 Noting that we'd be there a little bit after we'll still try to finish on time Thinking this largely is taking care of a little bit of business at the start But then we'll kind of jumped into a working session on the draft report It'd be my hope and that possibly you've been making kind of group edits on the screen as we will I'm also proposing that we kind of discuss how to rule today. So so we're all clear on the page Just next up would be when I offers a committee review of the agenda. I given that I as chair Put put together some offerings for an agenda gave some thought to how this might work Ask Deb to send it around but I want you know to make sure everybody's good with it Do you understand it first and anyway? Have any additions or changes to the proposed agenda for the day? Include the member update thing in here. So, you know, we will cover that You know the general idea is the nuts and bolts the review of Minutes the member updates and then kind of discussing how to how to go about our next steps today And whatever might come next in completing our deliverable And a few thoughts to Jumpstart that but welcome other Input on that and then you know the bulk of the meeting being kind of a working session I'm reviewing discussing a discussion of the draft Thought made it sense to offer public comment before we made any wrap up with a say a possible vote or a decision about how to move next That's an end kind of a clarification confirmation of those next steps So that's what I put forward. Is it sound good to everybody as our agenda for the day? Okay, hearing no other comments. We'll assume that Thanks to Ellen we have excellent minutes draft minutes from our 1015 meeting and I would ask If there's a for a motion to approve Yes, so is there a second second to move the minutes for a second. Thanks, John. I move by Robert today seconded by Representative Bartholomew any discussion? Yes, Steve. It's a question on the second page There's a sentence senator already stated that she has heard from constituents concerns about the makeup of the group Wonder if she could flush that out For the purpose of this it's right at the top of the first paragraph of page two. Oh, I just I'm not sure exactly how I've ordered it, but just that concerns that the the group may individual members of the group may have their own Agendas or whatever for I think that's pretty common when When there's a group people are like why is that person on the group or whatever I think that's what I meant specific And I I wish I would like to slow your commenting on it I think that's fair and if this is I remember this is a fair statement of what was said and why you know, so I think it stands And I take this opportunity to say where it says chairs writers stated that he did not want to be the chair of this group That was in just to make it in response to hearing Questioning the makeup and I said well for my part. I didn't even ask for this So not knowing I guess I'll let it stand because I actually said it and I meant it in that context Any other comment discussion for proving to me actually I'm gonna do it So I wonder when it talks about my comment about the rules Accounting rules. Yeah, you know, I think You Robert had talked about The two groups that created those rules could could we include those two groups in these minutes which One was from I believe the IPCC Failed to write down Number About the question that I asked about the carbon accounting rules Mr. Turner stated that there are and they depend on which market either complains or voluntary In which registry the project is part of and I remember I thought you had told me Which two groups had created those rules? Well, so this gets into the weeds a little bit, and I don't know that it's appropriate for the minutes, but I think compliance and voluntary are really the two groups and You know it started in the voluntary market the compliance market really picked up a lot of the rules from the voluntary market and And since then these various registries have developed many of their own rules So it's not an easy question to answer really except that there are compliance rules and voluntary rules and a mishmash of everything I mean, they're basically consistent, but they're but they're little bits and differences each The point I think to answer your question was really that there are rules and the IPCC Sort of set the stage by saying at least in general terms. This needs to be transparent and there needs to be Process and then the specifics are developed by these various agencies down the line So, you know, I don't know really how to answer your question except to say it You know, there are a variety of bodies that Maybe maybe I had maybe I'd said that there was the region and that there was the California and there was the ANSI and both govern In the report when we go over the content of the report, it's that there's a paragraph that on page five that lists the registries I don't know whose section this was any more can solve that mishmash But that there are several globally recognized registries and standards of which most relevant for US Forest products or the American Carbon Registry or the ACR Climate Action Reserve or the CAR the American Carbon Registry ACR That's in there twice. I didn't catch that and the verified carbon standard Or So those were the ones that I believe Robert said in there in the report and we can sort of If you want we could make that up. No, that get it done for you Yeah, yeah, I just further discussion on the minutes to silly and welcome You're not that late. We delayed the start because several folks, you know, I had some difficulty traveling So thanks for being here. We're just barely through the into we agreed that the agenda looked fine And we're into the approving the minutes and we're in the discussion phase Yep, any other discussion on the minutes hearing none all those in favor say aye. Hi opposed Minutes carry. Thank you Thanks again Ellen for taking care of those Round table of member updates, I'll pass and Offer open the table to any members who would like to make an update Jim. Yeah, so I'm going to update people in the status of our burnt mountain project because we did So it's one letter they know that after we did our full carbon inventory this summer and look that over they made the determination through blue source who was developing the project for us that There was not enough carbon at Burt mountain to make a financially feasible project for the California compliance market Because we're still probably at least I will admit in the learning mode. That means Be above business as usual so the regional Yeah, so the delta between businesses you the regional average stocking and the stocking Wasn't enough wasn't enough To cover all the costs of developing the project and go forward So therefore but because the forest is well stocked We were able to shift that project Voluntary market and I could spend a lot of time on what we had to do to do that But it was a very quick turnaround. So the project is still going forward. It's just a voluntary project now Which will change the way that the baseline is calculated. It's a project baseline now a regional baseline and that The pay the credit sales will occur over 10 years and we will have a 40-year commitment at Burt mountain to do that. So that Which protocol are you going ACR? Yeah, yeah, and I Think that is if you want to know more that I what we figured was happening was that the initial Analysis was done based on the timber inventory that was done for them when we were praising the property When they did the carbon inventory it turned out our trees were not as tall as they were projecting so Still beautiful trees just not as Tall as we wanted to be and so that was probably the biggest difference in the delta. There were also some issues with growth rates and Some regeneration issues based on soils. So it's sort of a combination of factors But largely what the best we can figure is that we have short trees at burnt mountain That's making a difference. However, they're still a very viable Voluntary project that we move forward with that. We're starting to market two companies on that so For transparency, I wanted to share that with the group because we have them sharing that as a compliance project Reaching out to the rest in the public and sharing that information Any further questions for Jim one the update Steve Kim, what's the elevation range for that project? 3,000 feet Other member updates anybody have anything they'd like to share But it's been too busy Okay Then let's move to the next item a discussion of our process and next steps to completion I think we've had several meetings to kind of learn and along the way we've Kept an eye on the charges For us and kind of thought about how to how to cope out them with the information. We're learning about And kind of inching our way towards the outline that then got sort of fleshed out Thanks to Ruth senator Hardy offering to be the kind of lead editor and compiler for matter We have now a draft in her words. That's still rough pretty rough Well, we'll get to that. Yeah, and so, you know, I'd we have I just try to set the stage here We have a limit on the number of meetings physical meetings We could have for which but it's only in the in the financial context We're limited because we can only have five minutes meetings for which we pay That travel per diem etc for members who get So that means this is our last meeting where we would travel But we did look into it in our our council indicates that we could Continue as needed with a remote meeting Where folks who would otherwise be compensated for travel? Would if they're willing be able to participate by phone so long as there was somebody who? I would volunteer to be that person who hosted a physical site meeting where the public could any members and the public could come So we could have a teleconference We could do it by Skype FaceTime whatever video and do have another meeting if we're going to have a virtual meeting if we need it And I'm guessing we probably do but we have a few hours here largely dedicated towards trying to at least to some clarity about what should be in the document and And as far as we can in agreeing on what is in the you know the document itself Knowing that we could if we can't get over the line We could have another to wrap it up maybe to do final discussion and vote if you will So I just wanted to put that out first that we we have that little safety net as I would see it as a little extra time Frankly that the charge is to deliver by January 15 I think we're feeling pressed because we want to be done for the holidays and to meet Potential drafting deadlines, but I think it's only fair to acknowledge that the law says we have till January 15 We're just limited by the reimbursements, and I want to honor that So if we need to get more we can get more That's our understanding of the open meeting laws and how they would apply So sure To the group I think we would be Allowed I don't know I kind of like to get confirmation of that. I don't think it's intended to limit our work It's tended to limit the fiscal implications And I think work is more important, but I I don't get paid for it I get paid otherwise right so I want to be respectful of others and I would say I'm open to it If you are and if so I would if you came to that I would ask to get kind of an official Okay So with that You know I would offer that I maybe we could start I'll just throw this out as a just to get a start To agree on how we should spend the make productive use of the time here given what we're trying to get done That perhaps we can hear from Senator Hardy on just process what she's done Orient us to read level set us all on the document the latest version And we could kind of go through and make sure we understand how it relates to the charges and who's got ownership or at least original authorship that kind of thing sort of an introduction from Senator Hardy and then you know, I'm hoping that we could have a Working session. I'm hoping that that's what's next is you know group editing on the screen where we go through and is that gonna work I'd ask that right now. Can we do that? Can we at least try that? Well change out of the right there in line, too It could be difficult maybe we could agree to have like more of the high level of like what are the pieces and The maybe save the word smithing for the next hour when we're all done, right or later I'd offer that so I kind of just confirm with you all that you're agreeable to having kind of a group editing working session after introduction Yes And that maybe we could discuss how to do that or just organically go do it and try to play nice in the sandbox and we'll get through it Any comments so far right just a real quick question For for us here, how many have had a chance to read and feel like they've digested what's in this Is everybody had a chance to do that Not so much there's a lot of new stuff Okay And maybe that should be a part of the overview Yeah, I can go on our leads us through and that others can say well This is you know and so we'll start with that kind of get oriented to it. What's new at least flag What's super new? Well, I can also explain what as I was going through the document what I? Needed in order to make what I still need to make the document I think that'd be great If you do that as part of your big overview we'll spend a fair amount of time with with senator Hardy guiding us through that Yes, Mark, sorry Would you prefer that you went through it and then any questions you know we just Mark where we want to ask And then I'm happy to have this if we can connect my computer to the screen and to do that the editing thing as long as it's not in the detail of But the big picture I'm fine with that Yeah, thank you for offering to do that. Yeah, if Deb and Brian you can help facilitate that connection while we're getting oriented That would be really great. Thank you Go ahead. Okay. Do you want me? No, I wanted to make sure we're all set So what else do we so that's how we'll start with senator Hardy kind of guiding us through what she's done the changes What's needed etc? Flagging that each of us kind of paying attention and flagging if we want to come back and discuss things We'll let her get through it It makes sense right and then we'll come back to your next pass is okay. What about this? What about that not I'm thought but you know Substantive kind of stuff and get and just work as diligently as we can to kind of come to agreement on each section of what's there As best we can maybe having to leave some things for further discussion I would suggest it's possible to keep that in mind and then get to get through it And then we can reset together here to say where do we stand and is are we able to get to kind of some a Final plan like we could regroup that and decide what's needed next when we see how far off we might be or Okay, and then at some point I think I'd like to at least consider Like what does it mean for us to agree and what are we agreeing on and what are we trying to ultimately do with like as a consensus? Is it a majority vote? And if so I would like to propose there's at least an opportunity for sort of our minority statement If that neat is needed, I just that I think that should be available if we decide we need that So I think those are the thoughts I had in terms of what we should consider for a process comments thoughts suggestions otherwise Jim I Have a question that came up somebody asked me yesterday was whether that there would be an opportunity for people to lay in Draft before it's Yes today and during public comment Okay, and that'll be it and that I mean it is a legislative working group with experts added and Some bureaucrat I suppose and and then we and that's our job Okay, but we want to hear from people, but I don't think it's required or appropriate to share a draft publicly for comment Okay, it's not it's not it's not in our charge But it is any other comments on how we're going to roll from here If not, we will move into review and discussion of working group Report draft status review questions that senator Hardy all good to go Super. Thank you again senator take it away. Thank you. Um so I My goal was to make it consistent across the sections because I think I got content from seven different people I believe With different writing styles and different understandings of what they were supposed to do So it's a little challenging and I still was getting content. I think you sent me something around five o'clock yesterday So that's why I didn't send you this until this morning. There's still a lot to do So I just want to stay upfront. This is nowhere close to a complete final draft and But it's a lot better than it was. I believe it is 31 pages long the original was 46 pages So I got it down a lot by 15 pages But but I want to be clear that I I tried really hard not to change the content It was mostly to change the style sometimes the wording to make it more clear in my head and To get rid of some redundancies although there's a lot of redundancies still in here because I think everybody with their expertise Re-explained the same things Which is fair sure and to be and to be honest It was fairly consistent like I didn't find a lot of differences in the explanations of the science or the You know the way the markets worked. So I thought that was good news like there wasn't a complete radical difference when people were explaining things As we go through this one thing that would I think would be helpful to try to edit it is I start I When I when I started an introduction section That's the very first part and I tried to edit that down to try to Demand to to define some of the terms that we were going to be using throughout the report like what what is carbon sequestration? What is a forest carbon offset those kinds of things and then as I kept reading through the report it's repeated multiple times so this introduction section probably can be Taken down even further or we can talk about what exactly we want to have an introduction section, but I Think really what would be helpful after we go through the draft is figuring out What are the major findings and to be able to enumerate the major findings? What are the major recommendations to be able to enumerate that recommendations because as I was editing I was like What are we actually recommending? What does the group actually think because a lot of times people were saying in the draft the working group found X, Y, and Z and I was like do we all feel like we found that I don't know if we felt like we we haven't really decided what we found so if that if you all could think about what you would What you think we found and what you think our recommendations should be I think that should be a thrust of what we Discuss today and then the editing of the report would come it would follow that in a lot of ways Thank you for that. It's very clear and I accept that I think that makes sense I can we just Paul I'd like to just make a comment for your benefit I mean to acknowledge your work on it to say I think Took to everyone who who sent stuff in that I think it I think that's we kind of agreed And I think it's appropriate that folks said that the working group found from my perspective say I wrote that I said I think we should accept that anyone can say that any of the members Oh, yeah, but then we get to do this you get to say well What did we and didn't we and guide us through kind of agreeing that we did or didn't I think it's okay that people did that Oh, yeah, yeah, totally fine that people did that. It's just that we want to We now have to go speak as a group That's a really important task force and should come before the wordsmithing exactly because if we start one of the Reasons I actually stopped editing was because it got to How we stated things Could be different depending on what our findings were if you if that makes sense So that'll be something for discussion is can we agree that this is what we found or therefore? This is what we'd like to recommend right like for example Is the one finding might be that the that the voluntary market is more Appropriate than the compliance market for much of Vermont forest land. That's an example And that's what you just found with your project Yeah, and it seems to be what based on what I was reading that that might be one of our findings Excellent, but maybe not so those are this sort of I'm saying I think that sounds like a good plan everybody else good with it Great continue center. Okay, and so I've started put after the introduction Section I put major findings and and recommendations as a section. I didn't fill it in you can see major findings It's totally blank You're suggesting this would be a place to at least introduce those things I mean I'm starting I'm thinking and and the other legislators at the table can correct me if I'm wrong But if we you know when we're when we're sitting down to look at one of these reports We are going to go introduction finding recommendations boom We might not read the rest of it because you've seen the stacks of paper You're kind of thinking of it as this introduction as an executive summary exactly We need to be right up front in the first few pages. What did what what did what has introduced the topic? What did we make what are our major findings? What are our recommendations? Then the rest of the report can flow through The details of why we found the things we did why we recommended the things we did for people want to get into the weeds Yeah, also provides better content for the rest of the story if you're if you're so inclined Yeah, why do we live there? Well, here's how we got there exactly the first two pages because we're gonna get a hundred of these People lots of organizations like to send us their reports and tell us that this is what we should do Anyway, so that was that's sort of my structural thing Executive summary findings recommendations then all the information and then the appendix the appendices I think I put the the actual Language of the bill or the law in the appendix the first appendix why the heck are we doing this because the law says we have to And then for example, it's not in here yet But for example Jack sent me a little case study The Middlebury College Project and I thought that could actually go into the appendix not in the body of the report And I was I was thinking of for that section of just listing projects And then if you want to speak to more of the Burnt Mountain one or whatever we put it That was in the appendix for people who really want to dig in to you know The the nerds like Robert out there who really But people who just want to know what we found would just so affectionate and respectful Absolutely So then the current status of the markets and and this is where we start getting into a lot of That's charge one. That's to charge one This is starts to get into a lot of the meat of the report, but also the repetition of the report And I took out all I made different Headings than the awkward headings that are in Bill it's in the law itself. I tried to summarize what the headings were That was one of my questions is will it be a plan to that was losing track of where the different charges were Is it important from a legislators perspective is this is for you guys? To see it as hit it charged by charge Thanks for preparing with us everyone keep going senator, okay So the question is there any reason to preserve that sort of organization by charge or is it better just to make a coherent document? I would find in them. I think it's better to make a coherent document I don't know if you guys you know Here just as we're waiting and looking at your new draft. Yeah, and I Benefitted from Robert having gone through and putting a one two or three for you know Just I think for our benefit given we thought about the charges and I am we're kind of a stickler for sure We hit the charges That I would agree that in the final report. It's not helpful and your sort of better language of it is is more appropriate But maybe it's helpful for us to keep track as we go through to understand what charges which So what I mean, so maybe in our working draft We can still at least annotate it as which charge would we're in just to make sure we cover Everything but then we don't necessarily will maybe can agree that we're not going to use those headings in the document That works for everybody Great so the current status is charge one basically so I can I'll take that in Just as a and we'll keep doing so for each as we move through this document today right now We're still listening to you describing Yeah, if you want to write down your you track of what the things you want to say, right? Okay, other than clarifications from what Yeah, and and and so as I was editing the other things That came to mind is how we want to Use citations so we have to be consistent and I started to make them consistent and then you're the editor And so I think we should defer to what you think is easiest for you to do, okay? Thank you. I think I think the easiest thing to do is to have just a hotlink if it's an online source the problem with that is that when They get printed out it's lost it's gets lost and so and Of course not here, but in the Senate we print as you know We print everything out, so I'm just concerned about My particular colleagues not being able to see the sources, so that's where I stopped I started to make everything hot links. That's how you had done it and I was like this makes more sense But then then I got concerned about our inability to link on them And and I do think there's so many other reports that have already been done and all Everybody who sent me content Reference pretty much the same sources. There are a few Variations, but that one particular is just leading to a consensus here agreement that we go with the what are you calling it? Hotlink and and and just kind of go with it and make it known to people that this is kind of an electronic document And if you want to know those sources when you're reading a hard copy You need to go to this website and you can download it and have access something like that Well, so what I was going to say is to do sort of cut the difference is to have a hotlink And have an appendix with it all listed like a bibliography you're willing to do that as editor What do you think the you're the academic side that's why I'm referring to you is that sufficient? I mean the other option is just to turn them all into footnotes which gets awkward especially if you're going in and out of Google Docs Yeah, the footnotes got all messed up, and you'll see some some I tried to get rid of a lot of footnote gobbledygook Over my mom used to use But it's still somewhat in there, but you're right. It's really hard to keep footnotes consistent Let's just real objection Please say it I would just as chair just say let's make a decision to accept your hybrid approach If you're willing to do that is the the hotlink it but dump it all into a bibliography So you kind of have to both Okay, I think we should roll with that so I guess the thing I would ask for those of you who sent me content is if you could send me the proper citations from all of your In the form that Cecilia chooses because I'm sorry you're the academic because I want to make sure that we We don't get dinged on not Siting our sources well there was just a report that came out. Yeah, that happened Yeah sources where I did appropriately so I want to make sure that so if you if you all who sent me content Can give me the citations and then I'll just have you look at the citation list to make sure it's correct in our staff You'll hip to that. Thank you or excuse me, but if Cecilia if you have a style guide I'm happy to put my citations in the appropriate format. Yeah, I mean There's a couple things There's one thing is how to write it up in a reference and then it's how to cite it in the text They kind of go together. So there's something called a PA which is often used in the environmental sciences Yeah, because it crosses social and natural sciences and In tech citations you would put the author and the year and parentheses right after you set it Yeah, and then you could hot like that even if you want and then you would put the full citation at the end And that would keep us connected. So they know that this goes with that Yeah, that would be my first recommendation I didn't do that for the most part in my section I sort of let's go with author date in France. Yeah at the in the text and then the full citation date author author date and full citation in the bibliography everybody good representative Bartholomew We're going to do this then as basically like a literature cited in the scientific papers. Yes If that's what people want, I think that makes the most sense, but then also you said it's gonna be at the end Because I was looking through the introduction reading through and there were citations and then I finally found them on page 17 I think right now they're all they're all gonna go at the end. Yeah Do it just to clean that up I didn't want to go in one direction and then have come here and put in all the work of doing all the citations And then have you all say I don't want it that way So I stopped messing with the citations and and in order to consult with all of you And specifically you wanted to make sure this is this is a sort of scientific policy paper And so wanting to make sure that we're being Respectful of both fields Okay So I'll do that so you can just ignore I'll clean up the citations after I get everything then So the current status and the introduction part Overlapped a lot. So if we are okay with making the introduction as Corey said sort of an executive summary Then I'll put some of the stuff that's in the introduction in the car in the current status section Does that make sense? I'm not sure I follow To me an executive summary is the summary so it would be to some extent duplicate And so you have I think you have an intro that just kind of says what this is and what's in it And then you get into it and you write everything and then at the sort of the end you go through and you summarize all of that So the executive summary takes a little bit from each so the exact executive summary would be the piece that you guys would really be looking at as legislators and Interested public that each may or beyond so it so I think the that's what I would propose is an actual executive summary Yeah, then a very short introduction. That's just not the charge and and how we rolled And what's in the report and then you have the report this the executive summary will Repeat some of that because that's what it is. It's a distilled summary. So executive summary intro major findings recommendation Then the bulk of the report then the appendices and literature site Okay, so The current Status has some subsections and I was I was everybody had different ways of Sectioning off their things. So I was trying to make it consistent and I didn't fully make it consistent yet but trying to have major headings be involved and then subheadings be maybe in italics or Numerated and that I also was trying with having like a major sentence that is Something that I thought would maybe be a major finding And this is where I was sort of getting to the major findings in italics. So as an example one of the things is that We found I think we found that Harvesting is consistent with Carbon In a carbon market, you can still harvest, right? That's a finding I I personally think that's an important finding because they're Is Concern out there that that's not true So that was something I italicized and then I was like, oh, is this a would this be considered a major finding? So as you discussed earlier, we'll discuss that It's actually helpful to see it italicized because then we know what to discuss, right? So that was just that's an example of something that I was like I felt like that was an important thing to call out and wanted to have a conversation about it. So Yeah, I don't want to go through this paragraph by paragraph, but just having the sort of feedback on How to organize it will help me cut this down more I'm not sure this I'll ask this because then you can tell me this isn't the time because I'm we're gonna save most of our questions For as we go through this but I would ask I would ask Could we maybe suggest that it as you say you've got the major headings Maybe have a major major heading like this is charge one. I know we're not going to use the language, but But have that be at a higher hierarchy than the sub ones They're all in the same bold and font and maybe they're the main one should be the biggest and then the others that are sub Headings for each section so that there's major sections and then they can have subsets and that those are differentiated But each of the major ones have the same level of order I mean in any sense at all so Is that the kind of thing we should wait until you're done to ask or suggest well No, that's fine. I mean the current status and carbon sequestration markets is clearly a big section so that will be Excuse me and a lot of the font that I've tried to there were also I can stick six different fonts The next large one would be the case for offset projects in Vermont, which is basically charged to as you've reworded it So everything between those two should be at a lesser order of hierarchy my view Okay, so and that that next one should have the same level First the cake the the current status one. Okay. Got it. I will I will Heading consistency The one other thing I wanted to ask you all about was some people provided me with charts and graphs and Visuals which I think is really helpful and good to have in here, but I wanted to make sure that You all like the ones that are in here are if you would like to make a call Please hang up and try again if you need help hang up and go you're up So the first what and there were a couple also there were a couple things that I felt like So when we that could use some visuals for example, so I don't know whose content this was but Explaining carbons this carbon sequestration Cycle I've seen nice visuals that explain that and I was wondering if any of you who did this a lot of this content Have one that we could put in here. That's a sort of you know That's a science graphic of the carbon cycle. Yeah, so the carbon sequestration cycle photosynthesis So that whole thing, you know, it seemed like it would be a nice Confined one. I think and I'll show it. Okay. Yeah, I think Robert thanks for offering to offer what up. I was gonna Google it, but I just thought you all would probably And So then on page the first One is on the top of page five and this is The It's not so I didn't have titles on all of these because a lot of people didn't the potential Variety of prices in the in the voluntary market I Guess what I'm asking is is what do you all think are the most important things that we have a visual with and Those that advanced the narrative Yeah, and are the ones that are in here the right ones I did take one of them out that I Someone has put one in I'd leave it to the lead the original author to explain that give them a chance to justify whatever But I would agree we need they're helpful when they're helpful and they're not they're not and we want to be consistent with how We set them up and title them and Right and explain it so if you are looking online some of the things I've highlighted in yellow were Notes to myself that I needed to go back and make sure it was consistent So if we had exhibit one if there's a bunch of editing may be exhibit one in the end becomes exhibit two But we have to make sure we go back and change the one to a two So I had like just to keep track of it for myself But so that this one on the top of five. I don't remember if this came from Because I was actually editing some somebody else wrote about prices and I'm pretty sure they got it from here And it was similar bit different anyway I just wanted to show that there's if you take the time to read it that there's the red numbers Or actually the number of transactions and the green Bars are the volume of what is sold there's a lot sold really cheap But there's in terms of volume, but there's a high number of that A ton and so it's supposed to show that You know the charismatic carbon can get that higher price And it's just it doesn't make sense almost to average in the voluntary market because there are all these different Arrangements about how you're going to be marketing yourself sort of individually with a story for burnt mountain and such So maybe it takes too much to understand that it says up in the text above that the prices range from Average prices range three to six dollars a ton But they could be anywhere from less than ten cents a ton to over seventy dollars a ton And so this chart is trying to show you that there's a lot of Transactions at the high end, but they may be small because you know burnt mountains not that big But they may be able to sell theirs for thirty dollars a ton to a Vermont Purchaser who cares about place in the story But that we and that we don't really want to be targeting this commodity where you're most of the carbon is sold for under a buck a ton Is this an international? This is I'm pretty sure it is largely. Yes. Yeah, so that would explain the bulk of low price Right, right. I think the sentence that you just make sense to average with voluntary market prices We should say in there explicitly because I didn't actually get that from reading it that I knew there was a lot of variability and it could depend on the provident providence and the story and the marketing and all that but That I think it's important to say that if you look at the average, you know That's not necessarily helpful whereas in the compliance market the average price is more helpful Yeah, it's sold more as a commodity at the price. And so this was to I'm a Visual graph person. Yeah, so this spoke volumes to me But I could also see how other people just look at like what does that mean? What is this red dot doing up here in the corner? You know, okay? It's up to other folks to decide if it's providing useful information or maybe that's something that goes into an appendix or something I don't know. I think that that's helpful Having having your explanation about it And maybe we should put that it's international and I don't know if there's better data just in the US for voluntary I couldn't find anything better. No, it's too bad ecosystem market place used to do this annually and they haven't done it since right But this is No, yeah, this is everything I Mean we could do a 2017 one. That's the most recent data before us, but this is this is 2018 for everything I thought the 2017 was also for everything Right This is just early months. I think this is 2018. It's just voluntary. Yeah, and that's the point Okay, I'm gonna put something in here But maybe So that would make that graph maybe to up to some okay if we change it and put something else in well Let's leave it for now because now I understand it better and if there's something that's more helpful We can put drop it in there, but I think Yeah Yes And then Below that the program requirements relevant to Vermont participation This I think is a section Robert. Did you Read that you wrote that because the the charge which is missing now was GPS signal lost sorry that's good to be quite Just review the availability available information that these ability of enrolling public and private forest land in Vermont And so the overall thing was to evaluate the current status Kind of give a current status and then you know what affects Vermont being able to enroll and I know everybody talks about this later on Yeah, I'm not sure but I but it says to Review available information. So that's why I reviewed those three reports and gave their summary and tried to summarize From those reports Okay And then piece of okay feasibility analysis of her Vermont, New England was also you Section yep. Yeah. Yeah, that's yeah So this was helpful. Yeah, you just you summarize these three reports and I think this is helpful in that they are each a pair I lump them as one paragraph for each one to try to make it Easier to read And also because this is the beginning was before you put in all that introductory stuff That's where I started explaining voluntary versus your clients market and Additionally, whatever because it's how they meet those criteria that changes that affects Vermont So I guess that was another question I had is whether you all felt like it was helpful to have a An appendix or some kind of key somewhere that that a definition key That's what I was getting glossary. Yeah, that was on my list I thought we should have a glossary because a lot of this stuff that's in the introduction right now Starts off super basic and it feels like it should really start more with our mission and our process and what we did and that kind of stuff And just defining harvest sequestration and forest offsets and stuff that I Was trying to get briefly there but kept thinking we need it a glossary and maybe even a list of acronyms. Yeah, okay Wow Yeah Yeah, it gets to Mark's question of like what are those International what are the markets and then they're like ACR and blah blah blah and what does that mean? so, okay, and I'm sure everybody to find it the beginning and then everybody just started using acronyms again So wherever you drop into the report, it's like Yeah, ACR versus DCS Yeah, so it'd be helpful to have a place you can flip to and be like, oh, that's great. Okay, so Who wants to send me one of those Does anyone might someone know Jim Robert for example does the the VLT Keaton report have That we might kind of I mean take a look and then we could we can modify it and update it with our stuff and Done before yeah, we shouldn't have to invent it. Yeah, that's true. Yeah Okay, and then this on top of page eight. I created this this sort of Chart and I was trying I almost put it into a table I was trying to figure out how to make it but this seems really important the factors affecting the financial liability of carbon projects in the Northeast the size the stocking the Specific provisions of any conservation easements availability, you know, there are the all these things this seemed really important to me to be able to explain it So I put it in a more sectioned off table But it's not I don't know do you feel like that's effective or if it could go into a different I was trying to also be efficient in how I was doing it. So Yeah, I had that all written out as words and then I started making Yeah, let's and you put it in a table and I think if that's the closest thing to a finding in the section that I wrote and I think that's something that we as a group should look at and say are those really the factors that affect the viability because I Think that is important because that points to the policy thing. So if it's priced, how can we change price or demand? How can we change that is it size? So the idea So the idea of a table that sort of summarizes is good and we'll but we'll need to get back to confirming that those are they Right. Yeah, I think that's something that everybody should look at and say is that it great That they came to Ruth as this list is important to me to recognize that at least she pieces out of it I was like, this seems important So Bill's report does include the list of the all the acronyms Okay, I could send that's the Keaton report. Yeah, okay Which all of you mentioned the key report that's clearly Important sort of like we could just put a new cover on that Fortunately, yeah, well, that's why I think linking to it so they can be like, oh here and it has a nice cover. It's pretty Okay, so we can come back to this table and and whether or not this is where it should be or it should be someplace No problem. I don't know but and then then below that In addition to the publications there have been several projects in Vermont and I started to just list them But then I realized some of these aren't So I guess Jim, this is questions for you. There's the Nature Conservancy's Working Woodlands initiative Mm-hmm, and then there's the Burnt Mountain and Cold Hollow to Canada aggregation. That's your thing No, so they're two separate things. They're two separate. Yeah, so Burnt Mountain was a single property project He was referencing in his update earlier today Okay, and you have so this links to something here somebody provided this link the Growing it's a vpr. Yes. That was me. I just threw some stuff in there and and and so again, this is if we're under charge One it's review available available information including review of existing feasibility analysis And I kind of took those cases as being a pilot So yeah, we have documents where people sort of model and then we have projects where people have tried to make it happen We could decide as a group those projects belong somewhere else in the report But I was just thinking if we're reviewing existing feasibility analyses I think one of the reasons you guys did that was to figure out if it's feasible and a model not just because you Wanted to do your own Okay, and we just decide whether we want to listen there or something And it also fits with this available technical existence Programs developed by other states and organizations. So TNC. I believe was trying to help people Let's do this. We have a whole program to do that and I did not describe it here So that will kind of belong here unless it's somewhere else Okay, so I guess clarification on what this list should be I thought it was a list of essentially what you said pilot programs Like you're the Burnt Mountain one in a very college one I wasn't sure how many there were and then there were and the cold hollow to canada Cold hollow I put in a link to that, but maybe I didn't you put in a link to Burnt Mountain and cold hollow of Canada It's to a BPR. Okay, then so I wasn't sure and I wasn't sure I Just threw them in as sources. I and the TNC working lands initiative Initiative is that also a project or is that as a program of TNC as the multiple carbon projects Oh, so this isn't specific to the law other than our project Just to confuse Other states and organizations assisting private lander Okay, so this this also goes into another. Yeah, that's in the next section. So, okay This this this section is great to have but it needs some more thought and probably yeah We should you know, I think I think probably Cecilia Maybe I would propose that it you you might just think it through Well, the reason I it's kind of looks the way it is is because I don't know the details of the projects I didn't know where things stood and so I was researching online and I couldn't figure it out And I was like well, you wouldn't know the up-to-date and just told us, you know Well, what I would know the up-to-date me send you a case study. Yeah, so Why don't we just if you could give me a list of the ones you know about the projects in Vermont in Vermont or the region, okay? That are that are like pilot programs that we can drop it in into the next section technical assistance and and and And then if I was gonna suggest that we do the Middlebury College Right love project in the appendix the sort of write-up that Jack provided that's not in here Yeah, I didn't put it in yet And then maybe if you want to have the cold hollow or the bird mountain one, sorry burn cold as a an appendix to Yes, do you want to give me just a two or three paragraph summary of it? I think I think also what's missing and I Annotated it, but it looks like in your wisdom you edited out which is good because all it was was a comment that This miss this thing also talked about to help us know where you're referring to this place right where we are where In addition to the publications listed above. Yeah, so in that so I did what I could about You know reviewing available information on the feasibility of enrolling Vermont in carbon sequestration projects the next thing was be was Examples of project development on public land in other states And so I had a line in here that this is where we should put the list that you had about public lands It may not fit here if we're not doing it by Charge so all that stuff may be somewhere else, but that's I had a line in there saying we should drop Robert's list in here and then oh, yeah, I did I didn't know you were referring to so Right In order to meet this charge, you know, there's the public lands examples and then there's Technical assistance from other states and organizations and so I yeah next section goes into everything. I know about other states It doesn't include non-state organizations like TNC So we might want to include that and then we just might want to list public lands But if we're not organizing it by well, I don't change the order order just There I didn't change the order of the stuff that you I had in here. I just was trying to read Title things into titles that made more sense. Okay at least to me so maybe they don't make sense to other people but So I combined the carbon forest offset projects on public land and technical assistance to private landowners because your section Did talk about both So we're asked to cover both. Yeah, so if it were me I would break it back out again because there was a specific line item that says public lands and then the other one is a Specific line item that says technical assistance to private landowners There is a there is still a section on public lands that you guys wrote that is still in here. Yeah So a lot of it was ordering it. I was thinking about moving your stuff up to be this is about what other states This is specifically asking us to review what other states did about private landowner Right, it's setting the stage for has anyone else done anything like this, right? But you do talk about in that section. There were some like for example, is it Georgia? Yeah, I think they have public and private right and I just wanted to be clear I mean they they open it up to all kinds of landowners. Okay, so Technical assistance, but they developed it so people could participate or Projects instead of saying Okay, Ian, so we might just want one of the state examples of public land And then the second one is technical assistance for private landowners and again, that's by other states and organizations Just because of this Yeah Again, I don't know if you want to be stick with for falling, but it's like B and C or two different things This is public lands and that's private land Okay, the public land section I think you guys cover and maybe if we want to keep it, but it's and it's in a different context of the charge It's a separate charge one charge is what if other states done in this regard and then later we get to what are we Think about how could this work for for state lands in Vermont? I think I put in a couple sentences to Credit predating it or whatever saying that It doesn't actually matter that much to the carbon markets whether it's public or private with the possible exception of that One part in compliance markets. It's worried about federal easements, all right, but But I think if we want to talk about the public land I think one of the things that came out one of the meetings was it really doesn't matter There's nothing that really precludes the public lands from being in these markets in the voluntary markets, okay, so Just let's step back first. I can't so that So your section that starts on the top of page nine Yep, the forest and it's a part of the forest climate and community research group led by And we can get rid of all that That's fine The title for that section so that section I left mostly in tapped I might have edited a tiny bit But so what what do you want the title to be for that? Well, that would be addressing the issue of test state State-run technical assistance programs for a private landowner. Okay Other states around Vermont outside, okay. Thank you May I also please back I took the liberty of putting together an outline because I have to think in in outlines And in looking through it, I think your suggestion Ruth to Maybe maybe you won't have to break it apart because the title really suggests the public and private But the content doesn't but if you were to move it up to that section on the other states Programs up to follow the compliance market overview in the voluntary market overview. It serves as a really good Launch into these are other programs and other states and then move into program requirements relevant to Vermont participation feasibility analysis from Vermont in New England The case for offset projects in Vermont I just feel like it might feel less disconnected and maybe land a little bit better in Setting people's mind and framework that I think you were seeking to do Cecilia Can you give senator hardy a look at that? Yeah, if you have it written down somewhere Or take a picture of it Yeah, or just What one of the things that I was that I was trying to get I I know we have to do this charge that For whatever reason just the way it was written in the law But it the order doesn't seem right to me And so I was trying to figure and I so if you have a different order that would be helpful to see so Yeah, and then maybe the gyms list of pilot projects would go somewhere else too because this seems like a weird place to lump it in That's really in the context of Vermont the pilot programs right because there was one thing about feasibility for Vermont You know review of existing Information and analysis specific to Vermont and there's a lot of repetition in those things So that's one of the reasons there's a lot of repetition in the report because you were all trying to answer Kind of the same question because it kept getting asked the same way So I don't think we need to just to repeat constantly and so I think I Think we can take the liberty to say we're gonna address it in a separate section in a different order I'm not repeat and that's fine I just want to make sure everything was covered and I realized in editing out the examples of the public land Disappeared okay, and the message that You can do carbon voluntary carbon on public land, which some people might not even And then the specific examples of other states Okay, so your section is more or less the same I I Just cleaned up some of the language and I just say I missed something because they're so H10 Yeah, and it's not so much about I Subdividing wouldn't be forced carbon offset projects. There's not that many projects listed. It's really state approaches to facilitating Landowners to participate in carbon market projects, okay And one of the things I wanted to make clear is that there's really two angles particularly now There's just past influence on let's get them in the carbon market and now a number of states are like Well, how can we just blend them to get carbon sequestration and not not necessarily through the carbon markets for you? No, I think your section is it's good. It's helpful And then at the bottom of page 11 there's another subsection the case for offsets projects in Vermont Did you also write that no, I think that came from the next charge, okay, right that's charge to is this That's Robert, okay, and then Okay, yeah, so then that a lot of this was my highlighting was just that And then again table three That's straight from the Keaton BLT which the age 12 page 12. No, that's completely of my construction Yeah, I think we should So there was Overlap in this section and then the section that Keith and Michael did Which I haven't gone through I just plopped it in here Michael after I got it from you understood But so but there is overlap between the section in that section. So I don't know if it's Just overlap and content or if there's any if it contradicts each other. I don't know it doesn't necessarily Contradict I mean, I think it's appropriate to cover it in the one place And then there's a sort of different context for the charge and the other Keith would you I think this is really pointing towards the evaluating the coverage and the and the basically the Tax burden as it relates to to tumor harvesting in UVA It's not not covered again in charge five I was searching for a way to make the economic case and rather than keep it broad I kept it narrow and I chose to focus on one example Can I just you mentioned you called it UVA use value praise. Well, I know this is current. You've started I was like I Have always heard it called the current current use that's the sort of That's the Common name. Yeah, the scientific name if you will is the use value appraisal program That's how it exists in statute, right? So it's UVA, but people call it current use they call it land use They have up some other what? In here, what is you I think the better acronym is UVA. That's the custom and so it's use value appraisal It's often said use value appraisal also known as current use parentheses UVA, and then you use UVA from there Okay, then I will do that in the first one Sorry for that go Cavaliers. Yeah That's not the first time And we need a glossary That's right So Robert's table, I'm glad to know that you you created this table so when I can put at the bottom No, yeah, I mean that I I Can certainly site that I think I thought I did but I can certainly cite the sources of the information Which are basically the annual reports to the legislature. Okay? And in the glossary Definition of stumpage would be helpful. I think you are all comfortable with that term I'm now comfortable with it I'm just paying to the landlord Okay Okay, and then exhibit one which is now actually not exhibit one in this highlight to make sure Because I think it's now three maybe four on the top of page 13 Yeah, that has that has a citation attached to it that is from the use value report to the legislature for Probably 2017 or 18. Yeah, we had another legislative report required and that's Really lays out. No, this is the annual report from the tax department tax. Yes reports 1980 to 2018, okay, so no five will that goes down to that. I didn't see that. All right Okay, and then I also On on page 11, I think it's that we are a 13 page 13. I I Enumerated these This again seems important and it's also related to the other thing that I put in a chart The that what that that returns are there are dependent on acres existing stock Contractual agreements and market prices. This is repetitive of the other table that I had in here and Is it I guess is it worth repeating again? It like this or is one table that shows this I think it can refer to the table that you developed it and ditched this okay, just wanted it Yeah, no, it's fine Because the other table actually has six factors and this has four so I guess that gets back to labels The only problem with that is that my next paragraph addresses these a Couple of these points or all of the points in the list so You know the other one is more of a summary table at the report that you're citing into a report. It can probably stay in there and be Okay, so it explains in a more detail All right, I'll just put a note to myself and then Let me say our analysis supports this Yeah Yeah, and that this was a question of what what who is me and us and I wasn't sure what it sites something number six But I can't figure out where number six is It's the end notes for this section They were they're still in here. They're just maybe not in the same place. Okay page 17. Yeah, so there's There is there's a footnote to that it's not citing so much as explaining division of property valuation That was five So if it were me, I would take that Yeah, well, that was one of my questions to ask the group was great nowhere do we really Mention the level of activity there is in the northern state and I think that's supposed to go in that status thing up front Footnote six on page 17. Yeah, it could go back up. We're Probably first to it, but maybe we should be listing those projects I think just I for me it's like the level of activity not necessarily individual statistics, okay, and so We're seeing what's happening in the Northeast versus what has happened in Vermont. Yeah, right, but it seems like that goes in the status section I don't know because in the economic section, but it's supporting the size you're talking about Yeah, I agree. I think it goes in the status section. I just put it back up in the in the actual text But maybe reading for it and figure out where it goes, but okay and then Again exhibit which not to probably but this the green chart 15 Do people feel like this is a helpful visual you want to explain it well Mainly it shows activity the only problem of it is it doesn't show the most recent activity and that's where you would see Significant jumps over 2017. I'm pretty sure so it shows a trend. It's Probably could use more description I Guess I was hoping I refer to it Demand for in the paragraph on page 14 I say second in large part because of the success of the California compliance program the demand for voluntary Offsets has grown and the chart supports that so it's probably not essential. It's not as clear as I like It is evidence. Yeah, what do people think? I would ask you Robert and your point that it's not as clear as you'd like is it is it clear enough to be helpful? And if not, if yes, it stays with you. If not, it should not come up I would pose that question to the group because to me it's fascinating Happy to hear a strong argument why it should go It may be helpful Yeah, I was trying to put something other than just words in here And if I thought I had something that would help paint the picture, I think it does that I think it shows trends that Help explain what's going on. So I would share that we should be I'm fine with that. I'm just wanting to go through all the visual. I did take out the one which was titled Greta bounce I think it might be Controversial, I don't know. Maybe that's not the right word, but evoke evoke maybe Yeah Yeah, it was it was intended to be topical. Yeah. Yeah, I know I think I think it It's convincing, but I also just didn't want it. I didn't want to sort of get into that unnecessarily Distracting kind of commentary. Yeah, exactly. So that's why I Is that okay, okay the this next section the ecosystem marketplace and That wasn't linked or it is cited earlier is it okay, is there a link that I could just link to it. Yeah Footnotes, okay Are you on So this section that's still in italics, is this just a Copying part of a court from the ecosystem place into here music quote, okay, so I was thinking we should just link to it Yeah, not only is it yeah, I'm fine with that it Jim mentioned parts of it in his piece. Okay. Okay, so I'm gonna link to the ecosystem marketplace report Is that right? I'll just put it in the hot light and then we'll put it in the bibliography instead of restating this right here and Okay, everybody. I'm gonna delete that section right now And that will cut down to maybe 30 we went back up to 32 I Before you get to leave crazy there The buttons are the bullets where are italicized those are the quote, but then there's a paragraph that starts with word demand at the bottom That's also italicized After the last bullet, I did not delete that. Okay. Thank you Only the indented bullet I only yeah demand in the voluntary market is expanding I Prices and I can't I think I might have italicized that because it seemed important fine Then that over the last couple of years it's gotten To buy these voluntary That seemed like a maybe a finding maybe We decided that okay Okay in this in this paragraph that starts carbon offsets are becoming more established and accepted Robert That's your paragraph it says down here in if you go into the middle of it from a statewide policy perspective facilitating the flow private capital into the revenue streams for land owners may mitigate the impact of increases in property taxes and reduce the amount of land removed from UVA program and ultimately develop I Thought there was a chart earlier that you had included that Or an argument that was made earlier that there's actually more land being put into the UVA program overall the I think the enrollment is increasing, but there are also lands being removed and It's not totally clear from the annual reports What happens to those lands so we don't know if they're being removed and developed and that's contributing to the loss of forest land So yeah, I think that I think I should review this and rewrite it Yeah, because overall this was confusing to me because that my brain was oh, we're increasing Enrollment into use value, but then here you say land is being it is being removed So it's it contradicts it sounded contradictory to me Keith. Could you shed some light on it? Just as a factual basis Robert's absolutely right. There's a net gain in enrollments over time But every year there's a lot of acreage that is removed some of which is not developed and some of which is Okay, so I think the I think the statement is is still relevant and accurate if there's concerns about a perception of Conflict then maybe clarify it But I think it's still still I can clarify if you can just give me a sentence to plop in here and in the other place that speaks to that But now I'm not that would be helpful. Okay And then this next section environmental rationale Well, so that was the charge right ecological we have been we had to defend the environmental case in the economic case okay the environmental rationale for encouraging Project changing that title Okay, so that was you made the financial now. We're into the for the Environmental rationale Is there any I didn't see in the report last time we Remet we had this conversation about the carbon accounting and how if we were going to permit For us to be put I think you were taught you brought this up mark But if we're going to put carbon forest into the carbon markets That carbon sequestration is being counted in California or in wherever and that we if we do develop a statewide Carbon accounting system for Vermont. We want to ensure we're not double counting And I didn't see that anywhere in here, and I don't know where it would necessarily go Maybe in our recommendations Or our findings, I don't know, but it seemed like an important part point to me that we want to avoid And John you were also talking about this too that sort of concept of Don't double count Would it be helpful to the group for me to paraphrase how I see this point being made in this document and what its relevance is Again Yeah, because it doesn't come out in the document. Okay, so let's use let's use the energy sector as an example Because I think it's pretty analogous We generate a certain amount of power in this state private individuals do with solar panels, right? Or we do it with biomass and we do it with any way that's considered renewable. Well Those that power generated carries a renewable energy credit with it, right? So if we then take that renewable energy credit and sell it as it has a financial instrument to someone else And another state who's willing to pay money for it because they're not generating enough to meet their demand Then we lose ownership of that credit. We can't claim it towards our own renewable energy goals It's it's analogous to this if we had a goal that said we are going to sequester X amount and we wanted to count Carbon sequestered in the state we couldn't use carbon that we'd identified and sold Somebody in California might be counting, right? So that's the It's we don't have such an accounting program here. We're not keeping track of how much the state has no I mean the comprehensive energy plan barely mentions Forestry or sequestration whatsoever. It looks at reduced mitigate, but it doesn't talk about sequestration Or negative emissions at all and we're not counting them in the state, right? Should we then this becomes potential issue so I think we talked about last time of being explicit in our I guess it would be enough finding that If we were ever to go to this system, we want to make sure that things aren't double counted That if yes, but it's still I think an important if to have in there because this is a lot of the criticism that I Hear is oh, you're just double counting all of this and and then I tried to explain no or not because we're not counting it at All really there's no But people don't understand that so I think having that explicit finding so what it helped for me to I'm happy to drop draft this up But it helped for me to use that renewable energy cutting example to speak to people relate to that example You could just give a one short paragraph on that and then I can pop it in here where you think it makes sense And then we put it up explicitly in the finding Why I'm shaking my head is because you missed a critical thing which is where it's been required by law that a certain amount of their electricity be generated With renewable energy, that's why there's a market at all for wrecks and so nobody's requiring by law right now that people are carbon sequestering a certain amount They are in California and sort of in Reggie, you know supposed to be reducing things over time So I don't know if it's Because I was confused when you said well under this system, and I'm like what system I mean, maybe it's just a warning that if carbon offsets are sold and they can't be counted against any state climate Targets because they've been That credit has been sold to somebody else trying to meet their own personal credit or their own personal Objectives or a state requirement something like that Yeah, so then retire right because sometimes you sell them and just hold them making they'll go up in price and then retire them I mean, I think it's a It's definitely an if because nothing exists right now But it's kind of heading off the criticism or heading off the confusion and I think that's the way to phrase it But not just if but concerns have been raised about the potential for double counting. Just go there directly and explain that Yeah, yeah head it off at the past So Robert, you'll give me a paragraph and suggest where it might fit in here Okay, and then we can when we talk about the findings. Okay. Thank you and I guess people might not understand how registries work I don't know if we hit that any place But that's one place where you list all of them so that nobody can double count it Yeah, that's that's a good point. It's it's implied in here a lot, but I don't know that there's a Specific, yeah, I never should find it or maybe that's something we can just put in the definitions at the end Yeah, it's the word registry in my section. Yeah, but I never really explained that back So that people can't sell the same carbon twice and they keep track forever It's very tired, you know, right, so nobody can go back to the project on that piece of property Okay, 125 years. Yeah, I think we need to be specific about that too Yeah Okay, and then the next part is just Robert's citations which I can clean up now that I know how we're doing it And if there's a long thing I may just put it in the text Robert and not have it be a sub like we did with that one So then the next section is marketing carbon test And I think was this your section Jim or was it Jack or both? There's a little bit of both Speaking of Jack just by way of update we received Deb and I received an email from him indicating he's a little delayed So he'll be joining us a little later than you thought But which is going to be soon. Yes So I didn't Yeah, I mean I didn't do too much editing on it. I just kind of tried to make it consistent with the rest of the document. Oh the questions I have The on page now is 18 You you mentioned a recent Vermont land trust study the Vermont forest carbon you put that in quotes That's Okay, okay Because that's the beginning of it before there's semi colon We could just back up a paragraph This is voluntary market carbon market offsets are likely to be the best opportunity for both public and private landowners to sell their carbon markets Did we want to say public and private landowners in Vermont to sell carbon credits? Maybe that's assumed, but That was assumed doesn't hurt to be and I think that would be a good Clarifying Senator already flagged as a finding. Yeah, I think that's something that yeah Yeah, the head or should actually reflect that this is the section is all about In Vermont, I'll just add that And there's some overlap like you explained the existing registries and things like that And we can I can get rid of that once we have the other Content in here The VCS slash Vera is that the same? Is Vera another name for it? Oh, I think there is a registry and isn't the protocol still VCS Yeah, isn't it? I don't even we should Just let me know what I should call it. Yeah, okay and that looks I think it's all there And now I think there's a legacy impact here, but I think it's all there on methodologies And they don't they don't call it a VCS They may still call that but I don't know that it is deliberate or intentional Yeah, the problem is the rest of the world and everything where all the documents really report on VCS and so maybe that's something we do in the Laws or here's something to explain that they just in 2018 changed her name Okay So is this still consistent that the Middlebury College one is still the only one that's got registered tradable carbon credits and Differency is still developing. Yes, it's still fair to say you're developing it. Correct. Okay Okay It's a registered pride project, but it's not The final product isn't you don't have to get that flow. We don't have actual The same is true for the cold Okay, is that your project? It is led by the land trust Okay, and you're gonna give me a list And then just I had highlighted the Citation which I'll make consistent And then the next I didn't have anything else really on that unless you had something you wanted to say on your section And then the carbon market projects on Vermont State Forest lands. This is your section, right? Yes, okay So I have these you had put in here insert acreage. Do you have that acreage that you want to give me? Okay, so I can put that in there then I don't I Don't think I changed much in here. We'll say I was trying to tighten it up a little bit We have some but they're I think they're Decadent correct me for I'm there more of the next level of edits that are we good with this organizational approach The draft that was distributed on November 17 I track changes that we Accepted those track changes. It seems to be our original language. Oh So I thought I had accepted all the track changes before I Robert had a bunch in there and I accepted all of his Guys saw your track changes. They were track changes Oh, yes Yeah, yeah, I accepted all of them So let's confirm and check that Cecilia had a couple in there that I could see yours I know you said you couldn't see them, but I said I accepted all the track changes before I made it into a word document so If that didn't happen, then I don't know We got a request and we have we the rules of engagement are it's the working group and and our staff That's listed as technical assistance to this process. So we hold the public comment till later So I'm the only one in this one that does not have a copy of the strap. Oh, we can get you that Dead can we get a copy? We should sorry for that. We don't want to keep you out of that Thanks for speaking up the next section is developing a ton of use of scale and marketing and selling carbon credits. This one is really Repetitive I'm sorry center. I just pause just to be clear So we have those so you will confirm the changes that Robert had To this section and we will offer later additional to the line edits Right because we were just trying to let you go through your overview and we'll go back I'm hoping we'll be able to circle back and then get into that next level of granularity in the edits Yeah, letting you kind of get through what you need now. Okay. That's the first pass. So the net. Okay. Thanks. That's fine I'm sorry about the track changing thing. That's I thought they were doing our best the developing economies of scale and marketing and selling carbon credits is this section a lot of that oh This was is this your section key? No. No, this was Okay, this some of it is repetitive of the section that we did you did before on selling and marketing carbon credits I'm not sure why it was in here twice because we were it follows the legislation. Just going by the charges, okay I might combine those two sections. Does that sound reasonable with this? This is there a separate so just to highlight that this section was supposed to look at economy scale and marketing and selling As opposed to just aggregating and project development, right? And so I just want to make sure we don't lose that focus when we combine them Bargaining and selling being the kind of the difference, but what makes it a little different than elsewhere, right? Right that makes it different than just what's a financially viable carbon project for for years like what is you know How to develop economies of scale and marketing and selling so maybe that is covered adequately beforehand Maybe we do want to come on. I'm not sure I answered that question And that's why my bullets in there or we're really just talking points for us because I thought that was getting us towards the Recommendations of what can the state do to help with the marketing and selling If we're talking about the bullets, I mean to me that's I mean the legislature is gonna have enough bullets at home And I don't think us as a group need to reject Here's some ideas for you Because to me they're gonna have enough ideas If it comes to Well, it is so to be clear we've been asked to evaluate Existing and elsewhere and sort of all builds towards and make recommendations for how to stand up a statewide program And and we could decide not to make that recommendation, but I think They are asking for recommendations Included and we get to decide with the bar mark and so they're appropriate to be here If we agree that they should be here and if you don't want them there You have the opportunity to make that know and clear and that'll be part of our deliberations on where we land with this Fair enough There may be others who feel similar Again, just to clarify though when you go back to your other section you talked about some of the other states activities talking about Oregon with a Trust fund that didn't work out these you know That's something that shows you that something like that doesn't work So again some of these bullets if you ask me or similar to a trust Well, the key is to what went wrong with that Yeah, so the way I read your bullets where that they were prompting ideas from this group and I think I'm looking forward to that discussion, but I mean I think it does have to come from the legislative Portion of a study group. So, you know And I think I don't need to get to that. I think at this point We're just so marks Representative Higley is flagged that he has some concerns about including the sort of thing I think it's fair to clarify that they're appropriate in here if we collectively deemed they should be in here in which ones And we're not there yet in our process. May I ask one question? Yeah, of course Was it your intent to list these as? Bullets to be included or These were in italics and it with a comment to the group is here's some ideas of Section six, but it seems to relate to this mission So these weren't ever intended to be final text. It were their discussion points, and I think I put something in about that But that's why I took yeah, yeah, there was a line that said that was some question that you have put in here Yeah, and I put it in italics meaning I know we had 16 different So that for me was this isn't real Texas is just I guess for us to talk about so I think that to your point well as Michael saying have Recommendations and findings and this would probably come out of this section even if we agree that this is something we want to do We would put it in the recommendation section not in the section. I think if and when we get to agreeing to those yeah, okay So I will I'm going to just highlight this whole thing But I allow this of the gym route on the aggregation part. I think it's useful. Yeah Yeah, up until a long that this thing this charge mentions marketing and selling And then the bullets below it that's sort of temporary Wait except for The state of Vermont could help landowners participate in the state markets in several ways The state should make sure that landowners who wish to participate this might be on that level too. I think that Yeah, maybe I think that was one of Jim's offering is that what I was one of my offerings, okay? So that could look that could fit fall into the same thing its recommendations look at the state I would read it That way and then that same level of this Okay And then the next extension the section financial incentives for monseuse value appraisal program and max not maximizing the value of forest land in carpet markets This is this is from us section Keith Direction and request Keith who's our program manager for current use with significant help for Robert And as I understand it as was dropped in by senator Hardy last night upon receipt without any change Yeah, I didn't change it at all. And so the headings are even hasn't been Yeah, I just put it in here. It was thank you for making it significantly shorter than the previous one that did cut down I think five pages That's why I put it in there. I was like that's so Gratifying get rid of five pages one coffee cup coffee in case So yeah, I didn't go through it if you If you want I think my main thing is I would probably combine some of these paragraphs because they're short And well given that you haven't had a chance to get through it yet We'll leave that for you to continue your normal editing editing process and we'll go from there Including taking input from others who have just seen it now Yeah, so just to understand it came from us largely by Keith And with significant input from Robert, which we appreciate the one thing I wanted to ask about now because it would be helpful to Get it out. Sure. It's your you have a comment in here At least it's attributed to your name Robert had asked about this. Yeah, so that's that was I just included it It's I don't think it's in here anymore, right? Oh, it's still there To be clear where that came from that it was I think making it clear that it originally you thought the idea originated with Cecilia Okay, and we just and we're attributing it to her and making wanting to make sure For one that she thinks that's accurate because we found it to be incredibly important Told us about how yeah, how UVA this is a fundamental thing. I think right Cecilia Maybe you could yeah Yeah, it's the idea that if you're asked to quantify that carbon in exchange for tax benefit tax benefit or or Cost-share agreement or anything then it could be thought of that that carbon is already sold So that would set the baseline higher, you know making projects less eligible for credits those that are in that program. Yeah, and Vermont California, I understand is I Won't go into too much detail, but at any rate that's something to thank you And so for the purposes of the document it's only as far as I'm concerned it can be deleted It was only there in case someone said where why is this here? Where did this come from? If you Jack is that you? Jack Hello Yeah, hi Jack. Hi Jack. Welcome. Thanks for joining us We are here and cranking away as Senator Hardy is leading us through The latest version three draft that she had sent around this morning at a kind of a high level of organization and Not in the wordsmithing necessarily yet, and we are on page 23 of 31 if you'd like to get oriented and Appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you back. Thanks for joining. Appreciate you're on the phone So, you know, I'll try to keep in mind you're there, but do your best to sing out when you need attention, please Yes, I will do that. Thanks Cecilia continue, please So the key things that they were highlighting what that would make a project eligible would be Specifying it payment for that and the time Requirement that's associated with that so how long that car anyway So that might be more detailed than you want to hear But what this if we just delete the comment entirely then it just says it may make them ineligible And I think a better way to think of it is any changes to the program that specified carbon out carbon Outputs Should be Reviewed to make sure it doesn't affect it. Okay, because it would be easy enough to just run it by the protocol people and say Is this a problem at the legislature's actually thinking about anything in Keith? Are you able to track that and maybe take a crack at drafting something to send to senator Hardy for us? Might not want all that pink stuff Right and to say something that it would be important to run any changes in that legislation by the people who are in the protocols In order to determine if it affects the eligibility of private land owners for these big truck markets Something like that and I can send you worrying if you want. Thanks and thanks Keith We're rolling. Okay, so I'm gonna delete this comment because then it will make the Because yeah, he has a tiny font because that was in there. So that's the only comment. I think it is That's a really important point, right? Incredibly fundamentally important. And so we wanted to make sure I appreciate Keith's flagging because we wanted to make sure everyone knew What was going on when we say may not be eligible one more for Keith. I just want to add that I think because of the scale of UVA Evaluating not just the compatibility of the program today, but Potential changes at the that's the intent of this part of it Robert Cecilia other experts evaluating the accuracy of that. I'm not a carbon expert But if if these don't seem to be as precise or accurate as they need to be Can I just request that when you guys are sending me content and you remind me This was supposed to go under I'm gonna I know I'm gonna be like wait wait. What was this? Okay, but I have a note in here that Keith will will send me something okay All right Learn more about the NRCS programs. I is that a note to self or is that a hot link if you for each of those other Programs, it's just a link to you can get more information. It's okay. I'm gonna just hot link the actual Word the NRCS Okay, and then below this section are a couple more Citations that I'll clean up And then the charge six which is what Robert sense Before we jump to charge six great the bottom of page 26 is another Tk4 Note that Footnote Tk4 at the beginning of the project to strike that whole thing. Yeah Is there another copy for it? Additional copy of the stretch thanks. Thank you very much I So Also, just be clear the reason I sent out multiple versions of it and just said this is version 1 version 2 version 3 is So you could see the changes Doing all the editing and track changes would have made it impossible to follow and read Incredibly great From my perspective as long as nobody's whining and there's no we don't run a file of public, you know Meeting loss. Yeah, always whatever works for you because you're the one willing to do this. Thank you Somebody had to do it I'm okay with previous versions of the draft being put out onto our website too if people want that That was another I didn't know if we should do that or not Or just have the final version out there because I know there was such as a as long as we there We can make them available say upon request We don't want to confuse people either. Yeah, mostly me Right. Well, that's also why I had draft across all of them Charge six sure So So I struggled as Most of us probably have with trying to pull out what were the salient pieces that we that we really arrived at and Also, what's missing? What what key points did we sort of gloss over or didn't we include and And then, you know, how could we pull this together into something that reflected a response to charge six and charge six is review how to structure and regulate a state-wide program and Facilitate enrollment. So this charge personally always gave me a little bit of hesitation because it seemed like what was being asked by the drafters in the legislature was a statewide program that kind of looked a little bit like current use or UVA and It had an enrollment process and the state kind of handled this sort of thing and And I think that You know in our in the whole lead-up to where we are now I hope it's become pretty apparent that that's not as simple as it might have seemed to the legislature at the start so So I began thinking about all the points we've made and And and I guess it was Cecilia's I didn't know who made the comments, but Cecilia I thought you're Opening this up to ideas about what what could be our Course of action from here our recommendations or what would it look like that really gave me a lot of liberty to feel like I could put something down on paper. So that's what I did with charge six here that was distributed to you It's three pages But I wanted to I think I can summarize it to basic points really pretty quickly please do so I began to think in terms of some entity, which I don't know if it's public private some kind of quasi I mean I could think of examples in state Organization that I don't really know a lot about Vita comes to mind. It's a half state half private, you know But anyway, I don't know what really the form of this entity would be but I certainly see that we have strengths in The people that are involved in this program today The Nature Conservancy the land trust that Department Forest Park as being the primary players here each brings strength to this idea of facilitating enrollment and From the point of view of the land trust what I see is their strength is they were working through this aggregation piece And if they can figure that out that is huge because nobody else has really done it And they have the contacts of landowners and they have the legal expertise and they've worked through an actual project And so to me there's a place for them there The Nature Conservancy I've learned through this group has actually is offering services to VLT to market their carbon You know, that's tremendous that you'd be willing to do that in the back The power of that organization can be brought to a little state like Vermont on a single project, you know I think that's a tremendous resource So I think that the you know the credibility that TNC brings the ability to market these credits the Access to possible capital to fund the program to me. That's a big piece The third piece is the department and from my point of view the department can bring quite a lot of technical expertise If they just had the capacity to do that and I don't think that's outside the realm of reason because there used to be an Analyst in the Department of Forest Parks and Recreation There's a lot of things and he retired and I was you know I went through a couple of rounds of trying to help find a replacement and there just wasn't a person out there that fit But but I see a role for the department or the money to pay for the money to pay for See a role for the department to be able to provide first of all outreach which we've all talked about To landowners because me county foresters are the first order of information transfer to a lot of landowners and you know You've already done it with the Wood program you you know you have a track record of being able to bring information to the public so These ideas began to form I realized that we were talking about was And we I guess maybe I'll step back once more We've talked about the role of the developer in bringing a project to market right so the developer is the guy that sort of swoops in you Click something on their website and you're interested and they contact you and they ask all these questions to qualify you Prequalify you as a candidate and if they decide that you actually can make money for them They'll say okay. We'll do a feasibility study and they'll come out and they'll look at your land and they do some inventory They'll put that all together. They'll talk about it with you. They'll go in the next step Okay, we're going to do this. We'll do all the paperwork. We'll get the listing process and started and then we'll Schedule a formal inventory. That's more intensive. We'll take those data. We'll develop them. We'll model them We'll do all of the technical work and then they they hire the you know They do a whole bunch of other things Hire the verifier go through the whole process Record the final documents do all the annual reporting. So that's the role of the developer typically But what we're talking about here with these partners that I just mentioned is removing a whole bunch of The services that are typically provided by these developers and putting them into our control and at the same time I see that as enhancing the feasibility of these projects because Most developers don't do this on a fee-for-services basis They do it for a portion of your carbon proceeds and we talked about this It's not small and I'm always interested in trying to keep more of that money in our hands and less of it in the pockets of venture capital You know, so so I'm beginning to envision this Entity that coordinates the activities of the partners that we have here that do things really well and Take some of those tasks away from the developers and then for those tasks that we need the technical experience of a developer Contract, you know put together a portfolio of potential projects do all of the pre-project vetting and say these people are all signed up They want to go What's your price to take them from this point to the point of actually listing and and Submitting information to the registry or regulators so So that to me is a potential Model if that makes sense that the state could consider now clearly this is Not completely thoughts You know that any of those partners may have big objections to this big idea But but I do see this as a potential way to address this charge at least put something out Seems to be the logical conclusion of a lot of the pieces that we pulled together in the last few months Robert yeah, I would Agree with that just based on our experience. I think we've probably had Close to a year of just trying to figure out whether we wanted to do this and how it worked in our case And I think had those kinds of Services been available You know an organized fashion and reasonable or no cost We would have been along and we would have moved along much further faster than Then we did and I think that would be valuable to others who are wondering if they should go ahead with some some kind of a project So I really appreciate you do listed all these things a project developer does and I feel like I Tried to hit that in one of my sections and you can cover them all and that's almost worth the table because what we're talking about is Breaking down and taking some of those pieces and figuring out where we can put this across the state I Have another Concern so that's sort of the stemming from the idea of well the project developer takes too much of the pie So that makes more of the project's infeasible or and people don't have to get started I think another constraint is the time That people might not be willing to commit 40 years or 100 years and so you'll have the VLT's and that Nature Conservancy and Middlebury people with really long time horizons that are used to lawyers and are not concerned about 40 year 100 year commitment So I think that's Gonna be a challenge. I think that I don't know whether we should say that someplace But acknowledge that that's gonna limit the number of people want to participate And I do say that or is there a way to make that less scary? Yes Absolutely, and that could be our role too. So I've done I did to I Probably covered it all Excuse me I did one thing yet last week, which is I called one of my Colleagues in the project development world and I said what are the major objectives that you hear from people when you when when they express Initial interest and then you talk about things and they say Objections sorry Objections where do people choke and and he basically said yes all of the things you just mentioned The length of the time of the program the commitments that have to be made The marginal fees of marginal financial feasibility the timing of payments all those kinds of things They come up as regular and and I think that if this entity were properly capitalized that then the first you know the first Initial transfer projects would ideally repay any investors who came up with some upfront money whether that's the taxpayers of the state or some Private investor group or whatever They they would reimburse or at least pay back Substantial port of the investment capital keep some in a permanent fund that would perhaps allow the entity to Strike at those most Difficult objections for landowners and somehow perhaps find a way to mitigate some of us What if a landowner said the Jeepers I really need a bunch of money in five years I was planning to do a harvest here Alone and they pay it back in carbon and that you know at the end of that 25 years you know They could choose to harvest or that they you know You've got you've been made whole by the credits that they didn't get that covered that somehow Or You know, there are probably other ways to do this I don't know what really would motivate landlords to me. That's one of the big questions that we haven't answered which is What are those objectives? How interested are from outlanders and so sort of thing We can certainly imagine that there may be a lot of initial interest and then you're going to narrow it down to four or five people That may be the first group, right and then as you if there's enough feasibility there as you develop a Successful group of projects what people are going to be interested. So it would be a semi long-term Commitment and you know, there could be a lot of objections from from people, but hey, it was just an idea And it seems like you're pulling out stuff at the front end I am Projects moment and then there's the back end of marketing so they can get a higher price Then that makes it more feasible makes a different and it gives us control of the story to a certain extent So to complicate the matter is what if there were a Instead of buying the credit after everybody else has done all this work to develop it What they pay for it up front absolutely and a trust fund it becomes a revolving loan fund that can help start these programs Give cover some of the upfront costs. I mean many of the problem of them getting credit for a credit that hasn't been created for 10 years So And that's where you get into the idea of well, could the state lands be? Anchoring it somehow or some other things So so I'm thinking it right as a big yeah I'm thinking this for our purposes in this report that I'm thinking about trying to answer this charge and There may be a lot of ideas that come from All of you to help flesh this out a little bit more, but I don't know that they need to beat in this I wasn't thinking that we would go into great detail here I think we would say this is what we've learned This is what kind of makes sense to us and there could be a lot of different directions It might go and that'd be great If we had a summit of all interested parties to come together and brainstorm this the organizational structure the requirements for credit that capital You know, do we need an underwriter to help us understand which of these things are likely to go and which aren't I'm not quite sure how that would all work, but I think those are details that if this Idea flies it's going to take buy-in from the partners and if it doesn't have that then it's not But at least from our perspective as the study group, I think it's to me it made sense and happy to Again, I don't have any ownership of this. It just was a way to To bring some of those pieces together that seemed obvious I Understand what you're saying Talking about this entity to coordinate, okay But I I haven't seen in any of the information that's come in a state that's actually done that yet, right? That's true. So so that to me is key if we put something forward like this to Say that you know this this is Because again it goes back to my concern with all these bullet points I mean, it's great to say these things It's another thing to have some sort of an idea of how it's going to work Right, and we don't have a blueprint out there as to how it's going to work. We don't we'd be we'd definitely be entering new ground But it might set us up for a conversation You know we're You know what we're doing is giving this to you all in this building and the next obvious step There would be for somebody to you know charge a group with Seeing if it's feasible Working out those details. You wouldn't necessarily be going from this to implementation. It would be more like University of Vermont or something like you know that could dig into how you make something Going from the learning experience that we've had with Georgia and the other states Like is this a feasible viable way for you know, I don't know This is some kind of processing this and other comments are Robert's proposal Well, maybe I'll just point out that I don't envision there being any need for legislative action to make this happen at this stage it may make sense that there's a structure that It makes the most sense to have some state Buy-in and that may require some legislative or is an administrative action But but this could all happen completely independent of this. I don't think it could actually respectfully I don't see how we it's within as you've described it and frankly, but for what it's worth You I think you've appropriately captured with the a strength of the PR and an appropriate role information Sharing in a clearing house kind of role So that's good But for us to engage in this in some sort of a program to facilitate enrollment When we haven't really even gotten to there I think we would have to get there decide that that's something and then say something like this with as Jim said You know this sort of frame it up in general that we would recommend if you're gonna do a program Maybe this would be the best kind of thing but boy a lot of work would be needed and I don't see us making it happen It's within our enabling statutes, but not the capacity certain no and the directive would need I think it would need in order to link with those other entities. We would need a Statutory authority. Okay. That's my take I Think you might be able to do it, but you wouldn't have the sort of We wouldn't have to push you wouldn't have the push and you wouldn't have the you know cover Yeah So that doesn't mean it's not it's it can't happen I just was commenting on that one remark that you made that I don't think we need legislation I think probably would and I'm trying to thread the needle here with I think Mark's points are well taken And I think Jim gave a helpful response, frankly Which is that this wouldn't be go to implementation from here It'd be okay you guys if you want a statewide program and you've asked us about that Here's the what we think might work and it needs a lot of work to stand it up And that would you know, maybe I don't know maybe another study committee would ensue But sure or you just so you know How a statewide program could happen and I would I agree right from the start I've been like choking on like well It kind of assumes that there should be one and I think part of our work is to is to evaluate whether they're in part of I think we can interpret it to to review how to structure and regulate we could conclude that it shouldn't be done like like that We could but I'd like to give it a shot and say So this our report could say well, we did reevaluate it and we could say we don't recommend it or we could say if you know if we do recommend that there's some merit in this a program to help facilitate enrollment and this Collection of entities with these particular strengths could be joined and leveraged to create that statewide program and an awful lot of things Need to get worked out blah blah blah That's about as far as I would go with it And I think it would be responsive to the charge which I'm sort of into Did you want to say something well I just wanted to draw a contrast between UVA, which is 1980 yeah, and my family's response to that And my personal response now because not all the family's still alive And I may not be alive a lot longer But we we embraced UVA Enthusiastically first year we could get into it, right and we were patient patiently and waiting for it to be enacted here the sentence I underlined here is It seems prudent to anticipate only a small number of landowners would actually sign up and I wouldn't be one that would sign up for a long time Because I just don't need this complication in my life We're having enough trouble just managing the land finding loggers that are still in business Finding mills that accept product And this isn't the answer for us The economic problems Just throw that out Yeah, so when I was envisioning what I thought maybe our recommendations might be after all these meetings trying to edit this document I I thought that the three things that I see would be Charge the department with providing more information about this as a thing You know we at one point talked about having you develop a website that had a lot of information About this and who you could go to for if you're interested in Signing up for this and with info and maybe it's just you know taking this report and making it more of a website so And that sort of plays into what Robert was saying as your department Has a lot of information and provide and does a lot of outreach Through County Forest So that's what we do is like you do you just sort of beef up your information on this as a possibility for landowners and you also maybe refer people who are interested to TNC and BLT or whatever potentially Then the second thing is I am really interested in seeing if we can put state land in one of these markets because I'm interested frankly in both the The way it sort of models it like look We think this is a good idea and we think it's a good idea So we're gonna actually put a parcel of state land into it I know that there are complications with that But I think it might be worth those complications And it could also it's sort of role modeling that we believe in maintaining forests And that we believe in carbon sequestration and that's an important thing to battle climate change And frankly, we could get revenue and then we could potentially support your department better For what it's worth. That's the piece that's different That everything else you said is already happening through our traditional approaches to stewardship technical assistance and management Take for keeping forest forests and climate results. It would be the new Revenue source to private landowners that we would be modeling and maybe to the state Right, and that doesn't exist and that interests me too, right? So I think the revenue piece, but I also think like this sort of Entrepreneurship of this and that kind of a new forest product somebody in their language said that These carbon offsets are a forest product in the same way that you know Timber is So, you know, I think role modeling the ability to Cash in on forest products is a good thing So so that so those two things the information piece the putting for a state land in it And maybe that state land is an anchor for a larger project, too And I think that there's a lot of you know possibilities being the mentor being the role model and saying hey Join us in this product and then the third thing that we talked about at one point was the potential for municipal forests and And maybe having your department work with municipal forests to see if it's possible to enter them collectively as and with maybe The nature conservancy to see if if that as an aggregation project because I also think that You know at Robert and I had this conversation, you know Oh, you get you go to town meeting and you see that line on your on your town meeting budget and that it's you know revenue from Carbon offsets for the town forests and everybody's you know thinks about that as there's there's actually like Financial value to it in a way that they haven't been before So those are the three things that I thought would be good And then the fourth one sort of leading into what Robert saying is if we were to create a statewide program This is what we recommend as the next step but Not necessarily Recommending it if you know what I mean just saying that if we were to you because I'm concerned about setting up an entire state bureaucracy for a very few number of landowners participating and I think Steve's point of You know, he wouldn't do this, but he did UVA And Mark's point of you know the trust funds that have been set up in other states haven't worked And I'm concerned about going down this path investing state money in it investing state time in it investing Everybody's a lot of things and they're not having it worked, but but I think Talking about if we were to go here. This is what we'd have to do and then You guys do experts can then decide if you want to take that ball and roll run with it or not That's sort of where I was thinking yeah, and I'd add another comment similar to the first one I said is on your point about this before us which I heard from I think we heard from Cecilia had real promise for and maybe better sir better Positioned as the model the demonstration and model that state lands, but I just say there again we We since 1915 we've been following a statute that directs us to give services to municipal forests It's over a hundred years. Yeah and We do that and do it really well and this so the only thing new would be to advise municipalities on Carbon offsets in their town forests We're already positioned to play that role with towns and this would be an additional thing Right, it's not like creating everything a whole new relationship with towns, right? Yes Yeah, so the infrastructure already exists. You already are doing this You already know I mean you literally know who to call and and what the players are right? So it's not like creating a whole entire new program much of this statutory Authority probably almost all of it already exists. It would just be giving you an added Fump and added. Yes, you know saying hey Hey, we want you to actually do this and we expect the results You know that kind of thing so that then it's not you going off and cowboying it in this new weird thing that you think is fun Or whatever. It's that you've been told you should do it. Yeah, that makes any sense. Yes Right, you right Thanks, Steve. You know Burlington City Council is actually going to do this No In the city of Burlington Burlington to sell carbon credits for trees on city parks Burlington City Council decided on Monday night This is August 14th, 2018 To sell carbon credits for the trees in its city parks Pat Bradley of the New York Public Radio Station WMC reports working through a carbon offset company Not named credits would be purchased by the state and other entities looking to meet carbon goals Well, if someone is buying this is a resolution put before the council on Monday authorizes the city to contract with urban offsets Ward 6 can't Democrat Karen Paul explained that if the company can sell the offsets over the next two years The city would generate 135 thousand dollars, which would be placed in a dedicated fund to support more tree planting Just need to acknowledge given the capacity of the county foresters We are actually being forced to pull back on our support of municipalities We barely have enough capacity to administer UVA effectively let alone provide the important services to forest and community for it so doing that work is among the The favorite work of any county forest are incredibly valuable and demonstrating management, but it's Difficult to prioritize so if there is such a recommendation that comes from the group recognizing that it is it's not within the current capacity of the county foresters to Do additional work let alone the current work that's expected. Thanks Keith. It's good that the group gets to hear that in a different voice So what would may ask? Sorry, yes, okay So if they could to Increase the capacity sufficiently to be able to do this kind of thing what would it mean more positions more Last of something else. Yeah, it's complicated and in this essence. Yes I mean that's the short version, but I mean Keith's point is a good one I say well since 1915 we've been doing this But and I used to do a lot of it as a county forester and Keith says it's the best stuff because you really get a lot of bang for Your buck you get community engagement and people learning it's infective infectious and But we've had to because of other statutory obligations particularly with the current use program We've had to tell folks you got it. You got to drop some of that We just can't prioritize this key says that work given this responsibility and this very important other program So we've had to kind of pull away and now private consultants are doing more of that work with communities So it's just making the larger point that if we were to gear up with a municipal forest effort or any of these efforts Right even on state lands. We don't have anybody we have expertise, but we do not have bodies Yes, and and it's a big state. There's a hundred and how many town forests Something so we'd love to do it, but we can't do that under present capacity that's really it Isn't sound or is it worth pursuing? It's just a practical reality that we need to be careful with and make sure everybody knows We would want to throw that in at the last minute like cold water on this, right? So I think it's important to put it in the up front in the report And so that people know that they want to support this then they would have to put capacity money where their mouth is kind of thing and That's typical. That's exactly just a practical reality and once people see that maybe they'll say oh, I'd rather Do this other thing that might have a bigger bang for the buck I don't know and then that would be me in the chair saying thank you for your interest in this We share it and if we're gonna have any added capacity it would be to deal with the things we're already behind on right now current use and public recreation on on state lands which we are you know Falling way behind so I would say this would be at least third or fourth in our tier of priorities for new capacity Given what we keep being asked to do and I think that's fair for you to testify to that point Bring up that becoming expert in helping somebody develop a project is huge and that's why Everybody hires project developers to do that and so thinking that every county forester will become a project developer is certainly unrealistic So I'm I'm looking at this urban offsets people and trying to figure out who they actually they have all different Registration all different. It's very interesting. Anyway so But Jim I was wondering for TNC. So they're doing this working lands offset program or whatever They're trying to work with them. So trying to get they're trying to do what I think Robert but describing or or are they doing something different? Why what would be the role of the state in that? so The way working with us works now is Individuals with primarily really large ownerships will come to TNC or TNC will go to them That's part of a larger conservation project protection project We'll put a working force easement on the property and at the same time develop a carbon Project somebody else. It depends. So it's a it's been evolving in the early years of working woodlands It was we would go to a blue source and just you know Do the turnkey operation and they developed a bunch of projects for us as capacity is grown within the nature Conservancy There's expertise now on staff of people that have done enough programs working with blue source and everything We now will either do that in-house or Do contracts for services? So we might go to us a SIG or somebody to just do the actual modeling or whatever and then more and more as TNC is Generated credits we just we go straight to market with we market those as TNC working with those credits because we've Built relationships with corporations and others to sell them. So we feel we can get a premium for those So you're taking both ends and all the way up to the middle. Yes and it's kind of you know, I would say more robust in the Central Appalachians because that's kind of where the program started and it's continuing to grow out So I really wanted to call Greg Mead and ask him You know Greg Mead is the director of this program in the Central Appalachian for TNC and ask him How would you do it? No, if you were a state and you were trying to support this idea and so I didn't do that But I but I think what Jim's describing is a model that we're seeing more and more of that There's a bigger group of people who are willing to do the technical services piece Respecting the fact that there are others that do some of those other pieces better or more effectively given their particular Thrust than a standard developer might mean Whereas these guys have bigger goals So the question is should we try to replicate that here or Not because it's all you guys have already developed that capacity. We could just say Capacity is limited in here in his case, too You see we have the opportunity to build local capacity to do some of those things and use their skills But then the other difference is the size of the parcels and you know This the model work in Because the trees grow faster and and they have a larger Parcel the model works in the central apps primarily because we have larger Both right trees are growing big down there and we have larger properties work with which is why the Nature Conservancy is partnered with the Vermont Land Trust to look at cracking this aggregation effort because you know everywhere else we have small parcels and Well stock trees, so how do we get them to market? So we're trying to figure that out and and that's I think we're That you know, it's that larger aggregation like how do we then scale that up? You know cold hall was you know a handful of properties and that was challenging Well, it's challenging because nobody's done it yet. And so we're hoping by you know, what we're learning there is that it can be Replicated and we're trying to seek some additional funding to figure out how we do that. So what would the state? What role would the state be? How would their involvement make a difference? You're already looking at it here I've scratched my head around that a little bit part of that is making sure that And I think we speak to this in the report is that our use value appraisal program UVA current use doesn't Inhibit people from being able to join aggregation efforts So we want to make sure that there's a pathway forward there because we know you know most of the properties That will be interested in enrolling in this program are probably already in current use So we want to make sure that that's compatible with that. We've made that point. I think in a few places in the report Yes, there's a lot of And so I think we're covering that so so it's that but for me that we just need to be very clear We want to make sure that we're not Creating barriers for landowners But you're not seeing some clear gap that cheese if the state just had the resources the initiative that Training the mandate whatever I think and then there's just you know making sure that our county foresters and anybody that's interacting with landowners Understands these markets enough to say yeah, there's something there go talk to these guys if you really want to dig in So there's a little bit of that But you know, I'm you know other than you know, I think that I have to Having just seen this from Robert, you know, I need to kind of digest a little bit Yeah, go yeah, so I think one role that the state could play would be in the feasibility analysis like Jack suggested which is Right now in the hands of developers. So there's there's there's an aspect of that That's really important in my mind for someone with Real transparency to control so we're not doing this because we think we can make money, you know We're not looking at this project because we're we're its success for us is based on a success for you. We're saying We can evaluate the feasibility on its merits for yes There's a cost structure that we might have to meet in order to provide a certain set of services But we're not taking a 20% or a 30% or a 40% cut On the carbon here. We're going to be able to do this on a fee-for-services basis So I think that the expertise required for that pre-project feasibility analysis could very easily fall into the The the person that might be an analyst in the department Please Jack go ahead Steve Webster's comment that you wouldn't be interested in this is is that because you now understand it as a result much better as a result of the study group or It just on the face of it Carbon credits for forest land just is of no interest to you and I ask that just because I know we Don't know what all forest land owners think about this or what they know about it, but I'm just trying to get a sense of It would even getting to the point of not knowing much about this understanding it well enough that you Could decide to proceed or not would be useful Well, I know now maybe more clearly than I did before how expensive it is to get into the program but Maybe I'm laboring under My current circumstances, which is that my life is so wrapped up with other projects litigation Volunteer work for non-profit things like that none of which is compensatory And I just don't have the mental energy to tackle something like this, but even so I mean I've known about easements for a long time donated easements or purchased easements that Alter forever The relationship to your land and to other people and that's never been appealing to me and this is similar to that Yeah I know we don't have more time to study it seems like it would be helpful to get a better sense of what Forestlander owners do know about this or can what their attitudes are and that might be some work That could be done to to get a better sense of Where the states and landowners are? Thanks, Keith, do you know if the National Woodland owners survey now asks about carbon offset projects? That's a thing that is done repeatedly by the Fed I got the 2018 version of that I can answer that in two minutes Way to go Keith. Well, I think that I think we before any service group if you want to call it that We're to be created. We'd have to do that kind of Marketing market research to figure out whether there was there was enough of a demand for that I mean all I know is anecdotally that you know force carbon works has a dozen or half a dozen Thousand people who have contacted them and said we're interested in doing something Steve I do remember recently a month or two ago seeing a reference in an American Forest magazine a reference to some Resource they had in-house to educate people on this topic I Don't I didn't Follow-through I have a question for Jim or Jack And maybe this isn't something that you've broken out or whatever, but even in let's say the Burnt Mountain project alone You haven't even gotten to You know a completion as to what it's actually going to be yet. What are your estimated? Costs or hours involved is there any is there any way to quantify that? Yes, I don't have an answer for you. I mean I could give you a wag That makes so much it's so what's hard is because we through blue force who's doing Full project development in exchange for credits on the back end It's hard for us to know exactly how much time they're pouring in into that You know that I you know haven't estimate on how much our time isn't it? Which quite honestly is not then that burden some you know That's the beauty of going to a blue source is there they're handling and then you know I get a call every a month maybe at the most that they need some information, you know My most recent experience has been you know I had a week period where all I was doing was Burnt Mountain because we were shifting from one to the other and But honestly most of that work was because I had to get others within TNC to approve what I had already approved But again in the end that that blue source the company that you're working with they're gonna they're gonna yield a Quite a substantial amount of money through these credits, correct? They will yield some income out That goes to what Steve's talking about a lot as far as is this my well for me as a forest Landowner to go through all this which you're not even going through a big chunk of it because it's being sourced out But anyway, I just yeah Yeah The one thing that maybe might shed some light on that is the Robert you have that Model that Yeah, that's true the website information the putting this state land in the municipal forest and then Recommending that if we were to do a statewide program. This is what next step. Oh, okay. Okay. Well, I was thinking them Somewhere between number four and five Which is somewhere in between? Number five and what you were saying What I was wondering is is it possible it would be helpful to have an online tool where they can just plug in a few parameters about their Site it wouldn't be as complicated as an element one But we take that step of pre-qualifying them and sort of whatever blue sauce does up front And would that even be helpful because now you're saying your pre-qualification Whatever their first assessment said oh you could do the compliance market and then when they actually measured the trees It's like no you have to do this other thing But would it be helpful and as a possible have an easy thing where you just plug in five to ten parameters and determine whether or not You should keep looking further Yeah, I think there are places that you could do that. I assume they're already there I don't know. I mean I've had conversations with landowners who have called me Saying when how can I do this? What can I do to get my lands enrolled and Frequently what I hear is you know that that they think it's the right thing to do They feel like this is something they want to commit to It's hard to say we're not there yet, but that's basically my response We can't we don't have an arrangement that allows you to do it on a 75 acre or 100 acre scale We just don't and don't give up but check in in a year or two or five years and maybe things will change this You know I start this whole section by saying what we learn from this exercise is that it's complicated and it's dynamic and so It's gonna fall to somebody to keep a pulse on this thing for a while And I don't know who that's going to be once this group dies and I retire Because there's not a lot you know there's there's got to be some momentum here and you know I look to the nation serving land trust is having taken a step towards a commitment there and You know, how do we bring and the fact that you guys are such willing partners? It just seems like how to be some way to bundle this expertise into it Something that could happen, but that's that's it. It's just a dream Okay, so we are 55 minutes away from And we are nearing the end of the original walkthrough guided by our lead editor You want to jump back in and I mean what maybe was just where how should we leave this proposed charge six? Now we agreed to kind of Enter it in to this version of the draft with the discussion we had about it Which is that we're not necessarily saying this happen But that for now, it's the best we got for a statewide program concept That would be flagged as needing lots of work and Enumerate the kinds of things that are needed Is it everyone are willing to leave it in or put it in at this point in that in that way if I if I'm reflecting the conversation appropriately Everybody good. I think if we just put the caveat at the front that That this isn't necessarily what we're recommending, right, but that this is Then I think we could probably edit it to make it shorter Comments quick others. Well, just you know in looking at it again. I mean there's more questions here than there are answers Just which is I'd be more comfortable with then then Statements and recommendations that should be questions that aren't you know, I think the questions are kind of helpful actually You know opinions can vary others for now So are we going to have a recommendation section because I was kind of Six we have that if this is it then then we're missing other Yes, and there's charge seven and eight to get to and eight is whatever else we it is kind of an open-ended Whatever else we want to recommend so I think we're we have the opportunity to provide recommendations and where we as a group Haven't gotten to those yet other than what have been kind of Tuesli offered in drafts Various people's drafts so far, right But I think we need that's part of where we're trying to get to society So I was assigned charge and I felt completely incapable of writing anything for charge seven because it was Because six was blank and and so part of my motivation was self-serving My best raw dog in charge six then at least I could do something to charge seven keep rolling Can I suggest a thing for charge seven? Yeah, there are so many things The possibilities of if it's compliance market versus voluntary market if it's this kind of land versus this kind of land There's so many things that we could just do this is an example of this kind of parcel in this market with this price I like it just do and it so it doesn't even show like We're expecting to get you know $500,000 right, but it would be right we would list if I'm understanding we might describe that it depends given that it depends on So many things. Yeah, we can't actually about yeah We're trying hard. So here's what we got is this one snapshot of a potential for What a typical kind of probably would lock kind of scenario. Is that what you're suggesting? Yeah, I would say Here's one example if you got into the compliance market you could get this if you got in voluntary market Okay, that's an offering that's been put forward any reaction to it mine is I kind of like the idea for a way to deal with charge Mine is that that's not what charge seven is looking for I mean why I recharge seven is it says Following right after charge six if you're gonna do a program What are the revenues from that program and how should that revenue be allocated within the context of the program that you've disguised What we said was well any rep this is kind of a strange question the revenues accrued to the landlord Well, but I think No, but I think this Program I might be interpreting it wrong But I think six envisions to state program and seven follows as the as the consequences of having that program Where would that where would the money from that program? Because the program is to cover its costs and that there would be some expectation that the state would benefit from this You're saying like a developer. What would what would our cut be exactly? Yeah, because you have to if they're not talking about Allocating funds from the legislature doesn't it still kind of depend as senator Hardy says on so many things maybe but what I'm hearing You guys talked about is that this is a case study of a typical parcel And I don't know we're just trying to frame up what I thought I heard was kind of a way to credibly respond to this difficult By giving some helpful perspective on the range of possibilities depending on where you land in this universe Yeah, I think when when people have asked me including what we could just have marked you this Is you know people ask this question how much how much money could we get you're on the study committee? What have you learned right and my answer is always it depends, you know, it depends on all that you know So I think we can put in I mean we can even put three different Scenarios just saying if we put in you know 25,000 acres of super tall trees that were you know, you know, whatever And then the sort of obvious Then and then I think the obvious answer to how the out the revenue should be allocated is that it would have to first cover the costs of the program And if it's a state program, it would have to cover the cost of state Administration and all that because it's a private that you know That they would have to cover their cost of getting into the program and then they would get the benefit of it Yeah, but ultimately how revenue is allocated is our job like the the legislature. It's the one that decides how to Appropriate state revenues though, you know, I don't I'm not sure exactly why Cecilia so One of the documents I referenced up front With something by man that came out recently that that gave their red-yellow green that we decided was simplistic But they gave specific cases So it's that full thing real parcels with real acreage and why this one was viable Why this one was question why this one was unviable So I don't know if we need to repeat it or just include their things There is some guidance out there. We could also link to that do the hot link to that in this section I To make to provide those resources from the state to partner it takes Well, I would hope that one of the examples could be a state parcel that we Yeah, you could put in an example if we put this 25,000 acre state parcel and you could get this much I think that that's a good call We should make that if we're going this direction. We should make that one of the at least one of the scenarios Wow, do we do we have enough information to even do that though? I mean, I don't think so. Well, we haven't I think we have enough information to estimate Yeah, with a bunch of provisos caveats, etc. I do. I mean, that's what By the way, do Did you walk us through a little spreadsheet if you have this acres and this thing this Because we don't have anything else I think it's it's fair to say we don't know but there are some here's some examples of what In a bunch of different categories. We've got estimates from a number of different sources I have a table that I could plug in here that shows Different parts of the country and the estimated revenues and that's well We could link to that too or put that in as another example And Jack has some actual data from a real project that we could also say, you know if you're the for the Middlebury College thing you actually have the estimates of what your offsets Okay, so I haven't put the case study in yet Jack Having had this conversation to see if there's any more relevant information we can include in there Okay, send me an update version. I do agree to I thought the man I'm at piece Publication was really helpful If you are coming out this from a what what's this potentially How does this work from a financial perspective? I thought they did a pretty good job of laying it out So I think it's good to link to that We've been talking a lot about developing a project That's viable and it one of the things that Robert showed was the price sensitivity that that's really important What we haven't talked to that is can the state do anything to change the price That they would get and I think the idea came up, you know, what if act 250 requires people to offset their carbon For new development and what if we do something like California and say a certain percentage of it has to be Vermont based on Offsets or something like that that would create demand which theoretically would increase price I don't know that we could meet demand, but we haven't really talked about that angle at all I think I agree, but I'm not sure that's this charge I just find it really hard for us to Say what that is because it's unclear to me what the Like what the parameters are for the revenue where the project's coming from who's doing them You know, it's just like there's so much there that I think the best we can do is probably You know your table, you know and having you know Jax and his you know the Middlebury as the one example of a project that has been done here in Vermont. I mean, that's the best Well, that's all we've got right Jack. Yeah If I if I could to see a general plan again, I'm coming from a legislative point. Okay, I understand what you're saying But you're talking about state mandates that would increase the amount of money people would get for these plans Those the month those state mandates whether it's to a car dealership whether it's to a business to act of 50 They're gonna put that cost up in their product. You're gonna pay for it as a general public It's not something that's magically out there. Oh, I agree. Okay. I understand they're going out of business Yeah, no, I'm not trying to make or cost for other people But it's just if there's going to be a climate component to anything that goes forward like that Then there are ways to favor Vermont And so you had said the compliance market was going down demand for compliance offsets may be on the decline and I wasn't sure about that because California is actually Increasing the number of sectors. That's why they're reducing how much that you Increasing the number in a few years out. So they're expecting the Offsets to go up and then New York State now has a new Climate bill that's supposed to include forest offsets and we would actually be we're border with them So we're if they do the same thing as California, which requires that you have a direct benefit to California And they think of direct benefit as well water flows from Nevada to California. We're right next to New York We could be a prime candidates for the New York compliance market and that's way out there Nobody even knows what that's going to look like yet, but I didn't know if that was a fair statement that I do think that I think it is Worth mentioning whether or not we do it, but worth mentioning that there are ways the state could Help Favor Vermont based credits or however you want to phrase it you phrased it better than that But that there are policy decisions that could be made and put an example about that because I think that that That does link it to other work that Legislature's doing in other areas that are not that are outside of this study And and I think that that is helpful and again, it's a policy decision I don't know if we would end up doing it But I think it's something that hadn't I hadn't thought of And Reggie is your other opportunity right so the other thing is I don't think we're doing that But at least two other states are using their reggie reggie money towards forest carbon offsets on a very Well, but there's also getting reforming reggie right to allow Remorse forest offsets to be used within that cap and trade structure And I say so back to this what this section seven We would do the examples thing caveated caveated The Middlebury College actual example yes Robert's table and Yeah Yes, that's how I understand where we're we're sort of proposing right now for seven. Okay, I Is that um Right we're gonna finish that for by hooker by crook and the things we need to finish would be seven and eight and then I think a discussion of how to get to the next level which is going to be a separate meeting One way or another and public comment That's what we need to allow for in the next 40 minutes Who's gonna do these potential of examples is JFO gonna do it or is Robert gonna do it or I gonna do it Are you gonna do it the potential examples where Robert said he had a table he could provide right a table I could I Could think about the examples put something together with lots of caveats to say that this is not well either They're caveats or I could use this as an opportunity to say there's this project and there's this project and there's this project And here's what yields have actually been from right what I'm thinking what I'm when I'm visualizing it It's it's literally like the math done out for people like when you're in you know trigonometry and the teacher writes it up on the board So you understand it. Yes, you're showing we're showing our work there to get to the you know I'm really hesitant to put specific Numbers for specific acres in a highly variable and hypothetical situation That's my that's my that's the cave that's where the caveats Like an a for you know why is equal to mx plus b? You don't know the number of the slope, but you can use I think it is because I think you've seen the math most people do not know what the matter is What matters is I didn't tell how many credits are available What's the cost of development and what can you sell? So if those three pieces are all you're looking for we could probably put something together there But but to me it doesn't add a whole lot to the discussion in a way that's meaningful again That's being fairness because you know so much. I know I know People who know nothing might have an interest Thank you Robert that that I think thank you. That's a huge Constitution okay, you have it you need senator for that that section. Yeah, so then section eight other issues the working To me this is just what do we want to recommend and I mean it seems like we've complicated this so much I don't know that we want to add more things except for maybe this is where we plop in What Cecilia was just saying about the other state? policy You were just saying that's already in there up front, right? What are other states doing Jack did you want to say something to him? No, okay I'm fine. Thank you. I'm gonna go and I don't know I'm here and make a suggestion that we just Decline to address a we've got a heck of a report going on here And we got our hands full with it and I think we'll cover everything we're covering everything we can Yeah, and respectfully would just say thanks. We have nothing for you to add When she's editing something doesn't seem to be here You can sit them down and say additional things or can be an appendix or I'm proposing that comments Jim It just it seems to me that the earlier conversation about double counting fits right in here Okay, we covered it I know but I'm just wondering To move it out of that place and put it in did we cover it well discussed we discussed we discussed it and I Assigned myself to writing something about it Robert's kept simple version Of double counting and then otherwise it'll be a place for whatever we might emerge as Cecilia says as we head down the finish line here Okay, great. So we've made it through the document so far Thank You senator Robert. Go ahead. So I'm reading the the legislation This report shall include specific and detailed findings and proposals concerning the issues set forth in subsection C Which is the eight charges to a proposal for a pilot project to enroll state forest land in a carbon sequestration market Yep, three any recommendations for legislative or regulatory action. So those should go I would suggest into the end of the report Just as written there and say So so remind me so You know, I'll just take this one on the state lands piece of pilot. I mean, I think we can Respond and say we've looked at this these are the things that would have to happen and We're not making our specific proposal is to make a specific proposal Until these things have been met these you know that kind of an approach that we deal with it as best we can in other words And if we can propose legislation we would but you know if we can propose a pilot We should but I'm not sure we're going to be able to and I think it's okay to say that And being responsive to the charge No, there's three of them right these are the three that they're the last part of the law It says the report shall include it's after all Specifically here are a number of things that we would need to better understand and If those were followed we would be willing to contemplate putting together a pilot So the recommendation of how to address that part of the legislation could be taken from our Thank you That one of the three that the end that says you're going to do these three things one of them is a pilot I'd say that's how we would propose to handle that piece What are the remind us the first one specific in detail findings and proposals concerned the issue set for us well But that would be that's right and three is my recommendations And then we could summarize our recommendations writ large here in this place at the end. Yes, so I think we're covered I think we can make sure that those were not. Thank you for that. It's very helpful I think that that we put up front. That's remember in the executive summary So if you go, oh, I see right you And then we so just the conversation that Corey and I had you know, can you read in the first two pages what these people are? It should not be in the end. Yeah, nobody will get that part So we've now covered sort of where we stand with The draft document responding to the charges and this follow-up piece at the end We've gone through it. Well, I think thank you all for that But what we haven't done is said I want to say this and it says that and the edits and what does this mean kind of thing? So we have to get to that next which I'm going to suggest we're not going to do in 20 minutes Yeah, so can I suggest that there are some sections that some of you were going to follow-ups with specific information, right? You guys can follow-up with me about what didn't get in that you thought should have gotten in So that's when you discuss we're going to do all those pieces get you the things we've discussed that you need our Comments so you can get to the next a next draft, right? What I think I could do is send out a word version of the file That you could send me back That's great that would be that we could that you try to change track changes in I don't want to do it on the Google Doc because then everybody's changes get in there and it gets really confusing I'll greet. Thank you, but I also would suggest that you guys don't Word Smith it that is what I'm trying to do. So if there's something I've said that is incorrect Or it's something that somebody else has said that's incorrect because I didn't really change much content then fix that But if it's just a word smithing thing if we're all trying to edit the word smithing It's going to get to be too complicated. Can I get a special pass on that? I don't know I can invent or editor myself You can get a special pass, but you know, so you guys can if I send out over that we just go through it and Do the track changes? Yes. I think this is a great place. Yes So we're all clear on that we have discussed things that we're each and various of us are going to share with senator Hardy And then we've we've got line edits and that's all going to happen Via responding to a word doc that you senator Hardy will send to But the other thing is that if you could when you send it back to me label it like new day Michael's edits exactly Yeah, so that I know For for our part you'll only get one from from our it'll be from me, but it'll be Robert I How do we do folks? We're in a good place. I think relatively speaking we need that's what we're going to do And then we need to eventually get back together to say yes Thanks, Ruth for putting it all in you got my right and it's all in there And now we have to discuss like the recommendations Sort of conclusions, and are we all good with it? And we would need to do that in an open process and we can do that as I described at the outset In a special meeting that you don't have to come to unless you want to But I will reserve a room and have a space and it's public and we'll handle it that way I think that's what we're planning to do next so we and so I can work with the new dev On you know finding a date for that and getting the information out to her is that sound Here is the physical location I would suggest probably at national life Where the parking is still bad, but maybe better than here But it's also where our offices are and I have control over I can I can reserve a good room for it there and have The equipment I'm if it needs to be in the state house I'm I just I'm a little worried that we're having a transition of staff support I might not be able to pull it off. Okay, are you sorry? I was So you're saying you're gonna have a fiscal meeting that we can come to or not Well, I'm sorry And if you are I'm fine with that. I just don't know how to handle that So can we handle that now by sort of taking a straw for our folks willing to do this without compensation to come to another meeting It's just Yeah, if you can set up a zoom meeting for those For people who can't come that's a better technology than the phone or skype So doing a zoom meeting and that and then people can sit with their laptop So the idea would be we're gonna have a sixth meeting but folks have said they're willing to not request compensation or If they don't want to travel they can have the call-in option over the Video option, but we're gonna try to have everyone together. Am I right about that? Go ahead Steve. Yeah, I have in my daytime or the 6th of December No reserve carbon. Is that is that date that's available to everybody? That may have been a vestige of an earlier doodle and but so it's not been Selected, but it's a good point. Whatever would be willing to look at it right now Did that get held somehow miraculously for people? Sorry The fourth has the legislators in town already I can't The 6th I could do the 6th, especially if it's in the morning I have hold for carbon meeting You could And John's not available either I guess what I would we can try to muscle through right now and find a date Which would be awesome, or I can do the doodle pole thing. So we is there a chance we can settle on a date The first We have 10th in the morning I could do the afternoon. How about the 10th in the afternoon I Could do the afternoon me too. I could who can't I can't I Be back I could do it late morning early afternoon after I have a meeting in Middlebury at 3 30 that I have to be We're now working on the 11th I can Like in I can't do the morning afternoon of the 11th. I'm gone the 11th you're the 14 Okay Into the week of the 16th do the 10th was I the only one who couldn't do the 10th think so John can't Long week, I can't do the 17th week of the 16th About the 18th Oh boy So we're proposing the afternoon of the 18th Yes, and I'm gonna go with this speak now if listen up, please Speak now if you cannot make the afternoon of the 18th. What do we call in the afternoon? We do the morning Is that better all right so sure we're looking at nine to one on the 18th Ten to two going once Make sure you don't die Ten to two on the 18 We're going with it folks everybody good 1218 If we don't need it we use it You're gonna national life Well, wait, let's see Actually to be determined right now, but it doesn't have to be if there's staff support here I think maybe keeping it here is better for the public and Let's start with it decide to be determined. Thank you So Just go Because it's just us at this point and right so let's just pause we we're doing great here But you declare what is it that you wanted to get back to well, so the findings and recommendations sections No, I was gonna I just wondered I think it's important for us to enumerate our major findings Upfront so that yes recommendations Right so we've agreed what we've done is we said that we are likely to have some And that they should be in the front of the document per your your inquiries comments about how to read ability Right, so we've done that but what we haven't done is decided which of which will be there Okay, or even how to decide on that well, so just from the Editor it's it's really easy. It's much easier to edit a document when I know what the recommendations are gonna be Yeah, because then you can Yeah, it's just So how what are we gonna have how do we get there exactly so we've gotten we've gotten Five things I've heard that people have mentioned as potential recommendations And I was wondering if we could go through them and see at least take a straw ball It's not an official vote. Yes as to whether or not people are comfortable at least putting them in as draft recommendations I think that I'm willing to accept that everybody good with that. I would say let's pause there Listen to public input allow for it if there is any it might inform those And I think that's fair and then we'll come back and finish up with that. How's that? Super Now is there any public comment? Allowing for it the notes will reflect that there was a time allotted for it and none was offered Thank you Why don't you guide us through the those that you heard okay, so there's the the recommendation that Department of Forest Parks and Rack or your department. That's what it is the Department of Forest Parks and Rack I like that better than my department. Okay dfdr whatever Just referred to that the forest people would be Would you develop some fun? Forest and fun develop some sort of public information Resource that Stuff works what it is How it works who are the players where resources that kind of thing I'm not going to stand in the way of that as a recommendation Does everyone feel comfortable? Okay FPR, okay, I'll make it right. I'm just typing And I will write these up formally and they'll be in the drafts that I put Okay, and then the second one was the Look at the potential to develop us a municipal forest Aggregation plan To enter a municipal forest Was that the one of the four that you were hoping to get out of this? And then and actually enrolling a parcel of state forest land into a carbon market And then the fourth one would be if we were to set up a state for a statewide program This would be the next step. Those were my four and then Cecilia had a fit I'm not ready to support a recommendation that there should be a state lands pilot because the report says we're not ready to do that so your truth my It says if we were to we would need certain things to happen You would have to analyze a parcel to see what are the components of the parcel Which is kind of what you do when you start any project and any of these forest projects You have to analyze the parcel. Do you mean? Do you Analysis what do you mean? sort of what Robert walk us through understanding what components or elements of Unit of land would make it feasible for a project So we would want to work with Robert and it first better understand the specific purposes behind us wanting to enroll poverty because that feels like step one Understand the purpose because that would inform them And then at this point I think sorry back about just I think we would our default assumption about what that purpose would be We'd be based on all the deliberations to this point lead us to as a model and to demonstrate Yeah for others to benefit from for us to learn from and for private lands and municipal ads to learn from so that would be our I think our starting place from why we would do it. I think that's that's what we assume Is it's it's that playing that role as and possibly as aggregator an anchor for aggregation with a private plan, right? the whole influence How we would put together a project based on what's our aggregation Financial contributions revenue being another all of those different variables would inform how we would value it That's all in the report and and and and So the recommendation in my view would be to recommend that there be capacity and resources that additional capacity and resources at FPR to do these things municipal outreach websites and outreach and Pursue the analysis and State lands thing so that's a recommendation I could get behind not FPR must do this and leave us hanging in the wind Right. No, I that's totally fair. I guess what I'm hearing you say you need to answer. Sorry. This is awkward I moved over here to do that What I'm hearing you say that it's necessary to do my understanding of that and I agree I mean obviously that's work that needs to be done before you put it into any kind of market But that is similar to the work that a project manager would do for any project Even if it's not Developer would do for any project I think it's taking it a step beyond the due diligence that we do when we're when we're actually acquiring parcel There's there's that set of due diligence and beyond that is another set that Cecilia referred to us is expertise beyond what we have So it sounds like the phrase and I like the way you phrase it having the resources and capacity But it wouldn't be saying you're going to enroll a project you can develop a project But it sounds like you're going to analyze the feasibility of a project And I was gonna make that recommendation for the municipal one to and not say we're gonna aggregate some town forest and make a project But again, it would say explore the the options for Towns to help town forest or to aggregate with other towns Okay, so Forest department Analyze the feasibility of and rolling Jane Jane here, this is the secretary. I'm here on behalf of the secretary Jane is here voicing for official wildlife in particular So yes, the excellent point. Thanks, Jay. It's not just FPR. I think the yeah, so and go with a an arthur out Okay, I Have felt like up until this point the other suggestions Outreach and stuff should that be us and it seems relatively so fair enough Right so on the outreach and the municipal stuff that's fine to be FPR, but when we get to state lands It definitely needs to be an okay, so analyze the feasibility of enrolling a parcel of state forest lands into a Carbon offset program You may even say and I would say in our because it's they're not all forest lands some are parks Some are wildlife management areas, so can those be in? Oh, yes, if the forested yes, I think referring to them as a and our lands in this state land Okay, so that is actually something I changed in the reports. I was thinking and you notice that that's why I did it I was like, I think they have to be for us, but I can change that back That's easy to change back. Okay state lands into a carbon also Can we answer right now the Purpose question like I said, I think we assume the purpose to be them for demonstration and Learning purposes, you know, that's what and and Yeah It's all part of the facilitating others and helping it's part of your idea that we're the information people and we would have some Experience if we did it on state lands and we like the idea of generating some income Okay, I'm gonna make this sound better, but you got demonstration generating income And selling expertise And they're fairly thoughtful on their purposes, so there may be some wording there that you could pull up here, okay? and then Then the the municipal one what how how should we work that well are people okay with this? Second one exploring the feasibility here. I think the Cecilia had an approach go for it Yeah, just just not to promise we're gonna do it That's similar to the state, but even maybe a little less so and explore the possibility of assisting right towns and Engaging carbon market opportunities including You know I really did Okay, so we're comfortable with that one if it's just exploring the possibility that's pretty Something and you know when it's developing a project and again, I say mark the marketing piece might be something the state can help with Marketing the municipal ones are marketing and anybody I mean because of what say we work with the wedding industry and if people are putting up their little wedding websites Where they can buy presents for people. Why couldn't they offset the carbon for their travel to the back? Yeah, people already do it there's this music group from that my my daughter's involved in and they're doing like a You know a tour the band tour and they're gonna buy carbon offsets to offset their Travel and these are high school kids They would want to buy Vermont carbon offsets if they could maybe they'll buy the little very college ones Jack So we don't even have to require people to do it there at 250 But there are people that are already whenever I hold a conference and it's not easy to find a website You can click on and say offset your conference travel with Vermont carbon is that getting in the way of Yeah To say that The department or the agency would suggest These are options for buying Vermont credits. Is that okay? I mean is it is it violating some kind of That that the department can't favor one business over another. That's why I'm you know what I mean Like if we said buy Middlebury College credits because they're Vermont you can't do that But we could still explore we could have the word explore, you know not only developing the projects for marketing So they could towns could decide having one marketing or not Okay, because we haven't talked that much about it, but that's Well, there's a number of companies now that will buy offsets and then put those resell them For that exact purpose need of energy of Vermont company among Okay, so explore the possibility of aggregating and marketing for a small forest land for Or explore the options of working with towns. We don't want to assume that we're sucking up their carbon Whatever, but I would say explore options for assisting towns Developing carbon projects Because I think it would just like having a state lands and role would help them understand the process of market development I if the state were helping people with the marketing part it would help them with Marketing pieces both the project development understanding options, okay, I Will I have explore possibility working with Vermont towns and cities to develop carbon offset projects marketing Create a program to anybody that wanted to have it up by an offset for me and one of my trees I think you know, I could name and they can purchase whatever That's what it sounds like the city of Mark what's it on that? I'm on here. Okay, we have nine minutes Then the last one was if you're gonna do it for a state Project, this would be a statewide project the next step would be If we were to recommend a statewide program as opposed to the state lands pilot, right? Yes, do we want to say specifically that What we've been talking about that we think working through existing voluntary market Standards and registries rather than create our own Yes, do you want to say that explicitly and therefore state efforts would Focus on facilitating participation in these markets. I think it's a really good idea Partner because and partnering with yeah with other entities with Everybody good with that Yeah Like private partners such as Do you want to be have a specific recommendation about produce? Have you read our section yet? All right as closely as I need to yeah, I mean it because I think the points we'd be making if anything would be that there's compatibility and I'd recommend that we don't do anything that would undermine the integrity of the program and its functioning now and I think there is a risk of that By sort of sort of saying that well now there's this whole other component to the program So I think we should build on the compatibility that already exists and not try to create a special carbon program because I think it Jeopardizes the entire so I think we need to be With you great that we we need to So the recommendation would be to not create a new program within current use but to Leverage the existing compatibility with carbon as a management strategy In the existing standards of the program and and then get to your point earlier also About not requiring that as a red dish You would recommend we would for your We would maybe recommend that They're not that rather than create a whole new program within current use We would look to leverage the existing compatibility in the program for carbon managing for carbon and enrolling in offset projects With the Cecilia sort of factor Reference which you already have somewhere else Rather than create a new program within the current use or UVA a new category a new category within of enrollment eligibility within UVA We recommend Leveraging the existing compatibility that exists So as frankly and I think to be explicit so as to maintain the integrity of the program its original purposes and Which are not threatened by offsets But could be if we went sort of too far with the offsets and per person There's also this larger issue that I think someone needs to say that I'll say is that It's it's it's very it there. There's a bike that the vulnerability is that if you start this whole other thing It opens up the whole question and I think we're vulnerable to having people say it's a 60 million dollar program the costs of the state and We need to do away with that That's a real danger then we lose we're throwing the baby out with the bath water and that's a problem So that's where I'm coming from when I say this that we there's there is compatibility We've done the analysis and it you can be enrolled in current use and still Have a chance to sell offsets in a market and we're saying work with that not create a whole new eligibility or Requirements for a carbon plan in current use for example It's already it's already allowable and that's what we need to maintain and Any any movement to connect us to current use should be should utter that Leveraging the existing compatibility is not creating a new category or new program standards did you want to comment on that it With that as a specific recommendation it Presumes that there is some anticipation of a specific Why are we considering a specific recommendation that I'm not sure is even there fair I'm wondering if in the great point there's already the recommendation of developing materials and Communicate and it could be a subordinate recommendation related to that clarify the compatibility and process by which UVA enrolled lands may participate Really helpful. Thank you. Can we go with that? Did you catch enough about it? It's in your original charge your recommendation that we'd beef up our outreach on this yes Yes, we saw in the current in the context of the current use standards program standards is a really wonderful idea, right? Super So I just wanted I like that better. I was gonna ask you. What do you mean by leverage? I don't know. It's a word legislators use But they they you know, it is part of our mission here It's a value eight how to utilize Among other things Vermont's use value appraisal program to maximize the potential value of forest land in carbon sequestration markets or enhancing conservation and to that charge our recommendation would be to to direct the department to To be better words, but you know increase our our outreach and to landowners for how carbon offset Enrollments could fit into current use Yeah You need it again, sorry what you're saying. No, I'm just I think if this is it I appreciate it. He said this because I thought your recommendation was kind of a negative But I'm wondering if we want to and and I was gonna also suggest that oh it's compatible with UVA It's also compatible with harvesting It's also compatible with all these other things and we could list that all in these But then I was like do we want to create a laundry list? And so I'm kind of going back and forth as to whether I want to suggest it If it's I think we're talking in the context of recommendations, so if it can be a recommendation to do so yes But if not, I'd say no we should leave it out compatibility to go in the findings Because we're not going to get to the findings can everyone Send me what they think should be a finding. Yes Sorry Steve, yeah, I want to express a concern I have And it relates to in incentivizing people to do this if The current use advisory board should plug into their fam their formula right an imputation to All land on all forest land owners. There's a certain Element just because you own forest land that you could be Selling carbon offset credits and so we're going to impute that income to you to the base for me increase your property taxes That I would be strongly opposed to Fair play and and in the same vein I would say let those forest land owners who do receive income from these offset credits Let them keep it without having it affect their Their property taxes, right? Increase their property taxes because of enhanced value, right? If you really want people to enroll this way, we're not making a recommendation to the current use advisory board To change the rate-setting formulas to include potential income from carbon offsets. We're not making that recommendation And I think it's important to say up front what we've all heard and thought that the vast majorities of Vermonters The carbon markets are not something they can participate in So therefore if people can't access that market then they can't add that into the Because it's just not open You told me this you have a reason to get up in the morning, so that's that's good and Keith there were a few places recommendations related to changes to UVA that would Increase the compatibility with carbon markets that are not consistent with the recommendation that right so I think those We're gonna flag those in our license be aligned. Yes. Thank you Senator Hardy, how are you doing? Nice work, are we almost there do you want any more recommendations to suggest the four recommendations that the website Just to put them simply the website the state land analysis Exploring the possibility of town for us and then if we were to do a statewide program Depend on the expertise of private partners in caging being a good partner blah blah blah that one that one I need a little we need to flush that out to flush that out. So if you have Suggested any quicker on the table for that now. Otherwise that would be in subsequent emails Not necessarily This public-private partnership yeah, yeah, but we're all but those four recommendations generally We're all okay with so that what as we lead toward editing this more. I can say this is Yes, yes, okay, great Okay, so can I just set a deadline for you guys getting back to me? I will I will send this to you tomorrow it will probably be Still have my weird notes in it so you can So if we're meeting essentially in a month the next week is Thanksgiving if you could get me something By The sick You say what it should be if you if you can get me and actually get it to me So I don't want it than that like the 48 hour thing again that was obviously didn't work So if you can get me something by the six that will give me a week and a half to edit it and get back to you Seems fair to me, and if you guys could give me your phone numbers I think you all have mine. So if I have a question specifically for you So you want by that date before that though wait a minute You want us to send you a whole bunch of little things we promised. Yeah, so some of these couple days Yeah, but as soon as we can get stuff to her but no later than the six But no, but this is her edit so she needs stuff beforehand Yeah, so so basically I'm gonna send you a word Document you can go through it and do just the track changes In that word document and then send it back to me and say with the label Cecilia's changes Then I'll go through see your changes and incorporate them But your changes may contradict with Jim's changes So I need to see everybody's changes and then make some So you're saying you want all of those individual changes by the sixth But I thought you were also asking us for little things along Yeah, you need within the next day or two to put in the document that we can do track changes Yeah, yeah, that that makes sense. So yes Okay, so I don't know no, they're absolutely right. So why don't you get me the little things that I asked for By before Thanksgiving Okay, what does that mean? Thanksgiving is 25 Wednesday the 27th all these other so that's eight days And so I have marked down that Cecilia is gonna send me something or Jim or whoever Jack you to Before Thanksgiving small things as we're calling them by the 27th so that comments and line edits, etc By the six. Yeah, so I'll say once I get your small things I'll put them into the document and then I'll send it back out to you as a word document that we can edit But I buy what I asked for your edits is you keep them focused so that it's not a special pass Suggestions part of the small things good question. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, okay