 So we have a jam-packed day, and these are the waiting days of the legislative session, and we focused on two things, two important things to cover today. And of course, we're going to hear briefly from some of the most active, engaged energy community leaders across the state. As you've heard me say probably before, there are over 120 of these all volunteer grassroots groups that have been working many of them for over a decade in their communities on climate and clean energy. So there's a handful of them here. Help yourself to pizza for people. And the goal was just to have them say a few words about what they're doing, knowing that good public policy undergirds their efforts to succeed and their partners in getting to 90 by 2050. So we've done a lot here. There's a lot more to do. And these local leaders and communities are partners with you in that. And so the goal is just to give you in the next 20, 25 minutes, so please, Energy Committee votes be free, just an overview of what you're up to, and what you'd like to partner with the legislature to see happen. So starting first, not to put you on the spot, but make Kate work. All right, Kate Stevenson, batter up from Montpelier. So I'm Kate Stevenson. I'm the chair of the Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee. We have a very active energy committee here in town. And we've been working on a variety of initiatives, both public outreach to the community and within the municipality. My focus has been on a lot of the municipal buildings and operations. So you might have heard about some of our recent projects, the district heat coming into downtown, one megawatt of solar for city buildings and school district. And we recently launched a revolving loan fund that will help us fund small energy efficiency projects. So we've been going through all the buildings and identifying projects that we want to take on that will save taxpayers money on their energy bills. And yeah, really appreciate all of the partnership that we have with Efficiency Vermont. They've been a huge resource to us in kind of tracking all of our work and identifying priorities. You might have heard we won one of 10 finalists in the country for the Georgetown University Energy Prize this year. And a lot of that work was in collaboration with the folks at Efficiency Vermont. Thanks. Sorry. I'm Duncan MacDougall from Waterbury. I work for Waterbury League. We're an energy committee that's been running for 12 years. We've been quite active. Just to give you a few examples of what we do. Two weeks ago, we had our 12th annual LEAP Energy Fair. It's grown into the largest energy fair in the state of Vermont. We have usually between 6 and 700 people come to the fair. We have more than 75 exhibitors to give you a sense of the range of the energy economy here in Vermont. And one thing that really stands out is that people come not to save the environment, but they come to save money and save energy. And there's really a growing need for that. People want to have the expertise. They want to get their questions answered. They want to know how to move forward. And a lot of the incentives and the programs that are generated at this building really make a big difference. They help people take the step to move forward. And the kind of savings that we generate through bringing those experts together with the people that need to save money and save energy, those are savings that last for decades. So it's not a one-time thing. Just if you weatherize your home, if you change your vehicle, et cetera, those go on for a long time. We support training for heat pumps, weatherization. We're probably gonna do an electric vehicle, rodeo in our town so people can learn about electric vehicles. But the bottom line is that the steps that you guys take really make a difference. And there are 120 town energy committees, and if your town doesn't have one, talk to Joey from DNRC. It really makes a big difference and helps every town that we're in. Thank you. This here. My name's Linda Gray, and I'm from the town of Norwich. And our energy committee has been around, I think, since 2002. So we've done a variety of different things working with residents on weatherization and solar. We've done those numbers of years in a row. And so we've accomplished a lot because we have about 20% of our residents having gone solar either on-site or off-site. We've worked with the town, the town, and the elementary school in our library. All have a power purchase agreement so that their electricity is solar. They didn't have to make the investment. They're just purchasing the power. We are in the midst of doing enhanced energy planning, the process outlined from Act 174. And I want to tell you guys, I think that is an excellent process. And it's having us have a better, broader understanding of where we are right now and where we need to go. Something that is also raised, one of the elements of it is to figure out within your town boundaries, how much renewable energy generation should you be aiming for? Should you plan to have developed in your town? And something that that's highlighted for me is some concerns relating to the current rules and potentially the new rules coming out for net metering. Because over the last, under the current net vehicles, solar development has gone down a lot, that's a concern. Because if we're gonna try to meet our goals, and if net metering gets off the table, that's going to be very tricky. So I'll just leave it at that, with that concern for you to look out for. Thank you. I'm Steve Myers from Middlebury. We serve on the town energy committee. We've been active for about nine years, I think. What I'd like to talk to you about, you'll hear more about the town energy committee if you already have, and you'll hear some more from other folks. Middlebury is also being under this program called the Climate Economy Model Communities Program. It's a program of the Vermont Council on Rural Development. We were the second town chosen. They're now rolling it out in Randolph, and I expect to continue to do that. Two or three of those per year. Community organizing process that you may be familiar with, that BCRD does broadly across a number of different topics. And so we're able to bring together over 150 community members and leaders within the community to focus on the question of how do we begin to think about what a community looks like? How is it structured? How do we continue to make it improve it as a place to live, as a place to work, as a place to raise your family and stay engaged in community life as we transition from our current economy to a new post-carbon economy? We're already as a world, as a community and everything in between. We're already in the process of that transition. And we have choices to make about whether we're just gonna get plowed over by it and the forces at work, or whether we actually choose to engage and try to be on a leading front of some of these things so that both as communities and as a state of mind, position ourselves favorably in a regional, national, or international economy. So thank you for all the work that you do. I guess the last thing that I'd say having spent some time in this building over the years and around politics is that I think the public may well be ahead of where folks are in this building on this issue. And that has happened before, it will happen again. And I encourage you to engage with that in mind and really start to take even bolder actions than the ones we've been able to take as a state so far. Thank you. I just wanted to make a comment that was following up on what you said that you pointed out that sometimes town energy groups are certainly ahead of what we're doing in this building. And the woman from Montpelier mentioned that her great work was efficiency in the mind. It seems like every year we are protecting that funding so that they continue to do the good work that they do. There's always somebody in this building who's trying to cap them or whatever. And I think we all need to realize that we'd all be paying more for electricity. So when you have the experiences and you can really spread it on why that would be important to us since I've been here. Good question. Excuse me, Marcellory was a self-reliant energy committee. The city started our committee about 10 years ago. And two of our recent projects include the 2.1 megawatt solar landfill project that over the next 25 years should save taxpayers two to five million dollars. Secondly was a collaborative project we did for the two-year energy prize. And our residents are now enjoying $750,000 in savings annually on gas and electric bills because of that. Our accomplishments really build on things that we will accomplish here, your programs and policies. And we also rely heavily on the expertise, services and incentives through the energy efficiency utility offered through efficiency Vermont and Vermont gas. So those are very helpful. Currently, we are focused on local, reducing emissions and local and regional transportation as well as working with our city staff to help them meet their commitments to the Vermont Climate Fledged Coalition. Fledged their commitments. So I'm here representing, unofficially, my committee, our committee, people gave me input, but I'm also here tomorrow. And I'm alarmed at what is happening on the federal level right now in terms of misinformation that's out there, climate, peer-reviewed climate science being ignored and sound economic analysis being ignored. So it's just, I'm very thankful for the progress that you have supported because we really need strong leadership in our state right now to pick up health estate, pick up the case, to do take the substantive action to address climate change. Otherwise, future generations of our kids, their descendants are gonna run into a world that has environmental and political instability that I think is hard to imagine right now. So again, thank you for what you're doing. We're very encouraged by the climate package that seems to be going forward today this week. In particular, the decarbonization study, I think it's very useful in terms of, especially folks who have some doubts about, oh, can this really help? I think it's really helpful to do that money to study different carbon pricing policies and cap and trade policies, whether it's through the Western initiative, climate initiative with California, Quebec, and Ontario and the other ones. So again, very important and also happy to hear that it sounds like the $500,000 will be returned to will not be taken out of the Clean Energy Development Fund. So these are just things that we really need to look at for bold action and thank you very much for the opportunity to get into that. I think I'll make a difference. Well, Stevenson from Heartland. I'm a new energy committee member and our energy committee's been around for about 10 years. We're down to two people and in the last few months we're up to eight people. I think a lot of people are really getting active, coming together, I think we can together address this problem. I know for me, I have family in the West Coast. I used to take care of lessons in Monsito. The 20 deaths there really hit close to home for me, to my old home. We're already paying the price for not taking anything. We're not going to be able to afford what it's going to cost unless we, somebody steps up and takes a leadership and I think for Mons is a position that we can do that. But the West Coast is in some ways ahead of us at this point. I'm on the energy committee, I've taken this transportation on as my topic and so I have interest in, and making sure that it's since transportation is actually the biggest user of energy in Vermont at this point, it's impossible to open an energy bank to help electrification in the lab as quickly as possible. And it's certainly on my personal agenda on the energy committee getting charging stations out there so that people don't feel, I think in California I know my brother doesn't want to get in the life of the vehicle because he says so when he wrote in somebody else's they had to wait in line for the charge. And we don't want to, when this wave sweeps across Vermont we want to be ready for it so we don't want any to go through the line down. Also I'm on the, I'm not a physician myself but I'm on the Physicians for Responsibility, Social Responsibility mailing list and it's mind-boggling, the health costs not addressing this problem. I think that's all I have to say as a new member but thank you. Thank you. I know you can carry them in a time Allen and then Chuck. Hopefully, okay so Allen Johnson I was a founding member of the Heart and Energy Commissions some 10 years, a lot of years ago I was in the shoulder for eight years or so until I was demoted to liaison and I was elected to select board so now I'm on two years into a select board position three years in and I just wanted to share our biggest challenge at the municipal level is 500 kilowatts, not even a cap because we were one and a half times over I was in support of the rules when we went back and it's pretty clear that something needs to be done that I understand the need for that rule but I also understand that preventing Harvard at night part of Vermont from proceeding with our rule was rolled out when we're on green mountain powers grid which is not hurting and can take all the renewables we can throw at it that we're an unintended consequence of that rule so some adjustments around those net meter rules are clearly called for and then further some support for the utilities that the net meter rules put in place to allow them to transition to a greater infrastructure like green mountain power and so many other utilities Vermont have so that they can manage these renewable these distributed renewable resources which is how the market's moving anyways those are really important things that get me to the management level we, I want to share our biggest success got so many great things going on but clearly the outstanding success we've had in the last year is the hybrid of Vermont's first full-time energy coordinator as a staff position and we did that with the expectation and hope that within three or five years that his position would pay for itself and we'd start season returns I found out on Tuesday night the town manager reported that his work has already covered its general fund costs and we are now seeing returns, seven months into position so getting those resources for Hartford ninth largest town of Vermont, million plus dollars on energy between towns and schools about 50 million dollars as a community it's easy for us to look at the numbers and it took us five years of full team to get people to look at the numbers to make this decision and hire this position most towns in Vermont don't have that kind of expense to manage so getting resources like that at the regional planning level having teams of people in the regional planning commissions that can not just do strategic planning which we've got a lot of great help for already but can also manage projects and implement them and be boots on the grounds for the smaller towns where the select board people like me are actually out driving the public workstrucks which could follow by mine you know that's most of Vermont so we need to support those folks too in transition and I'll just throw into that you know this this is for me you know I've been at this for over a decade and my understanding of the situation has morphed pretty dramatically over the years and I came into this with you know how do we make this transition happen how do we make this transition happen and that was the drive for almost 10 years and in just this fall we've come across an information about some market forces that have been driving this transition course whether we like it or not so there's automated vehicles coming it would cost the renewables and storage it's dropping dramatically so we've got 10, 15 years of energy disruption that's coming and the first one's in transportation so we're trying to shift a little bit more from how do we make this happen in the town of Oregon with our energy commission from how do we make this transition happen to how do we manage this transition to make sure that our town and our state hopefully you'll be saying that our state can take advantage of these transitions and not be left behind and not leave our most vulnerable citizens behind as so many technology disruptions have done over the years so I really hope that we can start thinking about that and on that note you know I have a lot of deep thoughts about was it still smart to hire an energy coordinator yeah I get the math it's still good even if energy costs go down and we still save money with an energy coordinator at the town level but you know the question of do you have to ask yourself these questions these are tough questions does it still make sense to put a price on carbon in Vermont and more specifically does it still make sense to put a price on fossil fuels in Vermont and I've thought hard about this and I absolutely believe it is because fossil fuels now represents the single most vulnerable aspect of our economy in Vermont so we need to get a price on it so that we can start funding programs to help not just individuals definitely individuals especially our own income folks but our industries as well transition off of the need for fossil fuels including those that sell fossil fuels you know think about every gas station in Vermont most of them don't make a profit on the gas that they sell they use the stores as their main source of profit there's a heck of a lot of expense around those things so when they stop selling gasoline that's gonna have a major effect on our economy so we have to manage that as well so putting a price on it now before it goes away so that we can fund this transition and do it right and manage land use issues the list goes on so that's where we're struggling in Harvard to start thinking about that stuff and we'd love to help the state have to figure it out too thanks Chuck, last brief word before we move on to a whole other really important presentation brief word but on the most important word oh I'm with the Heinsberg Energy Committee in Florida I'll just tell you one everywhere which is coordinating with seven other energy committees in the Chicken County area to put on a workshop series and its focus primarily on getting existing homes to net zero and that after we're very encouraged by what we're finding and some of the research that we've come up with but essentially we're realizing that people do want this they want to get their homes to net zero and they can do it by first of all for recommending weatherize your house second, probably put something like a heat pump in there that's a likely base and then third supply the renewable energy so those three things combined are what people are doing anyway what we're finding is that no one's coordinating that activity so we are actually going to figure back with the program from a group in the state that has piloted a project called ZEN which is zero energy now that actually coordinates all that activity we're also at the present moment looking at financing so we talk about incentives really help because if you look at somebody's utility bills and then look at what it would cost to pay a mortgage to pay those things you just put in your house they get pretty close and if you have incentives and you have good financing or even financing that's supplemented somehow via the state those things make economic sense and on top of that then you're putting a lot of people to work doing those things so it creates green jobs for us it seems like a win-win kind of situation and it'll help us I think transition to a more sustainable energy economy so we are doing our last four part series after Wednesday night and we're looking at case studies actually houses that have done this and have reduced their monthly income by paying a mortgage instead of all the few months it'll be online where all our energy committees are going to have that on their website and we'll make that available to you too thank you I just want to say thank you for taking the time and sorry for being brief and abrupt and we're going to pull out as you listen to another important focus which will be fully support but I think you've heard it like this about you at the partnership so we'll be back sorry I don't know taking into account would you have in mind for the rest of the hour is there time for us to ask some questions no there aren't we've got the three-foot two-foot I know I'll give them taking that into account if we have time for maybe one question do you have a question okay I'll can I ask I don't have so much a question as I have a request from you many of you who spoke come from towns where your representative or your senator are sitting here in this room and many ways you're preaching to the choir but we have an election season coming up and as Steve Meyer noted there are times when the elected officials in this building seem to act like they're maybe a little bit behind what public sentiment is so I would just encourage you to as you enter election season ask those questions of the candidates who are running and who will appear on your ballot ask them how they feel about increasing the incentives to help people transition away from fossil fuels ask them how they plan to vote on some of these issues that are coming up in the future and make your decisions on who to support based on that I encourage other energy committee members who maybe aren't here today to also do that because it's important for the people to push because we know that the push back that we get when we propose some of these things is going to be well funded, well coordinated and loud so we need you to be louder thank you so much thank you so I'd like to start by thanking Climate Caucus for existing in the first place and being bold and courageous enough to take on issues of climate change I know it's not always an easy thing to do in the positions that you're in but we're extremely appreciative that you're here my name is Julie Massuga and I've been in the battle against issues of climate justice with groups like Projector Prax Park and through 50 Vermont for about two years now and I spend a lot of time in public hearings and in meetings where I find myself in a sea of people from older generations I spend a lot and I listen to them speak with fear in their voices they're afraid of what kind of planet they're leaving behind for their grandchildren and as one of those grandchildren I'm terrified and I ask myself the same thing every day our elected officials have to ask themselves these tough questions too will they find themselves in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry or will they join us in struggle to make this planet livable for those they were elected to represent progress has been slow on this front but we're getting somewhere in 2012 fracking was banned in Vermont however it's still okay for us to import fracked fuel from across our borders via pipelines this time last year Vermont Gas completed their 41 mile ANGP pipeline which is now under investigation for numerous alleged safety violations 41 miles of reckless construction all at the expense of the health and safety of people our wildlife and our climate not to mention rate payers as the cost of the project has nearly doubled for these reasons and many more we are asking for politicians that we have voted into office to consider bold legislation like H746 which calls for a ban on any new fossil fuel infrastructure in the state 31 pounds have signed on to have to prevent new fossil fuel infrastructure in their towns but we need to do more bills like this would reduce greenhouse gas emissions helping Vermont meet its emissions goals and more importantly help us curb the effects of climate change at the same time this bill would protect rate payers from bearing the cost of new infrastructure if you need a catchphrase we can go green while saving some green at the same time while we're saving money and protecting the climate in the long term we can protect our beautiful state that's inhabitants from the short term the largest of construction that we've seen in our own backyards we're here to say enough is enough and I was going to say something about protecting our future but as I heard last week we're already in this we're already at we're past a breaking point so we're here to say that we're our future as whatever that is in the wake of climate change is not for sale to the fossil fuel industry and today is an interesting day to be talking about this as we speak the head of the EPA is being questioned by Congress about ethics violations it's clear we need to act on the state level if that's where we're at nationally so we hope that you'll join us in trying to protect Vermont by preventing fossil fuel infrastructure from prevailing thank you so we have Laura hi I'm Laura Simon from Hartford, Vermont I'm involved with a few environmental groups about three of them but these are my own comments in Vermont and in my town Hartford there are a lot of reasons that we must pass a bill like the one that Mary introduced age 746 no new fossil fuel bill and Hartford residents have suffered from millions of dollars of damage from Hurricane Irene and most scientists say that the crisis is caused by carbon and methane released into the atmosphere frat gas releases methane I know you're saying we're preaching to the choir that's true so you probably already know these things but evidence tells us we will experience this again more disasters whose homes will be destroyed the next time how much more will we pay in town, state, and federal taxes for the next disaster so there's a proposed frat gas pipeline in the town of New Hampshire that borders my town Hartford it's Lebanon Hartford residents we have no say about it even though our town is bordered by the White River and the Connecticut river so we feel pretty vulnerable to what's happening there and a bill like this could prevent that pipeline from being extended into our town as I think others will tell you Vermont gas is now the PUC, Vermont PUC has started an investigation because of their practices and safety concerns companies like Vermont gas and other pipeline companies they either threaten or actually use eminent domain to take people's land they do not listen to the wishes of the local residents and they pass their costs on to customers as you know even though their budgets have doubled what was expected and approved so we know folks that the feds are not going to take leadership on this 350 Vermont as you heard from Julie had the resolutions in 31 towns many folks here had resolutions in your town some legislators four towns I represent four towns all four of them exactly did all four of them have resolutions? certainly three did did Sharon have one? Sharon did so I was just going to the Shumlin had signed an agreement with the global climate leadership that committed us to reductions in emissions up to 95% by 1990 and we're not meeting those benchmarks and I'm just going to quote a little bit about climate change presents worldwide challenges and risk to the environment and economies impacting human health, increasing extreme weather events and threatening natural resources in this next legislative session we must pass a bill like 746 this is what the 31 towns that voted for the resolution this is what they're asking of the legislature and we must do this towards the safety of our children future generations I think what we would like to hear after we do our presentation is what all of you feel the next step is and what you're willing to commit to we actually have a little sign on sheet to see if you're willing to be a sponsor for this kind of legislation next session and we're counting on you to take leadership and introduce in the past no fossil fuel bill next legislative session thank you thank you I'm three I'm three I'm going to bring my chair with my knees back and also I'm not very comfortable speaking publicly even though I may seem like it so I couldn't fall down but anyway I'm a social worker I'm a clinical social worker and I was listening to and I've been meaning to talk with you guys and I try to bring this perspective I've come to a couple of the caucuses in February, January, February about that time that I've slapped off but I have this perspective it speaks to something someone said earlier about how people are more willing to change than business is allowing us to and politicians of course have to really balance that and I appreciate what you guys do but what I see and I've worked in 21 schools or so in the Orange County area I'm in private practice now but I worked with Claire Martin Center and worked with mostly teenagers mostly boys but the testimony that I bring from them is generally a sense of denial but also a clear sense that they're terrified which is why there's denial now I see boys who try to you know bring some macho things to their world that's what they think their identity is well these kids are scared and it's not just because they're teenagers but because of what they face and so the biggest thing is jobs of course but the second thing I think is the world around them so war environment but one kid I have who goes to Oxbow High School he said that 90% percent this was news to me of his friends not just friends but the whole school body know about climate change global warming they know what it is and they're positively against it so when I talk about what they bring to me in our sessions and say I haven't collected the data and I haven't done a good job of really collecting the data but I could that a large percentage of them are too afraid and too unable to articulate the fear that they have and so we're doing that and you and the climate caucus are doing that but this bill here is a counterbalance to the fear of actually stopping the infrastructure in its tracks and like I said I'm not good speaker but if we don't stop the infrastructure in its tracks there will be no opening for the green alternatives it just can't happen and I know that US legislators have to look at how that's going to transition how it's going to work and I know my representatives are doing that but it's not fast enough and it's not fast enough for these kids so that's why I'm here and I felt I had to speak because these kids don't have a voice so I'd like to do some research I come from a good research institution where I got my degree and I need to do my work but I'd like you guys to lead and take the risk of supporting this bill to stop the infrastructure now and not later because as we continue to invest it'll become harder and harder with the new pipelines to really create space for what other things we're talking about so that's it I just wanted to bring their perspective I'm Jeffrey Gardner from Bradford and I think first of all I'd like to thank Mary for introducing this bill in the house I think that took enormous courage we look at the national scene almost everything official presses against what you've done the same actually our state as well I was really impressed by all of the things that were said town by town here today and I think our worry and what we would like to overcome with this bill is the creeping thought behind all of that that all of that good work and all of the good work that could follow after it could be obviated by new fossil fuel infrastructure we don't only have to decarbonize we do have to do that we also have to decasify I know all of you know that gas emissions as a greenhouse gas are 86 times more powerful over the short run 10 to 20 years than carbon and that is something really serious to take into account when you also know that somewhere between 3 and 11 or 12 percent of the gas that is fracked from the well head all the way to where you turn your stove on leaks and it's those emissions that are critical in all this now where this bill to pass three things that are possible in the future where you incur one is this line here extending the pipeline Vermont gas pipeline to Rutland would not be able to occur it's on hold now why is it on hold it's on hold because people have opposed it I have not seen political opposition to it it was wonderful last year when we came to this group and we had complaints about what was happening at DPS relative to a whole range of topics we asked you to write them and ask them to ask the public utilities commission to reconsider the certificate of public good and you did that and the answer that you got was we'll get back to you later I suspect they never got back to you later and I worry about that this bill would make that impossible second of all there was a pipeline gas pipeline proposed from upstate New York to run across northern Massachusetts and come into our state and Massachusetts and Vermont and the idea was that it was going to be a gas fired electrical plant and in some way that sounds great because we buy our gas to run our electrical system from other states well is it so great probably not we have to find other ways of doing things like that that's not happening for now why is it not happening for now because kinder Morgan now doesn't find that to be profitable will they find it to be profitable later probably because one thing to understand about this is that the pressure to get the stuff oil and gas out of the ground by cracking is so intense that what rules these days is a kind of gold rush mentality and that has landed us in enormous problems for example in Addison County with the Addison natural gas pipeline so this is on hold something else that threatens is this black line that black line is the Portland to Montreal oil pipeline 76 years old it brought gas from important Portland into Canada during the Second World War 76 years old carrying crude at that time the goal here is to reverse the flow in that pipeline and bring Tarzan's Dilbet highly corrosive through the northeast kingdom across New Hampshire and then down in Portland the pipeline probably cannot take that who is thinking about that people in Portland are thinking about it they pass the local ordinance that would block their port being used that now is in federal court why? because the pipeline companies are claiming it's in restraint of interstate trade if they lose we've got a big problem to face there if we had this bill that would go by the boards too maybe not because it would be crossing a state boundary that puts it in the pocket of FERC to decide whether the project is permitted or not and FERC the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has until recently approved just about everything this bill that we're asking you to support can't really say no fossil fuel infrastructure here if this becomes part of FERC proceeding however it does instruct the Department of Public Service in this state to oppose this pipeline or any other new fossil fuel infrastructure project under the jurisdiction of FERC we're talking about big danger here not danger way in the future hard to see of climate change although those realities are becoming more and more present all the time and that brings up the issue of accidents safety concerns public health concerns right here in Addison County in fact you see right here in Vermont that gold rush mentality and the disregard that it imposes both with respect to the public processes that are supposed to restrain that sort of thing and also disregard for people all in the name of a cheap fuel not so cheap when you consider all of the proceedings that have gone on that have cost the state lots of money not to speak of all the people who have opposed it who have been arrested in opposing it which is a further expense for the state in Addison County the reason that there now is a new proceeding at the Public Utilities Commission about the health and safety consequences of the way in which this pipeline was constructed is owing to a handful of people in the area of that pipeline spending months it's all began in the summer of 2016 gathering information through discovery process about how this pipeline was built how it was inspected how it was poorly built and how it failed to be inspected properly at this point most of that evidence is documentary we do have a photograph that you probably all have seen already of a pipeline buried 18 inches when it's supposed to be buried 4 feet and further serious problems a whole range of them I invite all of you just to take a quick look through the products of the discovery process in this case and see what has occurred there the extent of it we don't really know the really important thing though is this small group of assets in county had been doing the government's job this is about how the department of public service has not followed through on grave safety concerns their motive I have my guesses they're really not important the fact of the matter is that a project of this type is huge relative to assets we want to see how even with the best intentions they could have properly overseen a project like this that's why we need this legislation and that's why I think what we'd like you to do is to let us know if you would be interested in signing on to work with us to get this passed because it really is important in many ways comes that double bell signing yeah so we're going to be moving quickly towards that I want to say something I would ask of you folks which is I tried to address this 20 years ago at the local level and felt my god I live in a town of 2,000 people what can we do? I'm going to run for the legislature in the legislature I tried to feel like my god we're so remote from the people we all really need to work together and one of the things you folks can do right with feet on the ground in your hometown is to not let your family and friends and neighbors off the hook when they pardon the expression I don't say this to them because I don't want to insult people but you and I know we hear a lot of bullshit okay and it's people themselves quote skeptics skepticism is holding off holding out for better evidence not ignoring the proof okay it's not skepticism it's stubbornness and we've got to not let people off the hook there's also the idea of that well there's always been a naturally occurring warming and cooling cycle on the planet that's right that's our baseline that's how we know we've got a problem from that rhythm so so profound we people lots and lots of personal conversations multiplied 630,000 times will give us more support the other thing is Mary alluded to this I'm sorry to be so practical but we've got an election coming up and you know you need to put signs in your lawn as ugly and stupid as they are and ask the hard questions of every candidate as Sarah said okay folks thank you so much thank you we'll be back here