 All right, let's talk about a few bills. Why don't I just dive into the more controversial ones? H230 is, the title of the bill is that it's anti-suicide, based on the idea that not only do we have more suicides with guns than other methods, but that guns are far and away the most effective way to commit suicide. People sometimes jump off eye places or take drugs, and they survive. Guns don't usually fail in some other cities. They can. There are people who shoot themselves and don't die, but it's the exception. There's also studies of people who have tried to kill themselves and fail, who more people than not say that they're glad they failed. And their descriptions of what it feels like to jump off a high bridge to kill yourself is that the instinct one is airborne. There's deep regret. And as was often said, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Even if it's a lifelong problem, it's a temporary moment of feeling especially bad about it. But to be honest, this anti-suicide bill, the provisions of the bill are provisions that gun safety advocates have been pushing for for years. And when gun rights people complain, and they say, well, come on, we know what you're up to, I think the suicide connection is entirely legitimate. But yes, this is generally supported by people who feel that gun safety is an issue. And on that, but that bill has passed. We don't know if the governor's going to veto it. There are a lot of bills where he has given, well, for example, the affordable heat. He's given a clear warning to his credit that he didn't like it and that he would likely veto it. And now he has. With this, we're expecting veto, is the way that we're looking at it. We're going to deal with the veto of the clean, the affordable heat act this week, probably tomorrow or Wednesday. But in any case, getting back to the guns, I just want to say a few things about what the bill does. And it speaks to waiting periods and red flag. Red flag means that there are times that it's pretty clear. Well, it's clear to some people. It's up to a judge whether it's really clear. And that someone is in danger of hurting himself. Not always, but it's usually men who shoot themselves. Although not always, and we should be clear on that. The waiting period, critics say, well, does that really help? We've had some mass shootings where the gun had been bought legally. The gun had been bought. There are times when you really look at something and you say this does not solve the problem. The problem is bigger than this, but you do what you can. I would say that also in defense of environmental protections. Responses to global warming, where people say, little Vermont's not going to take care of global warming. And I say, well, little Vermont can do its little part. We can hold up our end for what it's worth. I think we certainly know we have the votes to override the veto on affordable heat. I think we probably have them on guns as well. I do want to say something about the arguments I get on the email. I got to say email is a curse to politicians. For one thing, if any of you have emails, I haven't answered, I'm sorry. OK, I'm doing the best I can. It really is a ton of them. The arguments against the gun safety effort often invoke the Second Amendment. And I'll even get things like a lecture. You took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution and we expect you to do all of it. And forgive a brief social studies lesson. Probably you folks know this, but I want to articulate it and you're the only audience I have today. The fifth article of the Constitution, article five, very clear that an amendment to the Constitution is not an appendix. It's not a footnote. It's not an addition or a satellite. It is part of the Constitution as much as the original Constitution. It is the Constitution. And article six says, pretty unequivocally, this Constitution and the laws made by Congress pursuant there to shall be the supreme law of the land. And yes, as an office holder, I take an oath to uphold the Constitution. So the question of whether or not to honor the Second Amendment is not on the table. I don't want to violate the Constitution, but if I did, I don't have that power. I don't have that right. So the Second Amendment, the Constitution, it stands. So the whole question of the Second Amendment has never been legitimately part of the discussion, although it's actually 90% of what is talked about. There are honest disagreements as to how constitutional provisions ought to be applied. The right of the people to keep them bare arms shall not be infringed is not negotiable. That's a given. We start with that understanding. The question is keeping bare arms. The original intent for the conservatives in the room, the original intent was the right of the people to keep them bare muskets shall not be infringed. If you want to go to original intent, that's what it was. What does it mean? How does it apply to 21st century military weaponry designed in the first place for a single characteristic, which is the capability to kill large numbers of people quickly? Which in combat is a good thing to have. I don't know if it's a good thing to have people carrying around on the streets, especially when you get these sort of braggarts strutting down the street with their military weaponry, because it's their constitutional right. Maybe the Second Amendment prohibits limits on military weaponry. But that's a legitimate argument. That's the argument we need to have. There is no argument about whether or not to honor the Second Amendment. And frankly, the idea that we're all breaching our oath of office is unfair. I plead not guilty in favor of my colleagues. OK, those are the two. There's other, we should talk about, all the big bills. But I think right now the gun thing and then on clean heat, I want to say this. Last time out, I just said clean heat, which is the name of the bill, two years ago. Unaffordable heat. Two years ago, the clean heat bill, which this is very reminiscent of. This is sort of the clean heat bill rewritten to please the governor. He said he wanted a check back. I opposed that check back, as many of my colleagues did. My view is we're already 40 years behind and responding to global warming. Let's stop kicking the can down the road and bite the bullet and do what needs to be done. And the governor vetoed the bill. We now have a bill with a check back. Nothing, no thing, nothing happens to the citizenry until there's another legislative vote. I wish that were not the case, but it is. I sent a memo to the chair of the Natural Resources Committee and I said, I hate the check back, but it really is a blessing in disguise politically. Because I'm able to say that to people who are worried that it's going to, in particular, you've been told it's going to increase your heating costs. And I just got, I was at a family gathering in graduation and got bowled out by my ex-wife. Then I'm raising her, and we usually get along pretty well. But then I'm raising her heating costs. Fossil fuels are expensive. And the cleaner fuels are not only cleaner, they're cheaper, very expensive to get into in the first place. And this bill is aimed at setting up a system which the legislature has not. It directs the public service board to set up a system whereby if you want to sell dirty fuel, you gotta pay for the privilege by buying credits for people who are, sellers are dirty fuel, who are backing off from it, who are developing ways to shift and get off of carbon. And it was George Bush Jr., W, who had said, we're addicted to petroleum and we gotta get off it. We gotta kick the habit. But that plan will come back to the legislature. And I'm in the funny position of having, well, it's not funny, it's not really how the legislature often works. We are a collegial body. We have, we regard one another as colleagues. I serve on the natural resources and energy committee. There are many provisions in this bill that I opposed because, including the check back. However, I opposed them in committee. Once the bill was put together, then the question is, okay, this is the deal. You vote yes or you vote no. Or as is often said, the train is leaving the station. Are you on the train or are you on the station? And ultimately, I supported the bill. So I'm supporting a bill that has some stuff in it that I didn't like. But that stuff is an answer, an effective answer to the concerns that people have expressed. I also just want to mention one of our, my Republican colleagues, the state senator, has just lost his mother and is doing, will be participating in that session by Zoom. And you can vote by Zoom if it's a family loss. In the Senate. In the Senate, yeah. Not in the House. We do make our own, our respective rules. He has asked, the Republican caucus has asked, could we have no speeches? And here's Vermont, is our answer was absolutely yes. We will allow this to be a quick in and out session so that this poor guy can go to his mother's funeral. I think there are states where that courtesy would not be extended. And it's also a courtesy to the Republicans. And this is a vote, we, the Democrats, we have the votes, we know they're gonna lose. And my comment when I was asked, we were polled, is this okay? And my answer was, come on, it's the least we can do. We're beating these guys up, we can at least treat them decent. And that was not me alone being that's the policy. And we had decided that we're going, and I just broke the agreement that we would let you folks do most of the talking. I mean, I'm certainly happy to go on, but I do think people have questions. Do you want to ask those first? More comments. Do you want me to? I don't want to take up all the time, but I could. So I won't, but I won't make some comments. Okay, you're at year H230. Is that the one where it says that I gotta take and lock my gun in a safe and an ammunition over here so that I get broke into it. I want to protect my home. I gotta spend X amount of time with the light on so that whoever's breaking in can find me and shoot me or beat me with that or stab me with a knife. I can't have a gun near my bed. That's the way I read the bill. It doesn't say you can't have a gun. But it says you gotta have it locked away. Yeah. And you gotta have the ammunition away from the gun. That's what it does say. If I recall, and I'm absolutely operating on an early version of it, so I don't know how it came out of the, yeah, how it came out of the ultimately on the floor. I've forgotten there's been so many bills. But I remember early on there was the discussion because people asked that question. And at least one iteration of the bill was that the gun has to be, if it's gonna be loaded, it has to be within your possession. Possession was defined as basically arms reach. So it had to be under your control. So what it was, at least, was that you could keep it in your nightstand because, theoretically, your grand kid isn't gonna run in and get it in the middle of the night so you have control of it. I don't know if that, did that change? Do you know? Well, I didn't see that. So I saw the one about locking everything away in a part and it's like, wait a minute, I'm kind of half asleep. I gotta go remember the combination of safe. We're gonna put bullets and I gotta load, you know. And that was the concern and that's why that came up. And I think they put that in, but I'd have to read the latest version. But the idea was that, the idea is that either you have to have direct control over it, which it, or it has to be safe somewhere. You couldn't just dig on the kitchen counter and go to bed. Or leave it in the nightstand while you go to work. Yeah, or leave it in the nightstand while you go to work. Now, if you take it with you, you still have it in your possession when you're traveling or whatever, then that's still okay, right? That was my understanding. I don't, like I said, I haven't read, I don't. I haven't read anything. I don't remember all the details of it anymore. You're right, they do change along the way. Yeah. Let's see. Global warming. Nobody talks about how all the global things that Vermont's already done. I mean, 120 years ago, we were 15% forest, 85% open land. We now are 85% forest, the carbon-eating forest. Yeah. Let's talk about that a little bit, about the forests that we have that are doing good things. I mean, this is just a comment that you can roll around and whatever, I want to get all my comments in there. Quick, let's say, we do talk about that a lot. We're proud of Vermont as a leader. We're not the leader we once were. There are other states that are more aggressive about protecting the environment. You were talking about the S5 and was S5 the one with the credits that you have to buy the credits? Well, what happened? Why didn't we stop years and years and years ago when we started doing solar power? And we're allowing all these developers to sell the credits out of state. So now we don't have this credit bank because somebody who's in a solar field makes money and then leaves. And the state is sitting here where we've had almost an abundant amount of credit that it all stayed in Vermont. So we want to pass the law or a bill that says we're going to charge you money. Somebody's going to pay money for these credits, which are no different credits, but I'm bothered with the word about the credits that we've already given away. When we might have, we might should have said, okay, you want to build a solar field and there's going to be X credit, that needs to stay in Vermont. You're going to use Vermont landscape. You're talking about destroying our vistas. Well, I'll tell you, we drive up route seven and you think, this is great. If you like blue, route seven is great. So that's, I don't want, and I got one more. Kickin' the can down the road. I read today or yesterday on Digger about an article about, you're not going to do anything about childcare. Now you want to keep people working or get them working. But you're going to hit people with money to put something out of the fuel. You want to do things with the gun, but childcare and housing, they should be one and two. This is other things in my opinion, could need to be dealt with, but after you get one and two done, that's why I go home. I have things I need to do first. We get them done. And then we move on to other things that are important, but maybe not so much when we're talking about we want workers to come to the state. Well, there's no place to live. And then if we find a place to live, they've got, and they're homeless, they've got kids, does nobody take care of the kids? I will have to give a shout out to the fact that they approved the lunch program, breakfast and lunch program, yay. I think that, we tried to do that when I was in the school system. You couldn't do that at home. Anyway, here's my comments. I could do a little measure. Quick response. I think we are not kicking childcare down. To not be mad at, this is, It says you're leaving it in the dust. Well, I mean, paid family leave, it appears to be left in the dust for the year. We do have a two year session, the way this is the first year of the biennium. And the problem with that was, was funding. And I gotta say that we, you know, the people speak with many voices. And one of the voices you hear from the people pretty clearly is, we think our taxes are too high. And stop taxing us, or stop taxing us as much as you do. And that means spend less and stop increasing spending. And that is what was at work on that. And it's not a matter of saying, well, we can't afford it. It's that the House and the Senate have had different approaches to funding and have not been able to come to an agreement. Because whatever agreement they're gonna come to is gonna be frustrating, probably inadequate. As far as childcare, I think that's sort of in its terminal, in the final negotiations this week. And we'll see what happens with that. That's not dead yet, okay? Oh, I didn't get it wrong. Oh, no. What else you had made another book? The global warming, and the credits. The credits that we have given away. Dave, I agree with you. I agree with you on that. We have a system nationally called cap-and-trade. Where if you're a power company, or you're someone making power or using power, you get credits and you can sell those credits to someone else who a company that feels, well, our company, the economics of our company say that we should not do a greener technology. So we'll pay for that privilege. And what it does then is it's like a pollution tax. You get to pollute if you pay the fee to pollute. It's a fee to pollute, which is nasty, but it makes perhaps as a disincentive to pollution. And it creates a financial incentive to people who do green stuff. The fact that the credits can be sold means that some of the rich tops in Vermont have ugly windmills on the beautiful fields in Vermont have solar collectors. And we're not getting the credits for that green. You got to understand that the idea of doing away with cap-and-trade and just saying, okay, stop polluting, that's the more radical environmental pollution. That's what you're going to do with a clean heater. Okay. That's what you're, for me, like what you're planning on. Well, I fought the good fight and now I had to decide, am I on the trade or am I on the platform? Yeah. Yeah, I do know that, I mean, you're right. I mean, childcare and housing are huge priorities. And they are in the house. They are two of the big priorities that came in. One of the other ones was workforce development. And we've been in the house. The workforce development pieces have all basically been through and those come through my committee. So, and then the housing and the childcare. I mean, it is a little bit of a, I think it's a little bit of a, trying to, what happens is, is a committee says, we should do this and then appropriation says, yeah, we can only afford this. And so then, so then there's a negotiation around that. People trying to, I understand it. I mean, I know there's still priorities. I don't know if they will get all of the bugs worked out and come to an agreement with the Senate and all that stuff in the next week. So when they say it's, you know, it might be, they're not, might get it done by this year. It will certainly be next year. And I do agree with you. Like my committee in particular, but then a number of the other committees, including Ways and Means and Appropriations in the House, really do not care for the worker relocation program because you pay somebody to move to Vermont, but there's no place for them to live, right? And so, why are we spending money on doing that? And so we've always been against it. There are folks on the Senate side who love that program and the governor and his administration love that program. And so they're always kind of pushing to put that in. We took it out, Senate has put it back in. It's gonna be one of those things that I think will end up being negotiated between the committees of conference. We're talking about it. How much money do you think? What is it? I don't have my notes. I think a lot. Yeah, it's quite a bit. It's quite a bit. Well, actually it's less than it was. So I think, I mean, it's not a gazillion dollars. So what it is is I believe the House said zero dollars. The Senate originally, I think, actually I think the House said zero. I think the governor said two million. And the Senate said, well, let's split down the middle and we'll go for one million. But we feel like a million dollars to pay somebody to come here with no place to live. Yeah, and also, I mean, there's the argument those people would be coming here anyway if they could find a place to live. That's right, that's right. And another one that in my committee, again, but it's a case where I feel like we're throwing money away, but the administration loves it, is the Vermont Economic Growth Initiative. It's called, they call it VEGGI. And it's a public-private thing that's set up, cooperation, where there's a board that oversees the giving out of money to corporations that either from out of state say they want to move in to Vermont and set up a business of a certain size, but they can't unless they have some money. Or there are businesses in Vermont who are small but say we're ready, we could grow exponentially and hire lots of people, but we need some money. And so the grants are often in the range of $5 million. It's not, you know, and there are a number of success stories, Lawson's Liquids, you know, that over in, well, they in Watesfield, Warren, you know, they went from basically three people to what they have now in part because they got a VEGGI grant, could build a whole new building, included the restaurant and the distribution network, all that stuff, and now they, I don't remember how many, they hire, but so there are some success stories to it, but again, that there are also some other stories where companies said, there was one in particular that said, well, we want to move to Vermont, and but we can't do it unless you give us money, so gave them money, and then they went on TV for an interview and said, no, we're planning on coming to Vermont anyway, and no one ever bothered to ask them for the money back. This was before my time, but, and so that's all a little bit, right now, Rhino Foods is asking for a bunch of money, because if you know who Rhino Foods are, they're the people who make the cookies in your Ben and Jerry's cookie dough ice cream, and so you know, there, and part of the problem that my committee has with this process is, because it's a quasi-governmental body, there's some question, the way the, their organizational documents are set out, that Dave wants to, you know, expand his electric business to, you know, so he can employ 500 people, and he comes to this board, he fills out all the paperwork, he comes to the board, and they all go into a little room together, and they chat in private, they all go into executive session, and then they come out and they say, here Dave, here's your money. There's no accountability, there's no record, there's nothing, it's a black box, and so the auditor said, there has to be somebody that's, from the auditor's office, somebody who's there, they're probably not doing anything wrong, but we don't know, and so they are scheduled to sunset that process at the end of this year, governor's office is pushing so hard to not have that happen, and so what my committee initially did was, we said, okay, well, we'll let you go for one more year, but we're putting together a, we actually, there needs to be a whole set of accounting, there needs to be, you have to allow the auditor's office in to look at what you're doing, we need to actually know what's going on, and then we'll make a decision in a year, and a interesting twist was, so when we spoke to him, we said, you really need to, I mean, open, you need to follow open meeting laws, and you need to tell people when you're going into all that stuff, and they said, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we, yeah, of course, of course we will, and we knew they didn't really have history at it, and then last Tuesday, I think it was, they had a meeting, and they went to executive session and no one knew they were going into, there was no open, they followed none of the rules, and when their executive director was asked about it, they said, we don't have to, because we're quasi-governmental, so my committee immediately put in an amendment to their bill saying, you know, specifically saying, oh yes, you do, you have to follow the main rules, and because it's those weird little things like that, but that's another case where, at least in my committee, the Commerce Economic Development, may not on the one hand, we're trying to give out money to help businesses and things grow, but they have to have accountability, you can't just give it to somebody because they ask for it, you know, and so, but yeah, so again, to go to your point, Dave, is that there are cases where, and my committee is saying, again, that veggie program is designed to encourage companies to move to Vermont, and there are certain limitations that they have to be able to hire X number of people and all this stuff, they have promised to do all that stuff, but it's no place for them to live, so why are we giving them money for this, when that money should be going into other programs like housing and all these other things? I have three comments, none of which require a response. One, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. I agree that there's a priority in childcare, housing, climate, and guns. I think that that's all critically important. Second, last weekend, when somebody walked into that mall in Texas, something went off in my head. I'm done, I'm done being patient. Second amendment, the ruling that it applied to individuals also said that the guns could be regulated. It was very, very clear in that ruling that guns could be regulated. Personally, I see absolutely no reason why an AR-15 should be owned by any private individual. There is a reason. There are those in this country who see themselves as going to war with our military. And they want to be armed with military weapons, but this guy, my patience is gone. I think it is time for us to say no, we don't want military weaponry in the hands of civilians. Period, stop and the story. Third, climate. H-282, I think, is about geothermal. Did not make it into this year's deliberations. I hope it is on the wall for going forward. I think it is a critical piece of legislation that provides a viable alternative to fossil fuels and would hope to see that that gets a lot of support and the critical thinking that it needs. But anything you can do, either both of you, to make sure that that goes forward, please do that. This is not a comment, but just a little information. That bill is on the wall in Senate natural resources and energy and we are in the process, well now we're in the process of getting out of Montpelier, but at the end of the session, it's also deciding what we want to look at over the summer so as to be ready to work on next year. And that bill is a serious candidate. And you have two Windsor County Senators on that committee. Rebecca White is also on the committee. And it's an inviting technology. For those of geothermal, the idea is that you dig down deep enough, you get heat. And the economics may not work for individual households, although we don't know that, we haven't checked into it, but certainly a municipality, a village, more densely. And that's what this bill does, is it makes it possible for the village or a cluster of houses to become a, quote, utility so that the financing comes via utility kind of mechanisms rather than the traditional, go find millions of dollars to do something that you may get a payback on. Okay, we have to do a time check for Dick. So does anyone have anything? Any parting comments they want for Dick? I have two minutes. Any guidance? I would just like to echo this number two. I don't have a problem with guns, but obviously people don't know how to properly, you have to have a license to drive a car. There's limits. I mean, you really shouldn't have a tank in your place to protect yourself. I think something needs to be done. This is totally out of it. And spots and prayers doesn't get it in my book. Thanks. Yeah, and I know Vermont, because we're small, sometimes needs to take a lead on some of this stuff. And I know you're way ahead of the rest of the country. Well, not so much anymore. Well, we were. And I know we get kind of poo-pooed around here, but somebody needs to go out there and say something. And I'm fine if you want to have a loaded gun in your dresser. You don't need an A.S., whatever. You don't need that. And if you really need one, you need to have to go through some sort of rig... But my problem with this whole conversation is that I've had conversations personally with other folks that are anti-gun. And, well, given the AR-15, that's just a start. Oh, stop it. Listen to me. Listen to what I said. I didn't say that's what I believe. I said that's what I'm talking about. That's what the NRA wants you to believe, just like they want you to believe you need a gun to protect yourself. I do have to run. Thank you. Listen, I don't know if this is the last one of these for the year. You figure it is? Okay. Well, this session. Yeah, this session. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for talking like that. Thank you for hearing me out. See you up beyond there. Do you have questions? Do you want me to talk about what we've been working on? Do you have questions? You've been taking some notes. No, I just think you want to add that. Okay. Probably the big thing that my committee's been working on is we received from the AG committee the farm equipment right to repair bill. And because we got testimony from a number of farmers, especially large farmers, but also smaller farmers, that back in the day, you got your tractor, and if it broke, you could weld something together or whatever you could put it together, and you could make it work. And a number of farmers have been finding now is, of course, they're spending $300,000 to $1 million on a big piece of equipment. And sometimes they can even get the parts and put them in themselves, but there's a reset button that has to be pushed by the company. And that's going to cost you. And so they have to basically come out, plug their computer in, and push a, yep, it's okay. And they may have only one service person in the state. And so I don't care that your crops need to be harvested now. I can see you in 10 days. And so that's a problem if you're a farmer. And then there are other cases where they just can't get the parts they need. And because what we've seen is the large equipment companies have been consolidated, right? John Deere, now everything. You have to get through United Ag and turf. And so there are pieces in equipment and diagnostic tools and all that stuff that you can't get. And you can't even take it to your local farm equipment fixer, but a small business, because they can't get that equipment either. And a large part of it is the computer-programmed parts. Because everything has smart chips in it now, right? And so we spent a lot of time taking testimony from the farmers who are just, it's untenable for them. They just can't make it work. And we also spent time listening to the other side, which was, I mean, the industry is under some pressure because there are other states that are already trying to regulate them. And so John Deere had put out a memorandum of understanding with the farmers in their state basically saying, we can do this a little bit, but we can repeal this with a 30-day notice. And so what we have is there's California, interesting, all the C states, California, Connecticut, and Colorado have been working on major right-to-repair bills for farm equipment, and Vermont is joining them. So we listened to the industry. They, of course, didn't want anybody to regulate anything. But then we had to talk to the dealers because that's where you get your parts from. And they were really afraid that if you were, that they would get shut out, because there was some discussion in the bill that you could just order your parts direct from John Deere. And you could order your own diagnosis except from John Deere, you could do all that stuff. So then the dealers, especially the part dealers, they're out of the loop, and they have franchise agreements. So my committee actually, we had a whole class on franchise law, that was exciting. And so what we came up with was basically sort of what it is with your car, which is that there are, you know, that you can go to the authorized, go to your authorized Ford dealer to get the parts to put on your car, and they will sell you the parts. They get to make a little profit on it like they always do. You know, they have some to you for cost. And then you can put them in and basically make it work. Part of their question was around, they were worried about a couple of things. One is this notion that people were going to get their proprietary computer programs. They also actually, we eventually found out, they actually sort of already sell that to some people anyway, so they could put controls on that. The other argument was that fear that emissions, this was the big argument they eventually resorted to, which was that the emissions, if you tweaked, if you gave people the ability to tweak with the emissions, then they would. And so they might get more power out of their equipment because it's no longer being as clean. And so there was a bit of discussion around that and what we ended up doing was putting in our bill a reiteration of, because it's already federal law that you can't fiddle with the emissions of your vehicles, of your car. Some of their people are actually, it's interesting, I think it was the diesel industry. Lobbyists, he said people should be arresting the folks that do the rolling coal stuff because in order to, you know what that is, where they alter their vehicles to make it, so it throws out as much black smoke as possible, that's actually against the law because it's a federal crime to mess with your emissions system. So none of this was about accountability. It wasn't like you screwing your machine and then it doesn't work properly and someone gets hurt or something. It's not about who's responsible for that. I mean, they didn't get into that too deeply actually. There was a little bit around that, but the idea is that... That's on the headlines now. So ultimately what we ended up doing was putting in the bill basically saying, just to remind you, you can't mess with your emissions. You can use this equipment, you can have access to the diagnostic tools, you can have access to the repair tools and you have permission if you need to to deactivate or remove an emission piece while you are fixing the thing, but you have to put it back on and that people can buy this stuff through the dealers. We gave... Ultimately, and this is where I think sometimes legislation works exceedingly well and I think this is a large part due to the skill of the chair of my committee, he basically kept getting the two sides in there. He'd get the farmers in and he would say, oh yeah, you're making a lot of good points there. And the industry is saying, oh no, he's leaning their way. Then the industry would come in and he'd be like, oh no, you're making some really good points out of here and the farmers would get kind of nervous. And then the dealers, oh yeah, you're making good points here. And eventually they all got scared, they all got in a room together that they could all live with. And so that's the bill that we have. And so I feel like that's actually the way legislation should work. So Kirk, I think maybe Dick mentioned two bills that the governor had vetoed that are going to be suggested overridden this week. Is there other stuff that he's vetoed that you folks are going to focus on? He hasn't vetoed anything else. Just those two so far. Yeah, so as far as I know, that's... So he's going to be in a bad mood if he vetoed two bills and he's going to override both. Yeah, and I think the House has enough votes to override, but I think we're less certain than the Senate is. And so I suspect we're called in today, this afternoon in the House. We don't use it to work on Mondays, but we're called in. And I have a feeling that I don't... I don't think we can vote on the override today because everything has to sit for... You have to have a notice the day before, you have to have one day. So I suspect part of the goal is that we're coming in today so that it'll be on the agenda for tomorrow. I don't know if the agenda for today is. I got an email saying we had to come and I suspect sometime in the next couple of hours we'll get an email saying what we're doing today, but I don't know. So if the Affordable Beating Act gets vetoed and gets overridden, I thought Dick had mentioned something the last time that there was going to be like a two-year study on that. So it won't be implemented like on July 1. No, so... And I actually... Because people often have questions about the bill. And so I actually even brought the... So in the bill it says, a clean heat standard shall be designed and implemented to enhance social equity by prioritizing customers with low income, moderate income. Those households with the highest energy burdens, residents of manufactured homes, luxury trailers, and renter households with tenant-paid energy bills. The design shall ensure all customers have an equitable opportunity to participate in and benefit from clean heat measures regardless of heating fuel used, income level, geographic location, residential building type, or home ownership status. So that's the aspiration. So that's the goal, whether it's all attainable, that's the question. And so the... As S5 currently rests, is basically it tells the Public Utilities Commission come up with a plan on how to make that true. And so you have to... So they're going to come up with models and gather the data and say, okay, we can do it this way. We're going to run diagnostics and stuff and see is that going to actually save money? Is it going to lose money? How's that? Oops, we need to change it, work on it. They have two years to come up with that plan. When you hear the Governor say, well, they're going to be already working on this thing instantly, it's not really going to wait for two years. What they're working on is the prototypes to see whether or not they can make it work. That's what they're working on, or would be. And so then at two years, there's the tech back where they come back in, they come to the Senate, to the legislature, and they say, this is what we came up with. This is the data we found. Do we move forward? At which point, it has to pass through both the House and the Senate and be sent to the Governor. It goes through that process again. And then there's, if I remember right there, even then there's a three-year period where they can stop it at any time if it seems like, oh, we have an unintended consequence. So all those kind of safety pieces are built in. So all the stuff about if it passes in July 1st, your fuel oil is going up $0.70 a gallon or whatever is not true. Now the amount of misinformation that has been disseminated by people with a lot of money in order to disseminate that stuff has been astounding. And so like Dick apologized for not always getting back to everybody's emails. But when you get 150 emails on that bill in one day, you don't always get back to them all. By the way, if I see a name I recognize, if I see Davey's name, I'll pick that out. But half the time, actually I'd say 80% of the time, they're not from people in my district. And at one time I got a bunch of emails and they were like David Smith from 327 Sycamore Road, Bethel, Vermont. And I'm like, I don't think we have a Sycamore Road. And actually I went and got the town maps and stuff and I looked like that's a fake address. So we get a bunch of that stuff too. So we have to sort through all that stuff. So sometimes if Dave uses a suit and then he uses, some other email address, I don't recognize it. I might not get back to you right away because I don't know who you are. Thank you for qualifying that. Yeah, that's what people are asking. Fiscal year, July 1st. But I knew that Dick had mentioned, no, there's going to be a two-year study and then the three-year deal. So that makes it easier for people to swallow that if the veto gets overridden, it's not going to start this year. Yeah, what will start if it gets overridden would be then the Public Utilities Commission would start to work on their models. Does this veto, if it holds, it tells the BUC to don't look at it? Is that what the veto means? If the veto is sustained. Yeah, that's what he's telling. Then nothing happens. Absolutely nothing happens. And, you know, it's, I'm still, I'm not a baby legislator anymore, but I'm still pretty young. And it's always a strategy if you don't like something is to say, well, we need to talk about this more and let's get back to it later. You know, I think last month I said, you know, when you talk to your, little and you went to your parents and you said, hey, can I borrow the car? And dad would be like, you know, you got three answers, yes, no, or we'll talk about it later. And we'll talk about it later, always means no. Right? And so it's a big legislative technique as we'll talk about it later. Talking about talking about it later, you said that one of the topics that has been discussed this year but not moved on is childcare. What else falls in that case? Well, I mean, and don't take it as it hasn't been moved on. There's absolutely a bill that has been worked on. It's that, you know, again, I think one of the things I learned when I went to a legislative conference over town meeting break and we're all talking about what it's like to be a legislator and I was telling what it's like to be a legislator in Vermont where we have a bill and we invite all the people that love it and all the people that hate it and all the other experts, the financial experts and the actual areas and everybody and we gather all this information and it's a very deliberative process. It takes forever because we try to look at all those little pieces and kind of figure out how we're going to make it work and sometimes you think you've got it all worked out and then someone comes in and says, oh, by the way, you know, did you think about this? And we go, oh, we didn't think about that. So we have to, you know, how do we make that work? So bills take a long time. As I learned, there was a lot of other states were telling me, wow, that doesn't, you know, our committee meets for like two hours. The chair walks in and says, these are the bills we're passing today and that's just it. And so in Vermont it's a really intense, you know, process so especially when you have a bill that's as complicated as answering this question about childcare or, you know, those kind of larger issues, sometimes it just takes a long time to work on it. And so it's not like it's not being worked on, it's absolutely being worked on. It's that they have hit enough big questions and pieces where they say, oh, we're going to need a lot more research, oh, we need to talk this whole another set of people and we don't have enough time. So it'll be back. I really appreciate your discussion about how the Agriculture Repair Bill worked. S5 did not work that way, the heat bill. It was written by the industry, we know that. It was forwarded in the climate plan even though the climate council really had not looked at it. The debate at least in natural resources was twice as much time given to the industry and the retailers than to those who had climate concerns. I'm not saying I'm again it. I'm not saying I'm for it. I am opposed to using biofuels. And the lack of any mention of biomass for me a critical oversight, two years to study by the Public Utilities Commission who has not shown much of an interest in genuine climate stuff. It says to me it wouldn't hurt if it was vetoed. And I wouldn't feel all that bad about it being vetoed. And I could live with it not being vetoed because that means that the folk who have a different opinion have two years to do the education around these issues that we were not given an honest hearing. I do hear that. A couple of things. All bills start somewhere. And sometimes it's a legislator sort of decides to figure it out. And lots of times it is somebody comes in and says, I've got an opinion and here's the draft of it. And certainly there are lobbying companies out there that they walk in with the bill already in language and the committee has to decide. My committee frequently gets, you know, because we're economic development business and we often get things where somebody comes in and says, yes, I've identified this issue. And this issue is this system isn't working for me to make more money. And sometimes we're like, oh, you're right, that's horrible when you fix that. And sometimes you're like, oh, you're looking for an unfair advantage. And so, yeah, no, we're not going to do that bill like you want it. And so that does happen. And so a couple pieces to that is every piece of legislation can be amended. You know, no bill is ever so codified in our house that if, again, right, if in that two-year process they say, oh, we forgot about, you know, geothermal, those things can be added back in. So it's never, oops, you know, we didn't put it in, so it's never been there. And also, again, I think just like with the right to repair bill, I think that if everyone isn't a little bit happy with it and a little bit unhappy with it, then you probably have leaned too far one side or the other, you know, that absolutely I have heard, you know, on the one hand people saying there should be no, right, you know, I should have the right to do as darn much as I want, you know. And then on the other side people saying, you know, so that bill, you know, that bill goes too far. And then on the other side you say, well, that bill allows people to heat with biofuels and that's not okay. And so therefore I don't like that bill either. And so I feel like in the middle is a good place to start and you can see if you're not really quite in the middle, you're actually leaning this way or that that's why I'm saying that whether it is, the veto is sustained or not. You don't care because you're a little bit ambivalent. And we're not, I'm not focused on that particular bill. I am focused on a piece in it that I think needs much more attention. Here's what I'd stand to comment. I support the bill because that mission statement that you read at the beginning becomes law. That's right. That becomes law. Therefore, you always have something now to come back to and saying, this is law and it's, we are not accomplishing this or we can accomplish this better. Without that law, you have gone nowhere. Yeah. It gives you the... And that becomes law. It becomes a lie first. Whatever it's passed. So from that point on, you now have that mission statement that is officially law. That's why I brought it to read it. That's what's important. With all its imperfections, that's the focus. That's what I see. And it's amazing to me that this is just a general philosophical comment, but I thought about this. How many of us have ever done anything perfectly in our families, planning anything, or in our lives that we haven't gone back to and said, I wish I'd done that better. And yet somehow we expect, when we do something collectively in government, that we expect that thing to come out perfectly. We always have to come back and fix whatever it is we started with and make it better. Right. And that's why it's a... Any of these laws you make, they often get tweaked. All of them are doing this. What we'll be thinking. But that's how you move forward. Any other questions or anything? I'd just like to say this is the last one. I'd like to thank the library for doing this. I talked to a friend who was outside of Windsor County and your district. He said, well, I wish they had an opportunity to do that in my home. And I realized the senators have the largest county in the place and having them make time, I guess we're lucky to have Dick here, but I think this is important. Yeah. And thank you and thank your colleagues if you happen to see them in the lunch line. We'll be rushing past each other and all. So this week, I mean, just to give you an eye, so what happens in the legislature here at the end is there's a whole lot of, you know, hurry up and wait. Because the House is working on tweaking Senate bills and Senate's tweaking on House bills. And of course, if the House sent them a bill and they tweak it, then they have to send it back and we have to approve their tweak or not. And so at this very end, you know, there's a time where you're like, we're just sitting here waiting in our committee. We're just sitting here waiting until the Senate tells us what they're going to do with that bill. And then suddenly you get the bills here. And you know, you have to vote on this within the next, you know, 10 minutes. And so everybody rushes and you sit down. They go through the bill and how they've changed and you decide whether or not you're going to support it or not going to support it. There's a lot of rushing and then waiting and you don't. And what that means also is you don't know, like tonight, I think in theory, the estimate is we'll be done at 4.30. But it could be 9.30. You never know. It all depends if somebody had, you know, how long the Senate, you know, tweaks what they'll tweak in. And so it gets to be a, it's both exciting and boring at the same time. So thank you for serving. One thing that I've noticed, I used to take my granddaughter up to the legislature and just take her for lunch. We'd watch a little lunch together. But how easy it is to talk to your representatives and stuff. And it seems to me more seems to get done in the lunch area than it does in actual. Absolutely. And you can see, you can see lobbyists kind of over here and over there. And it's something you ought to do someday. You just go up there and have lunch. Yeah. And just, you know, you sit there with Dick or somebody or actually Allison was, she'd seek me out. She actually came up in the balcony one day. But, and, you know, she had, so we had lunch together and she said, well, who's that? Well, that's a lobbyist for this. And he's talking to them. And it was the dynamics of that whole thing was just amazing to me. You can see the lobbyists in kind of, there's a hallway between two sides of the dining room and they're looking for a particular person. And they're just sitting there like bread and a pound. Working together, we need to work on this one. It's an amazing dynamic that you can actually see. And if you actually wanted to talk to the governor, you can do that. Oh yeah. You don't need to do it in office hours. You can walk into the governor's office every Friday morning. It's staggering when you think New York is next to us, how many people in the state of New York do you think get FaceTime for the governor? Like Harley, anybody, right? In Vermont, anybody can walk into the governor's office. I lived in Montpelier before. I lived in Bethel 40 years ago. You would run into Madeline Cune and out for lunch every day. You would run into Dick Snow and you would run into the governor all the time. It's just, I just always find that amazing to me. Having grown up in Massachusetts, having met the governor. You know, it's just so interesting. It's an amazing access here. And I appreciate what you said about the legislature. I've been in there myself, lobbying, actually, for marriage quality years ago. And how quickly you have to learn the landscape and who's who and how you have to make, try to be effective in that role, yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. Everybody should go up there. It's fun. Yeah, yeah. And if you ever do, I mean, just let me know in your comment if it's during the session. Because I'm happy to meet you and show you around. Yeah. I worked in Maine for six years and from 1992 to 98, I worked in the Maine state legislature in the Senate as a page in the courier. And people, I never knew how much work is involved because people are like, oh, I'm going to get there. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. And then like three days later, they'd say, I haven't been able to find my committee room yet. They're going to change the world, but they can't find their committee room. So much to it. And yeah, those that last week, you know, amendment upon amendment, we're running, making copies. Next thing you know, we're having dinner and then it's 10 o'clock. I mean, there was a couple of sessions the second year where we didn't get out of session until like 2, 2.30 in the morning. Yeah. You know. And then the senators asked if they could have permission to take their soup coats off because it's like, it's too long of a day. It's too hot. And there's just so much involved with it. It's just incredible. It's a lot. Yeah. It's a lot. A lot of people don't. I think they just think you've elected your legislator. They go up there. They have a few beers. They say, hey, I have this bad idea. Let's do that. Right. You know. And that's how it works, but it's not how it works. And Angus King was governor for part of the time I was up there. And yeah, we would see him walk in the hallways a lot. Yeah. One thing I do like about Maine though is the governor's position is for four years, which really makes a lot of sense. That way they've got four years to group. And if the legislators have two, you're not campaigning a year after you start. Yeah. And then they have a two-term limit. Oh, yeah. So four years, two terms, you're done. Yeah. But a lot more I feel got accomplished because you had a governor that wasn't starting all over from scratch with stuff that was being carried over again. Yeah. Different systems, pros and cons to all of them, I think. Yeah. So it seems like we're out of, I mean, I could certainly keep talking about stuff that you've been working on, but I don't know if you care or if you don't care. I also really appreciate this because I think this is pretty rare. It's pretty rare that a bunch of people can sit around hearing each other and depending regardless of where you are in the political spectrum, anybody is welcome here. Yeah. Very few places, fortunately. Yeah. And it's an honor, I think. I mean, it's definitely an honor to serve a constituency. And you have to learn to listen. You have to learn to be able to hear someone who absolutely disagrees 100%. With what you think. And to get back to them, you know, and still, you know, everyone's like, I'll get a call or something like that. And I know, you know, the guy, usually it's a guy who left the message. I mean, it was mostly a bunch of shouting and he says, call me back. You know, and you're like, okay, I'm going to call him back. You know, you sort of brace yourself. And usually, I mean, usually they just have, they're upset. They have some questions. They answer the questions. They go, oh, thanks. And that's how it goes, you know. And people just want to know what's going on. That's why this is so valuable. People just want to know. Just clarifying things. There's so much disinformation, wrong information that's out there pushed by one side or the other. And how do you sort that out in your own mind? Yeah. It's funny, this last week I got a call from someone in Pittsfield. I don't represent them anymore. But I got a call from a guy in Pittsfield. And he said, I don't know who to call, so I'm calling you. And that was fine. I called him back. And he was really angry. And I saw actually this thing in the Herald. Someone else wrote something too. About that they're redoing this stretch of road. I don't need to go on that one. And you want to know what. And so I just actually, B-Trans has, if you don't know this, they have a page. It's called Transparency. And it lists all the projects that they're working on, the projects that they're going to be working on, and how much was budgeted, what the time frame is, and why they're doing it. And so I just looked it up and said, well, it's a preventative road maintenance. I said, my understanding is that after Tropical Storm Irene, they put that in, now let's keep it nice rather than let it turn into nothing. And so that's rational behind it. And he was just like, oh, okay. Yeah, I think it is. I've heard a lot of complaining about it and that sort of stuff, but it makes sense. There's weight instead of trying to fix it once there's a bunch of potholes and whatever, you got to dig up the whole road if you do a regular maintenance on these things and then you aren't shutting the road down for weeks on end. It makes a whole lot of sense. And I'm amazing how quickly they're going all the way to 107, I think. I mean, none yet, right? Yeah, 10 months. It's always cheaper to maintain things than to wait till it breaks. Yeah. That's true. It's kind of level two. They're recycling the car and the whole nine cars. I think it's a lot smarter than a lot of things they do. Yeah, I get those calls. They just want to yell at me about the roads. That's fine, but it's better for two. On a completely different subject. How we vote and how we tell. There have been conversations about rank choice. There have also been some things in front page forum recently about plurality, which is a different measure. You go in and you vote for as many candidates as you want. This is not ranked. At the end of the day, the person with the most votes wins. So we count exactly the same way. We don't have any fancy, whatever. It enables you to vote for the progressive or the Democrat. You vote for both of them. The person that gets the most votes wins. Period. It's just a different way of thinking about how we do it. It's much simpler. Instead of vote for one candidate, you say vote for the candidates of your choice. And go from there. It's something to think about, at least to put on legislators. I know there was a bill for ranked choice. I don't know if any of the plurality stuff got into it. And that would have gone to government operations. I don't know where it went. But I know there are those conversations going on. I just want to call to attention. Well, to everybody. There is another way of doing, I'll call it ranked choice, but you don't have to rank. This is my first, my second, my third. You just vote for the people you believe you could support. And the person with the most votes wins. We count the same. We vote the same. The ballots look the same. You change one word. And everybody's opinion is fully uncovered. All right, anyway. I do have to go. It's almost nine. I know your clock is ten minutes fast. I just talked to them about that. They were happy with it. They liked it that way. Thank you. Thank you very much. We really appreciate you doing this every month for us. It's been wonderful. Thank you. Is there a way to make these things a little easier for you guys? To attend these? Yes. I think it's about different times of day, if it would be better if it wasn't early, if it was later in the day or something. I think we settled back here, but we can change all that. I mean, I have no idea what Dick Allison and Becca, what they would say to that. But I mean, this works fine for me, because... Well, but you don't do that in a hell of a way. We have Monday... I guess most of them are pretty close to that. I'm very excited to lose a county. We are... During the legislative session, generally we have Mondays all. So why that? That's why this is the day. And I'd rather have it early so that I can go mow the lawn or whatever. Probably not January. But have it earlier rather than later, because it just starts the day out. Well, like today, you've got other things to do. Yeah, I mean, I'm here, and then I have my day job until 12, and then I drive up Montpelier and stay there until they tell me I can go home. When does the new session start? When's the new session start? It's basically the first Tuesday in January. So yeah, that's when... Now, there will be... There are always study committees and special committees that are working on stuff over the summer. They try to limit those quite a lot because people get a degree in pay, and so they have a budget, so they can't go over that budget, so they try to limit. But I'm guessing there probably will be a... The Child Care Committee will probably continue to meet once a month or something like that until January. I think my committee is also going to be... We've been working on a data privacy bill, and data privacy is super complicated, in part because it interfaces with the federal inter-state commerce laws and a whole bunch of other pieces. So we're working on a data privacy bill that will probably... We've put a bunch of work into it this session and we've realized we just don't have enough time to get it across. So we'll probably start getting together again in December before the session starts so we can hear what kind of activity went on outside the session with these different studies on where our senators and rep bar, what their mindset is going into the session, what their focuses are, that kind of stuff. We did that this year, and we'll probably do that again in December. Yep. But yeah, so that's... We don't teach civics in school anymore, and almost every session, Dick puts in a bill to require it, and this year I signed on to a bill to require it, and I don't know what the block is, why that never advances because they should. I don't... We all grew up with it. I mean, why do people not have that? I don't understand that. I mean, there's not enough hours in a day to teach civics. I think, yeah, I think... I think the answer is that the agency education says we have all these other things you have to learn, and we don't have room for it in the curriculum. But to me, that seems like that would be one of the most fundamental things if you're going to be a citizen in the country, you need to understand how the machine works. So I don't see why they don't. But you have to take U.S. history, right? I don't know what the requirements are. I thought when I was in school, you had to take U.S. history. It could be part of, you know, a little piece of that component. There's a whole lot of others. It could even be... It doesn't have to be mandatory, but just have it available. I don't know why, but I definitely support that we have that. Well, I want to complain about things. I also think you ought to have something about money. We teach kids how to spend money. We don't teach them how to save money. We don't explain to them about how the stock market works or how buying a house works or buying a $50,000 truck for seven years. And basically, you're stuck where you are for seven years. You got high school and got the seven-year mortgage on a truck, and you can't... Yeah. I mean... I'm done. Some of that goes to parents, too, though. I've got to say thank you. I don't come with a lot to say, but I enjoy hearing what you guys are doing. I also got to say thank you to three selectmen. I can't say selectmen. Select board members who come and listen to them form our town, too. Denise and Jean, you're still here. State's gone, but it's good to have them here, too. I think... I mean, I may be biased, but I think that was pretty awesome. Because we have such an engaged system. Go to a select board meeting and say what's on our mind. If only people would go and say what's on your mind. We would love to have you. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, sir.