 All right, we are live. Great, thank you, Matthew. And good morning, everybody. And welcome to the January 22nd meeting of the House Energy and Technology Committee. We're going to meet twice today. This morning, we have a committee discussion on a presentation received and a request from the administration and agency of national resources with regard to a budget adjustment appropriation for a million dollars. We're going to discuss that right now with the committee. And then we will adjourn this morning, this afternoon. We're going to come back, I believe at 1.30 to have a presentation from the Department of Public Service. So that information is on committee's website and our agenda. So I will just kick off the discussion for our hearing just to review some of the things that we heard earlier this week. And I know that Representative Pat also touched base, or at least said it on some testimony that was given to the Appropriations Committee and heard some of the discussion over there as well. Earlier this week, we heard from the Secretary of ENR, Julie Moore, who presented information to our committee about a request for a million dollar appropriation one-time money through the Budget Adjustment Act, which is in the Appropriations Committee right now. Our task this morning is to determine whether or not we want to support that recommendation from the administration and pass that message of support back onto the Appropriations Committee. The million dollar request of one-time money was essentially to support the work of the Climate Council, which was set up under the Global Warming Solutions Act last year. The Climate Council began their work in November, I believe, and has met three or four times since then. There's a very aggressive timeline that has been set up for the completion of the work of the Council. And even though the Council has met a few times since November, I think our understanding is that the work of the Council is really just beginning, and the subcommittees are in the process of being established right now. There was an ongoing general fund appropriation last year that was made to support the work of the Council in the form of three positions that are going to be staffed through the Agency of Natural Resources. What we're talking about this morning is not that money. That is general fund money to hire those three positions. This money very specifically was primarily to support technical work that the Council needs in the form of economic and emissions modeling, as well as money that would support the facilitation of the work of the Council, public outreach work that's got to be done over the next, I think it's 10 or 11 months. So even though this is one time money in FY21, I think it was presumed by the Secretary that some of this money would actually be spent as we get into FY22. It wasn't just going to be money to be expended by June 30th this year. Some of the money would actually spill into the next year. Some of the things that the Secretary talked about, which I was particularly appreciative of, was the work she had done in looking to some similar work that had been done in the state of Maine. Maine is somewhat similar state to Vermont in terms of the rural nature of the state. In the past year or so, the state of Maine has gone through a very similar exercise. So I think it's particularly relevant to look to Maine in terms of the work that their Climate Council has done in the last year and some of the work that they needed to do to accelerate their process and to make that process of greatest utility as they kind of pushed forward with climate policy in their state. One of the things that I heard the Secretary say was that with this type of work, I think she said it's like engineering work. It's good, fast, and cheap. You pick two. And we have definitely looked to the Climate Council to work quickly. They have to complete their work and present the work of the Council. I believe it's by December 1st this year. So we have definitely set a fast timeline. Clearly, we want the work to be good and supportive of policy work that we are going to do and that the administration is going to do going forward. And again, I think looking to the work that Maine has done as well as Massachusetts and New York, the Secretary has, and the administration has determined that this additional information, particularly for the technical work, is necessary. So having heard the Secretary's testimony in our committee, and I also listened, I think 1.75 speed in the Appropriations Committee heard her testimony there and some of the questions there. I would just open it up for conversation and thoughts that other folks in the committee might have. So go ahead, Avram. I see your hand up. OK. Yeah, I just wanted to, I sat in, actually, or listened in on two Appropriations Committee hearings. The very first one was several, a few days ago, was when Commissioner Greshin, Finance and Management, Commissioner Greshin, gave an overview of the entire budget adjustment and walked through everything that's in that proposal, including what we're talking about today. And yesterday, I listened after the fact, specifically to Secretary Moore's testimony, after the fact only because we were, at that time, hearing from the electric utility folks, and I definitely wanted to be part of that. So Secretary Moore's testimony, she did not give, when she was in our committee, she started with a sort of overview high-level summary of activity to date, organizing activity to date, and all of that. She did not go into that with the Appropriations Committee and just went to the Appropriations, the budget adjustment request directly. And her presentation was basically the same as what she gave in our committee. There was not a lot of discussion after that from the committee. There were a couple of questions, which were also covered when she was here. One was about what was the basis for the estimate for the consulting work and all of that that needs to be done. And she mentioned again that it was based on experience in other states, particularly Maine. And committee chair, Representative Cooper, asked why this needed to be in the budget adjustment and could it not be included in the budget proposal that we're going to be working on for the coming year. And Secretary Moore's answer was that there's a huge amount of work, as the chair just said, that needs to be done in a very short time frame. It can't be done on a volunteer basis, relying on the expertise of members of the commission or by the staff that have been hired to basically do the organizing work and the process work of the council. She used the phrase, it's simply not enough hours in the day to do what we need to do. So that's really just telling you what I heard in the appropriations committee. And I'll finish by saying that I think this proposal was well thought through. And as I said, when Secretary Moore was in our committee, I, although no one, it is additional money, but I was impressed by the commitment to get this very ambitious project done in the time frame and in the spirit of the bill that we passed last year. So I support the proposal. Thank you, Abraham. Laura, I see your hand up. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. We did pass a bill with an extremely aggressive timeline in it because we have an extremely aggressive problem in climate change and also adaptation, economic adaptation and infrastructure adaptation throughout Vermont, particularly in our rural and poor areas of the state that are being left behind. Of course, we know that those who can adapt already are adapting. And so I am quite pleased to see that this request has come in from the administration to ensure that this work can be done in a timely fashion and in a thorough fashion. And I absolutely support this request. So thank you for that, Laura. Something else that I would say that has made me appreciative of the administration stepping forward with this request is that the Global Warming Solutions Act is something that the House of Representatives passed, I think it was 11 months ago, almost exactly. It was at the end of February last year. It was pre-COVID. We didn't know what was going to hit us two weeks after that. And ultimately, this bill didn't become law until the end of September or early October. And at the time, we were envisioning this process and this work starting probably three months prior to the time that it actually did. So the COVID pandemic has even, whilst it's created a lot of challenges for us, it's even more compressed the work that's got to be done here, which is one of the reasons, I think, that these additional resources are necessary to get this work done on time. So I agree with you, Representative Sibilia. I appreciate the administration coming forward with this. We set out an aggressive timeline to begin with, which has become more aggressive because of the pandemic. And I believe this money is essential to get this work done on time. Are there any other comments or thoughts from folks in the committee? Go ahead, Mike. Yeah, I generally tend to agree with that. I would definitely support it. And I think it's a good move. Laura? Mr. Chair, I'm mobile, so I'm not quite seeing the dynamics of the committee. But if there are no further questions, if you're looking for a motion on this, I would move that our committee recommend funding this request to the Appropriations Committee. Great. So we have a motion to make a recommendation to the Appropriations Committee. Is there a second? We'll split them. OK, thanks, Mike. Auburn, did you want to chime in more? That was your second. That was your digital second? Yes. OK. We don't I don't think we need to take, well, I know. We don't need to take a formal vote in terms of a recorded vote. But just for the purpose, what I'm going to do is, and this is what the Chair of the Appropriations Committee had asked for, we don't need to do a formal letter. And you'll find that when we get into February and the formal budget process, the Appropriations Committee will come to our committee with a handful, maybe even more, things in their budget that they're looking for our input on. Typically, our feedback will be to send a formal letter with each item in the budget that is in our purview and give feedback on that and a recommendation to support it or not. This is going to be a little less formal. I'm going to send an email. I'm going to copy Representative Pat and Representative Feltas on it. But I'm going to send an email to the Chair of the Appropriations Committee, just mentioning that we discussed this and what our recommendation is, just so everybody knows how this process will work. So Sally, I see your hand up. Go ahead. Well, maybe I interrupted you. So you're saying there's not going to be a vote? Well, we're about to do a vote right now. I'm going to ask for people an expression of support or not. And so the idea is that we can tell the Appropriations Committee that whatever, six of our committee members supported this, three did not. And by that ratio, we are offering our support or not for this. That's what the communication will be. Typically with a formal bill, we will take a recorded vote where it's clear for the record which members of the committee supported and did not support a bill. This doesn't fall into that category of formality. This is, again, it's just going to be a recommendation. But I think it's important to let the Appropriations Committee know whether it was unanimous or not. And we'll provide that level of feedback. OK. Except I think we should note since everything is being recorded, it essentially. Well, I'm going to ask people to answer that. It's on YouTube, so it will be out there to voted, but. Well, and I think it's a really good point. I mean, typically how we will do this when we're in our committee room is I will literally ask for people to raise their hand. And folks who support it, raise your hand, folks you don't. And then we'll record the vote that way. I'm going to do the same thing right now. Ask for people to literally raise their hand. Which, how about if we just show our hands on screen as opposed to our digital hand raise if that works for people? I don't know if Laura can do that. Oh, that's right. Can you do that, Laura? Yes. OK, OK. Well, like other members, you could certify who you are and provide. Right, exactly. All right, so I'm going to ask for a show of hands to support the recommendation of this budget adjustment request from the administration. So if I can have a show of hands for support of this. And OK, so I see your hand, Laura. And those you can put your hands down. And if you do not support this recommendation. OK, great. So so what I will express to to the chair of the Appropriations Committee is that by an eight to one vote, the committee recommends supporting this request from the administration. He's not here. Oh, I beg your pardon. Thank you. 711. Thank you. 711. Beg your pardon. Got it. OK, so folks, that is our morning business. We are going to reconvene this afternoon at 1 30 with with the with the energy team from the Department of Public Service. And so we'll adjourn our committee hearing.