, say any questions till the end of your presentation? That would probably be helpful because in, you know, some of the slides may beg some questions and I think a lot of them will be answered in the slides. It's not many slides. So great. Right through them. We'll have plenty of time for questions afterwards. Okay, great. Okay. Right. I think I'm going to toss it over to Kim LaPierre. Good afternoon for the record. My name is Kim LaPierre. I'm the chair of the state emergency response commission and technical training manager for suburban propane. I'd like to thank you for your time and consideration today. So let's walk through a brief history of the establishment of the state emergency response commission, the CERC and local emergency planning committees, LEPCs. So as with most congressional acts that were triggering events, December 1984. But Paul India, there was a release of an extremely hazardous chemical methyl isocyanate. It was a release from a union carbide chemical plant. Thousands of people were exposed and thousands died that night. And what is considered to be a critical impact? Six months later, 1985 takes us to institute West Virginia. A similar chemical release occurred at an industrial facility. Six people were hospital hospitalized. In response on October 17th, 1986, Congress passed the emergency planning and community right to know act. EPCRA. Regulations implementing EPCRA are codified in title 40 of the code of federal regulations parts 350 to 372. EPCRA established requirements for federal, state and local governments, Indian tribes, industrial facilities. All regarding emergency planning and community right to know reporting of hazardous and toxic chemicals. EPCRA has four major provisions. Emergency planning, notification and emergency response plans, emergency release notification, hazardous chemical inventory reporting and toxic chemical release inventory. In 1989, Vermont added language to 20, title 20 to implement EPCRA within the state. The governor created the state emergency response commission, CERC. The CERC is responsible for designating local emergency planning districts and appointing local emergency planning committees, the LEPCs. The CERC supervises and coordinates the activities of the LEPCs. It establishes procedures for receiving and processing public request for information collected under EPCRA and reviews the LEPC emergency plans. The LEPCs are made up of members which should include local officials, police, fire, civil defense, public health, transportation and environmental professionals, as well as representatives from the facilities subject to emergency planning. A more detailed review of the responsibilities of the LEPCs will be covered later in our presentation. 1994, the Vermont hazardous materials response team, the HMRT, was established to provide a greater level of expertise in support in responding to hazardous chemical incidents, providing training to firefighters and supporting our LEPCs. Unfortunately, the world continues to change. As the events of 9-11 still stay with all of us, the event heightened awareness and the need for standardized all-hazard planning and response. Then we have in 2013 in West Texas, an ammonia nitrate explosion kills 15 and injures 200. In 2014, Elkley, Elk River, West Virginia, a chemical spill contaminates the water supply for 300,000 residents. So again, events lead us to 2018 and the America's Water Infrastructure Act, AWIA, adding requirements to state emergency response commissions to make hazardous chemical inventory data available to water utilities. And a requirement to notify water utilities or directly notify the potentially affected community water system of any reportable release. So now we'll take a look at our current status. The Vermont CERC is an active, well-established commission. The CERC meets quarterly to review LEP reports, reportable spills and incidents, hazmat training, and the HMRT. And it reviews regulatory updates on any changes and LEPC progress and treasurer's reports. The state is divided into 13 LEPCs. The LEPCs are in the process of merging into one statewide LEPC as we review the specific regulatory expectations of the LEPCs and understand that the majority members of our LEPC, our volunteers, it will support the decision to move forward to one statewide LEPC. With the statewide LEPC providing support to a more regional emergency management committee structure. Our local fire departments, Vermont Hazard's material response team, the reporting facility, and contractors currently respond to and manage recovery of hazmat incidents. We will move into local emergency planning, the LEPCs, with Victoria Littlefield, CERC local emergency planning committee liaison chair and regional planner of two rivers, Adukwici Regional Commission. Yeah. So just a reminder, I'm a regional planner with the two rivers, Adukwici Regional Commission. And through that, I help manage LEPC 12, which is Orange and Windsor counties. And I am the appointed regional planning commission representative on the CERC. As well. So just some facts about local emergency planning committees in Vermont. There are specific requirements that these committees have to abide by that are set in federal and state laws. And as Kim mentioned, the CERC has the authority to organize and define the LEPCs. And in current state statute, state funding is set at a minimum of $4,000 per LEPC to perform the statutory duties. Currently, there are no paid staff dedicated to LEPC work. Much of it is based on volunteers. And at this point in time, some LEPCs have effectively dissolved for a variety of reasons, but funding is certainly not as much. One of them, the Wyndham and the Rytland County LEPCs have been defunct for the past two to three years. And I know Chittenden County LEPC has not been meeting in anticipation of upcoming changes to the LEPC structure. And because LEPCs are focused on hazmat planning, that leaves all hazard planning up to the municipalities. Madam Chair, can we pause for a second on some of these federal laws? I guess I think that Erica said that it would be better if we went through them for everything first, because we might get some answers later on. It's actually the next slide. Great. So these are the statutory responsibilities. So in Vermont, LEPCs are required to develop a response plan, ensure that the plan has been implemented during hazmat incidences, review funding requests, consult and coordinate with emergency management services, regional planning commissions, and hazardous facilities, and support all hazard emergency management activities. On the federal side under EPGRA, LEPCs are required to receive and process tier two reports, make tier two information available to the general public as requested, review emergency plan and publish public notices annually, make the emergency plan public, and conduct an annual exercise of the emergency plan. And I would like to note that right now there are inconsistencies with state statute and federal statute. They don't quite align. So that is something that we would look forward to. And for your information, a tier two report is a detailed report of a hazardous facility in what types and how much quantity of hazardous materials that they store in their facility in any given year. And those are submitted annually to LEPCs, the state and local fire departments. And as you can probably see, some of these requirements are highly technical, some prevent a significant workload, and some do not mesh well with Vermont's response model of local decentralized control with centralized state support. And many LEPCs are run solely by volunteers. Next slide, please. So we recognized a few years ago that these statutory requirements and also the fact that some LEPCs have stopped existing was a problem. So we decided to go to a one statewide LEPC. This was to consolidate all the regulatory responsibilities at the state level, but also preserving the local all hazards planning entities. So we'll centralize our hazmat planning and decentralized are all hazard planning in Vermont. This one statewide LEPC will work with the hazmat chief and team perform all state and federal EPCA administrative requirements, review tier two facility reports and action plans, maintain a state LEPC plan with regional annexes and coordinate with and support regional emergency management committees, which Erica will talk about towards the end of the presentation. And this statewide model was approved by the CERC on February 19th, 2020 for implementation of July 1st, 2021. And now I'm going to hand it over to chief McLaughlin. Thank you very much. Thanks for having us again. My name is Pat McLaughlin. I'm the chief of the Vermont state hazardous materials response team. You're at the division of fire safety. We work in conjunction with the Vermont emergency management team for planning and response to hazmat incidents throughout the state to augment the local fire departments that request the technical assistance. So I'm going to speak to you today about the funding mechanism that is utilized to support the Vermont state hazmat team, the LEPCs and the training and exercising that those entities conduct. So as I stated before, the Hazkem fund along with the hazmat team was created under title 20. And it is implemented to do such things as planning, training, as well as response activities and maintaining the personnel that respond to that at the technical level. Over the last several years, those entities that report, we've already talked about the tier two reports. We have done several forms of outreach, whether that is a pamphlet or webinars to educate those facilities that store chemicals. And those facilities now reporting are approaching 3000 facilities throughout the state. As set up in title 20, those chemicals that are stored have a fee structure that is a year and that fee is submitted to the state. And then that function pays for the LEPCs, the state hazmat and some training and exercising. So that fund as of last year was 800,075, which is up from 500,000 in 2016. So that increase in sites has increased the funding mechanism to be able to facilitate more events. The next side is a kind of an outline of where those funding mechanisms go to. So sorry for the small print, but the six, two and one section is mainly the LEPCs and their functions. So it's about 9% of the budget goes to that function of the LEPCs. The other two larger pieces of the pie are equipment for the Vermont State Hazardous Materials Response Team, whether that's replacement of sensors, detectors, chemical identification equipment, and that can range in price from about a can of gas about 400 to some of our more technical equipment, upwards of $100,000. And as we are approaching 20 years, some of this equipment is reaching end of life. And as you can see, it is causing some more increases in that budgetary need. As well as personnel, as all of our hazmat personnel, as you can see in the lower left picture are all part-time temporary employees. So when they respond out, they're compensated for their time, mileage, as well as overtime and other costs incurred while responding to emergencies throughout the state. And then there's operational budgets, rental costs for facilities, vehicle maintenance. We maintain a fleet of three of correction, four Hazardous Materials Response Vehicles. And so the maintenance of all those vehicles, the storage costs, fuel, and other functional departmental costs that are associated with running the department as well. And then the next slide is a brief overview of the team itself. It's got a breakdown of the calls that we responded to or assisted. Again, we're to augment the local entity, the fire department, fire chief, law enforcement entity is always the prime role. We come in as technical specialists from out throughout the state. As you can see throughout the map, our membership are spread out quite evenly throughout the state as indicated by the red X's on the Vermont map. It's a great, thorough response throughout the state in a timely manner. And it also, we have some very qualified personnel on our roster from nuclear, physicists to chemists to firefighters to EMTs. Our diversity is quite well and it is spread out across the state quite nicely as well as our response vehicles, as well as responding to emergencies and assisting in emergency response personnel. We augment the Vermont state fire academy in continuing to educate our firefighters and first responders in the ever-changing world of hazmat. In the last three years, we average about 150 firefighters, EMTs, emergency response personnel to about 2,000 hours of annual continuing education to those firefighters to keep them up to date. Obviously last year we had to pivot to a digital form and we were able to do that over some difficult platforms and are continuing that effort to keep our firefighters educated. And that is the Vermont state hazmat and the funding mechanism. I will turn it back to the director of Vermont emergency management, Erica. Okay, thank you very much. So far you've heard a little bit about the background of LPCs as well as how they're funded, how the has come fun plays a role in supporting the overall hazardous materials response and preparedness capabilities throughout the state. As it relates to the LPCs, we've done quite a bit of work over the past year, especially in socializing the upcoming change and consolidating the LPCs. But one of the things that we heard loud and clear and we anticipated hearing was that we don't want to lose that information. We don't want to lose that information. We don't want to lose that information. We don't want to lose the local emergency planning and regional emergency planning capacity on an all hazards basis throughout the state. That's a really important component of emergency management is making sure that you're maintaining those relationships across town borders and making sure that you can de-conflict emergency plans on an ongoing basis. And I think that's one of the things that's really important about LPCs is that the regulatory burden on LPCs at that regional level was just really overwhelming their ability to be able to do some of the more all hazards planning that they were wanting to do. And we think in the next slide I can talk about a way that we can support that and get the best of both worlds through an LPC planning process. And I think that's one of the things that's really important about the local emergency planning process. And I think that's one of the key hazards materials emergency preparedness and planning in a more consistent way throughout the state while maintaining local control around all hazards emergency preparedness. So something that's that the folks at Vermont emergency planning management committee and it would really take the place of a local emergency planning committee. This committee would basically have all of the all hazards planning and preparedness responsibilities without the federal regulatory burden and narrow focus of hazardous materials emergency preparedness. They would work closely with the statewide LPC because hazardous materials emergency preparedness is an important part of the all hazards structure. But they would also be able to look at different hazards such as flooding, cybersecurity and drought and a number of other disaster related hazards that that plague are our state on an annual basis. They would they build on a an activity that has been in practice over the past few years and supported through the regional planning committee commissions, which is called the local emergency management director roundtable. It's an opportunity, it's been an opportunity for local emergency management directors of which every town has appointed to get together, share best practices, do regional emergency planning and really improve their local emergency management plans in in doing so. So the regional emergency management committee will build on that concept and and really and really build it out. One of the pieces of feedback and question that we've received is, well, hey, where does the funding go? If we no longer have a guaranteed funding source through the Haskem fund because it's still going to be focused on hazardous materials, how can we support regional emergency management committee functions? And the answer to that is that VEM has budgeted federal emergency management performance grant dollars to support regional emergency management committees and to get them off the ground and to support their ongoing activities. We're still in development of that budget, but it is a similar amount of money than what they've received. The other thing is the vision for these committees is eventually it would be wonderful if they were established in statute as entities that can apply competitively for other federal grant opportunities that arise that are managed by Vermont emergency management. There are several preparedness grant opportunities through FEMA that they could have access to and that's part of the vision for these committees. That way they can develop projects that are competitive and it can be targeted for the needs of their region and not just the state telling them what they should do statewide. The hazards that the Northeast Kingdom has to be prepared for as well as the preparedness scope within the Northeast Kingdom is different than say in Chittenden County. So we would want them to be able to be able to tailor their preparedness and planning to their region. So next steps, we do have some proposed drafted language for some changes in statute, specific to the LEPCs. Some of what this accomplishes is it does a couple of things. It focuses the statewide LEPC role and focus on hazardous materials. Right now the statute is pretty broad and it focuses on a lot of different hazards. And I don't have, I'm not sure about this, but I think just based on the timing and the fact that it hasn't been updated in the number of years. And when you compare that to Vermont emergency management and our history, I think the CERC really predated VEM and it just never was updated to account for the fact that you have a strong emergency management office, statewide office that supports the CERC. And the CERC can really focus their efforts on hazardous materials and emergency preparedness. It would update the membership of the CERC. Currently VEM is a non-voting member. And DPS has an appointed position, but it isn't specific to, it's not specific to fire safety. So we would propose to have fire safety called out on there. It simplifies funding to align with the special fund statutes, meaning it gives more flexibility in terms of the amount of money that can be granted to the LEPC. Right now it says, it's a weird language. It says $4,000 or $1,500. And then they can apply for supplemental funding. And so we would just align it to the special fund statute, which means the commissioner would have control over the Haskem fund, which he does, but it still requires that there would be funding that would go to the LEPC. And then I'll just mention the rep, and Senator White knows what I'm talking about here, the radiological emergency response plan, special fund language is still in that section, the same section of the statute that I'm talking about. And so our proposal has that coming out of there since there is no emergency planning zone around Vermont Nankie anymore. So we would, we welcome the chance to answer any questions or address any concerns and continue on with this ongoing conversation as we continue to develop not only the LEPC consolidation, but also the regional emergency management committee concept. Thank you. Questions. Thank you. Yeah. Can you, will you take that down so that we can see everybody? Thanks. Thanks. Okay. Committee. Are there any questions right now? Senator Ram. So I have two related questions. So one, you know, I really appreciate the history and understanding better. Hazardous emergencies, hazardous material related emergencies. I feel like overall in discussing the. Our state emergency management response. I feel like I was missing a lot about how we are folding in our lessons learned from this pandemic. As you bring more potential statutory change forward. I think it's related to hazardous disasters or other, you know, whether immediate or ongoing emergencies, but a big takeaway for me is that we were not communicating to people and other in their chosen language. We were not communicating to people. We were not communicating to people. We were not communicating to people. If they have limited English proficiency. At the beginning of this pandemic, it took a very long time for state government to do that. And you were talking about federal requirements. We are not meeting the spirit of federal law of civil rights law in how poorly we are communicating in other languages in the state. So I really want to hear more about how we will do better to comply with federal law and how we communicate with people, whether it's in the public or not. I don't want to be neglected at all. On the emergency we're still in, even though I know that impotence for this is hazardous. Disasters. Yeah, and I'll just, thank you. That's a, there's a really good point. We certainly have requirements to adhere to as it relates to being able to communicate war on the public in a multitude of especially with the COVID-19 disaster. It's one of the lessons I think we learned collectively is that when we're looking at pretty complicated information, it's not as simple as saying there's a severe thunderstorm warning in a certain area and the emergency protective measure is really straightforward or a flash flood warning. COVID-19 presented a public messaging challenge, especially around communities that are limited English proficiency that I think we've learned a lot from. As it relates to hazardous materials, emergency preparedness, I think there's definitely some more discussion to be had around how we message and warn the public regarding an ongoing or emergent imminent threat to public safety in a multitude of different languages. And I think you're right on, Senator. I think we can talk more about that and how that can be as relevant as possible depending on the area of the state you're in or the population you're trying to communicate to. Senator Clarkson. Thanks, Erica. It's good to have you all here. And nice to meet Tori, who I haven't and she and I are just right here in Woodstock together even though she may not actually be in Woodstock at the moment. I'm just curious why this isn't, just to go to a piece of Kasia's point, to me when we talk about emergency response or emergency management, we're talking about all emergencies, not just hazardous materials. So, I mean, having lived through and managed a lot of work in Irene, having, I mean, we, to me, when I see the names of all these committees that you've got put together, I would like to see much more about all emergencies and what level, what is the definition of an emergency? At what point does it become an emergency? What's that threshold? And so, I guess my question is why isn't this, because a common sense person reading the names of all these committees would assume it was all emergencies, not just hazardous materials. Now, that's a really good point, Senator Clarkson. I think we came to you today about a certain subset of Title 20 and Title 20, Chapter 1 is entitled Emergency Management and it is, we are, we would love to have more conversations about modernizing the entirety of Chapter 1 because it needs it. It needs to reflect the current hazard profile, threatened hazard profile in Vermont and needs to reflect the way that Vermont responds to disasters. And it doesn't currently do that, hasn't been modernized in a good many years. It also needs to take into account some of the lessons learned from COVID-19, as well as the other catastrophic disasters that we have experienced. I've been with Emergency Management since 2007. I assisted with the coordination of response to Tropical Storm Irene and I have been one of the SCOC managers throughout the over a year long activation of the State Emergency Operations Center for COVID-19. And I can tell you that there's a lot of lessons learned about the way that we approach disaster response in the state and that translates specifically to necessary statutory changes. I'll admit, we're bringing you one slice of the pie here and but we would really welcome the opportunity to talk with you more about what the entire Emergency Management program looks like and how we plan for emergencies and disasters every single day. And I'd appreciate that because I know Kevin Geiger quite well who works with Tori and you know Kevin obviously. And so my sense is that you actually are doing this and I would appreciate it if we actually could talk about all emergencies because we're trying to make statutory changes to enable moving into managing the state in those emergencies. And so that would be helpful for us. Absolutely. So I just, in my own mind, I wanna clarify here though that we're talking about two different types of emergencies here. We're talking about hazmat, hazardous materials which is now gonna become the responsibility you hope of the statewide LE, RE. LEPC. LEPC. And then. It would be a statewide LEPC and so 13. They deal with the hazmat, the hazardous materials but when you're talking about the regional planning you're talking about all hazards, right? You're not talking about hazardous material. So you're talking about flooding and drought and all of those other kinds of emergencies not necessarily public health emergencies or maybe but you are talking about all the other emergencies. It would including public health. We would work closely with our partners of the Department of Health to make sure that and it's something I neglected. I didn't make clear enough is that our modern emergency management would be providing direct support to regional emergency management committees. So whereas our role has been less attached to LEPCs because again, they only focus on one hazard and we have to plan for all of them. This allows us an opportunity to provide some more direct hands-on support to our EMCs at the regional level and allow the LEPC to focus on their segment and to handle the federal regulatory requirements. So it would be nice to completely rewrite Title I probably but I mean Title 20, Chapter 1. I didn't mean I meant Chapter 1. I didn't mean Title 1, I meant Chapter 1 but maybe that's a little ambitious for us right now. And we start with at least this part which is giving more assistance to the all hazards planning. It does clarify things for us and certainly we would want to have a conversation about other opportunities to modernize Title 20, Chapter 1. Cause like I said, there's a lot there that can be brought into the future here. So do you want to go big here or do you want to just stick with this? That's kind of up to you which direction you want to take right now. I mean, I've got three other members of the CERC here and want to open it up to them but I think if we can accomplish the small step of making the pretty simple statutory changes related to LEPCs, it will make it a lot cleaner moving forward and then we would be happy over the summer, I say spring and summer to talk about a more comprehensive approach to updating the emergency management statutes as a whole. Committee, Senator Polina. Yeah, I just wonder how much of this is sort of dictated to are you beholden to the federal government in terms of making these kinds of changes or decisions. I thought near the end of your presentation when you were talking about the consolidation that you mentioned something about being able to do things without as much, I say I use word interference and sorry, that's the word you use but from the federal government. But I'm just wondering what's the role of the federal government relative to what we're talking about doing? Do we have to abide by their standards or can we do it better or worse? So it has much relationship with the federal government. The federal statutes in EPRAD are, they're specific to reporting entities as well as requiring states to have a CERC and to have the CERC determine how many LEPCs are necessary. And then there's a list of preparedness items that they require, which Tori went into. That I'm aware of, I have not seen an auditing process to audit that, how, what that looks like. But we do work closely with the environmental protection agency as they attend the CERC meetings and advise on the best structure for planning or any other items of note that we need help on. And you mentioned the 3,000 facilities and growing. Can you just give me a general idea of what these facilities are? Are they small businesses? Are they big things? What are, is there a way to just generally describe what the 3,000 facilities look like? Director Boardman, I can answer that, would you like? Yeah, please. Senator, yes, so those are run the gamut from GE in Rutland and their plants to West Adderson's general store with gasoline and diesel storage. So you could see anything in anywhere. And it is the EPA and their regulatory arm that say who and what has to be reported. And then title 20 then narrowly defines that to poundage in where that's where our fee structure comes from. But anywhere in anybody who's storing chemicals that meet the threshold of the chemical in the way shall report. Thank you. So I guess what I'm going to suggest is that have you been working with a drafter, a legislative council? No, we have an internal draft and you would need to, you know, the next step would be you need to be looking at it with the legislative council. So what I'm going to suggest is that I'm not sure who that would be, but I will put in a request to Luke Mardland and Mike Farron to assign somebody. It might be Michael Grady. I'm not sure who it would be, but you should work with them to draft the language. And then we can start looking at the actual language. Perfect. Is that okay committee? Sure. It's one of the beauties of the government operations committee. Just never know what you're going to run into when you walk in the room. Senator Rom, did you have a question? Well, just for sort of disclosure's sake, I have been working with Amarin on a language access plan for the state. And, you know, per my understanding of how these work best, it should start with lifesaving communications. And so I'm happy to share a draft with you all, but that was, you know, as I said, a very big takeaway for me already. And I don't think we can afford to go into another major disaster or emergency without a better language access plan, particularly regionalized because different languages are spoken in different parts of the state. As you noted, there are cultural translations that need to be done because this information doesn't always translate well into other languages. They don't have words for some of these things or they're complicated even in English. So I am happy. It sounds like Director Borniman to share that with you so that it's aligned with where you all are at and where you want to go. And we can also benefit from some of the work that other states have done around that because I know many of my counterparts around the country have been working with their legislative counterparts on that very topic. All right, so thank you. Let's, so I will send a request, a drafting request today and then you can work with whoever the drafter is assigned to and then Senator Rom will send you what she's been working on and we'll go from there. Great. Thank you all very much for the opportunity to talk to you today. Thank you. Thank you Erica. Thank you everybody. We'll see you. Thank you. Okay. And that was a good presentation by the way. Thank you. It was very clear. All right, maybe we're gonna move to H-149. We have with us Damien Leonard and we have the Deputy Adjutant General, is that what Deputy Adjutant General? Okay. Wasn't sure if it was Deputy or Assistant or Vice or I can't ever remember. So thank you. So would you like to walk us through H-149 Damien? Sure. Before I start, I just wanted to note with Luke on leave the best people at Ledge Council to send a drafting request to our Jen, Karbi and Michael Grady. God, I remembered that as soon as I said. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure. Because with Luke on leave, you might not get processed for a month or two. Good suggestion. Damien, when Luke is back? He is expected back in early to mid-summer. So I think he is taking, I can't remember if he's taking three months or four months of leave, but yep. Okay. Good, very exciting. Yes. Great, so H-149 is a lengthy bill and I know I'm on a tight timeline with you today because you have other bills you need to see. So what I've got, and I will send this to you as soon as I change the title from as recommended by House General to as passed the House. What I have is a summary of the bill that I'll forward to the committee. Most of this bill is technical amendments to update the statute because we're dealing with language that in some instances hasn't been updated since 1862 and in some instances literally dates back to the early 19th century. And in some cases, all the way back to when Vermont was founded as a state. So we'll kind of go through this. I'll highlight the sections for you where there is actually a non-technical change and otherwise I'm gonna kind of move through quickly but do feel free to stop me as we go on with any questions that you might have. Yeah, I think that makes sense, committee. Do you, because I think that the technical changes are, yeah, I would just kind of gloss over technical changes and tell us what the substantive changes are what we're really doing here. Yeah. And does it remind me with this committee, is it better if I share my screen or if I just walk you through it verbally and you look at it on your device? It's up to the committee at which, Madam Chair, you have a very clear preference. No, it's up to the committee, whatever you decide. I prefer not to share because my screen freezes up and I have to close my video if you do that. Okay. I will not share my screen down. Okay. Right. If you send it to us and then we can follow it. I mean, I have a version that says it's passed by the house. Yeah, that's the current version. It's on our website. Great. So that's, is that posted on our committee? Yes. It should be, it's H-149. Yeah, got it. Okay. So the first change in section one, it is mostly technical changes. The only non-technical change is at the very top of page two, where we're clarifying in subsection C, that is the adjutant general who adopts the rules relating to the government of the National Guard, not the governor. In section two, the, what we're doing here that's non-technical is clarifying the chapters that apply to the National Guard. This language dates back to before we got the green books, when all of the statutes governing the National Guard and before that the militia were in a single chapter. Oh my. In section three, the non-technical change there is clarifying, if you look in A2, it's clarifying that if you, if there's an adjutant general appointed to fill a vacancy, they serve the remainder of the unexpired term. And that brings us back to the biannual election of the adjutant general. The other non-technical changes here are if you see and see one here, what we've done is we've split the appointment of the deputy adjutant general from the appointment of the assistant adjutant generals for the Army Air Joint and Joint Operations because previously it said that the deputy adjutant general, Mr. Greig here, served without pay, which is not true. And so these other assistant adjutant generals, it does say that they serve without pay. What that has been interpreted to mean is that they don't get additional pay for being named the assistant adjutant general. They receive their normal military pay as a colonel or a brigadier general. Or whatever their appropriate rank is with, for example, the command sergeant major and chief master sergeant would both be non-commissioned officer ranks. Section four is just technical changes. If we go down to page five, section five, the only non-technical change is again clarifying that the rules are adopted by the adjutant general, not the governor. And you'll notice throughout, because our constitution refers to the governor as the commander in chief, our statutes have historically referred to the governor as the commander in chief. The problem is because the National Guard is a state federal entity. When they're in state service, their commander in chief is the governor. When they're in federal service, their commander in chief is the president of the United States. So we've clarified that to governor just to avoid ambiguity. In section six, just technical changes, same with section seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14. Those are all technical changes, which brings us to section 15, which you can find on page nine of your bill at the very bottom. This relates to the keeping of war records and files. And I believe this is actually reflecting work that this committee did. Several years back in updating the statutes related to the state archives. So this was a pretty outdated section requiring the adjunct general to keep records related to the wars in which the state had participated and the rosters of Vermonters participating in those wars on microfilms. And instead what it provides is those records will be kept in the adjunct general's office or in the state archives as provided pursuant to the state archive statute, knowing that there's been a lot of hard work done to update that statute and make it reflect modern record keeping. Section 16 is just a technical change. This is the annual sexual assault and harassment report. We've struck the reference to the initial year because that was now seven years ago. And so it just says January 15th of each year for that report's due date. In section 17, we have struck the outdated references to the quarter master general. This is an antiquated term. This is, now I believe and Ken can correct me on this if I'm wrong, but I believe there's a quarter master's core within the National Guard that oversees the materials and supplies of the National Guard. And so this quarter master general term is no longer current. And we've also struck outdated language from the 1800s that allowed the state to designate the type of military equipment it wished to receive from the federal government. So that language is being struck because the state is issued the military equipment that the federal government believes is appropriate for our National Guard units. So in section 18, this section is being repealed. It's related to a provision requiring bonds for certain state officers, which was repealed in 2006. So this statute has been entirely ineffective for 15 years now. Section 19, again, just striking an outdated reference to the quarter master general. And then in section 20 at the bottom of page 11, again, striking an outdated reference to the quarter master general and going on to page 12, clarifying that the rules are adopted by the adjutant general, rather than the governor. Sections 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 and 26 are all just technical changes. Section 27, this relates to an outdated provision here. And this is being repealed because it's obsolete, but this relates to is an outdated provision relating to what was called the enrolled militia of the state. This relates to a law that was in effect from roughly the founding of the state till the mid-1840s and then was readopted around the time of the civil war and in effect until 1947, which required all Vermont males between the ages of 18 and 45 to be enrolled by the listers of their town and the state militia. And then you could be drafted into service under this provision as the need arose for the state. So we no longer have an enrolled militia and the change to the word national guard occurred during a technical amendment a number of years ago when all references to militia were changed to national guard, but that wouldn't make sense that you could take the enrolled national guard and draft them into service because they're already in service as members of the national guard. So we are repealing this section. This does not have any impact on the federal selective service system, which is the federal draft registration for males when they turn 18. The next four sections, 28 through 31 are all technical amendments. And if we turn to the very bottom of page 16 in section 32 and going on to the top of page 17, we're adding a cross-reference here to the existing employment law job protections for service members or for members of the national guard when they get called up for state duty and have to take leave from their job. So the current law provides them with up to 15 days per year of protection. As you'll see at the very end of the bill, the house is proposing to amend that to provide equal protection to what's provided for when the guard members are called up for federal active duty under federal law. Okay, sections 33 and 34 are both technical changes and in section 35, which is found on page 19, the changes here are replacing the term private with enlisted person. Again, this language dates back to the 19th century when we used to see references to privates and musicians or Fife and Drum players for the militia when it would be called out for its annual muster. And again, we're replacing the word man with person. So just updating the language here and clarifying what therefore means which is the failure to report when you're called to duty. Sections 36 and 37 on the same page are both being repealed. Section 36, this is outdated language that dates back to the civil war allowing the governor, when the governor calls out the National Guard or as it was called when it was adopted the state militia pursuant to a request of the U.S. The state was authorized to provide food, uniforms, arms, equipment, clothing, et cetera at the expense of the state. The National Guard receives its food, uniforms and equipment through the federal government. So this is definitely outdated. And the second section 37 was allowing the governor or with the approval of the governor, the state treasurer to pledge the credit of the state to raise money to send the troops to war. Again, this is outdated. And I believe the last time that this section, this section dates back to World War I was the last time it was actually applicable. That's correct. Yeah. Section 38 and 39 relate to the oaths that the members take. These are just technical changes updating the term commander-in-chief to governor. Section 40, the only change in this and we're on page 21 is that we're clarifying that the rules are adopted by the Aged-in General. In section 41, again, we're clarifying that the rules are adopted by the Aged-in General. Going on to page 22, section 42, we are repealing another bond provision that's obsolete. Again, this relates back to that provision that was repealed in 2006. In section 43, the changes here, this used to provide, this is basically for if there's an issue of damage or destroyed property that requires basically an examination and a report on the condition of the property of the National Guard. It used to provide that the governor would appoint the board to inspect the damage and determine what to do, but this provides that that would be done by the Aged-in General. In section 44, at the bottom of that page and going on to page 23, we're clarifying that rules are adopted by the Aged-in General. In section 45, this is an interesting one, again, dating back to the 19th century and possibly earlier, we're repealing language here that would allow the governor to permit modifications and additions to the state, to the uniform of the Vermont National Guard as the governor sees fit. And the uniform requirements are dictated by federal law. The days of a special Vermont emblem or something like that are long gone. So, or a flourish or something like that. The section 46 here, we're repealing outdated language related to musicians and privates enrolled in the National Guard of this state. And this is a section relating to exemption from arrest, except in the case of trees and felony or breach of the peace while on active duty and in the active discharge of their duty. So, basically it provides that a member of the National Guard is exempt from arrest while they are serving on active duty, except in the case of trees and felony or breach of the peace. And this law dates back well into the early 19th century. May I ask a question here, Damian? Yes. And give you a chance for some water. Thank you. Okay, you're welcome. I guess I have a question here, just tying it into the sexual assault piece. Surely they can be arrested if there is, oh, I guess any felony. So, in case of trees and felony, so any felony they could be arrested for? Yep, or breach of the peace. Okay, great. So that incorporates all the egregious, yeah, sorry, I sort of read over the felony piece. That's fine, yeah. This has been updated over the years and I think it originally was trees and or breach of the peace and felony was added at some point, but it does run together a little bit after digging through so many of these. Although it's hard to think of breach of the peace and felonies and treason being all sort of in the same sentence. I mean, the peace is sort of like pretty modest by comparison. I mean, setting off fireworks compared to a felony or treason is, they don't seem to be of the same category. Well, I don't think we're gonna get into, no, no, I'm changing that. Just say, I know I want us to keep moving though. I'm moving, I'm moving, I'm moving. It's also important to note that this is just for civil enforcement here. The members of the guard when they're on duty are also subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And so they would be subject also to military law enforcement if they were engaged in activity while they're on active duty. That is against, that's a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice there. And the exemption only applies while they're on active duty. So there's nothing that prevents them from being arrested when they are off active duty. Section 47 relates to a brevet rank. The only non-technical change here is adding the last sentence to clarify that a brevet rank conferred pursuant to this section only applies in the state of Vermont. Meaning that we can't confer a federally recognized rank. That's, that requires federal action. For section 48, the Retirement of Officers section, we have struck most of the language here and replaced it with a cross-reference to the federal provisions governing retirement as well as applicable regulations adopted by the Secretary of Defense. And this is just to reflect the fact that retirement is governed by federal law and regulations. Now, going on to the next page, page 25, we have repealed section 887 here, which relates to what uniforms retired members of the Guard are allowed to wear because again, this is governed by federal law and regulations. Sections 50, 51, 52, 53 and 54 are all technical or grammatical corrections, which brings us to section 55 on page 28. So we've done mostly technical and stylistic changes here and reorganized for clarity. We have also struck, let's just see where it's at on here. On here, oh, it is down on page 29 in subsection B or subdivision B1, a reference to the unorganized militia. And so this, the unorganized militia was another term for the enrolled militia. These were the individuals who'd been enrolled by their town listers in the state militia, but hadn't been organized into a specific unit of the militia. And so again, and this is in a section relating to the state guard, which is not active unless the National Guard is an active federal service and the governor and the, oh, is it the, I'm trying to remember which legislative body it is, but the governor and members of the legislature have to determine that it's necessary to activate the state guard before the state guard is actually even activated, but they are, they can be called up when the National Guard is out of the state and such numbers that it's necessary to supplement their force. And Ken can talk to you a little bit more about the state guard right now, which is composed of, I believe, mostly retired military members who volunteer their time to assist at events and that sort of thing. And I don't think the state guard has ever been activated per se. I don't believe so. Yeah. So the next section here, let me just, sorry about that. While you're looking at that, I'm glad to see that the Sergeant at Arms is playing a role here. I'm sorry, where do you see that? I thought I saw that, oh, maybe it's the secretary of the army. Yeah. I don't think the Sergeant at Arms has anything to do with it. That's what I thought I saw, but it's the secretary of the army. Sorry, I'm just gonna let Damien. That's okay. So the remaining sections there through section, until we get to section 60 are all technical. Section 60 is updating a law that's been out of date for several decades now, reflecting that what used to be called the Articles of War of the United States, were replaced with the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And so this is updating that section to reflect that the Uniform Code of Military Justice replaced the Articles of War in 1951, so 70 years ago now. And so- It's just a while to recognize change. We're a little bit slow here. Come on, some time. So here in section 61 is when the state guard is activated. So it's when the governor and the emergency board issue a proclamation, activating the state guard, and then they are deactivated upon a following proclamation. So, I think that's a good point. Proclamation. So, so the remaining sections until section 72 are all technical and section 72 is the update to that leave law. So what this would add is if you, that's on page 38. So the second to last page here, section 72. This emends 21 VSA 491 and it provides that when called to state or federal service, members of the U.S. Armed Forces, the Ready Reserved, or any organized unit of the Vermont Guard or the National Guard of another state are entitled to the same benefits, privileges and protections in employment, regardless of the activation authority or location of service. Subdivision two is basically repeating existing language that provides that upon request, a member of the National Guard or the reserve components is entitled to or the reserve components of the U.S. Armed Forces, which is your reserves, your ready reserves are entitled to a leave of absence to engage in military drill, training or other temporary duty pursuant to state or federal military orders. And then in subdivision B, we provide that a member of the Vermont National Guard or the National Guard of any state or territory who has ordered to state active duty shall be subject to the requirements of and entitled to the rights, privileges, benefits and protections of the Uniform Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, which is also known as USERRA. And it's the federal law providing job protections for members of the military when they're deployed on federal active duty. So the concern with this law is that because of the way the Guard's mission has changed, the 15 days, which reflects the sort of outdated idea of one weekend a month, two weeks a year is no longer really accurate for the sorts of duty that many of our Guard members have to undertake, for example, in relation to the current pandemic or Hurricane Irene. These are all instances where we've had members called out for more than that time. And so they've risked adverse consequences at their job without this protection. So this protection provides the same protections as under the USERRA law, which is a cumulative total of up to five years of leave during their time in that job. So it looks at your entire time in the job. And so this could include, if you're deployed overseas one year and then a few years later, you're deployed overseas again, those protections just continue to apply while you're at that job. And then we've struck through language and subdivision C which is all covered by the USERRA law relating to retaining your status and seniority and pay upon return. And the last change here is striking through the reference to this section on drafting the members of the enrolled militia into active state service since we repealed the enrolled militia over 70 years ago now. And that's it. It would take effect on July one. Senator Coulombard. Thank you, Madam Chair. So Damien, I think you were already aware of a question that came up from one of my constituents. I think Peter Fagan, Representative Fagan might have mentioned it to you. And if I can't, I just wanna read it so everybody on the committee understands what their question was. This came from, again, a constituent H149 went into Military Affairs Committee January 28th at third reading of the House and now resides with your Senate GovOps committee. My understanding of the bill is if it is passed, it would make the Vermont National Guard the only authorized militia in Vermont. I understand this will give the state of Vermont the legal authority to deem militias like the one surrounding Slate Ridge illegal and give state government authority to deal with it as an illegal militia. My understanding further is that the Vermont Constitution has written authorizes each municipality to create, equip, man and train a militia. And I'm concerned that if H149 is passed, it will take away that authority from Vermont municipalities and you clarify. So that was the question. And until this bill came up and I'm not quite sure about the impetus for the bill, maybe it's the current pandemic and the fact that there was more of an emphasis on the guard. But anyway, so do you have an answer? Yes, I do for the most part. So to speak to the impetus for the bill, this bill came up a couple of years ago. I think all of the members of the committee, except Senator Rahm were here for the last three iterations of the Aged in General Election Bill. And one of those iterations, Representative Fagan and Mr. Gregg and I were looking at the statute there that provided that the deputy Aged in General was supposed to serve without pay. And then we started looking at other sections and realizing how outdated some of the provisions were. And that was sort of the impetus to start this work with the National Guard to identify things that were obsolete and outdated. So with respect to your constituents' question, I've been looking at this over the last several days. So the Vermont Constitution, I'll start there, speaks to a couple of things. So Article 16 says that the people have the right to bear arms for the defense of themselves in the state and as standing armies in times of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power. So this one we know for really two things that it's commonly talked about now. One is the right to bear arms for self-defense which is enshrined in the Vermont Constitution as well as the defense of the state. And the second is the subordination of the military power to civil authority. Article 17 restricts subjecting people in the state to martial law except while they're in actual service in the army or the militia. And then chapter two, section 59 specifically addresses the militia. And it states that the inhabitants of this state shall be trained and armed for its defense under such regulations, restrictions and exceptions as Congress agreeably to the constitution of the United States and the legislature of this state shall direct. So in other words, subject to federal and state law, we shall equip the citizens of the state and train them for the defense of the state. And that would be the militia statutes which have become the National Guard now. In looking back at the laws of Vermont, I have not found and I've gone all the way back to 1862, looking at the statutes and 1842, looking at the constitution of the state of Vermont as well as reading a very interesting article by an attorney from here in Montpelier, Paul Gillies, who some of you may know as one of our leading legal historians in the state on the relationship between the militia, now the guard and civil oversight through the judiciary and the governor. I have not found any statutory authority for towns to organize their own militias, nor have I found any prohibition. And I wanna emphasize that because historically, while there was the state enrolled militia and there was an annual muster of the state militia, some towns did historically equip their own militia. And so I'll read you a passage from Paul Gillies article, the militia governed by civil power, which he wrote in 2018. And he writes, the militia were called floodwood because of the motley nature of their appearance, also known as the enrolled militia, to distinguish them from the volunteer rifle and cavalry companies that were formed in some towns. The companies required uniforms. For example, the Guilford volunteers wore blue uniforms trimmed with yellow, large eagle buttons, white drill pants, gators or boots, white vest, leather stock and leather helmet with a high tin crest from which flowed a long red horsehair. Well, from a cockade on the left rose a tall, reed feather plume with a white top. So it was a particularly colorful description, but it describes how some towns chose to have a volunteer militia that was better equipped. But in general, the state statutes governed the states enrolled militia and then the organized militia, which was a statewide militia that was organized at different times. Early in the state's history, this was, they were organized when there was a need. For example, in the War of 1812, there was a somewhat famous instance where Governor Chittenden demanded that the militia return from its federal duty to defend the state and the militia refused. And then Governor Chittenden was voted out of office the following year because he had favored Vermont over the interests of the country and because of the political fallout related to that. In the 1830s, there were rebellions in Canada that crossed the northern border of Vermont. And so again, the organized militia was called forward to assist with those. But until really the Civil War, that's when we started to see a more formal organized militia. And in fact, in the 1840s, the state went so far as to repeal, according to Paul, the organized militia statutes because the June musters had become more of, had become a bit of an embarrassment. They were associated more with partying and drunkenness and then accidents relating from people coming together once a year and drinking too much and then drilling with loaded weapons. Then they were with actual military order. And then in the 1860s, of course, the Civil War happened and a more professional military came out of that that eventually morphed into the National Guard in the 20th century. But the bottom line is the references to the militia and this statute that are repealed relate to the outdated system of requiring every male Vermonter between 18 and 45 to enroll essentially for draft into the state militia in a time of need. And that's been off the books since 1947. And so I don't see this bill as in any way affecting the ability of a town or a group of citizens to organize what we know now as these militia groups here which are somewhat different from what our statute has historically referred to as the militia. And I'm not in a position to comment on whether there's any other provision and statute that might impact the ability to organize a militia but this bill doesn't affect that to the best of my knowledge. So the one caveat I have is I've been talking to Tucker and apparently there may be some provisions from the New Hampshire grants that applied isolated towns but he hasn't had a chance to review that and you would know more about that than I would. These are provisions where in a town by town basis there's provisions from the New Hampshire grant that might be incorporated into the charter but he was unaware of anything off the top of his head in any town's charter that authorized that town to organize its own militia. Like I said though, historically some of the towns did organize their own militias. I'm not aware of any towns in Vermont that currently do it although from news reports I am aware that we do have militias of private citizens in the state that are separate from what's governed in Title 20 here. Well, it sounds like you do a lot of work and I really appreciate it, Amy. And I will give that answer to my constituent. Thank you very much. It also since then unless there's something in the New Hampshire grants the since that all that happened we've been declared a Dylan state. So a town wouldn't be allowed to do it anyway unless we actually gave them permission to do it unless it's in the grant from the New Hampshire grants. Right and I see Tucker's on right now but I think his point was that there are some very isolated instances where those New Hampshire grants portions of them have been allowed to continue although most of them don't apply but I'll let Tucker reply here since he knows when he sent me this I said I'm sorry, what? New Hampshire grants. So, Tucker, would you like to weigh in? Sure, as all of you know from your excellent work on Vermont's leased lands and religious glee lands that still persist to this day at the local level there are small pieces of the original Benning Wentworth New Hampshire grants that were ratified for certain Vermont towns and have endured through the adoption of statute and the formalization of Vermont's statehood most of it does not apply. There are very rare instances especially with property law where pieces still do apply but I would believe that the mustering ability of a municipality under the New Hampshire grants has likely been either superseded or never existed to begin with. I'm not aware of it and I think it went the way of the white pine and if you all remember each of the Vermont towns was required under their New Hampshire grant to maintain all of the white pines in the municipality and not cut a single one down even on your private property because they belonged to the British Royal Navy. So I would assume that most of the mustering powers have gone the way of the white pine they are not in effect any longer. Well, I thank you both again and I will suggest that my constituent watch this Zoom meeting for me and- Sure, and I'll be sending an email I haven't had a chance to put together the email for you and Representative Fagan but I'll send a quick email summarizing what we've found. So, thank you. We, I just, we were scheduled at 2.45 I guess I didn't realize that this was gonna be so long. So we were scheduled actually at 2.45 to look at S85 and Damian was the drafter of that too but I just sent Gail Anode and asked her to cancel that and to let Senator Hooker know that we weren't going to do that today because we're a little bit behind ourselves. So, let's see. Deputy Adjutant General I just keep wanting to say Deputy the Adjutant General but it's, so would you like to tell us we have about 20 minutes here I think and then we really need to go on to our next topic but if, and I see that the sun is in my eyes I can't see who we have here with us. Madam Chair. Yes. We had to switch around the order of the walkthroughs today because Damian had a commitment to another committee. I actually have to run there now so. Yeah, we're not gonna do 85 anyway. I sent you a note. Right, but we have Samantha and Tucker here to do H-337. Right, right. But what I wanna do, so what I wanna do though is finish up with 149. Okay, let's hear. And then I know, I mean, we won't finish it today but just to hear from the guard about 149 and then in about, we're scheduled. Oh, you scheduled that for 245? Correct. Oh, okay. We aren't gonna get there for about 15 more minutes. So you're certainly welcome to stay with us. We'd love to have you stay with us. See what happens here. May I depart, Madam Chair? I have to go to another committee. Thank you and have a drink of water in between. Thank you. So Deputy Adjutant General, do you wanna just tell us what you think here? Actually, ma'am, I've been working hand in hand with Damien on this since the beginning a couple of years ago. So I've locked step with him. Probably the only thing, and I definitely appreciate the fact, we appreciate the fact that the employment protections were added. The only other concern of a provision within the statute that became very apparent during this recent pandemic is the fact that, and there's a bill out there that proposes that the subsistence allowances for the guard members when they're on state active duty are exempt from state income tax. And that provision, there is a bill out there that just hasn't gained any, it hasn't gone anywhere. But what we experienced during the early part of the pandemic before everybody was put on federal duty is we had a mix of folks on state active duty and federal duty, same rank, same duties, and they were getting paid different pay. And that was primarily because on state active duty the housing and food allowances are taxed. And on federal duty, their housing and food allowances aren't taxed. And so early on we experienced that and then again when the, what folks were able to be used for for federal duty during the pandemic was very prescribed. And for example, the governor put our cybertax team on state active duty to support UVM Medical Center for their cyber attack. Those folks were on state active duty. And during that period, the same situation occurred. An E-6 state active duty person and an E-6 federal person were making different pays because of the discrepancy in the allowances and the taxing of the allowances. That would be the only provision other than that. We're locked down. And there is a bill out there requesting that support. But did you say it hasn't moved anywhere? No, it hasn't moved anywhere. I would rather not fold this up because this does a lot of good things for it because of that. But I was just bringing to your attention we still have that one disparity in this language. But you would rather not add it on here because of the fear of it getting bogged down? Yeah, it hasn't left ways or means. Probably never will. So this is all good stuff and it's been well worth the effort. And the fact that we've got the employment protections that far outweighs any concerns around subsistence allowances at this point. And I'm good with everything else. That's great. Thank you. Committee, do you have any questions? Senator Rom? I guess I'm just surprised to see so little about sexual assault. I know there was a provost Marshall or some kind of independent investigator that's been appointed to do an audit. And I wondered what the status is of that. And if anyone in the legislature is going to be hearing from this provost Marshall on their recommendations. So the provost Marshall actually just started their first day. So they actually came on, they were selective in January. And based on things that have been occurring, they've actually just entered on an extended active duty period starting today. So they are going to get involved in a couple of investigations around some issues in the guard plus the audit of all members of the guard to determine their status related to various criminal activities and everything else. So they've just literally entered on an extended active duty today. And I believe the general will be, General Knight, as soon as he has information and has that audit underway and gets a sense of it, he will be communicating. He's very, he's very quick to provide that information as it develops. Yeah, thanks. I think we made, I mean, we have made changes in the past to a McGard around the sexual assault and sexual harassment, I think, and added that position. But it doesn't show up in here. No, no, that, this was just a summary of all the stuff that needed to be updated. Right. So the changes that we've made up to this point don't appear in here. Yeah, I didn't realize the provost Marshall starts an extended contract today. I feel like I had an update from fall about that person coming on. Yeah, the positions had to be advertised and the people had to be selected. And their first official month on duty was in January. They've been briefed by the agent in general as his expectations. And then subsequently both the people are traditional guardsmen. They're not full-time, they're military members. And the general went to their employers and asked if he could bring them on extended active duty. And both employers agreed to that. They're both law enforcement officers. And one works for Burlington, I forget where the other one is works. And now they've been brought on extended orders. And they'll start getting into a routine and get their office established and deal with some of those open items as well. And then they'll be on a more recurring basis going forward. Did I hear correctly that they're both men? No. Okay, I am your guard's man, so I didn't know. Sorry now. One is Lieutenant Norris, our senior major Norris, who is a officer with the Burlington PDF. Okay. And the other is from Longwood. We are national guard, but I'm not sure which department he's with in Burma. Okay. Any more questions for, I don't see any more. I will just ask one question. Was there anything in here that you think is controversial, that has opposition that we should hear from anybody? Or is this pretty much the changes are just needed changes? They just needed changes. So for example, when they were talking about the quartermaster, just one quick example, the quartermaster has been taken over by the federal government has established what's called the US, the United States property and fiscal officer. And that is a title 10 active duty officer that's assigned to the state to ensure that the national guard executes the budget and takes care of the equipment appropriately and they oversee the inventory of it and the audit of it. So the accountability is actually managed by the Department of Defense with an assigned individual. Does this mean I can't say my really fun father-in-law song about the quartermaster store anymore? No, I'm sure you can. Okay, good, because it is such a great song. Yes, ma'am. I'm sure you know it. Not real well, but I am aware of it, yes. Yeah, my eyes are dim, I cannot see. Okay, that's as far as I need to go. Yes, yes ma'am. But I can't imagine anything. And again, the house was real receptive to it. I can't imagine anything being of controversy in the whole thing. Okay, well, what I've tried to do here, I think is put this on, I think I put it on Friday for a potential vote. Yes ma'am. Just to give it a little time to sit there in case anybody comes running to us. Okay ma'am, thank you. Okay, any more questions, comments? Yes, Senator Clarkson. So, General Greg, it would be lovely to actually see your face. We haven't been able to see you, you're looking somewhere else, so we've been seeing your face. I'm sorry, my camera sits to the left and I'm looking at my monitor, so I'm sorry about that. Right, so we've just, that's one piece of feedback because we would love to have sort of seen you face on, we missed that experience. Yes ma'am, I apologize for that. Okay, thank you so much, thank you. Thank you. All right. Have a great afternoon. Thank you, you too. Bye. Bye now. Bye. All right, so let's jump to age 337. I think we have with us Tucker and Representative, where did you go? There you are, the favor. And Jason Broughton. So how, I think what I'd like to do is, I think have Tucker walk through the bill first and then have the reporter speak to us from the house and then Jason, does that make sense? Do you have time to stay with us Representative? Okay. All right, great. So Tucker. All right, good afternoon everyone. Tucker Anderson, legislative counsel. I'll do a high level walkthrough of age 337 for you. And I am certain that the state librarian will be able to fill in all of the excellent details since he was so intimately involved in the preparation of this bill. Section one, amends three VSA section 106 to modernize some of the language about the distribution of the acts and resolutions and to help contextualize that, those are the white books that you are all familiar with, the session law. Tucker, may I just ask a question? Before you go into section by section, what's sort of the overall purpose of this bill? The overall purpose of this bill is to update the statutory provisions surrounding the printing and distribution of state publications with current practice, recognizing the changing roles of state departments around the printing and distribution of state publications and in particular the roles of the secretary of state and the state librarian, the department of libraries and transitioning away from statutes reflected in old practice where printing was embedded within the department of buildings and general services. And I know that I believe the state librarian and the state archivist worked together on some information for the House committee that provides a historical context for the division of printing and their former role in all of this to give you an idea of how the structure currently exists and why these amendments are being proposed. The secretary of state's office prepares the acts and resolves and prints them, distributes them. And then on the other side for your purposes and the work that you all do, the green books, the state librarian is responsible for the distribution of those two certain state entities. And of course your near and dear office of legislative council also plays a role in the distribution of those within the confines of the general assembly to some extent. And we'll get to some caveats later on and I will attempt to not be either overly descriptive or overly laconic with all of this. And the green books are not printed by the state, right? They're printed by Lexis Nexus. The publisher is Lexis Nexus, yes. That's what I thought, thank you. So section one again relates to the acts and resolves, the white books, that's the secretary of state's role. And I'll briefly note that both of the first two sections deal with the role of the secretary of state in some legislative adjacent work. So first there's an amendment to 3VSA section 106, which adds some language that states that the secretary shall cause a copy of the acts and resolves to be prepared and printed and to be preserved as state archival records. The current language states that the secretary shall keep the originals on permanent file. This language aligns this section with current practice under 3VSA section 117 that deals with archived records. 3VSA section 107 is amended somewhat generally to modernize the practice of legislative clerks within the secretary of state's office. So the first thing that you should all note is that some of these struck language deals with the approval of the governor for the appointment of these legislative clerks by the secretary of late state. That language is struck and it is left to state that the secretary of state shall designate members of his or her staff as legislative clerks no longer requiring that approval of the governor. The duties of those clerks are amended in the subdivisions that follow. First, references are struck that relate to the printer designated by the commissioner buildings and general services. And at the end, new language is added in the new subdivision five to state that these clerks shall assist in the preparation of a legislative directory containing appropriate matter. It's pretty minor and straightforward in section two. Section three contains some technical corrections that have substantive implications. It amends 12VSA section 1699 to strike the requirement that the statute's laws and decisions of another state may be evidenced prima facie upon first impression in the courts of the state by a printed copy which reports to be published by the authority of the other state. And this is the clause that's being struck or which is kept in the state library at Montpelier. This is, first of all, no longer the practice. And two, because of that, this statute would imply that simply by those documents being kept in the state library in Montpelier that they can be used as prima facie evidence for purposes in court. And since practice no longer aligns with that, it's likely not a good idea to have this in the statute anymore. And of course, the technical correction, which is both here and in S115, which passed the Senate previously, would strike the language stating that the state library is in Montpelier. Section four amends 22VSA section 601. Again, aligning first some technical corrections here for language that was formerly kept in the title surrounding public property and instead aligning it with a new 22VSA section 611, which we will get to later. This is a duty of the state librarian in subsection C to distribute an accordance with this new 22VSA section 611, the acts and resolves the legislative directory, the Vermont statutes annotated and the new language, including cumulative pocket part supplements when issued. So this is taking a look at the distribution duties of the state librarian and that new language is clarifying that when the VSA is distributed that it shall include any pocket parts. Section five amends 22VSA section 605 related to the duties and functions of the Department of Libraries and the enumerated list of duties in subdivision two, we have a great deal of struck language that would eliminate a few of the duties surrounding keeping collections of state documents and documents related to other states and local and federal governments. Again, most of the language is being removed throughout the bill is aligning these statutes with the current practice. The amendment here would state that it is the duty of the Department of Libraries simply to keep a collection of federal documents. And while I've been staring at this, I think I did see that Tom McMurdo joined and I know that he has a great legal explanation for some of the elimination of this language here. So I'll reserve that for later. Section six is the meat and potatoes of this bill, but it is also mostly moving language from the previously cited section in title 29 to title 22, placing it under the state librarian. It requires in subsection A, the state librarian to deliver the acts and resolves to a list of enumerated parties, including the Secretary of State, the Clerk of the United States, Supreme Court, the Governor's Office, the Lieutenant Governor, the Library of Congress, and other public officials and offices as quantities allow. Throughout this section, you'll notice that in this enumerated list, there are specific allotments of these copies to each of these offices. And later on, it will be important to note that if they need more copies, they can request them and the state librarian is authorized to sell them at a price that the state librarian fixes. Subsection B, the state librarian is required to distribute copies of the Vermont statutes annotated and any pocket part supplements to an enumerated list, including the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Speaker of the House, State Treasurer, Secretary of State, the list is comprehensive, the Attorney General, and then upon request. So while there is still a duty to distribute the copies, in Subdivision 3, we have a triggering event which is that these entities have to request the copies. The town clerk, the county clerk, the probate judge, the Clerk of the Vermont Supreme Court, ex-justices and justices of the Supreme Court, superior judges and the state's attorney, the judge of the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and to the U.S. District Judges for the District of Vermont. In Subsection C, we again have an upon request that would trigger the distribution of these copies. Upon request, the state librarian shall give one copy of the Vermont statutes annotated to a BAR association, university, college, or public library that is located in Vermont. And Subdivision 2, and this was the result of an amendment on the floor of the house, one copy of the acts and resolves or the Vermont statutes annotated to a member of the General Assembly. So that is upon request. I'll note two things about this subsection. For the most part, everything that we've discussed so far in this section already existed in law. This subsection has some notable differences. The first in Subdivision C1 is that the institutions such as BAR associations, universities, colleges, and public libraries will have to request copies instead of receiving them automatically. The second is that a clause was added when the bill was being crafted by House Govoffs to state that these are institutions that are located in Vermont. Current statute does not limit the distribution to the state of Vermont. It's not that clear. And of course, Subdivision 2 was added on the house floors so that is new language. It was not previously stated in law that a copy should be given to members of the General Assembly upon request. Subsection D allows additional copies to be sold to the parties identified in this section at a price fixed by the state librarian. Section seven, this amends 24 VSA section 3905 and it is not entirely clear by the section heading here but this deals with military records that are kept on the local level. And if Damien was still here, I'm sure he could tell you exactly what type of military records were required to be kept at the local level back in the day. But all that we're doing here is removing the requirement that those official copies also be kept in the state library. So if this passes striking that language, these would only be kept in the local offices. Section eight contains a comprehensive list of 15 repeals. Some of this language has been either moved or condensed. So for example, the section we just went through condenses some of these sections down into the new section in title 22. The other sections are from what I understand from the comprehensive research that was done mostly outdated and relate to a division of government that no longer exists and no longer plays a role in the printing and distribution of state publications. And if it's something the committee wants, I can pull up the document that was prepared by the state librarian and the state archivist that contains comprehensive coverage of the language in each of these repealed sections so that you can read through and see what is being removed. Section nine is the effective date. It takes effect on July 1st, 2021. And I am finished and certain now that you all regret asking me to go first. No, thank you. Any technical questions for Tucker and then we'll go to representative LeFaber. Yes, Senator Collomer. Thank you, Madam Chair. So Tucker, I'm just curious in the enumerated list of the people who will receive the acts and resolves and it just jumped out at me. I see the speaker of the house is listed but not the Senate pro temp. Is there a particular reason to, you know? I don't know the policy reason why that wasn't in either the underlying statute in title 29 or why it wasn't added in for purposes here. So I don't have a fantastic answer for you. I wish I had some historical fluency about that. Senator Clarkson. Well, they had to leave something for the Senate to do, Brian. So, and I'm actually surprised that the law school, in fact, is not identified as getting all everything updated. I mean, our only law school that is teaching for Montlau is not even listed here. I know there's an opportunity for them to ask for it but it is really surprising that we have not identified for Montlau school is getting a whole set of these things. If I could venture into some wild speculation, I think when you get the historical background about the underlying sections, particularly those in title 29, they may predate the establishment of Vermont law school. Aha, brilliant, brilliant. That's another job of the Senate to add the law school. Well, we'll talk about that, but let's go to Representative LeFavre unless there are technical questions for Tucker. Okay, thank you, Tucker. Thanks, Tucker. Great. Representative, do you wanna give us kind of the highlight of your presentation on the floor and what was the response from your colleagues? Yes, thank you very much for this opportunity to speak here today. I would like to start off, because Tucker hit a lot of my points that I went with on the floor and I'd be more than happy to go through some of the chunks but I would like to just highlight that the committee vote was 11-0-0 favorably. This also had to go to Appropriations which was the highlight of this bill because we actually will be hoping to decrease the amount of money spent. So they also voted favorably for this because our hope is when we change the language down in section six to request versus just given, that the state unfortunately found that they were printing way more than people needed and they were having to distribute them, which is very unfortunate because it was hard for them to number one, have to waste the ones that were not given out and for them to know that they just were not needed. So we're hoping that with looking at this, there won't be any dramatic changes made yet but in the future, they will be cutting down the amounts that are made and that will be a saving on the side of the state. And so Appropriations, again, as I said, voted for this 11-0 favorably and on the floor, this was unanimous. Yes, there was no questions for me to be able to answer once we got past the amendment and it was all yes votes. And for me, it's very important that we are just highlighting that a lot of the information that is here had been here. We are just making it up to date and bringing the language to the standards that the hardworking Vermont state librarians work at because a lot of it was just fine tuning and technical. That was nice, thank you. Any questions for the representative? Thank you, you gave a nice overview of what happened and how it was received and I liked your response about the savings of the money. That was, yeah. And I assume that a lot of people access them online now anyway, so don't wanna have the great big green books even though they look really nice in your office. And that was to also the point for when we started talking about sharing with other states is that a lot of this is accessible online and so sometimes we were not being shared the information from other states so the information we had at face value was not current and that could be costly sometimes to not have the current information. And I do apologize that we did not cut that the Senate pro tem was not added. And I do feel that the Vermont law school was something that we did touch on and I think that's the information that we heard with maybe it was even dated back before and I apologize for that miss as well and that would be good to add in. So thank you very much. Thanks, I don't know that actually the speaker has a couple nice big offices though with bookshelves that pro tem doesn't have a nice big office so she might share, he might not even want them. But anyway, okay, Jason would you like to weigh in on this? Hello, we are enthusiastically in support of this bill. If one thing could be done, I would say this would be our version of the OMB's paper reduction act because of the volumes that we actually have. For us, it's never a wonderful thing in a library to have to, in a sense, recycle a book and we do this every year for a number of years because people will blindly order. And this bill is an attempt to get a handle on how many are actually going to be requested, not necessarily utilized, but how many people actually want them. So this will allow us to begin reducing some of the items. There was some fear that we do this continuously. We only do this at the very end of the year and we also do it only when there is a change or an update to the item itself. Otherwise we let it sit for a lot longer and then we work to go ahead and intentionally reduce the amount that we actually have but we still keep a variety on hand. So within that our goal is again to get a handle on this item. We also will be examining increasing our costs. We charge a meager $5 a book and you should know our highest, I think, buyers are practicing attorneys who want the whole set. So they're making off like bandits from us right now. But this is where things stand and we are happy though to increase the price to something that is appropriate while not forcing people to not consider it. So we are going to strike a balance but we do see this as an opportunity to get a handle on these items that we deal with each year amongst a variety of people. So within that, thank you. And I would say the person whose area who really oversees it is Tom McMurdo, my assistant state librarian. So we will hear from Tom but I would say $5 a book is pretty, if anybody's bought a book at a bookstore lately they didn't give much for $5. So Senator Clarkson. Jason, thank you. What does Lexis-Nexis charge us per book? Now this is where it becomes interesting from the research and Tucker can kind of weigh in. The assumption as I understand it from the current contract is zero because legislators and ledge counsel does the proof reading. So we are actually just unfortunately dealing with massive amounts of paper. The state of Vermont is not charged anything. That's fascinating. How do they make so much money? But I would, before you criticize paper, Jason, remember you are the Vermont state of life. Paper is a big business for us. Trees are a big business for us. We cannot be disparaging paper. Well, I thought it was maple syrup, Senator. I thought it was maple syrup. The forest products industry is even, it would be interesting to see which one's bigger, but I think the forest products industry is bigger. But I don't know how many paper mills we actually have in Vermont anymore. I don't think we have any. We ship to paper mills. We ship a ton of wood for paper. So don't go disparaging paper. Actually, the paper mills in other states are closing down too. Yeah. It's a bummer. It is a bummer. It's terrible. For our industry, it's terrible. So it ain't good. So Mr. McMurdo, do you want to weigh in here a little bit? Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would suggest actually there's a lot of data out there that shows that millennials and Gen Z prefer physical books just like Gen X and boomers. So that's a good thing. So paper's not going anywhere. But I believe the point was made earlier that yes, these are in fact online and used frequently online. We recently got a shipment of pocket parts. So those of you who do have the green books are familiar with the little insert parts that go in there. We got by the time we actually received that shipment, the information had been online for at least six weeks. So often the print does trail the updates to the online statutes. But I do want to reassure everyone that we will continue to distribute these. And if you want the green books on your shelf, they do look very nice. They're very important that you will still be able to get them. To speculate a little further on Tucker's answer about the law school, I would suppose that they probably have their own contract with Alexis Nexus to get these. Maybe, I don't know. People will find out. Okay. Jane Waldo will let us know. She's the librarian. We'll find out. There are some materials that are charged. Jason was talking about the VSA, so the green books, but the Secretary of State does contract to do the session laws. And there is a contract for the directories. Those are not printed in the volume that they used to be. But those print directories of House and Senate members are still printed every session. I'm sorry, every biennial session. So there is some expenditure here. And by doing that, we help to reduce the cost of those contracts by actually determining who actually wants these books. So this legislative change will give us the opportunity because it changes us from just sending out stuff as an automatic thing to actually having people ask us for it. And if they ask us for it, we know they want it. So therefore it'll essentially follow. There'll be one year of continuing to print essentially the same number. But from that year, we hopefully will be able to get a better notion of the demand for these, the actual demand, and then adjust printing quantities as we go from there. So it probably will take two to three years for us to really determine the demand. But longterm, this is going to save a lot of paper, labor, and potentially some money. I can't, anybody else have any questions or? So Senator Clarkson, are you suggesting that we automatically, we find out and automatically send to the law school? Or because they- I'm emailing her right now because they have the ability to request. I know, I'm just curious if she'd like, and I was gonna ask you if she'd like to testify. I mean, I think it is the one other entity that would be appropriate to proactively give them to, but if they don't- If they want them. Exactly, so that's my question to her. So maybe we could ask her to just quickly testify at some point unless we're planning on passing this bill this afternoon. No, I put it on the schedule for tomorrow afternoon for about 15 minutes to vote on it then. Okay. But if you get a response from her about whether they want it automatically sent to them or, and then we should also find out with the pro tem. I don't know that- Madam chair, I'd like to say one thing about that. One thing that committees should know that they may not or maybe they do is if the law school would like them, please don't forget that we are required at the tune of $90,000 a year of our own budget sends the Vermont of law school library this item. So it can be written in to the statute itself that they receive them, given that they refund them directly out of our budget. Wait a minute, repeat that. We fund the Vermont law school library to the tune of $90,000 a year. That that's correct because we, the state gave the, a lot of the library to the law school to manage. So for that, that we are coming for taking our books off our hands, correct, Jason? That is correct. They did us a favor, but they are, you know, they've been compensated for that. They are and they are accessible by pretty much all Vermonters, I believe, as a result. Okay. All right, well, let's find out about that. And we'll also find out about the pro tem, whether we should just automatically put the pro tem in here or anyway. Okay. All the committee rooms automatically get them, right? Maybe not anymore. Yeah. Oh, they do? Oh, good. So we'll look, learn it. Yes. And I did share this bill with the ledge council librarian, Michael Churnick, and he is going to do a thorough review of our current contracts to make sure that none of these changes will impact our state house libraries, which include the committee rooms, the ledge council library and the legislative lounge, I believe. Oh, right. The lounge. And the Senate Secretary and House Clerk, they automatically get them, I assume. Yes, they also receive copies, I think from the same, they receive it in the same allotment and distribution that our office and the rest of the legislative offices receive their copies. They are in the Senate chamber, but I've never seen them in the House chamber. Yeah, they're in every committee room in the House. No, in the House chamber. We have them in the Senate chamber. Oh, right. I don't think they're in the House chamber. I know they're not. Yeah. Unless they're under the desk or... I love having them in the Senate chamber. We actually use them occasionally. Because we're not allowed to access our computers. Right. Any other questions or comments or concerns? So let's just check out the law school and the pro tem and then plan on maybe voting this out tomorrow if we can get an answer by then. Sure. Committee? Sounds good. Okay. Don't think this is hotly controversial. All right. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Representative Mr. McMurdo and Jason and Tucker. Thank you.