 Good morning. This is the Vermont House Transportation Committee and we have a hearing today just for one hour from now until noon and then at one o'clock we meet again until two o'clock. Our agenda can be found on our website. Let's quickly introduce ourselves and I'll try to do it in the proper order. I'm Kurt McCormick. I represent Burlington and I'm chair of the committee, Barbara Murphy. Barbara Murphy, I represent Fairfax vice chair committee Tim. Tim Cork and I represent Bennington District 21. Okay, now it's just going to be the order in the pictures. Representative Savage. Hi, I'm Brian Savage. I represent Swanton and Sheldon. Representative McCoy. Good morning. I'm Patty McCoy. Representative Patty McCoy representing the towns of Poltley and Ira. Representative White. Good morning. I'm Representative White and I serve the town of Hartford. Representative Quimby. I live in Concord. I represent eight towns in Essex, Caledonia. Representative Potter. Dave Potter from Clarendon. I represent Clarendon, West Gretland, Proctor, Wallingford and a little bit of Tindallia. Representative McCarthy. I'm Mike McCarthy and I represent St. Albans City and the southern portion of St. Albans Town. Representative Corkman. Representative Burke. Representative Molly Burke. I represent a part of Brattleboro. Representative Sullivan. Hi. Representative Mary Sullivan, south until the section of Burlington. And Lori, would you introduce yourself? Hi, I'm Lori Morse, the committee assistant. And Anthea, are you still on? Hi, I'm Anthea Dextre Cooper, Office of Legislative Council. And Neil. Neil Schickner, Joint Fiscal Office. And thank you. Our first today is Michelle Boomauer who will introduce herself. And thank you for joining us. Thank you, Karen McCormack. I'm Michelle Boomauer. I'm the director of policy planning and intermodal development for the Vermont agency of transportation. So, my last topic, uh, for me this morning are the updates related to the CARES act, COVID relief funding specific to our Amtrak service as well as our state airports. So I'll start first with the state airports. First, the FAA has advised us that our capital projects, our construction projects for fiscal year 20 will be approved at 100% federal funding for any eligible items in the project, as opposed to 90% federal funding, which is the usual share. And this will include those projects funded through our airport improvement program as well as any supplemental funding we receive for grants. At this point, we are still working with the FAA to confirm exactly which projects this will impact, because some of the awards have not been made yet, but as soon as we have those details, we'll advise you. And unfortunately, there are some projects where portions of the project that were not eligible for federal funding will not be able to receive this CARES Act bump up. An example of that for representatives Murphy and Savage in terms of their interest in the Franklin County Airport and Representative McCarthy is the 401 foot extension of the runway. So I just wanted to highlight that because I know it's an item folks have been watching. The second way that our airports will benefit from this CARES Act funding is we'll be awarded almost $300,000, $299,000. As the airport sponsor, we can use the funds to support keeping the airports open and operational during this pandemic. And we may also choose to use the funds for capital projects by following the standard process used for all capital projects in terms of eligible projects. So I think everybody is aware that the state airports have been operational this entire period and so that will help in that regard. We did ask the FAA if the funding was eligible for use to waive the rent for fixed based operators. These are the folks that we have engagements with to do certain functions at airports as well as other businesses on airports or to reimburse for other expenses. These fixed based operators might be incurring during these times in terms of cleaning supplies, PPE, etc., personal protective equipment. The FAA has advised us that while the FBOs undertake certain duties such as ground maintenance and fueling as part of their land lease agreements with the agency, they are not providing a contracted service and therefore under the FAA guidance are not eligible to receive this funding. So that was a bit of a disappointment. We were hoping to be able to support these folks in a little more robust manner. But that was the determination. So in addition to the funding and the match share coming to the agency, I'd also like to note that the Burlington International Airport will benefit from the match share reduction on their projects as well as receiving $8.7 million in COVID support for their operations. And so that's a significant piece to note in terms of the Burlington Airport. A few other items to update you on related to aviation. The guidance within the governor's executive order, Addendum 10, that was issued last week, you will see many of our team members, staff at the airports beginning our spring work and maintenance operations. And for some of you that where we're doing construction, you'll see some of that construction work beginning in these two person teams for project area activities. There may be some testing happening, a survey, as well as our general safety activities, mowing or today's case, maybe a little plowing of snow. And also, some of the state airports, five of them have been identified and you've probably seen this on the news as local commodity point of distribution locations for the distribution of food in the means of meals ready to eat. And the state airports use as these commodities point of distribution locations was set up over a year ago and we've exercised these deployments in coordination with other federal state and local partners, including FEMA and the state emergency operations center. And so we were well poised when we were called upon to be the distribution center points for these. The first is starting today at the Franklin County airport in Highgate. The Rutland regional airport will be on the 24th of April. Hartness airport in Springfield will be on the 27th. The Morris airport in Bennington will be on the 28th. And then Northeast Kingdom International Airport in Coventry will be on the 29th. We've also been referring our fixed based operators and our airport businesses to the agency of commerce and the small business administration, as well as their regional development corporations for the business support that they would be eligible for through that those particular entities. So that is the aviation cares update and general aviation update. And I'm happy to pause here and take any questions. Questions for myself. I have one just. What did you say Burlington airport was going to get and it's not through the same program as the state efforts, right? So it is through the cares act, which is the same program we're going to be funded through. And there's two ways airports receive support. One is to have their local match share eliminated in this case. And so Burlington airport I'm sure has projects underway that will qualify for that. I just don't have those details. And the second was the 8.7 million in cares act funding that they will get for their operations support. So do we know how much money we get for the projects, not for the operations? We're still analyzing that. Some of the grant awards have not yet been made for FY 20. And so we're we're still assembling that information to see what the savings will be for us. But, you know, it's whatever it is, it'll be helpful given the T fund shortage. Yeah, sure, it'll be helpful when you say for the for the state airports, when you say projects, do you mean projects that have to be have been programmed? Yes, these are construction projects we've received FAA grant awards for or will be receiving this spring. A lot of times, well, in most cases, what happens is we will receive awards after we've done all the permitting, all of the project design, et cetera. And so so those awards still may be pending. And I think there's some supplemental awards that may be pending. So I would say within the next couple of weeks, we'll have more detail on which of the projects benefit from this cares act funding. OK, but will it work like the transit cares act money, which is on top of other federal grants? So the grant award match share going from 9010 federal state to 100% federal will basically just reduce our already planned obligations in those areas. The 300,000 that we're getting for operations support will be on top of what we would have otherwise had to use from our transportation fund, because all of our maintenance activities are funded by state dollars at the airports. And so basically this just helps offset the lost revenues that essentially we won't have to cover those maintenance operations because we've had a downturn in the T fund. And so this 300,000 dollars we received could be used to backfill that that whole. Yeah, like the transit. Yeah. Are there questions on the airports? No questions from your hands up. OK, I'm sorry. I forgot to do that in the hands. Has your hand been up for a while, Patty? Yes. I'm sorry. I've got Patty and then Mike. OK, so I just want to qualify that, Michelle, that you are saying that Burlington gets 8.7 million. But additionally, they will fall under your number one for capital improvement projects at 100 percent. Yeah, do they fall into the second category of the 299,000 as well? That's for them, that's the 8.7 million. OK, so we're getting 300,000. They're getting 8.7 million. All right, good. Thank you very much. I apologize for that big difference. Representative McCarthy. Michelle, I know you said that you still had some projects you weren't that were in question. I really liked the memo that you had done around explaining how the public transit money went out. And I was wondering if you might be willing to prepare something like that, explaining how the FAA money gets doled out. And if you do have a sense of, you know, if we assume that most of the projects sort of a order of magnitude of how big the the whole that that 10 percent not coming from state dollars will fill. Yeah, I can do that. OK, that'd be good. Thanks. Anything else on airports? OK, thank you. Next. OK. So for the I think you all recognize that we invest about eight million dollars annually to pay for Amtrak service that comes to Vermont. That's state fund state transportation fund investment for the Ethan Allen and the Vermonner and Amtrak received a direct CARES Act subsidy under the CARES Act investments. And they were required for to provide some relief to states who pay for state supported service in addition to the money they received for their own relief. This is a little bit more complicated, a investment strategy in terms of how we receive our our relief. But we found out on Tuesday. That the CARES Act will cap our state pay payments for for FY 20 at 80 percent of the state costs that were paid in twenty one, excuse me, 19. It's confusing to even talk about. The just to sort of remind folks, we went to a system whereby we pay Amtrak for actual costs of running the train service and they figure out those actual costs. And then we we for where we have shared service with other states, each state is a split out for their cost share. So in addition to being capping the our costs at 80 percent of our 2019 costs, the total amount of subsidy available for all states was 239 million. And at this time, there's no specific guidance that is printed that I could share with you in a memo. But we are working with Amtrak to ensure that their cost allocations are consistent with prior practice. What we believe to be our benefit in this CARES Act program right now for FY 20, we believe that the savings will be one point nine million dollars. And for FY 21, we are estimating that the savings will be about a million dollars. For a total of total savings across both fiscal years of just under three million dollars. In terms of how we plan to address these savings in terms of how they will apply, the one point nine million and FY 20 will be simply left in the real appropriation at the end of the year as a year end balance of funds that we had planned to expend, but won't be needing to. And similar to how we have done this in past years, year end balances will be used to to basically they'll be swept in this case from any appropriation where we have a year end balance to help us with balancing the forty two million dollar shortfall we have in the T fund this year. So this, again, is another small amount of money to help us with balancing the T fund appropriation shortfall. And while we have guesstimated the FY 21 savings to be about a million dollars, there there is, you know, additional information that will come in that will help us sort of nail that down as we go forward. The the change in ridership that we're experiencing and some of the other elements in terms of service from Amtrak haven't yet all been worked out yet. But right now, that's what we're estimating for a cost savings. OK, questions on Amtrak. Yes, Molly. So I had another session, you said that we were saving four hundred and fifty thousand dollars a month by not running the train. Is that correct? I think Neil actually said that. You said that. OK. Anyway, so I'm just wondering, will that money also go into money that we're not spending with that money? Also go into filling this hole that we have? That's a good question. You know, I think that it would you know, we because, yeah, there are I think we had talked earlier about some of the some of the base costs being reduced because we're not running the train. And while we won't be able to recognize all, you know, absolute savings of all of our costs, because we still have to pay for like equipment that's been purchased and and some of those other things I expect and this is part of why it's difficult to estimate 20. Well, you know, and I would say that that has not been factored in representative Burke. So I think you make a good point that the savings could be a little bit more because of the fact that not only are they giving us the CARES Act service reduction discount, so to speak, but then we're also going to have some actual cost savings when they rectify the actuals versus the estimates. Michelle, any have they mentioned when they think the change to be back? I have not heard any estimate of that at this time. You know, I think that in terms of the eastern corridor that we're all probably on a fairly similar trajectory in terms of where we are with COVID right now. However, what restarting public transportation service like the train will involve and what precautions they'll feel need to be in place. And just even the ridership, I mean, that was really the key thing that caused the shutdown was there just weren't enough riders to make it feasible to run the trains cost effectively. But I anticipate that they are working on a return to business solution and that we'll begin to hear more about that in the next couple of weeks. Anything else for Michelle on Amtrak? No, OK, as soon as I hear more about the restart program, I'll make sure to get an email out to the committee. So that's all I have this morning specific to those two items. All right, so, Michelle, I think we have. You have somebody else ready of the. Of the agency people we had, we have Wanda next. But if it's Wanda, oh, Mike Smith and Wanda, are you ready? Sorry, it takes me a while to find the button. We are we are present and accounted for. But are you ready to speak? What would you like us to speak on? I looked at the agenda. Oh, hold on. I want to turn the video on so you can see us. I can kind of see us. Oh, just a minute. You're at work. We are at work three days a week, well, five days a week, but we are open at six of our branch offices. Not to the public, but for the staff to come in and and process all of the DMV day to day business transactions. So and we're six feet apart. We're a little bit more than that, just so you know. And we do have our masks. Well, do you? OK. Yes, we do. Commissioner, I think we wanted you to tell us about just giving us an update on the driver's ed situation. I know that that board meeting was postponed, right? It no, it's today. Actually, it's this it's this afternoon. So for the record, good morning, Commissioner Manoli, Department of Motor Vehicle and Mike Smith, Director of Operations is with me. The governor's directive, I want to just give a little quick background, if I can, the governor's directive to DMV when we cease doing in person transactions. One of the items that that is pointed out is that I need to develop, among many things, a proposal to bring exams back when we open up. And that's because exams were postponed completely. Some of our other processes that we require, typically for a Vermonter or a new Vermonter to come into our branch office and do business, we were able to find alternatives to continue supporting those services. And an example I'll give you is a VIN verification. Mike and his team have had to find alternative ways to do VIN verifications to assist the Vermont consumer in purchasing that new car when it's used. And so one of the items that we have identified is really how do we bring exams back to Vermonters in a slow, methodical way, you know, as we turn the spigot on slowly as we gradually open up DMV to to the public. And let me interrupt. We just we have a clarification question. OK, Neil, Neil, you're muted. Yeah, it wasn't on that point. OK, so it wasn't the clarification question. OK, so would you like, Mr. would you like to ask the question? Well, yeah, it was it was about your your mail and online receipts for registration and license licenses. Mike mentioned a week or so ago that they were coming in as expected as as normal. I was wondering if you have continued to see that, namely, we're talking about the impact of the suspension. I don't know what Director Smith actually commented on. So I guess I will turn this question over to him. But before I do that, I want to say to the committee we are monitoring our revenues every day and with our alternative schedule in, you know, field taxes coming in online registrations. We just went live with online renewal of your license. And I want to share with the committee, I am so impressed. This week alone, we had over a thousand people renew their licenses online. They renewed them in the evening on Saturdays on Sundays. Yesterday, our deposit for online renewal of licenses was 17 thousand dollars. That's the highest we were tracking this the day before it was 15 thousand. Just with online renewals this past week, we had over a thousand transactions online renewals of licenses. So I can only say to the committee, thank you again for your support of allowing us to modernize DMV's IT system if that's making a difference. But now back to your question. I'll turn it over to Mike. I had to give my little my little kudos on that. Mike, go ahead. So what Neil is referring to is the level of registration renewals coming through as we would normally see. So I spoke with the lady in the quality control department that sees them come through. Last we spoke, she had said that she's not seen anything that would make her say, oh, wow, there's a huge reduction. So I have not been doing an actual number comparison from year to year. We've been kind of racing in all other directions. I just sent her an email and asked her if that still holds true. She's not responded. But when she does, I'll make sure to give that information. OK, Commissioner, is that to say that the twenty three million dollar loss and revenues that you said I think you gave that as the worst case scenario were not likely to lose near that much. So I did not give you that twenty three million dollar loss and revenue. I believe that came from the Joint Fiscal Office and from you know, from from well, from the Joint Fiscal Office. So I I cannot speak specifically specifically to how they're calculating those that would have to be that would have to be Neil. OK, well, Neil, the. Can you? I thought it came from from DNV, but I guess not. So Neil, do you know what is estimated for losses now and. And. Registration, the only thing I've seen is the latest forecast update for 20. I mailed that out there, emailed that to everyone last night. It's still at forty two million. And I don't recall the breakdown of that specifically. I'm not sure if it is broken down in terms of DMV and other things, but I mean, we're hanging in at a forty two million estimate for FY 20 or losses to the T fund. So, Mr. Chair, I would assume in that analysis and Neil can confirm this, you know, the price of gas fuel has gone down. So there's definitely you know, less revenue being brought in on those taxes. But the Vermont businesses that pay those taxes to us are making their payments. Correct. Well, in terms of the gasoline revenue, I think the biggest impact is not the reduction in price because the assessments were at their at their minimum to begin with. It's been the reduction in people buying gas. That's where the impact is going to come. Remind us, Neil, what is that? That level where it cannot go below? The minimum. The since since the gasoline taxes were revised and I think it was FY 14 and FY 15. At that point in time, gasoline was over three dollars a barrel. So they set the minimums. And ever since then, they've been at the minimum. So for both for both the tip and also well, the tip minimum was set a couple of years later. What is that number? Well, I think you're talking about it only goes higher when gasoline, I think, reaches is over three and a quarter dollars a gallon. Recently, we did that. Maybe I change. OK, Commissioner, we had interrupted you. You that's OK. I am. I understand. Are you still with me? So we were talking about you asked for an update on drivers education. So I just gave you that background. So we canceled over 2000 exams back in March. And I shared with you before when I testified that we do not have. We did not have the capability within our our system to automatically reschedule those exams back out there. So we said when we basically to the consumer, we had to say, when we open back up, please contact us and we'll reschedule you. So we have the impact of those exams that need to be rescheduled. And remember, it's everything. It's drivers permits. It's first time drivers. It's medical exams, it's CDL, it's motorcycle. So it's it's everything. It's not just tests for for new students. And then we know there's a build up coming. So one of the things that we looked at is in partnership with the agency of education because of the change that's going on that has occurred in school districts. How are the students that are currently enrolled in drivers education going to be able to complete the curriculum requirements? And the school districts are moving forward with the online classes and they're delivering that there's a state board rule that says, in addition to the classroom setting, you have to have six hours of concurrent driving with your instructor. The the school districts are not in a position to be able to provide those that particular piece of the training. And after spending a great amount of time with my team and in evaluating, we discussed and have gone to education and with the secretary of education. And there's a proposal before them today to wave the concurrent six hour driving time on the classroom side of the driver education program. And this proposal to wave the six hours is conditioned based on the students that are currently enrolled in drivers education now that are impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. That discussion is scheduled for two 15 this afternoon. We will be participating in that if this waiver is approved. Then the department is ready to move forward with a proposal that extends driver testing to so currently all exams take place by at DMV locations with exception of five private schools have the ability to do exams for us. We have a proposal that we have not finalized because it depends on the state board action that we will then advance and create an opportunity with certified driving instructors of public school and with our private businesses if they choose. And that's really important to go through a very quick online training and to be able to test their students or other students that are currently in this they're caught in this this this awkward place where if the waiver passes then we sit here and we say how are we going to be able to administer all of these tests. And Mike I don't know but I think they're based on our conversation and I could be wrong committed but I thought they said they probably have over 500 students enrolled right now. So yeah and so that's going to be a demand on us. So we are trying to find with this waiver accomplish two things. An alternative for students be tested by their teachers or other educators and an alternative that if they pass their driver's education program and they choose to come into the Department of Motor Vehicle that we will test them without this six hour concurrent driving experience in the classroom. It does not change the current requirements that a student must have documented 40 hours of driving time 40 or more and that a minimum of that be 10 hours of driving in the evening. So that's driver's education and I tried to summarize it and where we are. Do you have questions? Questions for the commissioner. Yeah. Amali please use the electronic. OK, well you sometimes don't see the electronics. So anyway, thank you commissioner. This will be very good news to my 16 year old grandson who's taking driver's ed right now and has been driving forever because his uncle has farm. So I just want to double check. So the the six hour there's the 40 hours of driving, you know, documented driving time and then there's taking the driver's ed test and then the six hours would be administered by the driver's ed teacher in a sort of simulated situation or. Closing representative burn that we waive it that we don't require. You don't require it at all. OK. That is the proposal for school crisis. That is the proposal for the state board of education. And that is for the students and I use semester and I could be wrong. But really it's where the students that started drivers that in around January of this year and are going through to the end of the school year. It is most likely. I think all of you know that our public schools will probably not reopen. It's hard to say anything could change. And so school districts don't even have a way to deliver that. Yeah. Yeah. OK. Great. Thank you. Thanks. So last month I received a letter in the mail that my license was going to be coming up for renewal in May, filled it out and got my new license in the mail. And I know now you've gone to online. I'm wondering with the online license renewal if our constituents are similarly going to get notified ahead of time so that they get a heads up that they should go ahead and renew online. So what we are first of all, I just need to tell you the painting behind you is absolutely beautiful. So I need to say that thank you. You're welcome. The the notices that are going out we have changed our renewal notice letters that go out to Vermonters and it actually directs them to the choice of doing online online renewal. And and it's working. I you know, I think the outreach that we've done it's front and center on our home page and and and, you know, so the new batch and I always get this mixed up. So everyone that's due for May, we do their mailing in April and all of those notifications included the online. Is that correct, Mike? Correct. Correct. And going forward, there'll be 60 days in advance. But we had that little intern period. So that's why someone in April or May we're going forward. It'll be 60 days out. That was really helpful for me. And I think people really appreciate that. So while things are still up in the air, that 60 day notice, I think it's going to mean that we continue to get people renewing. If you make it easy for people, then they can keep doing it. I really, really appreciate you all getting innovative there. And the painting behind me is by a St. Albans artist, John Young, and he has painted stuff all over town and is becoming at least regionally famous. So hopefully it'll, you know, appreciate. But if you want to support local art, John Young is wonderful. Thank you for getting a commission on that, Mike. I actually, the painting was a commission. He I had a bunch of his art displayed when I back when I owned the cafe and we sold seven or eight of his pieces. And so he gave me this one as sort of a reward. For a commission. Representative Murphy. Thank you. This question isn't on this particular topic, but it is for Wanda. So our commissioner, Manoli. So if you want me to hold it for another moment, I'd be happy to. I leave it to you. No, why don't you go ahead? It's a question about a Senate bill that was passed S 114. And just a section that speaks to the suspension of licenses, driver's licenses, not being not not occurring until the hearing on merits is held. So I just clarification that it's not saying that they can't take away people's licenses, but with hearings being a little challenging, they can't do it until they have the hearing. So we did provide testimony on this yesterday and you are referencing, I think, section five of that bill. My understanding of the bill, it is a legislative action in accordance with the administrative bulletin that judiciary put out on how they're going to conduct business during the the COVID crisis. There is and I don't have my notes in front of me, but I should do a fairly good job remembering, if not, Mike's here. The there's a section in the bill that talks about that the Superior Courts or the Supreme Courts cannot suspend anyone's license. And this is about the whole the whole agreement. And then it references Vermont Statute 23 1205 G&H, which is specific to DUIs. Right. So I will let you know that we have testified. I understand that the legislature needs to move things forward. And I respect that we have testified. So, first of all, D&B is the one that on your third. So our concern is public safety, especially around the third and fourth violation of a DUI. These are these are serious acts, and we consider those to be. I mean, any DUI is concerning, but the process for DUI threes and fours, they have their civil hearing. Then they go to criminal, if I if I understand correctly, the way the language is written, sorry, the way the language is written is to state that the courts cannot suspend the licenses. The way the statute is written is we suspend them automatically in 11 days. And so we see a conflict if the intent of the legislature is that you do not want us to suspend anybody's driving license during this time. We believe the language should be written differently. We didn't propose any language for that. I do think that House judiciary and you can talk with the Ledge Council. They think they do understand our concern and they may be looking at an alternative. It is my understanding that the the intent is not to suspend anyone's license. Again, I can just say to you, we think that is that's very concerning. We are very concerned about about DUIs, but specifically threes and fours. When you get a DUI one, you're not suspended immediately until your court proceeding, correct, Mike? And then your DUI, your subsequent, I'll fit in a few different categories. So I mean, that's what I can offer you about the language. We did not we were not asked on the Senate, you know, any questions about that. I, you know, again, our data shows we have one to four. Three and four convictions a month. And or not, we have one to four individuals that are are stopped and charged with in fours a month. Did that answer your question? Thank you. We don't have to ask our legislative council because she's been trying to jump in on this for the last five minutes. So, please. I was just going to provide a little bit of an update of what happened with S 114 and House Judiciary yesterday. Judge Greerson and I can circulate the link to his testimony provided sort of some insight into where the language came from and the origination of the not requiring of the hearings, which under statute are required to happen after 21 days and 42 days for the preliminary hearing and the final hearing. A memorandum that was circulated from Judge Greerson and Patricia Gable said that in this was in early March, these hearings are not going to necessarily be able to happen within the statutory time frames, which means that they could be dismissed. And these are for the civil suspensions when someone gets a DUI, not the criminal proceeding that sort of is going along in tandem. Administrative order 49, which was the declaration of judicial emergency in paragraph three lists the hearings that will be required to take place. They're usually related to emergencies and these sorts of civil suspension hearings weren't included. So quite likely courts are not going to be having these hearings during the pendency of the judicial emergency, which I believe goes until the end of May. The second piece of section five, subdivision three, which talks about how suspensions will not happen during the pendency of the judicial emergency until there can be a hearing, that was a recommendation from the defender general. There is an ambiguity there with regards to the fact that it says the court shall not suspend. Section 1205 and Title 23 uses a lot of shall suspend and shall not resume the suspension without saying who is doing it. The Department of Motor Vehicles or the court. I believe House Judiciary's plan is to pass the language or to recommend that the House pass the language as is in S114 as it came over from the Senate with that ambiguity. Write a letter indicating that the intent is that no one, the Department of Motor Vehicles nor the court suspend licenses until there can be a hearing and then at some point in the future in a different bill provide a clarification to actually amend that section of S114 to say that it's the Department of Motor Vehicles that shall not suspend licenses. From a policy perspective, I do not think that House Judiciary is making a recommendation to say that licenses should be suspended without a hearing. So for example, if the hearing wasn't going to get held for several months, but that the automatic suspension should still go forward in 11 days for the DUI second and subsequent, I don't think that's the direction that they're planning on going. And now just fixing that ambiguity as to who does the suspension. So this bill passed the Senate and has been assigned to House Judiciary. Correct. It was or it will be referred to House Judiciary, I believe tomorrow when you're on the floor. And I think it is one of the bills that is being taken up in the second block when you're on the floor tomorrow. OK, so it's a fairly low number. When did it when would it have passed the Senate? This was an unrelated bill that I think just got a lot of COVID-19 piggyback onto it. The bulk of S114 is dealing with recommendations that came from the judiciary in terms of how they are needing to change their operations given COVID-19. Got it. OK. All right. I think that's one we have to definitely take a look at. Barbara, did you have any other questions about that one? Or OK, thank you for bringing it up. No, this is I'm waving to you. I don't know if you can see. Sorry, I do want to say on the record that the Department of Motor Vehicle believes that licenses and violations such as these, those licenses should be suspended and we should be able to move forward as it is outlined in statute. And I understand that the judiciary administrative agreement goes to the end of May and that it connects to hearings. But we have great concern that we will not be suspending individual licenses due to DUIs, especially DUI 3s and 4s. So thank you. So you're against this amendment? We do not support the I want to say the amendment of the bill. There it's the way it's written. I don't it's it's the intent. And I believe that it's my understanding if I understand correctly that it is the intent of the legislature to suspend the allowed to stop us from suspending DUIs during this COVID crisis. And we do not support that. I concur. Yeah. Yeah. OK, well, I do as well. I think I do as well. But we're not going to have a vote on that right now, I don't think. But yeah, Barbara, thank you for alerting us to this one. And so it's just about lunchtime. But, Anthea, we had you next to give us an update. Excuse me, Commissioner, was there anything else that you wanted to tell us? The one thing I quickly wanted to share with the committee, because I know some of you have also had these questions back to drivers education, where we originally started, as well as looking at alternatives to test this unique group of new drivers. Well, we could partner with with the businesses on others, too, if needed. We are also looking at an alternative way to provide driver educate driver permitting testing to new drivers. We had hoped we were going to be able to connect to our current system and be able to do this online. Unfortunately, that is a long term vision and we can't do it. But Mike and his team have come up with some creative solutions that we haven't implemented yet on providing the driver permit written test in alternatives instead of having to come into a DMV location. And so we're still working on that. Yeah, I was going to ask you of those two thousand exams that got canceled. And you said there were different types of exams for different licenses and permits. Can any of them be done online? I would think that the written test was already available online. There's none currently on online. That's kind of what we're trying to look for for the permit for the permits. You know, it brings in a whole lot of, you know, how do you vet the individual? How do you know who it is that's taking the test? You know, we're working through all those pieces, you know, utilizing the state of Florida does some of this already. So, you know, don't tell them, but we're copying a lot of what they're doing because it's working, you know. So we're just trying to work through the process and find a way to make sure that the the applicant is is taking the exam, making sure that the parents, given their permission or guardian to take the exam, you know, and then just moving through the process. So good answer. Anything else, Commissioner? No, I'll just share with you all that the protest expected to take place. I don't know if you saw it on the news. We've been watching it. It's very it's it's been very low key here in front of the state house. The protesters who want the governor to open up businesses quickly. So we're keeping an eye on your building for you. Twenty six people out there right now next. OK, they're in here. That's actually good to hear. We're all set. OK. And I I want to thank you for for making it more clear on your website that the car inspections are I'm sorry. There's a cat attacking my chickens. I have to go. My apologies. OK, go, go. I hope there's out of status watching this, that was just great. That is one to be remembered. I just want to thank you for for fixing up the website so that it was clear that that people do not have to have their car inspection inspected until July. So yeah, actually, the dunes, they'll start in June. They're April's got extended to June, just so I want to make sure we're good on that. Oh, yeah, I see even numbers. Yes. Yes, even numbers. Everyone learned a lot about inspections. But yeah, thank you for your support and thank you for bringing that concern to us and your constituents' concerns. So I appreciate it. OK. All right. Thank you, Commissioner. And if we could make you wait until one o'clock at this point, I think. And I actually don't have anything. I think Lori put Neil and me on the agenda just in case we were asked to speak to something. But what I will do is send the testimony from House Judiciary yesterday so that the committee can be up to speed on what's happening with us. One more. Yes, that would be good. Yeah. And so will you be with us at one o'clock? Yes. OK, so maybe we could talk about that if we have time. I think we will. Sure. Because I have two items, it's afternoon. It was I who asked Lori to put you guys on the agenda. OK. So let's.