 Good afternoon and welcome to the House Environment and Energy Committee. This afternoon, we're going to continue to take testimony on H687, and we have Sabina Haskell and Peter Gill back with us from the Natural Resources Board. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Sheldon, and we are back indeed after a lot of testimonies this morning. On Tier 2 and Tier 3, we wanted to talk to you about briefly. I'm really going to refer to the recommendations in our report and have a couple of questions. Let's start by saying that, as we all know, Tier 2 is about 65% of our state, if you will, and we purposefully wanted to try to keep the status quo with a few additional incentives, not the right way to put it. One is with the forest frag to be more protected with forest fragmentation, and the consensus with the droop was the road rule. And given this morning's testimony, another testimony, it sounds like there's still some debate whether that's the right length, the clustering of the driveways, but that's where we landed. And I know in H687, we all have put in criteria 8B and sitting, which we talked about that there needed to be a different criterion instead of 9C, because 9C hasn't really worked. One question I would raise was our assumption about our understanding that 8B and 8C would supplant 9C and 9C would go away, so to speak, just throwing that out. We talked about keeping the status quo for one acre and 10 acre towns with the six slots for- 9C is four soils. Four soils. Excuse me. Sorry. Safe, safe. Anyway, it doesn't matter. No, I just wanted the committee to know which one. Okay. Thank you. We want to keep this- the status quo doesn't work perfectly, as we've heard from lots of people. The 5510 gets gained, as often is suggested. At the same time, we recognize that we need to encourage economic development in housing in the smaller communities of our state, and I think that this- getting back to the mapping and the designations, that's probably a more appropriate way to do it, so that we're getting them compact rather than spreading them out, so to speak. Those- let's see. We talked about the railroad rule, and we've also came to the consensus that trails and logging roads would not be considered roads unless they were converted for other purposes in the tier two area. Tier three is the critical resource areas that we're talking about, the important places that we need to do a better job protecting, and we've seen this since the get-go is a counterbalance to tier one, so one on the other, one on the other, and then are still our pretty much big area in the middle. I will say that- that it would- tier three areas will be automatic active 50 jurisdiction, much like the 2500 elevation jurisdiction, and one thing that has come up a couple of times in testimony, and we had a question about is we- we talk about tier three being a small part of the state that gets these extra protections, and the- and the tier one areas are not big areas either, that they were supposed to counterbalance that way- that way too, so I don't know- we haven't had any conversations about what kind of acreage that really entails, and that would be something that would, you know, that we would be interested in knowing what you're thinking that way. I think that- I'm just kind of like running around here, Pete. We have a whole end of report. We have processes for doing this, but would you like to add anything, Pete? I think you covered the major areas, but I mean yes, in terms of the processes, again, kind of this ground up approach, making sure that the RPCs and municipalities are in consultation, and again, focus on that, especially for tier three, focusing on the mapping efforts. Representative Banger- Just to play this out a little bit, you heard Eric Sorensen's testimony, but I guess it seems to me- give me your perception about this, that critical resource areas are critical resource areas, and what Eric suggested was that we have that done primarily at the state level through the agency, because we know where they're- they're not- they then have the regions and the towns fill in. Is that what we're talking about from your perspective? Does that improve your understanding? Well, that was a little bit of a shift his testimony this morning, because we've been talking about the importance of it being a bottom-up process, and that, you know, it would start with towns and the RPCs, and they would bring us the map of the critical resource area, and that- I don't mean to interrupt, but how would that be informed? How would- how would those areas be identified? Yeah, how would that- how would that be informed? So that's one of the things we didn't get into too much detail on in the study, as I think you're aware, but it is meant to be looking at the most- like we're talking about water and those types of things, wetlands, etc., habitat for rare and endangered, you know, it could- that's- that's a conversation that needs to get flushed out to what- to what that should be, and what it looks like, rare and irreplaceable natural areas, rhinos, you know? Yep. Certainly public process combined with scientific basis, and I think existing- there's a lot of different existing mapping efforts that could play into some of that as well. So you are- you are saying that informed by science? Yeah, we are saying that. Yes. That was certainly part of the recommendation from the study. We definitely want it to be informed by science. Yes. Yeah. Peter, send us the study. I'm looking up your names by then. I don't actually get the study. I get the studies on the NRB home page, right at the top right-hand corner, along with the 60-some odd pages and written comments we got. We put that together as a separate report, if you will, report of comments, commenting on the study, and then also a link to the recording of our public meeting on December 14th that we held. I have a number of questions for- Let's find our repeater. All right, short and sweet. Sorry. Okay. Great. Thank you. Except we have Gus Selig. Good afternoon for the record, Gus Selig, director for the Mount Housing and Conservation Board. I can offer some kind of broader comments rather than getting into the specifics of the bill and a couple of things that maybe have not had a lot of consideration. The Housing and Conservation Board sits at the crossroads of land use, so we work on building primarily in our downtowns and village centers, avoiding sprawl and reducing pressure on the countryside and conserving land as much as the budget will allow us to do with the shape of work you've given us to do under Act 59. We're happy to come back and give you a report on how that work has been rolling out on a different day. Obviously, the work we're discussing today provides some enhancement to the efforts and the goals that you outlined in Act 59 last year. I want to say a few things in general about Act 250 and permitting as it relates to housing, and I was not, though I am a very old-looking person, I was not around at the beginning of Act 250, but the world is a little different than when it was when Dean Davis pushed it forward in the early, more than 50 years ago, and I've seen it do a lot of good, and I just want to say that in the record. My good friend, the late fall broom, worked in a number of permit processes, and I'm glad because of his good work that there's a downtown Walmart in Rotland, and that exit four is a beautiful place where the Whales tails have returned, and so I think we just have to acknowledge that. When I got out of college in 1976, though, it was a very different real estate market, and I think we rented our first farmhouse, three pounds of mine and I in North Calis for $150 a month, and if you went to rent that same farmhouse today, were it to be available, I guess as the owners could get $2,500 a month, bought our first house a few years later for $2,650, and we didn't have a housing shortage. I think we were invented as an organization, and Representative Bongarts will recall, I think that one of the co-sponsors in the Senate of our legislation was Senator Gibb, in part to fill in a piece of the table that didn't pass an Act 250 around the need for statewide land use plan, and we became a voluntary mechanism, non-regulatory mechanism for landowners to protect their land as opposed to what's where you want. I think that the legislature has continually built on the lack of a land use plan by creating a downtown program, by creating downtown tax credits, and more recently the designation programs, and so I guess what I want to say about the report you've received, the NRB process, which we were not a part of, but we looked at from a distance, really tries to build on that framework, and I think the designation programs to some degree represent what people were trying to achieve when Act 200 was passed of a bottoms up land use plan for the state of Vermont, if you will. And so I think this is a great time to be having this conversation and proceeding because we are indeed in the kind of crisis around the need for housing, whether it's workforce housing or how we reduce reliance on shelters and motels that is unusual in my experience and not the Vermont I came to. There was no committee on temporary shelter in 1975 because homelessness was not an issue, and I'm sure all of you have heard from your constituents in the business community about how hard it is, whether it's a school district trying to hire a teacher or a company trying to get employees of the difficulty to house the market, and I think what we want to do is drive housing to the places that it makes sense and will enhance community that's been at the heart of our work. I'm not going to give you a slide presentation today, but you've seen them before and we've tried to do lots of infill, conversion of old white elephant buildings all across the state. So I think for work in front of you really reflects the desire to do all of that. A few things, and I talked about this when I had the opportunity along with Sue Minter and Maura Collins to address you with the precession of my observations of the permitting process, and I think most people think Act 250 is everything from your local development review board to the ANR permits. So I'll just say three things that I said that day. One is anything you can do that will enhance the willingness of communities to accept taller buildings is I think a good thing. And the example I used that day were two projects, one in Bristol and one in Windsor. In Bristol, they built two-story buildings across from the firehouse and I think the site easily could have accommodated three-story buildings and we would have had 30 units instead of 20 and 30 folks housed instead of 20. In Windsor there was concern from the historic preservation community about a proposed building and the impact it might have on an 1820s church which is on the national register historic places if they built up an additional story and we lost five apartments because the local folks said no more than the site. What was the emotional story? What was the how many stories in that building? I can't remember off the top of my head. I think it was probably going to be a three or four-story building instead of four or five and I could show you pictures from both Vermont and you know where I grew up in New York where historic landmarks are surrounded by buildings that are taller and there's still historic landmarks and you know I one of my staff used to say you know there's the eight if you're looking at my house 1797 piece and there's the 1820 addition and then there's the conversion of a pathway to the barn that from a sunroom that was done in 1990 you know historic preservation is a continuous thing but I think anything you do that incents building taller means we're not going to sprawl out as much and reduces pressure on the landscape. The second thing I would say and this is not an act 250 issue but it's issue this committee is that as I talk with housing developers one of the things that slows them down is getting approval of corrective action plans from ANR when there's a sun and it's often taking a year and more than a year to work through that process. There was a noise when there's a corrective action plan from ANR which is taking a year or more in lots of cases and I would just ask you I don't know what a corrective action is when you have a site that has some kind of contamination you have to go through a process to get approval and it's a very in my opinion slow process I think brownfields it could be brownfields I think it's probably things beyond brownfields and you should talk with ANR about that because it fits into your jurisdiction but it's slowing us down regularly and it is a very long process possibly one and and maybe there's no way to speed it up maybe it's under staffed I can't tell you that I'm just reporting to you that repeated and and our focus is on those infill sites all over the state we're in the midst of this in Newport at the old Catholic school site where we it's now signed off but it took more than a year to get over that the Sacred Heart site oh yeah yeah we had the same experience on this site I was describing in Windsor so that's that's a regular problem so people who want to blame Act 250 for everything it's got nothing to do with Act 250 but it slows things down the last thing that I would say to you is that a decision was made to send everything some years ago to environmental court chair Stevens has put in a bill to mimic New Hampshire and have a housing board of appeals which has been mandated by their legislature make decisions within 180 days that's one model there may be other models but I would say anything we can do that gets things out of the court system which generally takes two years or longer is a good thing doesn't mean there wouldn't be appeals to the Supreme Court but we're dealing with a project in Putney now where people are building in a desert proposing the build in a designated area had a democratic process to define this designated area it's been signed off by the regional planning commission and signed off by the state and then when the project came forward it was appealed they got a summary judgment that took more than nine months to get a summary judgment judge decided there's nothing worth even having a hearing about they then appealed to the supreme court that took another six months then they got a jurisdictional opinion from the environmental board and the people are taking them back to court challenging the jurisdictional court is expensive to the New Hampshire model you don't have to have a lawyer to represent you different set of rules we have several non-judicial processes in Vermont to resolve disputes and I just think that's something to look at along the way whether you choose chair Stevens bill or something else a couple of other so those are just general observations about permitting and difficulties two things that are not in this bill that I think are worth thinking about a little bit one is that we currently have an exemption under act 250 for priority housing projects the proposal eliminates that and I think we need to figure out what will it send communities to welcome affordable housing city of Burlington the city of south Burlington have inclusionary zoning ordinances that may be a tough thing to figure out on a statewide basis but I think it's worthy of discussion of how do we make sure that we're not just building half million dollar and above homes the other thing I'm just going to interrupt you because that was one of the questions I wanted to talk to you about and I would like to understand your statement that it might be a tough thing to implement statewide can you expound on that a little bit well I can tell you that there was great opposition from the development community to inclusionary zoning when it was proposed for the city of Burlington and city government there decided it was absolutely essential so I think you'll it will be a controversial issue if you try to do that I think the question of what's the right scale is harder when you're addressing the whole state of Vermont than when you're in one particular municipality but I think it's an important thing to just for us to have some discussion and debate about as priority projects are proposed to go away I certainly would welcome your your thoughts on that because we think agree with you it came up this morning and we were looking for ideas on how to include it in this proposal representative Logan thanks chair I am working with a group of houses to develop some language I hope that will speak to this and it seems to me like it might be less well it will be controversial but it would be less controversial of an issue if we're just talking about offering or requiring some kind of potentially inclusionary zoning as one idea in requirements or the growth area designation that'll be a pretty limited set of areas I would think that actually meet the standards necessary to be considered what is the term I'm swimming in terminology for destinations for for growth area plan growth areas plan growth areas it seems like there would be very few of the areas that actually meet the zoning and other kinds of requirements standards to be considered a plan growth area I could be wrong but it also seems like it'd be if we're going to be including language around municipal delegation seems like that would be another place where we want to consider putting this language in but I think what I'm working on with the houses is trying to find something that is sufficiently general enough to give municipalities maybe some flexibility although there's a debate on how much flexibility you want because if it looks different in every community then that's harder for developers to plan for so the benefit of having a statewide standard is that everybody knows but how to plan for things and that costs less money to have a consistent standard so there's like that conversation going on about how to have teeth but not be too directive and also to design a framework that the market can bear for in private development without having a bunch of money to subsidize so I think we will certainly think about this with you represent Logan and Sheldon and try to come up with some solutions but I just want to identify it in general if you're a market rate developer affordable housing does not cash flow so it won't get built without some intention in policy I don't think the other thing I just want to flag for you is whether the whether and what impact they'll be from the changes you'll be making to 9b and exempting tier one areas and I want to flag two things one is that through the inflation reduction act we will get over federal 25 and 26 about 14 million dollars from nrcs to protect agricultural land in the state of Vermont we currently get in a given year two and a half to three million dollars so we're going to go from having five million dollars over two years to 19 million dollars but only if we can match it and we do currently and this was not our idea the first 20 years or so back to 50 whenever you were going to mitigate the loss of ag soils you had to do it on site and back about 1991 or two uh saint alton's developer named bill grubodey came forward and he said you've begun to protect a lot of ag land in in the county wouldn't it be better if I develop more intensively and gave you a payment to conserve more land outside so that mitigation program generates about 350 000 a year I'm not sure how much of it comes from tier one we will look at that uh or tier one a um but we will be there will be a loss of revenue for that activity um and I guess I would also say I think it makes sense in general for tier one to be where we want development to go there is a difference between how act 250 defines what primary ag cultural soils are and what NRCS defines as prime ag soils and you may want to think about and I'm saying this because our statute tells us to protect ag soils uh whether there should be some continuing protection or planning around what are prime ag soils which is a very small set of primary ag soils it's like Hadley soil it's river bottom land it's the land that's just the most conducive to ag agriculture you're not going to find it very often in Addison county where you've got a lot of clay soils but you will find it up and down that river valley and whether you want to have some special protection for those prime soils I think just needs to be a discussion point for you and whether whether or have I think one other thing you can think about is whether you want to change the ratios that are in statute for protection of or mitigation in the tier two areas in order both to push people toward tier one and to help us maintain the access to the federal funds that I think we'd all like to see so I think that concludes the issues that I just wanted to bring to your attention um but I think that you're on the right track and the NRB did some great work with the convening they did this year and moving this forward thank you for your testimony so I'm clear your distinction is the distinction between like statewide prime and national prime when I'm looking at the NRS natural resource conservation service rank soils and they have a definition prime soils right well they have a statewide and a national and I think that so I anyway I think and what act 250 does is talk about not prime but primary agricultural soils which includes prime soils secondary soils and soils of local significance so they are two different definitions and I guess I'm just saying for those very best soils in Vermont there ought to be at least a little bit of discussion of should there be some way to protect them or to mitigate their loss because those are the most valuable soils from a food production perspective and and maybe I was not part of the NRB seating so I don't know if you folks discussed that at all but but that's just an issue that given our mission we wanted to raise for the community. Yeah representative power oh give me oh sorry hand down there okay thank you I'll fix uh just a question for you so when you were talking about this hiring amount of money coming from the feds and then you also said that you anticipate a loss of revenue from the mitigation program as a result so is that where the match money we use the we use those dollars to leverage federal dollars like it is not in the scheme of getting an additional $14 million losing 350 is not a lot and I we need to do an analysis of where those mitigation payments coming from are they from tier 1a or are they from tier 2 already and maybe it's of no impact but I just wanted to raise that is an important issue. Yeah that is an important issue when would you be able to have an idea and whatever a look at that? I will we have not been involved in this process and I haven't seen the maps so I can ask our staff whether we can do something very quickly for you or not I just don't I don't know the answer and I'm not the technician who would be driving that. And who should we have in spending a question for the apps resources board but to learn more about how the mitigation ratios are working now. The ag agency actually we're not involved in the negotiations the ag agency generally works on those issues. Do members have further questions? Thank you for your testimony. Thank you for having me. You know a little space here members with our next witness is coming in at 2 but I guess I'd like to offer the opportunity for discussion on the testimony we've taken so far and if y'all have thoughts on who you would like to hear from keeping a list of our people we've been listening to this morning and I have Charlie and Catherine said they will be back with more detail on the maps. Some folks from the development community would be helpful to hear from possibly an engineer someone mentioned talking to an engineer. What's your question? It's just it's my ignorance really just to get a little sense of I'm getting emails from people about systems. That's a different bill but I just it just makes me realize I maybe not in this setting but at some point I'd like to more about wastewater regulation in from one. Bob Zeno's on this we have him and the agency of ag for the mitigation representatives. Have we heard from anybody that's opposed to 687? Um I don't know that we've heard from anyone who's opposed to it. I'm asking who you want to hear from right now. I don't know. I don't know who is out there that is speaking out against the bill. It would help me understand it more clearly if I knew what some people thought was wrong with it. I think we've heard some of that. Some of it yeah. Are we okay with what we've heard as far as both sides of the oil? Well you can think about that and let me know if there's others you want to hear from. Representative Logan? Um developers FHFA mentioned that they have worked with many developers on affordable house the affordable helping private developers yeah um figure out the affordable housing part of their project and then of course there are a number of developers who partnered the land trusts and housing trusts and things like that to have them develop you know 60 units of their develop seven unit development or whatever. I'm trying to think I know there's a number one. I think that I'll go go planning for Mission Earth um you know in a town with a pretty robust just to get a sense of what the outside it they are. We are reconvening our meeting and continuing our testimony on age 687 and we have Billy Coster and John Austin both from the Agency of Natural Resources with us. Welcome. Thank you um good afternoon thanks for having us uh for the record I'm Billy Coster Director of Planning and Policy for the Vermont Agency Natural Resources and I'm here with John Austin Director of Wildlife and the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. We've been asked to come in to speak to um the sections of age 682 that address tier two and tier three the jurisdictional tiers of act 250 um so if it's okay with you all we are going to speak to primarily um the road rule component of that the critical resource area component and then speak to some extent about the forest blocking connecting habitat criteria and mitigation which are uh important aspects of the tier two and tier three review. And I just want to remind you all that the agency um participated in the Natural Resources Board working group study that delivered a report you earlier this year with recommendations around act 250 reform or modernization excuse me and as we discussed yesterday those that report in this bill is very aligned in its framework and it diverges in some details and we're very supportive of the framework of both the bill and the study um and that we are very interested in seeing that framework move forward as some of the other details are developed. I also just want to reiterate that you know the agency has been called upon by the legislature in recent years to carry forward a number of really important initiatives things that are core to our mission and according to Vermonters work on climate change environmental justice uh administering significant ARBA funds for clean water and and helping low-income Vermonters access wastewater systems um working on act 59 implementation of 30 by 30 bill we're deep in the inventory phase right now looking forward to developing and delivering that plan to you all um and that's all put a pretty significant stress on the agency on top of the work that we've already been doing and we're really at capacity so our secretary asked us to just be clear with you all that whatever um you envision as new policy or new work initiatives that come to the agency to be really thoughtful about the the staffing and resources that will necessitate that work and um as you can imagine what's being considered in age uh 687 related to additional active 50 oversight of these natural resources that work will largely fall on our agency and and to the work of john's department and division so that said i'll turn to the specific except the bill um so as you know the the bill in the nrb study envisioned three tiers of jurisdiction a first tier where uh development largely partially exempt from active 50 to help promote growth in areas of the state um that are designed and planned for uh a middle tier tier two which is largely similar to existing active 50 jurisdiction but includes some sort of a road rule that would trigger active 50 for uh encroaching development into areas where development hadn't previously existed and then a third tier uh that looks at um automatic active 50 jurisdiction in um more sensitive areas you know the agency has long supported these concepts um starting with the road rule um um forest fragmentation is something that our agency has been working on for you know the better part of a decade now with the initial forest blocking analysis habitat block maps and the forest block maps and then the development of remote conservation design which was led by um the fish and wildlife department and many of our partners um and we really have agreed that long roads that and driveways that um go deep into forests have an outsize impact on those resources a radiating impact that um should be better regulated and we support a road rule and we supported uh the road rule that was proposed in the energy study um that road rule is focuses on a combination of new roads and driveways not to exceed 2000 feet while that is not a perfect approach to this issue it's one that that group supported in a consensus way and we're wary of diverging from that without engagement from those other stakeholders I think we appreciate that it's not perfect and we're open to have more conversations about the road rule I think that the the the proposal and the current bill that has a 500 foot threshold um is is an interesting alternative that we would certainly look at I'm a little concerned that that might be so short that it would preclude certain infill opportunities um to get at areas where fragmentation is not really concerned where you may have a housing development out here and a town road here and there may be some areas in between that are further than 500 feet from a town highway where we could see some development without active 50 oversight and that could be appropriate but again glad to see there's alignment around the need for a road rule and those are important details that I hope you can work with us and others to nail down uh this year representative Smith those are questions thank you thank you uh has there been any sort of a road rule so to speak uh up to now there was one that existed in the past I don't exactly recall its history I think it may have it was established in NRB rule I think in rule and I think it went away as part of a broader reform conversation that happened um a number of years ago uh I think there were some issues with that because it didn't take into consideration cumulative roads so people would create these spaghetti lots of single parallel roads and that's not a land use powder we want to see so the recommendation out of the NRB study does look at um cumulative impacts associated with roads and driveways to try to to get at that issue so you'd say that a road that say a mile long or two miles long would be infringing on what we try to keep natural forest it would have a much larger impact than any development that had a shorter road I'm referring to a road that the state built up into the hurricane you know I've talked about it before and I think it's two or three miles uh are you familiar with it it was an existing logging road years ago but it's developed now so that you could take a probably a front wheel drive car and it goes quite a ways back into the woods it turns around and goes back out there's no purpose to before it could be there well the purpose is for public access the road the road has been in place since prior to the department owning the property and it had been in a state of horrible disrepair um we were concerned about water quality issues associated with it and there with the heightened attention these days on investing in public access to public land that was an area that we thought seemed appropriate to take an existing road improve it so people could enjoy parts of the property that were difficult to access sure we make those decisions very carefully because of the issues that we're talking about here with respect to active 50 because roads and their attended effects and how they allow people to to get to areas that maybe they didn't previously have access to environmental consequences but that road doesn't it makes the deep woods not deep woods anymore because it makes it very accessible that anybody wants to drive and not walk well i would argue that it's it's the one main road that we have into one of our largest wildlife management areas it's 12 000 acres oh yeah most of it is if you want to access it you're you're going to have to work really hard um this seems like an opportunity to make some reasonable improvements to existing infrastructure to address water quality issues and to improve public access thank you and john just before we move on from the road rule just generally speaking any thoughts from the department's perspective of you know the importance of a rural rule as a jurisdictional trigger in active 50 well i remember when i mean our department has been providing technical support to the active 50 process since nearly since its inception so our our scientists have been engaged in providing that technical support for over 40 at least 40 years we've developed a strong track record of case law we've created guidelines to deal with various wild fish and wildlife and habitat resource issues when we had the road rule i i can remember cases where that jurisdictional trigger was important for dealing with uh some effects from development that otherwise might have been missed had that not been available and frankly we were disappointed when it was eliminated um so having a road rule in some form or fashion i think would be a great improvement to deal with this committee's interests around forest fragmentation that is one of the driving forces of fragmentation is linear infrastructure so i think it's your idea is is well placed and i i guess the the devil's in the details in terms of how you make it work i i wasn't part of the natural resources board consultation process of putting up the final recommendations together so i i respect whatever went into the art of compromise to to get to where they to where they did um from where i said i a road rule would be better than no rule so um you know from an ecological standpoint 2000 feet one of you said it's it's a long road and that will have environmental consequences we'd rather have from an ecological standpoint would we rather have something shorter sure but i i don't want to come i don't want to affect whatever compromise was made to get to the point of consensus so that we could actually move forward because we've been having this conversation about how to amend act 250 to find a better balance for how how we can effectively support thoughtful growth and development in the state and add provisions to start to consider forest fragmentation forest health and integrity which act 250 doesn't do right now i i would i would argue don't let the great be the enemy of the good in this case we've been sitting around this table for how many years talking about various iterations of an act 250 reform bill to try and find this balance i think what you've put in here in terms of forest fragmentation forest blocks connectivity it's really well done with some minor adjustments and having that in law would be an enormous benefit for our ability to deal with some environment necessary environmental protection issues so curious um either natural research the board or really um what mapping was looked at when you came up with the 2000 foot number how did you agree how did what did anyone look at existing private roads that are already on the landscape and also look at what a 2000 foot road would do so my recollection is that that was the proposal that had been previous pieces of legislation where there had been some agreement around some familiarity that was the starting place of the conversation and i think because there had been that had been written on paper in the past and some work had gone into developing it previously there was some comfort with it and i i don't know that we frankly had the time to go much further than people not being comfortable from moving off of what they'd seen in the past so i know that vnrc it's done some work previously to develop that i know charlie hancock had done some work um i think in the context of the stakeholder group uh in his role as a consulting forester um but i think folks from the kind of business community were uncertain of what a change in that proposal would do to their interests so we just didn't get too far in that conversation so i think what we're signaling today is that we're happy to talk more about what a road road could look like but we want to make sure that all those voices are part of that conversation and that we keep that consensus because we don't want that to derail this larger effort of getting something on the books related to did you all map this excuse me did you map this in your conversation and evaluating it we didn't map it the way i think that you're in um saying no but there was a lot i was just going to add there was a lot of conversation about the previous road rule and how it is to get gained and that the adding in the cluster of driveways would be a better way to do it um there was a lot of conversation about whether it should be 800 2000 then there's conversations about as the crow flies and we we i think we spent a fair amount of time which we did but and that's and that's where the consensus came out represents thank you would there be waivers for logging operations if someone needs to go in and go half a mile back to do a 40 or 30 or 40 acre cut would there be any uh are they going to have to go through an act 250 permit to build a road to that lot previous iteration i i believe the answer is no that's certainly not the intent um previous iterations really focused on roads servicing improvements for residential and commercial uses um so not for forest management okay if a forest road was to be converted to a driveway at some point for a house then i think that would be considered but not for the forest practices themselves good thank you so actually all this talk of roads is just reminding me of um the story i heard about post flooding and um FEMA money now being available to help repair long remote driveways and i guess i'm curious how the agency if you were involved in that and what you know about that i don't know anything about that so just uh some road road is important has an outsized effect in an enhancing forest integrity and um we're happy to continue to work on uh the starting place that came out of the RV study the second thing we want to touch on briefly is the um proposal to add new active 50 criteria related to forest blocks and connecting habitat again this is something that uh it's a companion to that road rule once the road rule the road rule provides you jurisdiction over these encroaching and potentially fragmenting features and then this criteria gives you the lens to analyze those impacts to see if they're permittable or not this sort of criteria doesn't currently exist in act 250 though we've been able to address these issues through um the public utility commission's criteria under section 248 for a number of years so we have some experience implementing it um we are happy to see this criteria included in the bill but did have some questions because previous iterations had uh been focused around a no undue adverse standard no undue adverse standard and basically said um you you can't have an undue adverse impact on forest blocks or connecting habitat if you want to get an active 50 permit the current language just requires that applicants avoid or minimize and potentially in some cases mitigate their impacts and there's that's a quantitative standard you're reducing something but it's not there's no qualitative analysis um you know our concern is that with the way the criteria is currently proposed if someone was proposing to clear two acres of forest um if they minimize their impact to 1.9 acres of forest have they demonstrated compliance with the criteria on its face they may have um and and the way that the bill defines fragmentation it's effectively any subdivision or development within a forested area so opportunities for avoidance on a forested lot are going to be very limited so it's really going to come down to that minimization and when there's a no undue adverse standard or some other qualitative standard the professionals official wildlife can say okay they've minimized have they minimized enough have they minimized enough to maintain the functions and values of this resource so that the impacts of the development are not unduly adverse so we would really encourage you to um if you're going to move ahead with this criteria to think about reasserting some sort of qualitative standard like a no undue adverse one um that's also the lens that we approach this issue at the public utility commission and we have had some success in energy and especially telecom projects where we've been able to get significant avoidance and mitigation of both forest blocks and connecting habitat to protect those resources through the undue adverse standard so um that's just another reason we don't want to have to undo some of the progress that we made there so i don't know john if you have any additional thoughts on that topic i think you hit it well billy i guess i i just offer um based on past experience dealing with issues related to a larger scale forest fragmentation through the public utility commission process um it's because of the scale that you're that you're looking at typically looking at a forest block or connecting block and you're looking at development that's somewhere within that block that becomes problematic it's sort of where the art and the science come together because you're you're going to our whole approach to this is problem solving it's it's typically not to just come out of the gate and say no you can't do that that's that's not how the process usually works it's it's how are we going to try and rescale your project or relocate your project or design it in such a way that we can find some level of compatibility with the resources and and this is where i'll give you a recent example we had a communications tower proposal in a forest block that kind of connecting block that was problematic from our point of view we thought the ecological effects were going to be quite significant but it wasn't just about the block itself and where the proposed project was it was about a lot of different unique features within the block around the project site and so there were a lot of different considerations that came into play in one determining how significant is this area from an ecological standpoint how to how significant are the effects of the project going to be given what we now know about that more specific location within the block and then three what are some reasonable realistic ways to adjust that project location and design so that they can continue to move forward and we feel confident we've done our job to protect the integrity of the resources so you know there's it's hard it's hard to bake that into a a set of guidelines that just is sort of one size it's all i think what you have here is is a really good it's it's almost there i think to billy's point we're we're used to through the public utility commission process dealing with that standard of undue adverse so not to say it has to be that but we're certainly accustomed to it so it feels like a reasonable way to go um and then in terms of how how you craft the language in in the bill such that it gives the practitioners enough flexibility to figure out how to how to mitigate um how to mitigate effects best we can so it's avoid it's minimize and then it's mitigate and in many instances where where the issues are significant and we get the project redesigned and or relocated we're we're still agreeing to some level of impact and that's where compensation comes in where in some instances there's significant areas of land that get permanently conserved to offset the permanent effects from the project thanks and that brings me to our next point there is a contemplation for mitigation and the current version of 687 for forest box impacts it seems to preclude the mitigation opportunity for connecting habitat impacts um and all the mitigation seems to be focused around um offsite mitigation that would occur through payments to vhcb that they would use for conservation elsewhere and that's been a great model for agricultural soils um we've found that with uh impacts to forest box and connecting habitat often that mitigation really needs to be done at the site where you have a large area and the only reason the impacts to a portion of it are acceptable is because you're committing to conserve the balance of it in perpetuity so you can't achieve that outcome by doing mitigation somewhere else that the mitigation really needs to be have a nexus with the actual impacts of the project that's not always the case there are certainly instances where offsite mitigation can and does make sense but with many of these projects that implicate forest box and connecting habitat the mitigation is all about kind of keeping what's left so that there's enough resource to maintain the functions and values of that block so we would just ask that as you're considering the role of mitigation in this criteria that it not be focused entirely around an offsite payment through vhcb but uh contemplates and allows for um onsite be negotiated at the time the permit is issued um and then i guess the only the last thing i would say in that is if you do choose to stay with the offsite framework through vhcb uh we would ask that um a portion of that fund get reserved for an our staff uh associated with the work currently with the nine b ag soil mitigation fund uh statute that money goes to vhcb they then grant it out to conserve farms elsewhere they provide an annual grant the ag agency to support out of that fund to support staff who do the nine b review in the act of the 50 process i believe that's in statute i think it's 60 93 b um so we encourage you to take a similar approach with with an r if that's the path you go down so just to be sure i understand what you're suggesting you're i mean i i would think you're not saying all of it would be used on site but currently you're reading language we have to say that it would kind of all go into a fund for potentially offsite so i'm thinking it would be something more like a both not a point of view okay so like and it may just be the way that people interpret the term mitigation like we often see mitigation as not just a payment but an action um which is you know conserving land and perpetuity immediately adjacent to the impacts of a project right that's often that's typically what we do yeah that's typically what we do so we're and we're we're negotiating and resolving that at the time we're reviewing the permit so that we have confidence that the impacts are actually being mitigated in a way that maintains the resource um for some things like that are really prevalent across the landscape and the specific location is less important like deer watering area potentially like that going into a mitigation bank and conserving lands elsewhere that sometimes works but for something like a forest block where you're really trying to maintain those interior forest conditions you want that conservation to happen there um in the first instance in some cases it's not going to be feasible or that block isn't a high enough value that warrants that conservation and then maybe you're going to do it someplace else you know i'll just offer i may have missed this in my um read of the bill but now that i'm sort of getting a better understanding of what you've had in mind with the mitigation bank so to speak i appreciate the thinking around that because i mean as billy just said our our first course of action if there's the need for permanent land conservation our first course of action and this is based on um like the the condition and the significance of the resource that we're we're working to try and figure out how to protect if it's something that's really high value and it's part of why it's high value is its position in the landscape and we really want to focus on conservation there and that's typically what we do and we're usually successful with that but after doing this for a long time we've got decades of easements that have built up that then become our responsibility to have to steward and that's all on our on our backs when you have to pay people to go out and deal with you know an accumulation of permit conditions and mitigation settlements and conservation easements it's it's additive over time right and we haven't grown resources in order to deal with that so i we have given a lot of thought lately to the idea of a mitigation bank which actually would if it was used properly and i wouldn't want to i wouldn't want it to become a forgive the metaphor but to get out of jail free card like it becomes the cost of doing business right check and you don't have to deal with the resource issue anymore that's that's one of the issues that we've tried hard to avoid because you know there's a reason that we're trying to protect this area in the first place and it's because the area that is being impacted is significant but there are cases where a mitigation bank approach could be very helpful at the specially from well one from an ecological standpoint because then it puts the practice the conservation practitioners in a position of making strategic decisions about where to conserve other land that has similar resource values as has been lost by a regulated project maybe in a better place and at a scale that it becomes more manageable for the department or whatever other organization or agency is responsible for it point is it just it gives us another option to make good decisions for the environment but also to to look strategic because sometimes we're trying to squeeze a square peg through a round hole so to speak and conserving land in an area where you know additional development is going to happen over time and and then you make a big investment to try and protect an area and then two years later five years later you put the next proposal that's nearby and you're dealing with that one so all to say a mitigation bank has an option as as one of several tools to deal with this as well as I think Billy you said it but that it may be down to the how how we're viewing the term mitigation right because I would think that you also might in weighing in on the undue adverse standard like you'd be doing what we anticipate happens here which is not saying no to development but having it be better designed and leaving a corridor or a connector or a fourth block more intact I would assume some of those and I would call that sort of the avoid and minimize more than the mitigate so for me getting a permanent easement still could be part of that under avoid and minimize and then mitigate inherently meant to me I've got you thank you that's that's helpful so yeah I think we're all saying the same things and just making sure that nothing precludes that range of options represent civilian when we're thinking about mitigating here do you see any difference in terms of who will be able to be able to mitigate so the example that I've been giving are my two neighbors that I go walking with on the weekend one are my neighbors from Connecticut who are up at their second home camp and the other is my fifth generation Vermont are is not really that well off so will they do you think they'll equally be able to mitigate those situations yeah I think the differences will be it's a great question and I guess where I would start is that hopefully that's not necessary that especially with large forest blocks our I think experience and our guidance has been there's ways for people to achieve their development goals by minimizing their impact in a way where mitigation is not even necessary where they've the the level of impact they're having is can be is reasonable it can be accommodated by it's it's kind of landscape context and there's no need to do anything more than that you know where we've typically seen mitigation is for larger scale developments or in places that have like really significant ecological functions like some of these pinch points in our connected landscape so I don't know the answer to your question whether there is a way to have a more equitable approach to this where people who have more means can do it more easily than those who don't but I would say that generally we don't see this come up as an issue all that often is that a fair at least for like forest blocks and connected evidence yeah it's it's unusual for us to get to a point where we're dealing with the actual permanent conservation land to offset the effects of the project we work really hard to try and avoid getting to that to that place and it's typically with bigger projects associated with mysterious energy infrastructure telecommunications infrastructure it's it's less common in a small-scale residential development is it does it not happen or is it just less common it's less common are the tools accessible I guess is my question like how would my neighbor sure so there was a somewhat recent example how would my neighbor minimize like what would they have to do the folks my neighbors from Connecticut will hire an attorney for they'll pay whatever they need to do to hire the resources to deal with all of that what would my other neighbor have to do what tools are available well so the primary tool that's available is our department staff we have staff that work every day in the permit process providing guidance and support to private landowners who have development interests and they work really hard to try and help folks design a project that is is going to avoid the issue altogether if that's possible or get to a point where you end up with um some reasonable realistic permit conditions that work to offset the effects of project and move on so the cost to whomever it is whether it's it's your neighbor from Connecticut really a neighbor who's the fifth generation of the monitor are are largely the same in that instance it's the cost of going through the permit process which support from our staff I think for something like this if a new criteria was put into place I think there's rulemaking contemplated but even if that wasn't we would as an agency develop guidance and a toolbox of solutions for folks uh based on our experience with how these issues often arise so hopefully we would you know not only do the kind of one ways that don't run afoul of these criteria so that would be another resource that's a good point and it I guess it's a helpful reminder for me um you know in the past we've done workshops for consultants and developers um parts of the regulated community about how to identify important resources where to find information how to consider the effects of the project how design a project to avoid minimize issues in the first place um if if these changes were to go into effect I I would imagine we probably want to do some similar outreach and education building to help people understand here's here's how to understand the issue in the context of planning development here's some suggestions for how you can do that in a way that could minimize the cost to you that that sort of thing that sounds very much like the type of thing that I'm thinking about when we're contemplating it's kind of historic probably necessary change how do we make it accessible to regular remonters right and the tools accessible so when we think about some sort of public engagement or leading on this those are the types of things so I appreciate that thank you madam chair and I guess the last thing I'll say about the forest block criteria is that it's really important where it's important because we don't have this tool right now in act 250 but it also doesn't come up that often in act 250 right these are as john said usually larger scale developments that are deep in our forests like ski areas or cell tower sinks of that nature for your general act 250 commercial residential subdivision it there's certainly the opportunity for this issue to come up but it's not as common as most of the other issues that we address but having it there for when we need it is something that we've long been eager to have access to okay so the last piece that we'll touch on is the tier three component of the proposal you know both the nrb study and this bill contemplate expanded areas of automatic act 250 jurisdiction with the intent to better regulate impacts to especially sensitive or value rich areas of the state you know the nrb study has tier three and it basically acknowledges that that tier is necessary and that there's some complex details to be worked out and that there's an interest in having somewhat of a bottom-up approach through regional planning commissions with assistance from state agencies and other stakeholders to come up with those areas and then bringing them back ultimately to the nrb to codify we support that process you know I spoke to a little bit yesterday I think that was a kind of a cornerstone to the consensus that the act 250 study enjoyed was the acknowledgement that this work is important and complex and needs to work at a pace where both thermoners and stakeholders can can be engaged in it so there's good outcome so we're very supportive of this concept we're happy to see them in the bill and and that it was highlighted in the study that the critical resource area taken to address this need in h687 is is more prescriptive than what the nrb study called for it it does legislate specific resource categories that would fall into this area of automatic jurisdiction um you know those include river corridor significant wetlands lands above 2 000 feet lands with steep slopes and shallow depth of bedrock prime ag soil and any part of a parcel of connecting habitat um and you know these are all you know individually important resources some of them already enjoy some level of protection through say those state wetlands rules um but cumulatively they represent a very large footprint of vermont i think you know probably somewhere between a third and a half of the state if my map is right you know the ag agency shared they thought primex soils were about um 276 000 acres river corridors you know our map river corridors are 209 000 acres that include 12 000 existing buildings and 5600 miles of river shore so it's just a real big footprint of vermont and when you look at um the connecting habitat vermont conservation design has identified the highest priority connecting blocks in the state and that totals 2.8 million acres and i think the definition of connectivity in this bill is actually even broader than what vcd has mapped um potentially or if they're aligned it's it's still a lot of acreage you know that's that's pushing just of those categories pushing us over three million acres of land um by comparison you know all of this the existing state designated centers the downtown's villages neighborhood development areas growth centers those total about 22 000 acres so we're talking more than a hundred times more land being proposed for this critical resource area that are in these areas that have been proposed for potential active 50 exemptions um i'm not going to have any judgment about that i'm just pointing out that that's a very big disparity and that the act 250 study committee envisioned a much smaller footprint for tier three that it would be more targeted and focused around areas that were really critical and had really outsourced outsized resource values within some of those categories not categorically saying all connecting habitat but maybe certain connecting blocks within that 2.8 million acres um that had real outside impact in um forest health and connectivity so i just put that out there as a concern and you know again part of the rationale for why i recommended yesterday that this third tier is a place where some more data informed engagement with stakeholders uh could be beneficial um i just want to sure interject that with connecting habitat that is what we imagined is that we would get guidance from you all on those places that were irreplaceable okay those you know that we've seen the arrows on the map places that we need to keep connectivity happening not every block as you know many of the blocks are sort of designated in multiple yes categories so to grab them all and say they're connecting when you know it's like we would certainly look to the creators of vermont conservation design to guide it to guide us and narrow that scope significantly and and i would hope that in calculating areas of river corridor that i mean i i don't see this as a quick pro quo and i'm sort of unfortunate that that's involved that way i think most vermonters agree we need intact and functioning landscape and that there are resources that are critical to the health of both human communities and natural communities that are significantly more in greater an area than the places that we will go home ourselves right and in order for us to maintain access um to that landscape for our own renewal it needs to be intact but also for our communities to remain safe in the face of climate change it needs to stay intact so i guess i'm going to push back a little on this quid pro quo thing on the designations and the tier three being somehow the same amount of acres yeah that's fair i just i'm sharing that perspective coming out of that circle yeah i would hope that the agency can help provide us guidance on what's critical in the face of all the things i just talked about yeah absolutely that's our intent i think my point is that it it's there's all the intersecting threats that are so complex and you know act 250 is not the only tool that we have you know there's bills in the senate right now actively looking at um expanding regulatory oversight of river corridors and flood plains so there's there's other ways to get at that vision of this connected landscape protected connected landscape that you just spoke to chair sheldon um and i think from our perspective we see active 50 is really important but it may be too much of too much if you're really targeting a a narrow focus if you're really trying to maintain river corridors bringing all 32 sub criteria of active 50 to that one house may not be necessary to protect that river corridor um and the resource expectations from issuing a dc permit for a river corridor impact versus all the work that goes into an active 50 review is is significant so i think that's another thing we're thinking about is that not that these areas shouldn't be protected but what's the most efficient and effective tool to do that absolutely i introduced the river corridor bill here last year yeah for that reason yeah great um and i hope you're supporting it and helping us find a way to do that we are we proposed um i what i think uh secretary more proposed earlier this week what i think are some great um amendments to make it a feasible approach for the agency so this map i think is of the processes that three the studies that came through yes yeah and so what i want to make sure i understand because this we were all very excited about this it's helpful digestible easy to explain but here tier three is very tiny we're talking about tier two being a wide part of the land and so what i'm hearing you say is as you read this tier two is potentially half yeah i think tier three is well i think the the the words on the page how i interpreted them seemed to lead to that outcome what i've just heard representative sheldon say is that perhaps that largest piece of connecting habitat um her vision is something less than not full 2.8 million acres so um but yeah our initial read of this given the resources that are included it has a significant footprint on the landscape and is it is this knowable for us not sure like to get to this kind of slide how is it knowable it will be knowable but i think we need further input we asked eric sorenson for his input i welcome input from the agency and the current staff there on what a critical resource is to Vermont's landscape and our communities and then we can map it and then you know what i mean like we need to come to agreement on the words on the page and then look at it and then the 2000 feet and above how much area is that we did some work on that in previous sessions i didn't have the time to dig that up today but we can ask uh you all may know i'm sure john as we know but i i don't recall yeah and that those are going to overlap with a lot of the other resources that we discussed but it is a chunk of land yeah um so again i i think that's the analogy that you want to add so the two or three so when you say they're going to overlap were you double counting with the two three million with the 2000 foot she was asking about the the 2000 feet of elevation i didn't include that acreage in these numbers i just said that connecting habitat may overlap with someone and love it if you would speak to if you know how um headwater streams are covered now in act 250 and that you know the 2000 foot i think was put in there as a kind of a holder for like headwater streams we saw a lot of those blow out during the floods this past summer and winter right there is a headwaters criteria i'm looking at pete yes um that has a i think either a ruler statute is defined what is meant by headwater there's the streams criteria oney which we generally apply to our review through the fisheries division the fish wildlife through that we're looking at any perennial or intermittent stream so streams don't need to be carrying water all year as long as there's a defined channel and evidence of sediment movement that's considered an intermittent stream and we have the riparian buffer guidance that we apply in act 250 that calls for a default 50 foot buffer on smaller streams and 100 foot on larger streams and rivers that's a typically a no-touch vegetated buffer um in instances where that default buffer can't be entirely maintained we do we are open to working to develop riparian management plans where you may have a little bit more of a buffer impact of one area but then you're making buffer improvements through plantings or other things and other areas to offset that so the stream criteria is probably one of the top areas where the agency participates in act 250 and we've done a tremendous amount of work through the fisheries division over the years to move projects away from those riparian areas and to put permits actually conditions in act 250 permits that require the perpetual maintenance of those buffers in a natural state and p can you isn't there a headwater streams like at 1500 feet one of my yeah so you're you're right to recall that so sorry i'd pull up to open the book just to get there um but uh so when you're looking at you're you're talking about headwaters or watersheds characterized by steam slopes or shallow soils drainage area of 20 uh square miles or less or and this is what you're thinking of above 1500 feet in elevation and then or watersheds public water supply is designated by the agency of natural resources so they're all oars there in terms of uh what it means to be in that area and you're looking at making sure that uh that you're not reducing the reduction you're not having a reduction in the quality of the ground or surface waters thanks representative it's not it's not a jurisdictional thing it's a criteria just help me remind me um in this instance uh when we're moving when we're putting uh right now it's it's 2500 feet is a jurisdictional trigger is that right yes wow yeah so we're moving it down to two or we're proposing here to move that down to 2000 so of towns um that are in that place so what is the change that happens in that space that means any um any development commercial residential or otherwise would automatically require currently areas below 2500 feet have the existing triggers you know the number of lots the size of the parcel um but if it was included in this critical resource area as proposed it would be automatic jurisdiction for any development in those areas in any of the areas that are listed so my constituent wants to build a garage act 250 permit i think um there will be a challenge how to manage jurisdiction of pre-existing development if these new areas come into play i don't know what that would do if they wanted to subdivide their parcel into another lot or build a new house that would definitely trigger i don't know how what's being contemplated for existing development in these areas okay and does anybody know what's being contemplated for existing um we were going to carve it out right that sounds good so i just i guess in in conclusion you know the road rule the forest fire freight area the critical resource areas are all concepts that the agency is supportive of um we think the consensus approach in the nrb study is a good starting place and that we're happy to work with you all and stakeholders to try to move these concepts further and that um as i said yesterday i think there's a real opportunity to you know do as much as we can this year establish this framework that this that this system is an inevitability and that there may be the need to provide a little bit more time to fill in some of these details thank you for your testimony thank you both for coming in and um representatives stephens and similia thanks i'm sure um a little bit separate we heard testimony this morning about um separate from this bill but how long it was taking for corrective actions um to be processed uh and that impacts um you know the the goal of uh using infill uh locations for um for you know priority housing is that you is that someone else who would i that's the waste management and prevention division in dc matt chatman is the division director i know that um i am the agency's rep on the verma housing conservation board so i work with a lot of the affordable housing developers so i do have folks like kathy buyers and others matt more call me often when they're having some challenges with that and i do try to help move that stuff along um but uh that's complicated to work as well you know we're trying to make sure that environmental contaminants are not affecting um our fellow citizens but yeah matt would be the person it's it's his division that works on that thank you so do you have uh specific thoughts about implementation timeline because i've heard you twice now reference that and i'm interested um in what you think might be feasible um you know there's some public engagement and other things that we've sort of been talking around also but your reference do you have that kind of laid out not kind of laid out do you have a timeline i wouldn't really i really would want to defer to the nrb i personally think that if like there's two pieces there's the kind of the stakeholder piece the technical group that would need to come together to do some of this work like they did last summer i think that have defining a tier two and some of the other tiers the parameters for that could could certainly happen kind of prior to the next legislative session whether that's enough time to do outreach with communities and vermoners i don't know that might need some additional time but i think the the bare bones coming up with the kind of out the the parameters and definitions of of how those critical resource areas would be established i think it certainly happened before the next session so i just want to push on that a little bit you know if we're to pass this kind of historical legislation really i think that would be critical input from the agency yeah to provide is we can certainly do it since it would be you all that would be doing it so it would be good for us to first understand what you think is possible yes and what the limitations might be and that is really that's another issue that's pretty important to me to understand yeah okay thank you for that we'll take that back and i definitely want to talk with our folks in the environmental justice office and climate office around engagement because that piece i have less of a sense of the timeline around but we'll bring that all back to you as well while we're on that topic just to go back to the point you made at the beginning of this conversation really regarding capacity if this moves forward and it goes into effect and there's some upfront work that's going to need to be done by some of our experts and others i'd ask that you consider the capacity need to make that happen in a timely fashion you know we're really challenged right now with that we've got our staff just working to support the existing process as it is in addition to everything else that they're doing where we have staff dedicating an enormous amount of time to the planning effort associated with act 59 which is fantastic what a wonderful opportunity grateful for it but it's a heavy lift this would be very worthwhile and i would be absolutely delighted if something like this went into effect it would be time well spent but we would need the capacity support in order to make it happen in a timely fashion yeah what does that look like it would be great to hear what that looks like back i couldn't tell you off the top of my head no i'm not asking for you to tell me off the top that but if you could look look inside and let us know we would really appreciate it and we really appreciate you coming in today thanks thank you there are some suggested timelines in the report yeah there are okay oh and then we'll look at those all right members we are um we're going to adjourn for the afternoon i want to just let everyone know that we have a witness available ready for 10 or 15 minutes after the floor 15 minutes after the floor tomorrow morning and then we'll have testimony in the afternoon as well so see you there