 And this is Bill. Yeah. Thank you. Welcome back. We have represent Walt with us. Nice. Yeah. All right. So why don't this is the first we're looking at it. We're just doing a brief overview. So why don't you. General. Talk about what's going on here. Legislative council. Walk us through the bill with a little bit more detail, but we don't have a lot of time. Yeah. So this is this bill concerns. This is a process called natural organic reduction. And basically what it does is the terminology is a little bit misleading because they help nature out a little bit. Basically the body is not involved in any way about the bodies placed a container with materials, which can be wood chips. The body is not buried. So it's kind of self contained. Some people have to be built. In order to allow this process because there's nothing in the state like this right now. And so what we're trying to do is we're going to. because there's nothing in the state like this right now. And so what we heard testimony that in a month, what you've had is a cubic yard accomplished. And that the process is so terrible and the heat generated so high that it removes all the possibility of any pathogens surviving the process. And basically, even the most difficult components of the body, bones, teeth and so on, are all decomposed. So that's what we're proposing to allow here. So this bill basically does just a couple of things in the 30th page wall, but that's because we changed so many instances of terminology, that's why it's so long. And so the essence of the bill is to allow this process and to treat it the same way as we do creation in statute. And so what we've done, one of the things we've made is that we remove the term crematory and crematorium, I think, for both of the statute. We now use the term disposition facility. The color cremation can natural or get production because in the end, the processes are similar in some way and can't resolve. You have something that is not human remains in any recognizable way. You have either ashes or you have soil. There's only one instance in this current statute that we did not make that change. I think a section seven, I might have to check here. That's the instance in which DCF, yeah, to this section seven, that's the instance in which DCF is failing for the cremation and remains are not claimed. Current statute says that if that is the case, if DCS is a DCF is made for the process and the remains are unclaimed, the Office of Dictionary Medical Examiner must hang on to those remains for three years. Now, that's a problem if you have a cubic yard of soil. It's not a big problem if you have a garden of ashes that can go on a shelf. But we were over at the health department that could be a real issue, especially if they have a cubic yard of soil and another cubic yard of soil, they're supposed to keep some of it for three years. That's much more than low interest of the word. And so we did not add natural organic reduction in that one section of the statute. We did not make any changes. And so natural organic reduction is not covered. Just in that specific case, the DCF base for the privation and remains are unclaimed. Otherwise, it basically treats like privation. So any questions? Yeah. So is this a relatively new, as first I'm hearing about it, is this law existing in other states or is this process fairly commonplace and prevalent elsewhere in the picture? It's legal now in three states, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington. And I had a list, I think it was seven or eight states who were actively considered. So it's not widespread. And I think it's been legal in those three states I've mentioned for only like two or three years. So what's the genesis? Is it like people are not satisfied with privation or burial, like one another alternative? So what is it? What are you thinking about if you don't work? That's exactly right, Seth. And there are those who are opposed to the process of involving and so on. And here, because of the toxic chemical involved, I think it's a great deal. Right. I don't, you know, I think you have so much left. But they are also not satisfied with the process of inclination they prefer to be towards the soil. And in some religions, that is basically it. The body is very, you know, the body in any ways. So this process, this kind of speeds up the process. And again, you don't need a semi-term plan for this. What if, like, the Cuban PR is pretty big. What is that the family that takes that Cuban yard? Right. Brings it to their house with a very bad yard, the Cuban box themselves. Right. We did not touch that. So whatever you could do, we cremate remains and statue now to also do with the natural or yet production. So in burials, right now, is that my definition, need you to involve somebody or could you? No, not necessarily. It's a few years ago, we have on Greek burials. Yeah. So, and that usually means the cemetery has to set aside a special section, just for the burials, if I remember correctly. We could do that on your own plan too. So the difference here would be, if you had a Greek burial, you put the seed in a coffin. You know, what do you do with the boxes, you know? Okay, I already bought it for the cemetery here. You could be doing the same. There's nothing added at all in this, when you put the remains on it. No, it's all organic. Okay, and in case of Greek burials, you can use a box that decomposes or just a shroud. Right, right. You don't have to have the boxes contained or nothing. So what's the difference to the Greek burial of this? Well, in the Greek burial, you put the body in the ground and then let nature do its thing. And that'd be very precise if I remember to test it on it. This is exactly how deep you bury the person. Too deep and it doesn't work too shallow. I heard what you were saying. It's like three feet. Three feet. It's not a safety. Right. Right, it's three feet. Frank, thank you. Yeah, I knew there were some parameters there. And in case of natural organic reduction, you don't have to worry about that at all. You don't have to worry about a burial plot. Plating and all that. So that's essentially the difference. You don't, the Greek burial, it mandates a burial. Here, you can keep the box, whatever you want, wherever you want it. All right, all right. So can I just add about why cremation is also a challenge? Cremation uses a huge amount of energy. So that is one of the reasons I've heard that people oppose it is that it uses a huge amount of fossil fuel and fun. So that's one of the other things. But this is, you know, this uses less energy and is much more natural, cheaper and a lot cheaper. So that's one of the reasons I'm sort of puzzled by the DCF thing is if it's a lot cheaper, I would think DCF would want to be doing this. And we didn't preclude the opportunity for DCF to do this, did we? Oh, well, originally, when we originally wrote the statute, we did, but we got that notification from the health department that that could be a storage problem. It could be a storage problem, but it's a price opportunity for them to do it at a less expensive cost. True, true. And I suppose the other approach you could take to say the office of the Chief Medical of Denver could not actively hold on to those remains for three years. Yeah. That was another approach, but so long. Representative Wells, you may not know that once upon a time on House General, I did all the burial bills that I'm sorry if that has become you. It's a particular kind of chore. Enjoy it at times as well. I, my question, perhaps as a Hindu, is just about whether or not you looked at the issue of transporting organic remains across state and international lines. Absolutely. And we do not address that in the bill if we need that alone, whatever exists. And our understanding is that there are agreements between the states. Okay. So if you have the misfortune of going to Maine and dying there, or not the Maine that's worth it. Okay. The details on that. Okay. And international? Did you do the same thing internationally? Yeah. There are agreements. So this facility, the understanding would be this facility would tell you, this is what you are legally allowed to do with these remains. You could go back to this state, but not this country, et cetera, et cetera. They are, it is an organic item. So I just wonder. Right. We've got, yeah. And we especially look at that issue because what if you do die in my state? I'm not sure that doesn't do it. Or what if you, you're supposed to take remains to a certain place is what I was thinking. Right. You're taking, you might not be able to get on an airplane. I don't know. Right. Well, I've had that experience personally with that transport remains in my airplane. And that turned out not to be an issue. It's actually the one in Florida that turned out not to be an issue. So we're just leaving that alone. And I'm always there. Because whatever it says. There's a question line. Right. So Russ, yeah, I just want to make sure I understand the final disposition options. Could you explain those? Well, right now, what we allow them to want is to build. You can barely, they're part of the backyard. You want to. You want to have to meet health codes and so on. And the same thing applies to, if you want to schedule ashes, you know, you may want to check with the health codes in your community, just to make sure there are no issues going on there. And my father-in-law is beneath the newly planted maple tree, for example. Right. Yes. And people do choose to do exactly that. And that's fine. And so we're not touching that. We're saying, okay, if you choose to, well, let me give you an example. State of Washington has designated a state forest to which you may donate your compost to remain. Well, that's a great idea. Yeah. We didn't go there, but I'm certain it will be the hunters who will say, I want to produce something. Right. Make use of me. I'm no longer here. So if you want to have a beautiful tree or, you know, whatever. We're quick. So it's how about the remains can be used in effective compost? It can be. Colorado addressed this. We did not. Colorado forbids selling the compost. And they also forbid using it to grow the food for human consumption. But again, we didn't go there. But I think if you chose to put it under vegetable garden, that's for choice. So I guess we'll hear from Katie where we did go in this bill. I assume it's not just totally open. If it's a cottage or an industry develops around this new process, are there going to be any guidelines or regulations on how they operate? Is that in the bill? Yeah. Thanks for all of you with that. But basically, whatever applies to crematoriums applies here. Because they have high heat capacity. Actually, I can see dual purpose here with the heat that is expelled from crematorium to help heat a composting facility. But it double. Yes, it's a dual purpose. Sure. I imagine some of the same businesses would want to come and change this. In addition to the energy issues that are functionally raised, is there, you would say that this would be less costly, right? I'm sorry to say that. I would assume that this would be less costly. Yeah, it's costly. Basically, the cost involved in the facility here is having a place that should do this. You need a facility, you need a sealed container. And that obviously takes on space. So that would be one of the biggest issues, I think, for a business one to do this. So is it, is it as you said early on, if you take the container, fill it with wood chips or something like that, place the body in there, and that's all there is to this. It's not as natural as you'd think. So you have to apply heat, okay. Yeah, it has to, like compost. So, you know, professional compost facilities, they can, because it's such a high heat that's generated by compost, that's why we can put in a compost paper and stuff. Can't do that in your backyard compost. It's never gets hot enough. But a professional facility can do this, and it's generally just a lot less to be able to do this. Right. And I understand that the containers have filters to allow the natural gasses to come off, right? Are we in any way inviting in this process? I think that's pretty clear, but we're only being a matter of time where kids are being sold in Costco for people to do the super-off. No, I doubt it, because I think this is probably a moment too high-tech. Okay, I didn't realize that it sounds so simple. It almost sounds like a- Yeah, but- I don't think you- So the containers are not just a simple container. They have to be fairly specific to the standard heat and then they have to apply heat. That's right. Yes. Okay. Interesting. Thank you very much. We'll move to Katie. Katie, welcome. Great. Thank you. My number- Good to see you. You're welcome. We are here. We are due on the 4th and 11th. So maybe in 10 minutes, could you close the bill however you want to approach that? Sure. Good morning. I'm Katie. I'm the chair of the Brooklyn office of legislative council. Nice to see everyone. I haven't been in this committee in a while. So first I should just say my internet connection is unstable. If we get disconnected, I'll call the committee room and maybe you can listen to me on speaker for 10 minutes, but hopefully it won't come to that. So representative Wallace did a great job of giving you the big picture of this bill. What it does is creates a new option for the disposition of human remains. It defines natural organic reduction as the contained accelerated conversion of human remains into soil. So I don't think we'll have time to look at almost 40 pages of the bill in minute detail, but I thought it might be helpful to give you sort of the high level of what the bill is doing. The bill spans two subchapters in title 18, the health title that governs burial and cemeteries. And it also amends a chapter in title 26, the licensing chapter with regard to funeral directors and operators of crematoriums. So you'll see that the amendments kind of span those two chapters. What the bill does is it sort of creates the sense of parity between the natural organic reduction process and the cremation process in terms of the rights and responsibilities of the operators of crematoriums, the same sort of rights and responsibilities in terms of permits that are needed, fees that are needed to be paid licenses. It would pretty much be equivalent between the two types of operators. So much so that when the house committee upstairs was looking at the bill, OPR asked, can we have one term for both of these types of facilities? So we have just one type of license and one fee. So that's why a lot of the changes that you'll see in the bill are changing the language of either a crematory establishment or crematory facility to a disposition facility, to mean a facility for either natural organic reduction or cremation. So that's one of the big pieces that you'll see. There's also some changes in the bill where maybe cremation or cremated remains are specifically singled out and there's a strike through to just refer to remains. So it's more general instead of referring to maybe burial spaces, the language might be a little bit better to talk about the spaces for permanent disposition. So there's a try to, I would say, use consistent terms when we're talking about natural organic reduction and disposition facilities. So we're trying to get that consistency across two chapters and also a sense of trying to broaden specific terms so that natural organic reduction could be included in some of the existing statutes. So those are the major changes. I'm happy to sort of walk through it a little bit more closely. One sort of hiccup that you should be aware of, in title 26, you'll see that there are two fee sections and that's because about four years ago, a new fee section was adopted, but it doesn't take effect until, I'm gonna say June 1, 2023. So we've had to amend the existing fee section that is active current law right now and also amend the section of the fees that will take effect in June 1, 2023. The fees are the same for both. It's just a matter of a change to the fees that was made several years ago and not wanting to lose the addition and changes of calling a crematory establishment a disposition facility in that language that was previously adopted. So I think that is the only sort of really technical piece that looks a little bit confusing in the second half of the bill. So, is there any language in the bill? I assume this composting goes on and then the family members go and pick up the cubic yard of compost. Once they do, is there any further restrictions on this process as to what they can do with that? I mean, I don't think there's anything governing ashes right now in the herb. So I'm sure there's nothing here either. No, there's nothing specifically here that governs how it would be used that wouldn't foreclose the health department for say from adopting rules to creating more specificity about where this type of remains could be spread but it's not part of the bill. And I would add, I'm sure you'll take testimony probably from folks in other states who are doing this but the testimony that they heard upstairs it sounded like a family wouldn't necessarily take home that full cubic yard that they would maybe take home a couple of containers and that the majority would be maybe donated to a restoration project on state lands or state forest lands. But you'll, I'm sure hear more about that from folks in other states who are already doing this. Is there any country out there that is more mature in this process like it's commonplace in Europe? I'm not sure about country. I'm happy to look into it. I was only aware of the states that have adopted it. Great, it starts saying this would be a very Scandinavian thing to have done ahead of us. I mean, you're just people who are energy because this is really a big energy improvement because we use a lot of energy and also is it, did you hear testimony or was there a testimony? Katie, do you know whether the way this has evolved in the states that have passed it? The process has been joined at crematorium during their competition between this and the crematorium. Now the funeral home has now funeral homes have expanded to be jointly with crematoriums and now it's just going to be very sustained. Yeah, so the woman who testified, I believe she was from Washington state and she's operating a natural organic reduction facility. I know they took quite a bit of testimony from her but I don't believe they took testimony from maybe like a competitor who is operating a crematorium in the same state. They did hear from a funeral director in Vermont and I think that there's generally a favorable response from the funeral directors but I wouldn't want to speak from them. I think it would be worth your while to pull Vermont funeral directors in to get a sense of how this would impact the industry. There's lots on Google about this. I have not found another country though. Here, world's first human composting facility is opening in Western countries. It's now, it's in Seattle. So it looks like America is first and there is not another country. The first one is supposedly in Seattle, Washington in 2021. Okay. There's a picture. Does everyone have any other questions for Katie? We're five minutes from the floor. We had another small bill dealing with the annual readjustment of the workers' comp. So charged, we won't deal with that today but it's sort of a must pass bill. So we'll take a break now. Thank you very much, Katie. You're welcome. Nice to see everyone. We'll have to walk through the bill at some point but that's a good overview for us so thank you. Okay.