 Warring Solutions Act and one of the findings we have in the bill just as kind of a placeholder relates to some things in public finance and you have also done a great deal of work in recent years on, you know, some of these big picture issues that affect our state, certainly that you work in water, but I wanted to make sure that you have a chance if you were interested and I appreciate you taking up the invitation to join us. Just with some thoughts on the bill, we're very open to any improvements we can make and as I said, I think, you know, the focus was on with you being essentially the chief financial officer for our state. This is an important thing to talk to, so welcome and thank you for joining us. Well, thank you very much for the record best peer sustained treasurer and I'm going to start with I hope we support the bill. This is a big step in the right direction. I'd like to read a little bit of what I started to write in terms of a really long report and then not do that for the rest of this because I don't want to. Exactly. Most of my reports, you know, stop at page 90 or so, clean water I think was 93 plus probably three times more single, but decent type. But so let me just start off with a few comments that came from doing the clean water report and thinking about the issues as they relate to climate change and also we have on our on our webpage a report called environmental social and governance which talks about some of the efforts that we're making in respect with respect to investments in climate change and I think that if you're interested you should take a look at that and maybe that's one thing you should we should talk about in terms of we're looking to develop some metrics and working with some of the environmental community to develop some metrics and our investments and that might be something we should talk about here but let me just start off with basically a statement you know that climate change is a serious threat to our way of life the future well-being of our citizens and also our bottom line these threats you know are not some way down the road they're here right now with us and it's going to require a collaborative effort from all parties and local state federal governments and in concert with the private sector and I think your bill addresses that must be more to address the issues that face us and there are dire consequences for not doing it. Now we've been a model for many number of years in solar and wind and clean water technologies but we need to do more we've articulated very ambitious goals but we have not met those goals and presently do not see without this bill do not have a pact to meet them we haven't done nearly enough to combat climate change and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions I'm going to read a couple of lines from a report that was cited in Business Magazine and basically the bulk of Vermont's total emissions from transportation from transportation heating sector 71% and this is from a DEC report Vermont has already missed important greenhouse gas reduction goals and is likely to miss future emission goals let me do that again to miss future goals as emissions have continued to rise in the years and going to another A&R report Vermont's greenhouse gas emissions remain at levels well above its reduction goals established in state statute in the comprehensive energy plan each successive year of increasing emissions levels makes achieving the state's emission reduction goals significantly more difficult. Now a couple years ago we voted an op-ed we wrote a big clean water report which I appreciate the efforts that were made by the House and the Senate after that in the General Assembly and the governor to make some real strides in clean water but we wrote an op-ed and it was a financial case to protect Vermont's water and as I was thinking about that in that report I said we have a choice to act or defer action and we can't continue to defer action simply put there is no choice without jeopardizing the health of our citizens our economy our natural resources and our way of life we are in a similar position now with the task ahead of us delay is at our peril and each year we delay and we have more risk and more costs that bottom line we must act now I want to go through a couple of pieces on that you've probably heard all these already but looking at some of the data on the state's website you know total rainfall has increased over the last 50 years storms have increased in intensity our winters are getting warmer and and shorter and summers are getting a lot hotter hotter do that again whoa but I really like the cold so I pay attention to that last one but you know in terms of risks you know we're already dealing with some of those risks you know in terms of the temperature swings and how they impact our farms you know rain increasing intensity there more floods and more changing in terms of insecticide needs and pests and it's a real problem our sugar season has already been seen detrimental impacts we need more dollars for infrastructure you know in terms of disaster relief and certainly it's going to impact snowball you know when we wrote the report back in clean water in 2017 we pointed out that there was 2.5 billion dollars in our tourism industry my guess is that I haven't looked at it recently I hope it's going to about three hope it hasn't gone down but the mitigation strategies it should be looked in terms of our economy in terms of the loss of revenue and in the cost of disaster planning so in disaster improvement unfortunately when we have a disaster the implementation around that so for me this is a big effort and you know we've done some work on it we have a hazard mitigation report that the state has developed it's it's I think it's very good but it isn't there it isn't you know to the final efforts you know page 143 of that report it says intends to create we're still in that intend and moving forward part we need to do more than just a hazard mitigation report we need to be able to have a comprehensive whole look at what we're doing now I thought about that and said if and I did this independently of looking at your bill and I said if I was looking at this how would I start and you know I'd start with a strategic plan including goals and a comprehensive effort you know and one would be to develop those climate goals and in strategies around them we have done that but we haven't we haven't done the work to make that happen we need to develop an action plan and that action plan needs to include regulations with requisite detail policies and to create measurement and accountability plan to track these efforts and demand action when when those goals and strategies have not been met and our mission has not been met when I look at your bill I say it's doing that and I'm very pleased to see that you know this is the strategy that we take when we're addressing problems on the financial side you're doing the same thing in terms of the the broad issue of climate risk but while we've had efforts again we need to move forward and implementing a plan and I would also point out one other piece on this you know it impacts us in so many ways it impacts our farms it impacts our sugar season it impacts our tourism it impacts costs for mitigation and costs when we have disasters I mean is a great example of that but more importantly well not more importantly that's in itself a reason to do this in of itself a reason to do this in addition to that I want to point out that the rating agencies are now paying attention to this with great interest there are two publications here the first one is evaluating the impact of climate change on the US state but local issues that was issued in 2017 and that document right on the on the front it says credit risk a result credit risks are resulting from climate change and the bottom line is that they want to know what mitigation strategies are in place how is the cash flow being effective what is your energy plan to move forward you know after I ring I won't say what rating agency I got a call and it was the questions were very succinct how much does it cost how are you going to pay for it and can you still pay your debt service okay okay that's the bottom line and they're looking at it on page three of the report I believe there you go you're taking a look at you know the issues property tax state sales tax impact on tourism and the other side by the way we did see some construction costs go up because of Irene you know increased cost of debt if you have to issue more debt right after I bring on I remember folks coming to me and saying we got to do a bomb we got to do a bomb we got to take care of these things I won't relate that to another recent subject but taking a look at the balance sheet you know in terms of the parent assets that we have in the state our cash flow and the ability to do that and the ability to pay debt rating agencies are interested in that in 2019 there was a separate report by movies I think you have to hit that on the button there you go and it it talks about you know the risk of temperature shifts and and and precipitation patterns and how we're going to address those talks a little bit about the demand for energy when you have higher temperatures and the disaster costs that are associated not just across the world but with the US and as I said we've seen in this state they're serious about this the rating agencies S&P and Fitch have also weighed in on it and Moody's has just recently taken another step they bought a majority share in a company called 24 7 I like the title and this company uses outputs and climate change models to assess physical risks associated with climate change the processes and efforts of governments are used doing in including including state and local as well as the private sector so why would Moody's take a majority stake in a climate risk assessment company and the bottom line is that they want to provide meaningful data on the governments and the financial community and investors investors in this state and it's not just bonds but people who invest in this state who come here to to to start companies they want to know you know what what the risks are and climate change and what what we're doing the people that are buying our bonds want to know what's going to happen in terms of the future and the future risks that might impair those bonds I think we're in good shape on that just in case Moody's is listening but the bottom line for me is this impact the financial community is looking at these issues and they're looking at how we're addressing climate change not just with broad goals but how we're going to implement them and how we're going to be accountable for them and moving forward it's a material risk financially it's a material risk for governments across the country and the rating agencies are paying attention to this and I think I'll stop there and take any questions I don't know if we use GEP for the state or GSB or whatever you said you hadn't really looked at the tourism dollars but like meatball skiing and farming seem to be the the three industries that immediately come to mind that are most affected by I would be curious to know if there was any way to calculate the delta between where it would be if we weren't in this climate situation and where it is now like how much are we losing as a result of it never take some modeling which we have not done I have looked at the DEC site and others that have some very good information on the risk just the areas that you just mentioned as well as the the hazard mitigation report and again what I'm seeing is that we need to do more modeling in that area to take a look at that and I think that that's part of ultimately accountability in the end. Beth, thanks for coming. So one of my concerns in listening to a lot of folks that are committed say how much they appreciate the bill talking about do more invest more action plan all this my concerns I don't I don't see what those investments and costs are going to look like they're kind of in a blind area right now and so what I mentioned too though is our other obligations and I mentioned just a few the other day pension obligation half a billion dollars worth of unfunded school improvements that are out there in communities the housing bond that you just spoke about that you didn't believe was uh reasonable in the sense of I believe that this principle would have to be paid back on that bond about the uh the interest yeah just the interest yeah okay um so anyway we both have to be repaid but the cost the interest cost is someplace between 26 and 30 some odd percent depending on the bond and that's a pretty hefty amount of money but with all those things in play um again you know can you put my mind at ease as far as well I think we talked about this in the clean water report and what we said is that uh that the cost I believe was two billion dollars and that the unmet cost was someplace in the in a billion dollar range you know with existing resources and we needed to marshal those at the state and local and private sector level and the state did some analysis and we said we could we need to get up into that 50 million dollar range per year to to do this we did some some effort at the front end to to have a glide path to that in terms of using some bonding capacity that was still there within our current geo obligate general obligation debt capacity that's determined through a process with a really really incredible name the capital debt affordability advisory committee it's a really wild meeting but it's an important issue and how much debt can you have we we took a look at these issues we ended up they weren't quite the revenues that we looked at originally the governor and the general assembly came up with some some areas to do that we're pretty close to what that number is in in terms of making those changes we also came up with delivery systems to make it work to get those dollars out the door and we also made some changes in our in our definition of clean water so that more could be done at the bomb bank and and over at Vita in terms of working with natural resource natural resources and things like riparian buffers and so on so we were able to make a lot of changes because we took action this is taking action this is getting you on the on the path to get that done two billion dollars we found a way to do it over a 20 year period we found a way because we had the desire in the will to make it happen and i think that this bill gets you to that gets you to the will to make it happen and i think it's extraordinary important the risk in these areas and and again you know i haven't done the modeling we did it for the water we also had 26 uh was it 23 or 26 23 uh stakeholder meetings with a thousand people i'm not suggesting i'm volunteering to do that again but uh the reality is that we recognize the cost of doing nothing and standing down you are in that same boat the cost without being the you know replicating those replicating the uh the cost to um to our farms you talked we talked about you just talked about the sugar uh sugar rain season i saw an article and digger a few um i don't know what was a few months back or a month time just kind of compresses when you folks start to come here it just becomes one while you know it's just you know there's no night and day anymore it's just you know continuum but uh sorry i had to say it but uh for me looking at those risks you are going to have more costs by doing nothing and you're going to impact sales tax you're going to impact our tourism revenues you're going to impact the cost of doing business for our farmers and and they have a tough enough job already and for me inaction is not the not the choice to make i wholeheartedly support this this bill so just to follow up please so would you recommend a similar modeling effort well i think that that would be part of action plans that would be developed by the agencies to work forward on this um i i certainly would be just going to shoot me for um for volunteering again i would be happy to assist but not take the lead okay but i would be happy to assist it's been pointing out to me that believe it or not with legislation and statute and different um i'm on 30 different um boards and committees and um obviously i send people to different different boards and committees because i can't be in 30 places at once but um we're stretched a little thin and i would point out that we haven't had our budget right now and in our general administration is actually less than it was in 2009 um and so we we keep our belt you know the belt tightened there uh we're kind of coming up to the limit of what we can do to be honest uh with additional programs but we're willing to help we're going to help this is important and um i see this as um one of the highest priorities at stake and have paid the pensions and uh and long-term liabilities kind of high on my list too but um this is this is important um not doing anything is just the wrong thing to do so i didn't want to step on your toes and i'm glad you asked that follow-up question i have a similar one and um i am curious i for a lot of reasons was not very involved in the in the water work that you had done a few years ago and continue today um so it would be helpful for me to understand uh what the analogy is between what was done there and and frankly the legislature right now and state government struggled with that issue for years maybe decades uh you know back in the late 90s we were talking about clean water and it took us you know near around 20 years to get there part of the thing that broke loose the logjam was your work on you know very specifically outlining what are some of the strategies what are some of the financing pathways um so that we had clarity on some of that um you know it still took a couple years to get to uh you know kind of get over the hump on how are we going to actually finance this my question is how clear the analogy is between that work and what we're contemplating here i would say we've got to do this much more quickly because of the emergency at the end but also i see some of this work as you know cost savings in nature as people are using less fuel and people are using more efficient technologies you know there's also discussion about the economic development component of this there's some of that in the water world but where's the analogy there and i know that you undertook this study over a month if not you know it was a long time it was a long time if you could be pressed into five minutes okay well first i want to say that uh well it said the treasurer's report it was a combined effort with a and r agriculture economic development lots of lots of private sector folks that we brought in local um municipalities as well it was a combined effort um and we did analyze the cost uh as a as a group and i think that that's something that needs to be done i think that part of that's been done already there are studies on climate change you know we took those studies and we pulled those together and i think that some part of the regulatory or policy process moving forward would be to require something along that lines at least compiling what you have and putting that into a strategic plan that moves forward i think the compliance of energy plan lacks a little bit in terms of how to get there and i think this would be this would be important so that's step number one i do believe that you're going to move faster i would absolutely agree with you that this is not something you could do over a two three year period we need to do it now the consequences are already getting us you know in in terms of as i say farming sugar we can't take that chance when i did the clean water report i made the analogy that clean water is an asset and if you've got a company and the company makes widgets and i don't even know when the widgets are i don't think they actually exist but you make widgets okay you make sure that the widget machine is working okay and that means you put investment into that machine because you can't make a profit if you don't um if you don't keep the widget machine working the same with clean water the same with climate change you have to see that our climate not our climate is an asset it affects all these areas you have to invest in it and i think the end result is it's cost effective you mentioned jobs it creates new jobs and new economies and i think we've done a lot in solar we've got a lot in wind we've got some some clear head starts in that area new technologies are there in terms of farming in terms of well go back to clean water for you know for a while just for types of digester technologies those help create jobs they also as you said when you're putting more you know you have less energy values oils are pretty um up and down in terms of its um its reliability over time uh prefer other sources of energy frankly um and as soon as i mentioned oil i said boy did i step in it but uh but those are the things that we want to get away from okay the technologies have to be there lowering our energy costs is good for homeowners it's good for companies it's good for people that that are trying to it's an affordability that are trying to pay their bills and those energy costs you know are really really high you know and uh so i think that there are cost effective ways to do it and cost deterrence that they're not going to have the cost the types of disasters that we saw and i mean in other types of disasters that we've had since then so i think it's a cost effective model see it as an asset uh that needs to be monitored needs to be invested in it needs to be cared for because if we don't we lose so much in this state this bill puts agency of natural resources in the position of being lead agency which seems appropriate in terms of it being the lead agency also for controlling pollution but i thought that we had we've heard from some people questions about whether whether that's really an effective structure because the agency is a nr is there's a there's a lot of on a level with all all the transportation and commerce and all the other agencies and if you're wondering if you with your experience in state government if you have any thoughts on that i think that uh when going back to the analogy with clean water um a and r was our primary partner in working some of those out and coming up with legislation around the definition of clean water and the delivery systems that were included in in the final act and i was trying to search for the number the act number and i'm not going to get there but so i think that a and r is a good lead i think that they have experience working with other other agencies and that cooperative approach and we had a lot of success in dealing with them i think that secretary moore did a great job taking what we did in the report and translating it into action and i i would recommend uh i don't know what her workload looks like right now but uh you know uh youth folks volunteered me for the uh for the clean water report i'm volunteering is she out there someplace okay i'm in real trouble okay okay any other questions did i answered your question okay well you certainly answered mine sorry just to follow up on your last answer because um this is one thing that's come up from a number of people if a and r is the right um place and i guess i'm just curious with regard to clean water it seems as though there was as complicated or if not more you know a situation but the interconnecting of so much wasn't there it really was i mean it really is folks i mean there's certainly some stormwater transportation you know those but it's um i mean this has i mean uh i i i mean this encompasses a lot more than the those who would be involved in the clean water well i think that we can build on that success number one but when i take a look at what we did in clean water we talked to everybody from bgs to to transportation to to agriculture to economic development we talked to the private sector we talked to farmers so i would say that the breadth of that was pretty big i'd say that the difference here is that you've got a shorter time frame to get this done because the the uh the effects are more severe they're related obviously but i think that a and r has the capacity for perspective to be able to do this you know i can't answer for their resources and you know in staff and what that's going to look like down the road that's something that i don't have to discuss but what we found was that the ability to bring those other agencies other partners into the conversation um the capacity or the will to do that was uh was very clear in a i think they can do it again i have a lot of trust in what the the folks i worked with there was superb they did a great job thank you thanks for joining us today thank you yeah the oxygen master going to drop down okay i might need to have a door open yeah the door is open yeah feel free to open that door it's open it's open it's been mentioned that maybe your is that your person yeah might be in danger falling out that would be really upsetting did you just put it are you keeping it on the windows yes i am right there yeah it'll be harder to thank you we're this crowded every day and actually we're not all right we've got an all-star cast in here this afternoon so thank you thank you for joining us we have been discussing for the last couple weeks h688 which is the global warming solutions act and taking testimony on that i really appreciate you coming over and joining us today for testimony always interested in your perspective but particularly as a a utility leader in fact utility utility executive of the year in 2019 and certainly the perspective you bring there but also just generally from from the private sector and dealing with these issues you've certainly been a leader with green mountain power in bringing that utility into the 21st century in terms of um actually both mitigation and resiliency work um kind of critical for that business model so thank you for joining us we record our hearings for the records so if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself sure i'm mary powell and uh i think i'm listed as an energy leader and a small business owner right yes woohoo yes all right we reached at mary at spot the dog vt.com so there we go it's a company that i founded way back in 1994 uh and that my husband is the ceo of and has been for a decade but uh we're going through phenomenal growth because we were just put on Oprah Winfrey's list of favorite things so yeah that happened right as i was leaving green mountain power so i've been deep back in dogs so it's awesome so and they care about climate change too good it's all good it's all connected thank you yeah so is it spot the dog yeah as in reflective protective outerwear for dogs and world's first energy bar to be sharing with your dog so there's my commercial about the business now let's talk about matters important to you guys well you know primarily i don't know if you've had a chance to look at the um bill in a broadscope or uh you know so we welcome your input on that um but as well um excuse me uh just just generally um you know your input uh on that is welcome great so first of all thank you for inviting me to talk about this very important topic and this very important bill from my perspective and i did have a chance uh to read through it uh and i'm glad that i can be here today because really all kidding aside about other things that might be happening or not happening in my life as a small business owner um there is really no topic probably that i'm more passionate about than uh climate change uh both in terms of the sense of incredible urgency i feel that it's an issue that we need to tackle we need to embrace and we need to really move forward as fast as possible uh but also i i look at it also from the perspective of a little bit of what of what uh uh beth pierce mentioned which is i think you know it is for the states for the communities for the entities that get ahead of the curve and want to embrace well i don't know that there's any ahead of the curve at this point but that actually embrace it and move fast i think there is incredible uh economic opportunity over time uh to be a leader not a follower so i think the time is the time is of essence and we need to move forward so um i'm pleased to be here i read it i mean so probably with those words none of what i will say will surprise you so um a we need goals no we actually need requirements requirements yes we need to move from goals to have hard fast requirements commitments to what we want to accomplish we need to do it in in my view with as little bureaucracy as possible um and we need to do it in a way that uh is not about setting up a structure to allow lawsuits to get us to the change that we want to see um simply because not that i actually think that that approach actually might have worked in certain areas in decades past i think we are way past the time when that approach is useful from a societal perspective because i think it takes too darn long so i think it's fundamentally flawed uh because really what we need is action and uh you know playing things out in courtrooms does not tie very well in my experience to moving quickly and action so i think uh you know i'm all in on really having very rigorous uh requirements of what we want to achieve and as fluid flexible and fast-moving structure around that to move forward um i also worry a little bit so on those so the parts i would worry a little bit about are you know in my experience both deep in the nonprofit world as well as three and a half years working for state government and the private sector you know i really subscribe to when you have more than a group about 12 um you are going to slow things down considerably so i worry a lot about the size of the group that i saw that was going to possibly be leading this forward um you know i think there's a way to have lots of people involved without having um these huge task force that become so large and people substitute people and at the end of the day not a lot gets happened but there's a lot of paperwork on why nothing happened in my experience so uh we don't have time for that we don't want that so i would say those those are my overarching observations and comments and happy to answer the last point was is interesting to me um looking at what other states have done from a modeling perspective i don't know if they're good models or not but um you know new york being new york had uh scores and scores of people uh working um you know what was moving forward main i think had uh in the neighborhood of 40 people um and you know group of legislators who had worked on drafting this i think were particularly sensitive to that point and uh so it's certainly well taken this group has uh i believe 21 yep so um smaller but you know still larger than uh in fact we heard testimony this morning that um you know who's missing yeah yeah no one there always is guess what if you have 25 there's going to be 50 missing i mean you know so to me it's just do we have a bias for action or do we have a bias for process and um a bias for process is a lot safer it's what um you know you see it in the private sector you see it in nonprofits you see it in government all the time um it's way safer i don't think we have time to be focused on what is safer i think we need to be focused on action and so that's you know and i also i'm a really just deep in my bones i'm one of the areas i have a lot of excitement and actually i've had a lot of reason over the last few weeks to have even more excitement is the area of new technological development in the clean energy economy in fact i've been really shocked honestly at the fire hose of phone calls and uh things i've been invited to by left green mount power um from players from financial players i would say all over the country i think there is there is i don't think i know there is more capital and investment going in private equity going into the clean energy economy than i have ever seen before so i think that's really good that gives me a lot of hope but then that also it also worry might not be the right word but how do you marry that with kind of a what feels like maybe a very bureaucratic approach to solving the problem which is we're going to figure it out and we're going to have a plan and change doesn't really happen that way in my mind it's very very concrete deliberate we are going to get here by that right and then really creating momentum and entrusting a number of folks and more than 12 to work with a lot of others right because again you can't get anything done without a thousand conversations so each of those 12 needs to have a thousand conversations but um you know and then really moving forward you know we know where our problems are i mean that's the whole thing you guys i mean i read it like it's it's transportation it's heat like we know it's so we really have to have is the courage and the lives for action so let me ask you on that point as as a as a utility leader um and i think utilities don't have the reputation as being the most dynamic uh part of the american economy right um but as you're looking forward you know in terms of 10-year capital plans and thinking of the transformation that green mountain power has gone through in the last 10 years um again when you're looking forward 10 years you don't know what technologies are coming down the road in year you know six and seven and eight and yet you're creating capital plans you're creating strategic plans um to try and get to a certain place how do you deal with that uncertainty as you're you know looking ahead to whether it's renewable goals right and there's a little bit of i mean so i mean the dillbert of leading right so you by definition have to do these longer term things that you filed it you know really from my perspective hopefully you don't spend a lot of time obsessing about and actually most of everything we on the ground tried to focus on when i was there was what are the things to do in the next two years right because and that's my point you can't sit here today to me and chart out or you could you could you could chart out and you'll be so wrong because it's it's you're not allowing room for how things might change so again i love i use the storage example as a great example of that like we didn't have any plans strategic plan that said we're gonna get into storage right we had we created a culture and a and a requirement that we were gonna move in a certain way right and we cared a lot about not just climate lowering carbon but we cared a lot about improving resilience you know for the customers that we serve so when we heard about this we just jumped on it right and then that then became really the cornerstone of so much of what we did strategically so i mean one of the first things i did when i joined the industry was i threw out the strategic plan because i actually i think that's these three to five year plans don't make a lot of sense in the modern economy there's requirements that you have so you know these higher pms and the dds and blah blah blah but you know then you actually have how you run your company and how you seize opportunity with crystal clarity on goals and measurements so you know if you're moving towards those and i think that's one of the challenges state government has or any government yeah but we heard testimony earlier this week about um actually someone who's working with a group moving helping to move main forward to and it was a it was a note of caution but also optimism of leaving room for market solutions that we don't know uh you know we don't know exactly what those are yet but they're there and they're going to develop and more's law has uh you know a part of this process right so right and yet we also know you know we have you know what 620,000 of us right and we also know that the transformation we've started is tiny compared to where we have to go so there is also room to be said we should be you know in fact i when i got utility executive of the year you know on the one hand it's nice on the other hand you know honestly i felt like it's kind of sad that the progress we've made is seen as this national example when literally we have maybe 1500 homes that now have dramatically improved resilience so how do we get this team you know that's going to enact what you're talking about to focus on making that 20,000 by next year like even it just like just figure that out which actually shouldn't be hard um you know we're how do we get from the level of evs we have to x you know and and know then that you're measuring that and you're making this this great progress so so while we leave room for new technologies we can also really really develop much faster the existing ones that we have and have them in more homes and businesses cost-effectively you know the chair had mentioned new technology playing into this as well if it should i sat up last night thinking about this as well as you can see we have a board with numerous bills on it i thought last night another concern of mine is going to be uh holding back this body the legislative body from enacting all these other things around and maybe some of them will be good will they be included in the in the overall plan i don't know but i mean you know it's everything from you know you got people out there pushing for 100% renewables by 2030 i mean you and i know that's that's not going to happen well you might not i i might i'm not so sure i agree with that i think that could happen i think it could happen yeah well again i want to see i'm going to see that yeah that plan that you know you know whether it's uh i mean it there's act 250 this be reposed that how's all all kinds of implications so i think it's it's kind of a we're working at both ends here and i just don't know how how good an idea that is either i mean because i know this body well enough to know that you know it all depends on who's here but what they're going to push for even further than you know may look like they're moving too slow so let's put this in and whether that's going to be part of meeting that goal maybe that's something we need to talk about too if something that the legislature does above and beyond but the commission sets forth right and and agency natural resources promulgates the rules is that going to be counted is that going to be also included in that goal reduction effort it's a concern from a big concern no i hear you i hear you yes it's not and as far as you know i understand renewables but you know i'm from lol you know that about the wind project up there and i i guarantee you try to get another wind project in and you know you're looking at 15.5 million dollars now to get new transmission line to get to even use the power right so you know let's remember i mean one of the really cool things we have going for us in vermont is we already have an electric supply that is pretty darn clean and low carbon i mean green mountain power is existing portfolio today which is what 78 percent of the state is 90 percent carbon free you know i in fact i mean if you see the energy action now dashboard electricity is the one area where we've actually met or exceeding all the goals so again i think part of our because we're used to it it's how we thought for decades i think in vermont every time we have this conversation i think we quickly go to the electric supply you know personally i think the electric supply is doing darn well it is the other areas how do we help advance technological advancements where again if we use strategic electrification we can actually help keep rates lower into the future i mean the the fact of the matter is green mountain powers rates have gone up below the rate of inflation over two decades i don't know any other part of government or anywhere in the state where that has been true under the rate of inflation so you have a pretty green affordable supply so a lot of how we tackle the goals we have are you know a lot of it is in transportation it's in heating and yes in agriculture too right but you you already have so i don't i don't think it's about that debate anyway i mean there might be more wind projects there might not there you know certainly you're going to see i think more solar and storage because it helps with resilience i think of that a lot lauren i think of conversations we've had where those kinds of projects can be so helpful in creating microcrets creating really community home and business based solutions so that when these climatic events happen we have more vermoners who can go on with their lives who don't have the insecurity of having no power but other than that i mean not to say that electrics supply shouldn't continue to march forward but it's out of every area it's doing the best well it's not without irony that we have requirements in every area and those have been established in the last five years sure they're probably but some went ahead of those i mean you know i mean wack has been a hundred percent for a while and you know green mountain power launched a goal that was to jump ahead of the requirement right so so i think a bit of both but you're right it you know does it get inspired by having you know legislative requirements and goals it sure does yeah well i kind of follow up uh you know to me i agree with you that we're at this level of a great amount of renewable already whatever but now we're looking at an infrastructure issue and you heard that from massachusetts as well you know they're looking at 3200 megawatts of wind off the coast now but they're looking to try to get some of the hydro down to massachusetts so so that's going to be huge with investments in that and where is that coming from the rate makers so you know that's those are the sort of things that you know i have to visually see in a sense even if they're estimates or and they may change along the way because of other issues but that's that's some of the questions that's a slight technical one with regards to resiliency uh if you don't know maybe you could put me in the right direction of the number of hours outages per year or whatever is there records on how many of those are caused by upstream of the transformer sorry substation versus downstream oh there is absolutely records i think relative to outages that you can get from all the companies is to exactly what created them so you know tree related where located yeah the major ones though that really shake or shook our customers to the core are you know again the big major events that come in that really knock down infrastructure both on both sides of the substation and knock down you know that is you know again i actually you know if you look at just core reliability like the day to day reliability um you know the vermont stats stand up very well against certainly against any rural states i mean just day to day reliability stats in vermont are really good so i think there's been adequate attention and investment across the board um but it is it is those major climatic events and that was a lot of what informed me so many years ago when i was out working a storm oh probably 12 years ago and you know i saw lines that we had just rebuilt to make hearty better wire or storm right you know and when mother nature comes through you know it's twigs and twine that's when i came up with that expression because i was like oh my goodness it all becomes twigs and twine i mean just we saw that within 1998 i strong i mean hydro kebeck's massive transmission towers became twigs and twine so you know that's a huge part of what we need to be planning for and thinking about at the same time is how do we have our climate our overall climate solutions be ones that are cost effective reliability solutions for vermonters we know are fragile right now we should be doing more of those projects faster you know those are the types of projects we should be doing much faster than also would tie to the goals of this bill like in the tidy um green mountain power said it wants to get to 100 carbon free by 2025 carbon free doesn't necessarily mean right right and that includes nuclear right and so uh when those nuclear plants eventually go offline what would you say should replace those well so just just to back up for one second um we we said 100 carbon free by 2025 100% renewable by 2030 so the whole point was to have and that's what we did way back in 2008 when we launched our strategy to go low carbon cost effective incredibly reliable it was always about using the benefits of existing nuclear as a bridge to uh to a much cleaner greener portfolio so yes so that has always been so i you know i i think there's an expectation again i'm not there anymore so i'm not speaking on behalf of the company because goodness a lot could have changed just even in a few weeks but um but you know a lot of it is you know taking advantage of some technologies that we know are there now solar and storage really leveraging storage but also room in that again for the advancement of other developments and in fact you know the expectations on some of that offshore wind that's supposed to happen in the region over the next decade is supposed to be very cost effective so there was room for maybe having some of that obviously seeing much more in-state transition to self-supply i think we're going to continue to see more and more firm honors want to move to particularly in my mind the solar storage paired together because it's it's not only can they get you know more energy independence but they also can get then the resiliency benefits um thanks mary i appreciate it it's good to see you too um so um i just want to go back to your um push uh we need action we need a processed you know action and things take a while um and in the business sector as we know um that's much easier you just make a decision and roll with it um in this particular as i said earlier to you know to scott you know dictatorships are really efficient uh so i guess that's my kind of in your experience and you've had a lot um throughout the years with with this particular building outside you know this kind of thing um and what i worry about is us um we have this process in place or with this bill um what i worry about is us not really being responsible for doing the policy making that it goes to the executive branch um and i guess i just wonder i i i just i wonder what your thoughts are and i'd like to see if we can uh i'd like to see if we can come to a place where we're actually as elected officials as people elected by the people of vermont doing um making these decisions once the plan comes you know comes into comes to fruition uh in the after the and i just wonder i know that there's some concern that um politically it might be difficult or what have you and it might um uh it might take more time um than and more time than than what we have in the future the lots of people so i'm wondering what and then of course it goes to the judiciary you know if it doesn't so we're kind of saying okay the executive and then the executive if that doesn't work with the cause of action um um we would go to the judiciary so i'm just sort of wondering what right i mean if you have the confidence that we'd be able to do it because of legislate i mean i you know i think at the end of the day anything first of all thank goodness it is a democracy right so yeah and i and and again the the work that i've had the good fortune of being a part of you know also was not work that you could do by fiat you know i mean it and it's no good work in my opinion actually is right good work is hard like to do really good things is hard by definition um and so you know so and to do things i think you know one of the greatest things we're not has going for it and i know we don't all feel this way on some days but we are small enough to collaborate we are small enough to figure out how to do stuff that you know i i actually think that is our superpower when we when we lean into it um you know and that you know so as much as you can head in a direction that's that pushes towards that superpower that you know and again you know and that's probably i don't i don't i don't have your your collective experience right i have mine so i don't i can't lay out exactly how i think you would do it but that's why i sort of like i you know it like legal strategies then breed fear and then that breeds more bureaucratic process so how does it really become something that you know in my mind just again thinking out loud it's so crystal clear you know what you want to see happen and yeah and then there's a way to bring it back but have enough involvement um so that it's really building on the remote superpower of collaboration okay i really that's you know and and and yet action i mean so again that's you know in some of the things that i think back on you know some of the hardest things i was a part of doing you know it was the vast majority wanted it we wanted to move quickly um you know so we had to have a way to really continue to focus on how to collaborate how to have a thousand conversations so but have a smaller i would say for me a smaller tighter accountable group 180 people yes perfect it's just a lot we each have to have a thousand conversations too i was all i've been part of so many and it's so it's it's you know and we all have right and and and sometimes you claim victory and then you say yourself a few years later wow should we really like oh gosh like i always just automatically just think of like the cost of the intellectual and the emotional time of all the folks involved and you know you you want to have it you want to have it if you have it large too that the you know my experience then and nobody feels a count like oh if i can't make it well tim can be there just you'll lose the judge if that's a technical term do you want to be on it i'll try to be on it so my question is a little bit a little bit off topic but it's around broadband and it's around what you think uh the convergence of broadband and electric utilities might be um and so one of the things that we did last year and we've been working on some of this we've been working on since is this communication community district because as an avenue for getting broadband out and one of the things that within my mind has been well maybe actually 10 years from now it's going to be your electric utilities who are who are really using broadband and are really the vehicle for getting broadband delivered since since we have you here i've wanted to know i guess you know you probably get a very unsatisfying answer which is just in a broad way i mean i feel like it goes back to what i just said i feel like yeah there is absolutely power in collaboration i think if there was a silver bullet to figuring out broadband who would have been figured out definitely five years ago ten years right so it's well but are these are these industries converging i guess and is your is your crystal ball that i mean i see more you know i i i see you know one of the things i share i know with all of you is the passion around how do we how do we really make a moral economy prosper at a time when technological advance is actually increasing the great divide so i see you know when i think out five and ten years no my struggle has always been like there's going to be solutions for communications connections that aren't great right exactly you know but at the same time how how do we get to that kind of future in a way that that can work in a rural economy which is so which is so different so so there's a fear i have of when you say that of like oh boy wow that's like doubling down on the utilities becoming the fair points of the future because they're going to have all the like losing businesses you know i mean like because because people will be well no but it's you know because again our our whole philosophy was lean into technological advance be part of that be part of providing self-supply right because you know other there's other parts of the world where you could see where literally poles and wires will just be really what landlines are of today right so so i don't think it's this i don't think there's a simple solution i think it's a little bit of bit of everything but technologically i absolutely think there's going to be folks past that i mean that's my own personal connection to me was was the was the micro grid and the interactive uh you know generation and and uh load right you know and the necessity for for broadband to make that work absolutely and that's why absolutely i think again our superpower could be so much more collaboration because i think you know there's so many tight rules of the road as you all know in the utility space which is whatever i guess that's the way it's supposed to be but it doesn't you know how how do you how do you really build in mechanisms to incent deeper collaboration so that anytime there's one thing happening you could stack public benefits around resilience or stack public benefits around communication so i think there are there are absolutely ways that that progress could be made i wouldn't know so maybe the last question so i uh so i want to go back to your earlier comment about a bias for process versus bias for action and that this this plan is not an action plan it's a it's a building the steps to get to an action plan um but i and and then i also tied that and wanted to add a remarks comment um about you know so big transmission line the the one that's permitted through vermont as a billion dollars i think and we go holy that's you know that we can't we can't do that but so my what i'm looking for is what are the barriers that a billion dollars spread over that many kilowatts over 40 years it's probably could be cheaper than on-site generation natural gas to to build this distribution transmission system to bring in power from canada and we throw up these hurdles in our way in our own way so we can't do it wondering your insights on those my insights about like big solutions versus small solutions and also self-sabotage where we look at a hurdle but we don't look behind it we look at it so we can't do it yeah i mean i do think that you know one of the phenomenons i think is happening from a societal perspective is again and we've seen it in our all of our technologies everything right we're moving towards more we're moving towards smaller faster right and i think bigger infrastructure is getting harder and harder to build and get done i mean i think that's that's just a fact and i that's true actually all over the globe um you know so it's not we're not alone in that so you know much of what i've seen over the my years of experience one of the challenges has been sometimes what is said that a like a big solution that could be more cost effective right could cost what i have seen over my decades in this businesses they never actually end up costing that because it's a it's originally it's originally pitched with the idea that there won't be a thousand obstacles between how it could be done and how it's actually going to get done so so i i don't have any i don't doubt that there will be continue to be larger solutions but at the same time again what you're seeing is technological advances in really where i see society moving more and more towards which is individualized solutions for them so that that is happening all over the globe and i don't see anything stopping that so again from a big picture a helicopter view perspective i always use the landline cell phone analogy right so there were people decades ago that thought well no the vast majority would still be using that what's i see what's going to happen in the energy space is very similar so you won't be tearing down that infrastructure you're still going to need it and a lot of people are still going to want to be great connected but they're not going to be using it as their primary source so um so i think that does call into question doesn't mean the larger project shouldn't happen it just calls into question how effective it will be over time from a cost perspective great thank you for joining us i think you can appreciate it that's great thanks thanks great have a good afternoon yeah good to see you yeah thanks for you all thanks for joining me my pleasure i always love listening to mary's i think this is actually the first time you've been to our committee at least since i've been yeah but um and uh i know you've been in this building but maybe not as a placial committee room as always so i know usually they're a little smaller right yeah well so um win thank you for joining us today uh i don't necessarily have an introduction other than to say we've been working for a couple weeks um age six 88 which is the global warming exclusions act um and i know that you uh i so thank you for coming to offer thoughts on this i know that you are um bringing a few different perspectives here one is a um you know of a month uh business person who um is an involved in a very key industry in our state that has some you know climate things that are of interest that i know that you're also involved with the nation and we've had some folks provide testimony as well so just by way of introduction thank you for being here and if you can introduce yourself for the record because we uh we record absolutely so thank you very much i'm win smith i'm a resident of war in vermont and i'm actually coming here as you mentioned wearing two hats one is the president of sugarwish resort up to two weeks ago i was actually the owner of sugarwish congratulations by the way for 18 years but also a trustee of the nature conservancy vermont i'm going to give you my written testimony so i don't necessarily want to read that a little redundant but i hope you'll read it and i'd like to just paraphrase it and talk about what i think are some of the the substantive issues i see as a business person but also as a conservationist and a member of the vermont nature conservancy you know obviously i think everybody here knows the importance of winter sports the ski industry the impact we have on the state if you don't molly mohar is right there statistics and also you know that we're facing and i'd like to refer to an honest climate change this is something i actually learned from my new owners and i refer to as a climate crisis and maybe that gets to mary's point about actually creating more urgency if you think it was a crisis and not just a change so i'd like to you know really change the dialogue and talk more about the climate crisis you know i've seen it in my long career and i spent 28 years of finance degree i saw a lot of industries and i saw a lot of industries and companies that failed to recognize trends and change they sat back they used a strategy of purpose and method which never works and they went obsolete i saw other industries that represented change and they had the courage to actually embrace change and with change see an opportunity even though there might have been a short-term cost to it and that's the difference i think between you know winning strategy and the failing strategy and maybe you know this is very relevant to what we're seeing today and i think the other thing too is we all know that what we do in vermont is mix right for the climate crisis we're we're facing you know the carbon that's put out by coal in the united states by india and china you know it's just massive so what we do here isn't going to solve the climate crisis but i do think it's important that we take leadership role for a number of reasons i'll get into and that we really you know embrace the fact that we can do something and that cumulably little steps do make a difference over time so a trick wish just to give you an example of what we have been doing and i sent you a copy of the valet reported that i think really summarizes what we've been doing we've been trying to focus on a number of things like energy efficiency we've been focusing on supporting renewable energy especially solar development you know insulation electrical vehicle stations development energy efficiency buildings use of led lighting wherever we can so i think those are small steps but they're important steps and the things that we can do but i think make a difference and with the help of efficiency vermont over the last number of years we've actually reduced our energy consumption by 34.5 percent that's a big number that's relevant you know not only is that good for the economy i don't know that it makes marry that happy but actually it does but you know it's also good for our business because we've reduced that cost of our business so therefore we have a margin to spend on other things i'm going to get into what we're going to have to spend but just to give you a little idea about energy and a little bit of a tutorial on snow making my bachelor's in 2001 we had five six thousand cubic feet per minute compressors to make snow in addition to that we used to have to import for a period of time diesel generators in order to make snow at less than capacity so because of the energy efficiency we have today we currently only use two compressors one at lincoln peak one at mount ellen that both use less than 4200 cfm so think of that energy savings that we've done and that resulted in that 34 percent reduction in actual kilowatt usage so the actual view when i talk about kilowatt reduction it's actually five million kilowatt hours that have been reduced five million kilowatt hours that represent that 34.5 percent in addition to that i mentioned we have worked on solar development in particular green mountain or green lantern and we developed so far five solar fields that are producing 2.5 megawatts of electricity and the net metering has really allowed that so they've been using our net metering we get some cost benefit out of it but it's really been a tremendous benefit i think for solar in addition to that we're working with green lantern and mad river solar on three other solar sites one of which would be actually one of our parking lots and that's sugarbush currently we've also installed 22 electrical vehicle charging stations at lincoln peak and metone and we have two additional charging stations in our cleaver hotel so obviously we're trying to encourage and motivate the use of electrical vehicles and then i think importantly this is where i think you know being a small state actually can be an advantage to some degree we've made a decision that we want to become more outspoken advocates for climate action uh both lead through our own public messaging as well as supporting the right organizations till last year we became a top tier sponsor protect our winners if you're not familiar with them it's really worth looking at young athletes at a great following young younger generation and we've also become an increased sponsor one percent for the planet personally i'm becoming much more involved with um the nature of conservancy here in vermont and other environmental initiatives and our new owner artillery mountain companies really is a leader in the ski industry their affiliate aspen has been outspoken they've been a leader and i think we're going to learn from them but we can do even more and i already mentioned you know just the change of mindset from talking about climate change through climate crisis really came from david parry at altera now why are we doing this well obviously we're doing for a lot of reasons but i think a very important reason is because our guests want especially the younger generation increasingly people ask us you know what are you doing about climate change if you don't have a good answer they don't want to spend their money here so from vermont you know we want people to realize that we're taking action we want the next generation to realize that we are being responsible and we want them frankly to spend their money here instead of somewhere else so there is an esg initiative to this as well let's talk a little bit about climate change as often i get asked questions are you seeing less now they're assuming i'm going to say yes and i say no are you seeing the shorter season they're expecting i'm going to say yes and i say no so that's not happening and it could lead you to the conclusion while climate change isn't happening it's not affecting the ski industry but that's totally wrong so here's where we are seeing the the impact and it's significant we're seeing it in the greater volatility of the weather and last week was a great example you know we're a hundred percent open in great skiing suddenly we have 50 degree weather rain we're down to 50 percent we're going into the all-important Martin Luther King weekend we lucked out you know we had enough snow making temperatures to make good snow we had enough natural snow we're almost a hundred percent and we had a record day in our history most ski resorts did now had that not happened had that not luck happened what would have happened we would have been down considerably the tax revenue of the state would have been down in sales and use for meals so what have had a pretty significant impact so volatility you know we've already experienced this season five roller coaster events we've had good conditions of fall rain freeze so we all know we've had January thoughts forever you know that's that's not unusual but to have five at this point in time and unfortunately maybe six this coming weekend that is not the norm that is unusual so what does it mean for us well it means that this volatility of weather is causing us to really make investments you ask the question of you know how do you look in the future how do you plan well we have to plan to get ahead of the curve of climate change we have to invest now we have to spend so how are we spending money sometimes it's not the way I want to spend it for instance last summer we had to bury some power lines for six years we've had power lines went from our base area to mid-mountain to generate our snow making in our lifts but increasingly we're seeing such great risk with the winds if a tree comes down in the middle of the Warrington-Wiliching I lose power that's a disaster so I had to spend four hundred thousand dollars to bury those power lines that's not productive there's no ROI on that that's insurance but it's necessary to get ahead of the curve wind probably scares me when anything else I wake up in the east morning I hear the wind and all I can see is a tree falling across the power line several years ago the busy day we ever had a sugar which was right after that Valentine's Day storm for a few to snow perfect conditions Saturday was a bluebird day 20 degrees every seat all 16 chairs were filled by the power line so you talk about a disaster now fortunately we have a backup plan we have diesel engines you know you can get everybody off in about an hour but when a tree sways that's what I worry about and we're seeing increased volatility not just in the winter but in all seasons I lightning strike my remount express lift last summer it's still being repaired we're still trying to problem solve how to get it repaired it's working because we have diesel backup but that's not ideal but that volatility the weather is really really important the other thing we're seeing because of the volatility is the more winterfalls happen and I just saw a lot of driving here the ice flows that are beginning to to create you know ice jams are are very concerning to us the way we make snow is we have a snow making pond we withdraw from the mad river when I set the February level or above we put in a weir or a dam in November it's taken out in March but if you have a fall you have a ice jam if that takes that dam out again we're out of snow making already it has damaged the foundation we've repaired it somewhat but we're going to have to invest another million dollars to put in a new dam which is going to be an inflatable dam so if the ice jams come down and deflate the dam they go by we inflate it now do I want to spend that million dollars you know but I have to do this again that's insurance and then long term because we experience something devastating with I will you all know of all the devastation around the state but you may not know we actually lost our snow making pond so it happened it's not making snow making pond so we have a pond next to the mad river so the water came in it washed out the upstream the river flowed in it stopped and was filled with silk fortunately it happened that day because it happened two weeks later we would not have had to repair it to open the season we just barely got it done removed at an unsure cost of a million dollars so again you look at weather volatility those the impacts it can have on a business like us and then speaking of snow making it's always been important to use to have adequate snow making and we're really fortunate Vermont I think we have the best as an industry anywhere in the country we've been ahead of the curve we have good robust we've been aided by efficiency Vermont and all of us are doing what I mentioned to you that we're doing at sugar bush but it's not going to be enough for the future because with greater volatility there's going to be shorter windows are really good snow making weather and opportunities we have six fall freezes we've got to recover quickly especially before those all important weekends so what that means is we're going to have to invest in long-term strategy to create more snow making capability at certain moments of time for us that means most likely building another reservoir at a substantive cost higher up in the mountain so if the mad river washes out we've got to reserve but also allow us to put more snow out at any given time not necessarily making more snow over the course of season but making it more rapidly when the opportunity to do it so right now we can put out about 6500 gallons per minute but we really think we should be getting up to eight nine maybe even 10,000 gallons per minute so we have that fall like we had a stuff a week ago we can recover much faster and not necessarily rely on the luck of mother nature bailing us out you know as I mentioned you know the the guests also are you know continuously looking at are we operating with or responsibly and are we operating in a really good way now I don't think that ski industry is going to disappear in my lifetime I think we're fortunate in many ways we're a higher elevation further north we get some lake effect snow sometimes even slightly warmer temperatures create more snow but we don't want to bank on that you know even though there might be not a short-term crisis but I want to make sure that the ski industry is around for my grandchildren's life and then their grandchildren's life and that's why we have to start making all these initiatives I do support H688 I think the state needs a strong action plan that provides a good clear roadmap it's very said you know strategic plans you make them but you don't put them out there and they last forever but they provide a roadmap they provide some initiative and clearly you have to have goals and then you have to have accountability you have to hold people accountable to action the good business does that the bad business does it you really have to have a roadmap changes you have to adapt but you have to have goals you have to have accountability you have to hold people to that accountability you know I'm sure what's going to happen after you hear a lot of testimony there are probably going to be tweaks to this bill but I think in my opinion this is providing a very good framework I have a little concern what Mary said anytime you get big councils and big committees you know there's a risk to that but nevertheless this is a good framework if you go forward I would encourage you to actually seek out the the voice of the ski industry I'm not representing the ski industry today maybe Molly will have a future testimony but I think we have a lot of input we have a lot of skin in the game and I think we're very interested in making sure that we're doing the right things so we're a small state you know there's no silver bullet you know maybe when we have battery storage that's when we can really go to 100 percent renewable energy that may be the silver bullet it's not here yet it's coming but in the meantime what can we do in the state well I think there are a number of things we can do and we're trying to do with sugarcane too one is I think you can encourage nature-based solutions such as protecting our forest from development of fragmentation promoting reforestation maybe there's some interesting tax benefits that encourage people to reforest to take their land and use it differently promoting and accelerating the restoration of degraded wetlands encouraging the development of healthier agricultural soils to capture and store carbon fossil fuels are a big problem but so is nothing healthier soils you know actually creates interesting nature-based solutions as mentioned I think also earlier public transportation we've got to improve public transportation so that our current dependence on personal vehicles is reduced it also helps on a busy ski weekend we don't have millions of vehicles going up the snow road it takes four hours but in all but in all seriousness public transportation is key that's the big issue in Vermont today and also from the business we need better public transportation to get a voice if I'm hiring people which I hope to and try to from on pilly or berry and that's a long commute for them they don't necessarily have a car they sometimes can't afford a car so public transportation also serves real business need also I think we can continue to install more electrical vehicle charging stations to promote electrical vehicle ownership you know frankly I would like to do it right now when I look at my commute sometimes there's not enough stations along the way to make that practical so I think the more we have it takes away the headache of really moving to electrical vehicles I also think we can continue to promote well-cited and appropriately scaled solar development and eliminating the cumulative net median cap so I know there's some controversy to that but I do think that this is something we can move towards and we have and I'd encourage more fifth encouraging energy efficiency and strategic electrification you know while reducing our dependence on fossil fuels by expanding the ability to fish and see Vermont to fund additional impactful projects I'll give you an example you know if we put in wider pipes greater volume you can put more water up the hill with the same amount of electricity should that be something that is incentivized as opposed to the addition just going to go into something if I have the ability to buy an electrical groomer instead of relying on what is the classical diesel groomer would that be useful probably a 50 premium once technology so there is a motivation to really getting people to do that so perhaps if you think creatively energy efficiency from on can fund additional projects which gets to her then I think importantly and this is something that struck me from a actually nature conservancy meeting I was at is I don't think there is enough discussion at the dinner table at the home about the climate crisis and unless you discuss something it's remote too many people believe this climate change but they don't really understand how it's impacting them and they don't really feel they can do anything about it so one of the things I think we can do as a state and I think we can do as a business is to educate more of our visitors about the climate crisis the impact it's already having on our state the impact it can have on the ski industry and then what they can do about it personally again small little steps sometimes can make a difference symbolically but also realistically and an example of that in the middle of presence week on February 22nd we're going to be doing a panel on climate change with protect our winners and the messaging there is not doing the room you know because that can turn people off and it's not projecting a polar bear on a melting icicle but it's educating people about the science what is happening why is happening what is the likely outcome we're going to be here and then more importantly what can and should we be doing so that's a dialogue I think you know in a small state you know it's maybe not the silver bullet but I think those small states you know can make a difference and again I think in from out we can be a leader and as I start off I say and I do think that H688 is a good roadmap and a good start and we just thank you I don't want to take us down a granular radical here but I'm really interested from a market perspective and if you don't have information on this that's great we can follow up at some time you probably have a lot of who come from out of state yes as you said you you put in EV infrastructure in place I'm curious you know the market that you serve how many people are driving these to Vermont it is increasing so when I take a look at you know the electrical chargers on a weekend they are mostly used I had a complaint yesterday from somebody who said somebody was hogging it they'd already charged the car and they were off skiing you know so he wanted to get in and actually get their electricals charged yeah so I think you know it's a chicken in the egg but I do see more electrical vehicles and I do see more demand for it and I think we're going to see most of those 22 ports filled yeah I'm really interested in that for example driving from Boston or whatever it was not just Boston I've seen it in Burlington yeah and you know I know two years ago somebody whose friend called up he said where can I get my electrical vehicle charged we didn't have it yet at Sherbush but the West Hill and did and his car just you know was able to get up and over the app gap but he needed to get charged to get home yeah so it's not just Boston it's the local market too I was wondering if you had any information based like reduced revenue or increased costs that you could directly attribute to the climate it's hard to it's hard to do that right but I can tell you that if last weekend we didn't have that recovery you know we would have lost probably a couple million dollars of revenue so that's pretty significant because in ski business what a lot of people don't realize we're open 160 days a year we make our business about 40 the other days we kind of chug along because we have to but we lose you know three days and Martin Luther King that's three of the 40 very hard to recover from that so I'm really looking more at the potential threat here I do know when we've had bad winners you know what that impact is and you multiply that across 18 resources and it's big for the state but it's also a multiplier because every dollar spent in our valley along the mountain there's probably another dollar spent in the valley either you know lodging filling up you know the car going to the grocery store eating out so it's a multiplier effect which is can be really significant thanks for how are you so I'm interested in the last comment you made with regard to the education piece climate change and it's funny that you said it because I was talking to Phil earlier yeah I wasn't here earlier and what is one thing that's frustrated this is probably more of a statement but I love this to be sort of incorporated into education about climate change what is frustrating for me as a lifetime Vermont are being here is hearing just knowing that we are we have grown into such a consumer culture a throwaway disposable culture and yet yet it is it is the blame for everything that is going on right now is put on this older culture that we've created this mess that that we're in now and and that's frustrating because I think back to how I was raised and you know mom had this big thing you know use it up wear it out make it do do without boom that was it we had one car we had six kids nobody was able to get a car my parents didn't buy us cars we biked around we walked around we lived in the village we didn't have big houses and I just I just want that to be part of the education people flying all over to go travel here and there and everywhere and that happens all the time and then they complain they I mean we complain about the climate change and yet they're traveling to you know Seattle to go to a climate change conference and a toaster breaks and we throw it away uh instead of going to an appliance store to fix it it's um and and again television it's phones everything it's just such a and I want that to be really uh part of this answer because I'm I'm tired of that kind of um hypocrisy I think you spot on and I don't think I would never say we want to go back to the dark ages no okay that's not realistic that's right but can we be more sensible can we learn well I'm part of the problem right I'm the baby boom generation so I'm part of the problem you know I remember you know probably the biggest impact I had in college was the first May Day you know a birthday I made a big deal but I get pretty comfortable so I think part of our education yes and that's those cumulative little steps what can we all do a little bit better you know one thing we're doing with just water and in our cafeterias is we're taking out the cumps right a little step we don't have plastic straws a little step but I think the more and more you educate people about the impact they can have the better it is and and that is a dialogue it's not it's not a diatribe it's not a blame it's recognizing that the world we knew 40 years ago was changing and now we gotta be ahead of that change and we gotta do our work and I do think that the younger generations teaching us stuff you know when you hear their voices revolutions are never started by old people right revolutions are always started by young people and very often they're not heard for a period of time but those voices resonate and I would say we better understand it because I am increasingly convinced that young people are going to put their dollars with people that are responsible my overall of financing and investing I'm so on the board of even vans we're making a big initiative into ESG investing why because we're business we want to continue to thrive but we know that the type of investment process and so that's I think my answer to you let's stop blaming each other let's learn and let's see how we can change behavior without going back to our ages which is not and I didn't mean that but it's just exceptionally frustrating but I will say you know sometimes you know when we put out a message we have to also realize that we're going to take some flak I put out a message a year or so ago encouraging people to support our continuation of Paris for the Paris climate and I'd say 98 percent sort of nice comments on social media but then we got something really bitter nasty personal now when I did some research it wasn't our clients it wasn't for monitors it was the trolls out there and so you have to recognize sometimes you got to be a little courageous if you take a stand you know you may get criticized you may you know have some some damage but you just have to have the courage to take it move forward think it's the right thing to do let's get the students on the buses half empty whenever they go buy my house public transportation it's actually often the parents that are that's what I mean that's what I mean that's you know any other questions for me thank you very much for me thank you really appreciate it would you like a couple cups of this or we've got it on the website but people want very we're standing on okay so Jen thank you for joining us today our next guest is is Jen Duggan and again similar to wind I've invited you here really to wear kind of a couple hats or you could have an extensive experience in state government experience in other states in our region working on this issue and currently working for the conservation law foundation in Vermont so appreciate you coming in and offering your thoughts on H688 if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself to the record and welcome yeah thanks for the opportunity to be here I'm Jen Duggan and I'm the director of conservation law foundation in Vermont and prior to joining CLF I was the general counsel for the agency of natural resources for three years both under the Shumlin administration and the Scott administration and in that role I managed the office of general counsel which included management of 15 lawyers and provided legal services to the central office but also the department of environmental conservation efficient wildlife forest parks and migration and in that role I also provided legal advice to the secretary and department commissioners on rulemaking permitting litigation legislation all variety of legal issues and you would be surprised at the wide variety of issues that surfaced at ANR in prior to that role I had a pretty significant regulatory practice federal regulatory practice in Washington DC representing community groups and other organizations in major rule makings with the federal government and I want to start off by saying we fully support this bill we think this legislation is critical to get the state back on track and to meet the climate crisis and I've been following the testimony and thinking about what would be most helpful for the committee I've been you know following the testimony very closely for the past couple weeks I'm really listening to the questions that have surfaced either from this committee or through witnesses and would like to talk through some of those questions and share my perspective in some cases I have specific suggestions for consideration but really to utilize you know my background as a general counsel my regulatory experience and sort of my experience being engaged at a regional level to share with this committee and before I walk through specific sections of the bill I thought it would be helpful to share some big picture comments to to provide some context you all have already heard a lot of testimony and I don't want to repeat a lot of things that have already been said but I think that there are some key points to just sort of highlight and and emphasize before I talk through specific sections you know you've heard testimony on the urgent need to take action we're off track and that's important not only to do our part to address the global climate crisis but we have communities that are really suffering right now that need action and you've also heard that it is going to be critical that we move forward with this transition ensuring that it is done in an equitable way and that we are not leaving communities behind and you've also heard that action on climate brings significant economic public health and environmental benefits it grows the economy create jobs saves money on health care costs improves public health and the quality of our natural and working lands and our waterways and on the flip side you've heard from the treasurer this afternoon that a failure to act brings significant costs and risks to the state and the other important point I think that has surfaced in the past two weeks through the testimony here is that this framework works Massachusetts has set targets under their global warming solutions act and they've actually met them while growing their economy while creating opportunities for their citizens and capitalizing on all of the co-benefits that come along with cutting carbon addressing resilience and our neighbors have taken notice you know they are passing similar laws and so I think it's important to note that Vermont is not blazing a new trail we have a good model we have lots of experience to draw from and so you know this is not something that we're getting way ahead of the curve on so why does this framework work you know the type of challenge that we're facing you know to deal with mitigation and resilience and adaptation it is cross agency it is cross sector it requires action on the part of state government the private sector individuals and it requires a lot of different kinds of strategies and there's a lot of work that is being done that is diffuse through state government that you know private companies are starting to do but there's really not one person one agency that is responsible for leading that work and making sure that what we're doing is really focused and strategic and coordinated and one of the things that I have found most troubling in the testimony this past these past two weeks is that we don't even have a list a comprehensive list of all the actions that we're taking what that work is actually accomplishing and how and whether or not it's cost effective and so we don't even have sort of the basic foundation in terms of what are we doing at this point and this type of action really it requires you know addressing the climate crisis requires state action and leadership you know I understand some of the concerns about not wanting to create bureaucracy and you know Ken is government up to the challenge but we really can't meet this challenge without state action and leadership and so the question becomes you know how do you do that in the most effective way you know we market-based solutions private sector leadership all of the creative innovation and thinking in personal action these are all critically important but if you want to maximize and direct those types of actions you have to have binding requirements and you have to have the right regulatory framework in place I think you know we talked earlier Mary Powell mentioned the incredible progress that the electric sector has made and and that's sort of an example of where we are succeeding and that is one of the most heavily regulated industries and I think it really helps underscore that if you put the right regulatory framework in place then you create the space and the tension to do all of the things and to direct all of these great actions that are happening in a coordinated and strategic way while making sure that that work is happening in a way that is equitable you know we know that climate change and this transition is going to disproportionately impact rural and vulnerable communities and you need process and state government to be ensuring that that transition is happening in an equitable way and so you know the the question then is really how do you make this work streamline this action act quickly remove unnecessary bureaucracy and the GWSA does this with very aggressive timelines to make sure that we get started now and ensure that we're on track to meet net zero by 2050 no matter who is governor and who is in the legislature you know one of the things that this transist transins politics it transcends all of us and I'm really constantly reminded of that you know watching the young people that have been showing up in your committee room thinking about the communities that have been that are already being impacted and are being left behind and the questions that my six and eight year old asked me about the climate crisis it's a constant reminder that this transins all of us and we need to put in place a framework that is going to outlast you know the current administration five years from now you know this is we have to be in it for the long haul and one of the other I think points and questions I have that came up today was you know does this limit the ability of the private sector or the legislature or other agencies to do more you know does that count towards the reduction goals and the answer is yes you know the bill doesn't limit that we can always do more you know the we can act faster than this framework this just makes sure you know this is the floor this makes sure that no matter what we get to net zero by 2050 and we are not leaving communities behind so that's sort of some overarching thoughts that have really surfaced for me in listening to the testimony and I wanted to touch on some specific comments about the climate council the climate action plan and the cause of action section and starting with the climate council there have been questions about whether or not there should be term limits you know how can we ensure that folks have the space to do the work without fear of political interference and I think that the answer is yes you know we can do more to ensure that and to protect that that council and the main statute provides a really good model and so I would just suggest looking at that model that does set term limits for council members and it also ensures that removal is only happens if there's incompetence or misconduct or a failure to perform duties and so the main model is is is certainly a good example of how how to do that one other small but important distinction is that you know as drafted the bill the bill sets forth membership that basically talks about folks that represent sectors and I think it needs to be clear that we're looking for people with expertise in certain sectors not just representation this council will need to be a working council we want people that you know have the expertise to bring to the table and so I think that's a small but really important distinction you know the other question that has arisen is who should be the chair and whether or not that's the secretary administration or should the chair be a and r and there are you know pros and cons to both of these approaches but I think on balance a and r is really the best qualified to lead that work and to to be the chair of that climate council you know I think that we heard from the deputy secretary earlier this week that a and r is already playing that de facto climate lead even if that may be in a more limited way they're already doing that work and in addition to having authority to regulate emissions a and r also has you know significant programs associated with resilience and natural and working lands and so there is a wide breadth of experience in that agency there's a lot of technical expertise in that agency and so I think you know on balance that is really going to be the most effective to get this work done and the secretary of administration is going to be playing the mediator role regardless you know they it's not that is always available to work through those if there are conflicts that arise and that happens you know that's we heard from the attorney general that's not uncommon you know that happens frequently with regard to the climate action plan do you want would you prefer to go through and then you can please interrupt yeah I don't want to hear myself talk for 30 minutes so just on this specific piece this is an area of interest for me and I'd like to understand make sure I'm clear on your recommendation and it's based on technical knowledge I think that there's not one agency that covers all of the climate issues right right a and r has a pretty significant body of authority both in terms of the mitigation component but also in terms of natural systems and resilience and river corridors and working lands their forestry and there is a wide you know there is a significant breadth of technical expertise inside that agency and so I think that you know out of all the agencies you know they it makes sense to have them leave that work and and why would you argue against the agency of administration because the agency of administration doesn't have the sort of the program or the technical expertise and it's not it doesn't have the experience doing that type of detailed work and I think that because we are moving fast because these are very aggressive timelines you want that council you want folks that have expertise and you want the work close you know to the technical people that have the knowledge doing that work and the secretary of administration will always be that that will always play a mediator role regardless of whether or not they are the chair of this particular committee were you I don't recall who were in here this morning for Simonser's testimony were you in here I was not but I did review her testimony okay and so one of the other questions that I've been asking different agencies and departments which I will note you are not is who's responsible that's me kicking that darn plug there's no foot room in here either uh who is responsible in state government for protecting Vermonters from the effects of climate change I think that is diffuse I mean I think that there are part of there's not one agency that is charged with that you know A&R has the responsibility to protect drinking water you know that is impacted by climate change um and for example so that would be one area where they may play a role I think it is diffuse and I would agree with you yeah which still you know has me in conflict about yeah uh agency of administration versus um right natural resources so okay thank you Scott Marcus so following up is there a role for agency administration that should be there could be should be specified in the in the process in the on the client council for a second yeah you know it would not be our recommendation for them to be form of you know identified in the bill or to have a formal role um but you certainly could do that um okay and I and I do think to your point there you know there are there's not necessarily a wrong or right answer um in terms of okay thank you yeah so I think that you know it will be up to this committee to think through what the pros and cons are that I think our recommendation for the reasons that I've talked about is that A&R would be the chair and I would just like to suggest that um through uh mine looking at the act 250 process and talking to a number of people who've gone through it regarding you know proposed changes and all this sort of stuff I would say the atmosphere that I heard about there is a total lack of respect and um you know for the A&R resources I mean the the individuals that I talked to that that support you know that the guidelines and they had no problem with that but when they got down to dealing with act 250 there was indications of disrespect outright you know um yeah it was just it was terrible so I think we've got uh a ways to go if we are going to have that agency be the the lead of this um and I don't know if you've heard that as well but that's what I'm hearing from so many people I I haven't I mean I have a different perspective um and I think we heard from the treasurer earlier today that you know she the work with that with A&R was um you know that folks were professional and were did a great job and it was sort of working with them um and I'm not sure exactly you're talking about working with the public yes yeah what you're commenting on I I have a different perspective um well we won't go into it but I can give you a list this long yeah the individuals that have you know I got pages of it so yeah I can't I can't really comment on that and was the interaction with A&R with A&R actual resources were A&R following on this theme um you listed some of the areas where A&R has authority or that and act 250 and so I'm wondering what your thoughts are too should there be a climate czar who can reach into the different agencies that doesn't distract doesn't distract a secretary from the very significant workload that already exists right and and I think that there are lots of different models that you might use but I think that if the goal is maximizing the exit you know not building out you know being mindful of not building out more bureaucracy and maximizing the existing expertise in state government um I think that you know would counsel in favor of looking at where do we have the expertise who is already doing that work um and coordinating um and building on that rather than creating you know standing up a whole other office or structure which I think would slow you know could slow the work down and we've heard you know we need to move quickly and the the deadlines and you know in the statute are aggressive for a reason please continue with respect to the climate action plan I think one of the things that we've heard was that we need to take an inventory of the current work that's being done and I absolutely um but that is not a work that shouldn't be the work of a climate council that work can be done right now and that should be given to the climate council um when they show up for their first day of work so that they can have a good understanding of the landscape and can begin to build on that work and so there is um you know one recommendation would be to include um you know a directive in the bill that would require an honor to put together that inventory by a date certain so that it is um ready um so that we're can begin on day one for the climate council with respect to resilience in the climate action plan um one of the the concerns that I heard surfaced is that the the specific requirements um in the plan um can I go back sure yeah so uh with regard to the inventory so I'm gonna think I'm I'm gonna go back to my original discussion and you're saying we should have A&R put that together we took testimony here from the Department of Health um they have a very significant um socioeconomic vulnerability index they do something so you know does A&R I mean again is that their view of state government or is that the agency of administration's view of state government like how how does that information present really their role to go through all of the agencies and departments to inventory what is happening right now I think that there there is um again I think that they um have the capacity and the ability to do that um and I think that you want one of the agencies that is that is doing a significant portion of the climate resilience work to have ownership over that um that already has expertise in working with other agencies you know A&R touches a lot of this state and so there is a lot of expertise inside that agency and working with agency of transportation and department of health they coordinate with those agencies all of the time and so this is not a new model um and so I would just you know that that is something that is done on a daily basis so in terms of um the the concern about the directive to include strategies to to build resilience you know that can mean a lot of different things I think that there are um you know two ways that that could be addressed um you know for the the committee to consider and and one would be to spell out that these measures um must increase the resilience of communities infrastructure and the economies um and so there is a way there is sort of a a metric even though it is very high level that would be required um for the plan and direct um the council to develop metrics for that um the other option would be to um to include specific metrics in the legislation so that there's clarity about what resilience what we are talking about when we mean resilience and I think there are lots of models um for that so I think those would be the you know sort of the two options and I do think it's important that you know that we get that part that that part is correct um and that we provide sufficient guidance there um with respect to the rulemaking section one of the questions I touched on this briefly that that has come up um is whether or not the bill prohibits um other agencies from rulemaking um and you know the answer to that question is no um other agencies can and they you know will move forward with appropriate rulemaking in addition to ANR um so there's no you know concern about whether or not this prohibits um you know an agency for moving forward and as I mentioned you know agencies have to navigate overlapping and complementary authority um on a fairly regular basis um and there are lots of ways to manage that through the governor's office through the ICAR process and rulemaking um so that's not uncommon um and that's you know we that will continue um what you could do in this bill though is to be is to include a provision that makes it clear that this bill doesn't limit existing authority of other agencies that um it does not prohibit rulemaking and main did something similar in the bill with the agency of transportation they just made an express statement that you know the agency um made move forward with rulemaking to address climate change and so if that was a concern you would be able to include something specific to make that clear that it would not limit existing authority I think we're pretty explicit about that here but we can take a look at that the very last uh the very last three line three or four lines in the rulemaking section so very specifically nothing in this section shall be construed to limit the existing authority of state agency or department to regulate that's that's great I think it is a question that keeps coming up the other um component of the rulemaking um section is whether or not you know there's going to be sufficient public process I think we've heard from Massachusetts and Maine about the importance of having this be a public and inclusive process and um you know I just wanted to note that in addition to the administrative procedure act public notice and comment provisions this bill does require the state to hold additional hearings and to hold those hearings and impacted communities and the other thing to note in terms of facilitating public process is this requirement to create a detailed record um that supports the agency's rules and that may not seem like a public process issue but it really is because it puts the burden on the agency to say why they believe this rule is consistent with the statute rather than on the citizen to try and figure out is this going to meet the target or not and so I think those are you know really important public process components in the bill that we think are important is that something uh I'm not at all familiar with the rulemaking process is that something that is new and different or is that implied just as part of uh you know kind of how we do rulemaking in Vermont that you know it's certainly outside of ANR that when you come forward with a rule you have to lay out the reasoning and the tale behind why this rule is going to accomplish what the legislature had hoped it to or is that something that the the public has to come forward and try and pull out of the so the Vermont Administrative Procedure Act does require a record but it does not clear on what that record looks like and it varies significantly from agency to agency you know in some cases it's a it's a couple of pages um it varies because of cultural reasons or it varies because different agencies have different requirements in rulemaking it varies because of institutional and cultural reasons the because the statute and the rules don't provide very specific guidance on that it can look different um and I you know especially with this um type of rulemaking you and the consequences if we don't get it right on the front end um it's important to include the requirement to make it clear that they have to show their homework so in just a little background um uh again uh I'm not at all an expert on rulemaking but as we were discussing this with legal counsel in recent months as we were going through this this was something very specific um because of you know potentially it leads into the cause of action section in the bill but a record is important here to understand specifically what rulemaking was done and what the pathway was that was created there frankly for the defensibility um if there is litigation that an ANR or another agency can say here's precisely why we did what we did agree it's important um on the front end um for a judicial review of the rules when they're first promulgated and it's also important on the back end if the state fails to meet the targets under the emissions inventory um and there the cause of action is triggered um for a court to evaluate whether or not the rules um were strong enough and not the charge of the statute so it's important for for that reason but also on the front end as well does uh ANR have or are they contemplating anything like the EPUC that are outward facing portal for uh information on rulemaking and permitting and processes and there is an environmental uh notice bulletin that has some information but I am not the right person to ask in terms of the extent to that or whether or not there are plans for a future expansion of that my recollection uh el car does require a statement as to how the rulemaking supports legislative intent right so I from what you were saying I got the impression that you didn't think there was but no there absolutely is that requirement but it can be a three page memo and if you're talking about rules that are going to reduce carbon that can be very complex that may have technical and scientific components to it it would need to be more detailed than that to actually demonstrate that the rules were going to meet the statute and so right now there's not a lot of guidance around what that you know that basis looks like and so it could be a very short memo um and it really wouldn't give the legislature or citizens enough information to be able to evaluate whether or not those rules were going to achieve were consistent with the statute with respect to the cause of action section there have been a lot of questions around that section generally and so you know I wanted to kind of share my perspective on what this section does um and then take questions on this I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that this is a backstop this is not applicable the cause of action is not triggered you know if the state is in compliance and so that is sort of a prerequisite and the framework is fairly it's fairly simple um if there are no rules then a court can order the agency to do the rules and what that looks like um is an order that says you know agency you have an obligation to do these rules and you haven't done that and here's a schedule you need to get these rules done on a timeline if the rules are you know are promulgated and they're not sufficient right away you know citizens already have the ability under the Administrative Procedure Act to go to a court and say hey this isn't valid this isn't consistent with the statute and there's also an opportunity for LCAR you know to object as it's going through the rulemaking process if it's not consistent with the statute the you know sort of the third areas where we've missed the target and um this cause of action section where we've missed the target and the rules are why we've missed the target then a court can order the agency to do the rules that they were required to do in the first place and I think it's important you know that the statute expressly recognizes that we're expecting a complex mix of strategies to achieve these targets and you know ANR um is not on the hook where the legislature doesn't act or there's not appropriation you know they are held accountable for what is within their sphere of control and I think um uh there is absolute you know one of the recommendations that was talked about yesterday um was to include a very specific provision to make it clear that judges you know are not allowed to engage in rulemaking or policymaking and that really the remedy is limited to um a remand back to the agency for them to do what they were required to do in the first place so what what if they don't do it well then they're in contempt of court okay yeah and then what then a judge can move forward um with you know with the contempt of court order I've never seen I've never seen that happen with an agency um I think generally the idea um and the the the um uh the seriousness I would hope that it doesn't happen I'm just wondering what happens that's right yeah do they go to jail or I have never seen that happen before the whole agency oh round them up and I would hope that the seriousness of a court order would uh would ensure that action would but the judge still couldn't make the policy well I think that so under the current construct that's that I think the AGs and I agree um with the AG uh their um uh their thoughts yesterday that would be grounds for appeal you know judges are not allowed to engage in that arena but in order to be very express and clear you could include a provision that would just make that very clear um in in the remedy section and so that would be a recommendation if that's a concern um you know the other important thing to to note about the cause of action section is that clarity is important I you know I think that anyone um can file a lawsuit um but where you have a clear defined pathway that provides certainty for the agency you know that can limit litigation you know with respect to the procedural pathway what the remedy is um and so having a clear cause of action section can actually limit the time that people spend in court the other thing to note is that this is a really narrow cause of action section and I just wanted to walk through because I don't think anyone has done that yet just how where all the limitations are um the bill is really drafted um you know to to limit the cause of action to very specific circumstances and so the first thing to note is that the statute of limitations here is one year so if if there is a violation or there's a claim that um the agency is not in compliance um folks cannot sit on their hands and file a lawsuit five years later sorry um they are required to act within one year there's notice that's required before a suit can be filed um and so this gives the agency the opportunity to uh to take action to comply with the statute or to engage with um plaintiffs before litigation is even brought to try and and negotiate and resolve any questions um and the remedy is limited to basically do what the statute tells you you have to do um um and we talked about how you know that can be made even more clear in terms of making sure that a judge does not overstep their authority and then you know the other thing to note is that if a and r is taking prompt and effective action then a court um will fat has to take that into account when they create the schedule so if the agency says judge you know we have a plan to get this done in a year and we've already taken these three steps you know the the court is going to take that into account when creating that schedule for them to act so that I want to stop there and pause in case folks have questions um about that section I so you've outlined these for us all right are these are there recommendations that go with that or is that are you just flattening this listing these for our I think the recognition the one recommendation is to um is to ensure that it's clear that the judge cannot make rules make policy but I I wanted to flag um the ways that this cause of action section is limited so that folks have an understanding of that the language around that is that if the court finds that the rules are a substantial cause of failure the court shall enter an order directing the secretary to adopt or update rules that achieve the greenhouse gas emissions reductions and that's not clear well what we had talked about was um after this was in the ag's testimony yesterday right specific secretary to adopt or update rules in accordance with this act yes I actually wrote that in here as well but is that what is directing is telling the judge rather it's specifying that the remedy is uh ordering the secretary to adopt the rules and the concern that came up was what if the judge um included in that order you know a and r you shall adopt rules that do x and you know a judge I think that's grounds for appeal if a judge sort of dictates that in a very specific way but you could make that clear but in your experience that's that's a little wiggle from there I think that it would be grounds for appeal but I think if you wanted to make that clear um you could do that okay okay thanks you know in the last um you know question that comes up is an important one and and that has been raised in a lot of different um you know by different folks in different ways but you know what are the costs to implement the work that we need to do and and that's an important question that can't be fully answered but it will be answered through legislative and the rulemaking process you know once there are specific proposals there's an opportunity to engage and grapple with those questions there's a directive um you know to uh prioritize strategies that are cost effective and there's a process in place for having those discussions whether it's legislative or it's rulemaking and I think the other important question um is you know what are the costs of not taking action and we also can't fully you know answer that question also um but some of the benchmarks you know that you've heard is you know from the treasure today in terms of the material financial risk to the state of not taking action um the Department of Health you know the figure of 1.1 billion dollars and avoided health care costs and and 2000 lives by 2050 if we just meet our transportation goals alone um you know the energy action network has done an analysis on how much we spend on you know heating fuel and you know in in 2018 alone that amount was 240 million dollars more than if we were 100 percent renewable energy and that's dollars that would stay in Vermont families pockets and our local economy TNC has provided some information you know one wetland restoration 1.8 million dollars and avoided damages and there are mental and public health benefits associated with doing the work we need to make communities more resilient to make sure they have safe drinking water to make sure that they have a good wastewater treatment system there are missed opportunities if we don't take action in terms of new jobs and new financial pathways to support farms and forests and so you know we if you look at the cost question in a macro scale it's clear that we can't afford not to act and the global warming solutions act puts in place finding requirements to make sure that we have the framework in place to facilitate that action in the in the rulemaking process I believe this is the case but when you put forth a proposed rule you need to include a financial impact and in this case I would think it would include both the the positive financial impact of kind of avoided cost but it would you would also the agency would also say at the same time and that's going to take three new positions in order to enforce or you know but just as an example so that they would be putting that into the making proposal as well and then it would obviously need to budgeting for that would then be something that would have to ultimately go through through the legislature in other words the agency may say we're going to need three positions the administration may agree and put that into the proposed budget but it still comes back here I'm just sort of thinking through that's that's correct and so when there is a specific regulatory pathway proposed and it goes to the rulemaking process that cost conversation is required to happen so I guess to to go further what the government said so so let's say the legislature doesn't authorize three new positions and we still have these benchmarks that we have to meet what then how do we achieve that how does the agency natural resources move forward well I think that you know that the statute in terms of enforcement and the cause of action section then it's you know the agency is not on the hook you know there's only a cause of action with we if we haven't met the targets and the rules are why we haven't met the targets you know if the agency is able to say we need a legislative action to do this or there needed to be an appropriation then that a judge isn't is not going to be able to find that the rules were a substantial cause of why they didn't achieve the emissions inventory it's not perfect I mean I think there are I think what you're pointing out is that there are some gaps here you know there is no if the legislature does not act on a recommendation there's no cause of action for that there there are some gaps and I'll editorialize on that I think that is a that is absolutely a flaw here and uh personally I am committed uh you know I'm reelected that you know to see the legislature moving with um legislative initiatives that are proposed that we think are good ones collectively as a body including spending um priorities that are highlighted maybe as a body we won't go forward with those maybe they'll be rejected but very specifically the cause of action section says here um and it's it's the it's part b of that section that the court finds that the rules adopted by the secretary first went to 593 of this chapter are substantial cause of failure I think that is an intentional language which I think you know there may be objections but it's uh yeah well that would be my objection because again if we feel as a body we don't have that money regardless of what you know we think the effects might be if we don't add I you know that to me is where our responsibility lies and who knows what it might be around it might be around a big recession it might be around who knows but I mean I 100 percent agree but I I think that um you know as we're talking through the cause of action section um what can we hold a regulatory agency accountable for in this case an hour I already expressed what my experience is in the courtroom so far not a lot but you know can a judge hold in this case an hour responsible for substantial failure you know if they have failed within their capacity to pass rules I would say yes if um there's failure because of things that you know maybe the legislature has done and an hour would make that case successfully and I think that the judges would rule in court and in favor of them but again our experts that are are sitting around the room here no I agree with that I think that the agency has a strong case to make if they're if the the action is outside of their control if it's a legislative if it's legislation if it's appropriation then it will be very hard for someone to be able to show that the rules are why we didn't meet the targets because an hour will be able to say these other three things needed to happen and those that was the the reason why and I will say at the other end of that spectrum again to editorialize my interest and intention here is seeing that A&R and other agencies have broad authority maybe even broader authority than they have now to regulate greenhouse gas emission with the effect of reducing it but again there are clearly limits on that depending on appropriation depending on their internal resources enforce and make a rule are we cutting you off no I'm I'm I'm good I I've gotten through what I wanted to say if you all have other questions I'm happy to stay and answer that but Turkey yeah thank you thank you appreciate it we're running about 25 minutes behind if you don't mind we take just four minutes Luke because I got to stand up and maybe people can stretch their legs does that make sense questions issues and you can make the list or whatever however you want to see from I would actually like you to make the list because ultimately you're going to be charged with kind of helping us make the changes to the bill as we make them so I'm willing to help out someone stand I find it so this is a strategy running the committee issue so I've been some committees where you have about a hundred people and they open in language and it's not very productive yet because you haven't made the underlying policy decisions sometimes I think it's better at the committee all right what list of what are the issues or questions you have and work through the those make those decisions once you make the decision I'm sure we can write language to get you to your endpoint and so it's sort of a list definitely discussion decision crap the language to achieve it so I have a question yeah um so for me what might be most helpful here and I don't know if this is where we're going but is to just kind of go through and put flags so like as places that the committee wants to come back to like this is an area that we know like there may be places that there's no work that the committee is interested in doing and not necessarily trying to solve the problem today but start to lay out a map is that weird yeah again my my analogy was an inventory of what those issues are you know I think what you're getting at are there parts of the bill that you know we may not pay a whole lot of attention to that we kind of want to move beyond but specific examples might be like should there even be a commission yep if there is a commission should it be 21 or 10 yeah I don't know certainly a high level decision is do we have a council here if we get beyond that question uh and we had testimony today saying no council and frankly that's where we were six months ago in this bill but you know if and when we get beyond that question I think there's absolutely a conversation about who's in the room working on these issues and we've certainly heard some info on that so was the decision to sort of go section by section would say hey this is something we want to discuss further or we may have issues about and then let me let me suggest we start from the beginning and right turn pages I think some of those pages are going to be pretty quick pretty quick page okay do you want to lead that or do you want me to lead that or what's best for you well I will kick it off saying I have a couple of things that I have flagged in the finding section that I'm not recommending changes but are things that have stood out to me both feedback that I've heard and you know some things that other members have mentioned and I'll mention two off the top top of my head on page five line six I heard representative Higley you know question some of the wording here and I don't know enough about this issue you know I don't want to put too much weight on the findings and have the time we spend on this but you know the conservation and restoration of Vermont Forest Club and Mark you had you know raised the question about and restoration page five five six so I circled that in my economy it's um in five I'm on line nine keep up keep up on line nine the treasurer had called out you know question and I think her concern about specifying a private company here as you know as to whether or not we want to refer to you know the credit rating agency industry generally so that was another thing that I flagged in the findings as we might be a little less specific to a private entity there but those are two things in the findings that I had flagged by very poor people I will we should consider a finding talking about the upper economic opportunity okay because these are all pretty much negative if we don't and this we've heard several people testify to the opportunities let's go on to section three which is the which is essentially a markup of the existing statue so I'll start off there's one question that I've heard come up on a couple of occasions which is the definition of greenhouse gas um and Luke I thought I would call you saying that uh that is defined in some parts of the statue during some titles but not others it is and when I came back I said uh probably good to have that across reference inserted because we wave structure now it's in a different chapter yeah so valid point yes and on that um who was it somebody said that that's defined in the Massachusetts statue well we have a state definition that's pretty good so I just cross reference that or repeat it here so it should be a defined term right do you know what that is off hand or I know the definition on top of my head well that's better back I'm sorry but okay next time I think we should use an existing state definition otherwise we'd be right in the state definition so would you would you do that start definition or would you repeat it in here I think either is fine let's let's we'll figure that out in the state definition section if at some point in the future it changes you would only want to change it in one place but unless one of the stakeholders says the current definition which I think we're all aware of is not the one yeah I would just cross reference or repeat that okay there was another um uh bit of input we had from an hour with regard to the ability for how uh the greenhouse the current greenhouse gas emissions inventory accounting works whether we would be able to include um some benefits that we get from regional uh partnerships within that accounting so changing how the accounting is currently done that was a question that came okay well that would have to be a new idea yeah that would have because it's not it's 478 577 it's it's not yeah it's not captioned 578 it is 582 so say that again what we're trying to capture um we actually want to particularly have the deputy secretary in the room so so in the provision for how we calculate for the record computer walk type of secretary agency networks in the way we currently calculate greenhouse gases there is there is uh an understanding for how we calculate electric power production that is based on the consumption based on what we're buying rather than our production in state because we are buying on a on a grid and we are part of a regional program where we're getting emissions reductions around the region so we want to make sure that we're capturing that we are getting those regional emissions reductions were we to have a nationwide cap and trade or something else for different programs and we were participating in getting credit for those reductions as as a part of the overall reductions across the country we would want to capture that again on sort of a demand basis are counting for that participation because that's the whole reason to participate in those sorts of things so that it's easier for everybody to get the most cost-effective reductions as a whole rather than those reductions having to occur in Vermont because that becomes much more complicated to measure and and and lessens the appropriateness of participating in those sorts of cost-effective regional and national programs okay so that see no it's no it you know if if we made changes here it would be in section 582 of of 10 vsa 582 is where that definition is it's not part of this bill right now if that would be section three right it'd be section three it'd be a different section of the bill yeah so we haven't dug into that at all but if you have any specific suggestions on that and we decided to dig into it that would be that would be helpful we will do our best to quickly fill up and I don't know where they go exactly but one was we've we've talked about resiliency and perhaps defining resiliency and not including in here not any kind of matrix for determining how we increase resiliency but the first place that I actually see it mentioned was at the top of page nine line one specifically the word resiliency yeah and I'm wondering if it wants to go in uh section three is that greenhouse gas requirements that's what we're measuring the goals but I wonder if we should introduce resiliency in this section goals so just to be clear it's a section it's on a section three yes so what that is is it is current law I'm looking at mandatory reductions yeah I'm looking at three C where we're talking about it's okay somewhere in line 17-19 we start talking about construction maintenance buildings services line 20 services and infrastructure I don't know I wish I had a more specific no I think that's clear as the idea and so I think this part of statute refers to state infrastructure as opposed to something more broadly uh-huh so that might be more confining than you want it to be that would be yes so I'm I'm just wondering if this is this maybe not three C but maybe three D a new D about uh can I ask a question yeah so uh oh wait of me no yes um so are you now I just want to see if I'm following you because I had a note also around the singular goal here right emissions reduction yeah are you saying to add a goal of increased resiliency yes okay so where I would take us on this just you know trying to keep this at a higher level is at the top of page 10 um one of the charges for the council is to identify means to accurately measure and one of um yeah uh you know one of those things that we have talked about earlier this week is how do you measure resiliency um it's section four three if we're just inventorying now I think we skip ahead of the whole the whole section about the of the council and the makeup so why don't we just inventory this as a question on defining resilience and measuring and I'll think more over the weekend about how I see it fitting in well yeah I think are we done with section three which were the requirements and the requirements okay so section four is the climate council and climate action plan and this goes on for a while but first question what would be the other alternative those are yeah so I I think other ideas that have come up would be you know is there a new position in government created um that you know specifically has uh authority over climate initiatives that's something that's come up I think another idea that has come up is uh that ANR is not the right chair of this council so that should be agency of administration you know suit mentor this morning talking about you know their first among equals um and we also heard testimony about ANR is the agency that has the technical expertise and also experience working with a number of these agencies on those issues so I think that is definitely something we're going to cross here those two and we also had some some suggestions about uh different uh representation on the on the uh on the council so and uh yes what about the ranking member of each uh of the legislative committees yeah that's a poison pill for me so yeah so I would say this is another broad area as to where the um kind of leadership of the council resides here and um you know whether or not there's a a new position does Massachusetts have a council or is there is through the EPA yeah so um Massachusetts has a different regulatory structure than Vermont does in that they have an agency that incorporates utility regulation conservation um transportation and um that's a conservation and environmental protection and there might be others but that is transportation is not included oh I thought it was agriculture is okay thank you so there's a lot in that their version of ANR very specifically utility I guess the other question I know that they also have a committee on global warming and climate change it's an actual oh committee just like this like that separate within time the exact branch no I don't hate so I just I don't know what their actual mission is just just something to ponder as far as what from a serious perspective would it make sense to just have somebody from each of the agencies in the executive branch like an assigned person from that agency so it's um inclusive representative of the all the aspects of state government um and more close knowledge of the inner workings of each of the agencies I think that's something we should discuss yeah so I mean we're flagging this as an area of competition yeah enough for us today but I mean wouldn't that be kind of the position if there was a czar that they're going to call in each expert in whatever agency to lay out I mean that's that's different than having some broad counsel with all these people on it okay I mean all right one agency is not represented in this list well so just as an aside and and I'm not suggesting this but I've heard this from other people and we've had some of this discussion today that um you know is there a place in the room for the state driver here who has you know planted it I think played a key role in moving the clean water um discussion along you know does she belong or do they belong on the council that was another thing that I had flagged and that I've heard um as it does as a deputy so yeah yeah well there yeah right now it's public safety yeah yeah that was meant that was what it was meant to get at but yes similar to um human services was really kind of meant as a euphemism for department health so clearly kind of council leadership and regional planning commissions were brought up yep national guard national guard yeah and the concept was also brought up that this shouldn't be 21 or 12 so who do you want to national guard so I'm going to keep moving here through what the council is charged with in terms of responsibilities uh something that I heard in our discussion earlier today was uh and actually earlier this week understanding actually this would potentially fall outside of the council but understanding what programs state government currently has um how much we spend on them and what the efficacy of those programs is um that was brought up earlier in the week because that's something that the council should take a look at it was also brought up earlier today that's information that the council should have on day one uh and that we should look outside the council to to provide that information I don't think that's I agree I don't think it's council's job to do that work it's council's job to have that information Mr. Chair if I may you don't you don't provide direction for somebody to do that yeah then you're hoping yeah that's going to occur before the council's this hope of strategy hope is not a strategy okay just not very effective so then we're really looking at this it would be outside of this section of the bill but I'm just flagging kind of the inventory you know question pretending it's a good I have I'm not sure in public infrastructure on page nine one twelve I'm not sure why I don't know if anybody else has a note they are around public infrastructure you know they're not okay I've added them myself I think you and I talked about this okay so that what this um kind of section says you know again the charge for the council is identifying analyzing and evaluating financing strategies to support this transition that you know what does that what does that relate to and one of the questions was financing public infrastructure which could be everything from you know more hardened transportation infrastructure to publicly uncharging stations or financing strategies for the private sector to accelerate the transition you know and I'm just making this up but you know the Vita funding to support I don't know the variety of the financing strategies so as you and I talked about that I don't know if we want or school and municipal building school and municipal buildings was was not that we thought about it where are you not by page number because we have page additions here found we're in the council section the council shall is be and then keep moving down under that there's a b and c or c thank you line 12 yeah oh financing strategies so okay if I can go up to section b line e I've circled analyzing each source or category of sources and I have a note that says be specific but I don't remember the details Jenny Rushlove had said that each source or category of sources invites speculation or something like that so she was suggesting marking out each source and just saying analyzing category categories or whatever categories of sources and what I had written in and parenthetically was industrial transportation buildings etc I don't know whether I think she said she suggested not listing them but but I'm not sure about that there are clearly defined categories as part of the inventory that might be helpful as a template for this right that says here are the sectors that we look at for sources of additions there's no reason why that should change as part of the evaluation of the council so should we just list list sectors of sources right presenting that as an option for you also I have prioritized equity but I think it means prioritizing areas where I'm not sure where it goes in this section that areas where they want to be we want to identify as needing the most resources where am I it's just no I have written down it goes in this section maybe goes on regard to the subcommittees there's a suggestion of okay there was a suggestion related to economic challenges that I think this is kind of related to the just transition subcommittee but having a specific subcommittee charge that relates to I don't have the exact words here but kind of economic challenges or economic harm that might result the second subcommittee yeah but it does talk about it maybe this needs to be more fleshed out not unfairly burdening a group or community that also may include an economic sector I'm flipping through the next place that I get to is the the climate action plan 592 it's on page 13 put off any other thoughts that people have just seeing back in subcommittees yep I know we received suggestions that or questions on whether there needed to be clarification on size or functioning but I don't think so I like it can be yeah so actually thank you for bringing that up because I got a related point um what I understand that I'm looking to uh ledge council and Luke you might not be the person but with what things we need to include in here when you're creating a council for example I think we need term limits and there's a question about staggering those term limits and you know to your point Robin you know what kind of power can we give here we've given the the uh the council the ability to create subcommittees and there's a flexibility there I'm presuming that's we don't have to get granular in terms of I remember right prohibit again into that depth but my understanding is what we do have to do is establish term limits or terms and that they should be staggered and that there should be an odd number of people on the councils those were parameters that I understand but you're saying these ideas you might want to pursue no these aren't I had to do these yeah this is what I understand that we when you create a council you told them you had to do what's that who told you you had to do it um my friends on the government operations committee really yeah uh but again I there might be somebody in your office that has expertise on I don't know if uh I don't know if the lawyer is that you sort of well if you like if you also like those ideas you can certainly do it yeah I don't know if you have to okay my number of people make sense if you're doing both because that's where that comes from yeah but you don't have to yeah but term limits I mean you know you could have people that are put on here and there on your 20 years when you turn looks like you can't have consecutive terms or you're there for five years remember a lot of these folks are executive branch they might be there for 12 months four years is how long they have that position but some are not true but were you thinking of length of term or term limits so I was thinking of both okay and again I don't want to solve this problem today I want to flag it I can check the question the question was on terms term limits um a number of people under council uh the question that I have is to how prescriptive we need to be is to the governance of the council and um my understanding is that you do not have to be prescriptive the governance of the council that they can create those you know rules of the road themselves but that's a question I have you agree yeah just thought I mean I do think there should be an odd number but with a group this large inevitably at probably 50 percent meetings someone's not going to be there of people anyway but uh so you could still have a tie vote on something getting back to the subcommittees I just found my notes about what Sumitra suggested this morning um around potentially another subcommittee and what I wrote down was and a subcommittee to identify areas of vulnerability and uh risk and assess strategies to reduce risk something like that yeah that was the maybe that's just transitions or maybe it's something else so again I would put a charge to members of this committee as to um and representative Spillia uh had worked a lot on the thoughts behind one of these subcommittees and what it should cover um two of the other subcommittees were left frankly fairly general to the extent we want to flesh out more information there and be more prescriptive if to the extent we want a jettison one or add one that's up to this committee and so uh if that's something you're interested in then we should go there but I'll again I'll leave it to the committee but I want to flag that yeah it's something that yeah um because I heard that from Sumitra I heard that from uh Mr Griskell who's here um with regard to you know specific economic harms that might result and that should be captured here so I'll leave it open as to the extent we want to be more prescriptive okay climate action plan section 592 I'll also say to be clear we're not closing any doors I'm doing this stuff today but I do want to capture things that are on people's minds so um if you know if we don't have anything written down we don't need to stare at the page but I do want to collect things that people do have that are from Tim I'm sorry I just stepped out on one of our testifiers for next week yeah on the rural resiliency I'm sorry the subcommittee yeah um there wasn't one oh this is probably too granular but there was um talking about uh adaptation the pressure that climate change but climate change and also climate change adaptation adaptation yeah the both are you putting that under the rural resiliency task force right but we're going to start to get adaptation well the title of the committee is rural resiliency and adaptations actually too it suggests an added risk reduction to that as well so in other words wind is going wind and rain are going to put pressure on rural areas all of the economic changes that are happening in the world to deal with climate change adaptation will also put pressure so and this is in B if anybody has anything on plan starting on page 13 so this ties in with the earlier when I was fighting resiliency so we mentioned that in the action plan on page 13 line 18 which I think so there the plan is to reduce emissions and build resiliency and I think that highlights the need to kind of define it or have it be a goal earlier for requiring the plan to address it let's think how to do that because the reason I say let's think how to do that is because the what is now the requirements section that's um is existing statute that specifically is about greenhouse gas emissions right so I'm not saying that we shouldn't do that I'm just saying let's think about where it belongs I don't want to focus no we're bringing it up here as to be included in the plan so seems like we should talk about her ahead of that yeah so maybe my question is on this section as well so when it talks about um so I'm in little b or you're in the plan section yeah um talking about including regulatory and legislative changes that's where my concern with this is what they have to put forth specific initiative programs and strategies including that but above and beyond that like I say if the legislature on their own jumped in with passing some legislation that would affect their plan and strategies how does that fit into it because the only go back every four years right right so let me just be clear on the question um because I think I heard this come up a couple times does uh this doesn't preclude legislation legislature can legislate anytime outside of this and may have heard you ask this question if we do things as a legislature that are outside of this plan that accomplish greenhouse gas emission reduction would it count towards accomplishing uh the requirements right how do they include it what's the process for them to include that in their strategies and you know initiatives specific initiatives because that is what it would be would be a specific initiative that the legislature passed it's outside of this it's outside of that isn't the objective is to reduce greenhouse gases gases and it's accomplished and we do something that helps to accomplish that and why wouldn't it count well it's a question of how you have how you count it right yeah I understand that it would count but I'm just saying how would it how would it fit into the plan would they then if it was something huge could apply or could they back off on another proposal enough to still meet the gore so again I just want to make sure I'm clear because you know with the pathway to address the question you have can the legislature step in and alter the plan is that the question well no again you know that the council how how are they going to consider uh you know we meet every year so we could conceivably every year put in a new proposal to limit carbon emissions right so they've already got a plan they've already established your plan they're going down the road you know all of a sudden we've thrown in these other things are you saying just let that go as well but not be included in any reductions that they have plans for that they've already considered in their ultimate ultimate plan I just don't I think somehow it's it's got to be interconnected but I don't I don't know how but I think it should be considered somehow yeah but I don't know I think I think what you're saying is that when you lay out a program or a plan to reduce emissions somehow part of that plan is developing metrics for determining reduced emissions so if there if the legislature comes up with a plan that isn't included in this in the council's plan that somehow worked or something or is it different anyway there might be another count accounting of greenhouse gas reductions that then isn't captured in this plan yeah it makes sense yeah I think so doesn't make sense to me because well I mean the sources of greenhouse gas gas emissions are not going to change so the measurements I want to be careful that we don't debate here I just want to flag and I think it's a really important question actually as to how we deal with that issue yeah you know the goal here the ultimate goal we're trying to get to is reduction in emissions and I don't who gets credit for that and I know that's not your question but well let me put it a different way then okay let's say the agency natural resources through rules throws out a particular proposal but we as legislators almost at the same time put out a bill that's in conflict with what the agencies are done and they're basically saying whoa wait a minute you know we've already we've already proposed it's already been proposed by the council in this way we're going down the road to rules you just pass a law that really is a little bit different tweaks it in a different way where do we stand I might be able to answer some of those questions if you want yeah another time so the emissions go down where I visualize the emissions go down so whatever the reason you went down recession depression you know you're meeting your targets that's what matters if there's a plan in the legislature passes a law that's outside that plan something different you would hope that each entity legislature be aware of what the council's doing the council look at what the legislature's doing to maybe modify their plan accordingly I don't know how you legislate that they do that but you'd hope to be aware of what's going on staying and modify the plan accordingly as your last question law of Trump's rules so they got a great idea of all the rules that A&R should do and the legislature steps in and passes a law that's different but usually laws are general rules are specific so you know that it's usually not either war but yes law is Trump rules so legislature goes ahead and does something by a law that would trump any rules that are being developed if they're in conflict that's the section saying perfect was that in was that the rules section oh no we haven't got it we're about to get there something that I flagged in the rules section was in A2 I had bracketed the term reasonable basis and wrote a question in the margin would it help the agency to lay out what constitutes a reasonable basis and and that was actually a question that was found I had doctor today with Jen's testimony and testimony perhaps there's a need to be even more explicit there which is the bottom of page 19 no agency or departments that's rule making a priority it's K Jen Duggan had indicated that there is perhaps a need to be more over yeah be more explicit that no one's rule making is I don't know that's pretty explicit that's pretty explicit I have a note on the very beginning of rules 16 and I think that's 593 and I believe that it relates to where it says consistent with the Vermont action oh yes and it was my notes as adhere to yes this was a genuine rush way of comment also about so I my scribble was shall adopt regulations as prescribed by the plan as opposed to what I had mentioned when Professor Rushla was testifying was some struggling with this in that being cautious about directing the regulatory body to do you know with precision what the plan says as opposed to staying within the bounds of the plan and again we can take away at what that word is the intention was to give some flexibility to operate within bounds and that was essentially that where that word was chosen another phrase that I wrote that was necessary to carry out necessary to accomplish I think we're trying to find a balance between Jen and Rushla trying to give legal precision and cover and maybe Mary Powell's just get a plan still to it yeah so well it's like that I've forgotten that so two things I'll flag in the cause of action section are in both A3 and in B3 and it's the same change in each that that when a court reaches for the remedy of requiring the secretary to to take prompt action or adopt or update rules that they be in accordance with the plan or in accordance with this this law which I can't remember what it was but being clear that the court can't prescribe action that is outside of what this you know what the plan or what the law calls for and what's that based on what is that supposed to address so for example in on page 21 line 16 what this section would then say is the court shall enter an order directing the secretary to adopt or update rules in accordance with this act so that the court couldn't take couldn't require action that might be outside of what we're calling for here that they are confined to things that are allowed under this that the court is not making policy so is that the concern that the judge's order is too specific and legislate for the bench or that they go off the you know they go far afield and come outside just yeah I think that's right so this was actually raised by Representative Sherman but that the that the court may ask for rulemaking that would in fact result in greenhouse gas emission reduction but is inconsistent with where we are in the and I get what I'm struggling with is whether it's where we are within the confines of this statute or whether it's someplace outside of the plan I don't know what you would think but it's basically the court exceeding authority either being too specific or to going too far afield yeah but I'm trying to figure out how to phrase it I'm going to let you struggle with that is that the evil you're trying to prevent yes judge legislate with the bench either being too specific or going too far afield my interpretation for my understanding of Heidi's concern was the too specific we don't want to judge saying we must adopt rules that say this as opposed to achieve this goal well again I'm trying to stay within the confines of what we're doing here you know that there's a lot of guidelines I think that we're giving here for rulemaking and for the writing of this plan and the concern here is that a judge would go outside of that right there's a scenario where the plan is not leading to the results do you wish according to our hasn't done it well in this section is that they haven't done enough they've actually they've adopted rules they've done it in a timely fashion and now we're in we're in part B of this section where what has been done has been insufficient and more needs to be done and what the judge may prescribe is not only more but more that's outside of the bounds of and here's where I'm struggling outside the bounds of the plan guys outside the bounds of the statute I don't know which it would be can I have a question? I have a question around whether so just thought of hypothetical the plan lays out a strategy that is insufficient yep and they end up with rules that were prescribed to it by ZIP plan yeah but we're held to account for not meeting the goals yeah what happens yeah so I'm going to draw on my deep well of legal knowledge here that what this section says is that the court finds that the rules adopted by the secretary are the substantial cause of failure so would that be something that would not allow the judge to hold the not the council the secretary um uh well if our if the plan occurs in our rulemaking authority follows from that plan yeah then I don't see how we would be a substantial cause of that failure if we were following the authority given to us that's my point so I don't see how the judge can find in favor of the plaintiff there but your authority is also to achieve reductions it's planned and it's achieved reductions the plan is a good now you're supposed to achieve those reductions but the plan it just said that if the plan doesn't happen then the responsibility to it oh so you're you're talking about where a plan is not adopted let's not go about the way the plan is insufficient the plan is not adopted as another follow-ups but yeah I mean it's not something and so so if the plan is made and the agency uh creates rules in accordance with what the plan is and then the reductions don't get done then it's um not the fault of the agency it will be that's does it not have a strategy to go back and revise the plan right I mean that might be a defense like we're trying really really hard yeah uh but they still got these chiefs of reductions so even as they they're following the plan and the plan is insufficient for some reason exponential economic growth more cars and road wasn't foreseen so the plant didn't foresee it they didn't foresee it you're still not meeting those reduction targets they still uh they're still going to be close of action against it going to achieve those reductions well so I I think this goes back to um how you presented how you took us through the in terms of kind of the steps at each which I think is important to keep in mind which is what's required at each step and you know for example at the rulemaking step there's requirements that you know kind of show your work that there's a demonstration that there's sufficiency in what's being done it's you know maybe it's naive to think then that when you get you know get this devolved to a point where we're in a cause of action and we have not met the targets um there is still a record that shows that the agency has done work they've shown their work and you know if it doesn't accomplish it I think where you get to then is is the judge saying the work you've done is insufficient it was a substantial cause of failure and you've got to go back and do more it's possible and that's really it's hard to predict because that's really the role of the judge to make that decision so but I think that's possible so I'm looking at 92 the the last paragraph of 4593 for maybe page 16 line 9 if the if the council fails to adopt the plan or update the plan yeah as required by this chapter then the secretary yeah is on the hook right yeah so the the ANR still has to has to make rules to meet the greenhouse gas emission reduction goals yeah regardless of the plan and this is kind of I characterize this as kind of the the the in-emergency brake glass yeah statue here with or partner statue which essentially says the council has an obligation but what if for whatever reason they can't come to an agreement right um you know they fail to get there um my presumption is that the council does not want that to happen the council has the power and ability to move forward here if they fail to do that and it's on ANR right right so that's when it comes back to Peter's comment about the substantial cause business and I noticed when you when you used the phrase you said the substantial cause not a substantial cause and I'm just wondering about whether the versus uh is important and of course the failure yeah any other things that flag in the cause of action section you know maybe in section six is where the um some of the highlights of terms and term limits or whatever section seven uh shoe we took testimony this morning as to whether or not uh in the state energy policy uh there should be provision here that draws the state energy policy kind of been compliant to what we're trying to do here that was on line 18 and it's also thanks the question of whether the resiliency should be added as part of the energy policy yes so those are things that I had um and I also you know we have a bunch of testimony um particularly in the last couple of days where folks have provided very specific suggestions um some of which were captured in this discussion some of which weren't any other thoughts thank you that was actually helpful for me just to go through so I really appreciate people taking extra power today thank you yeah where you talk to next week and this yeah schedule on chat