 Commissioner Tierney, I do see you now. Thank you for joining us. Really appreciate it. One of the things that we're hoping to, and I know you have a whole team with you from, from the department of public service. Just from a, you know, from a general context, appreciate your patience with my committee this morning as this is the first, I think we've all been using the zoom platform in recent days. This is the first committee hearing we've conducted with this. So again, appreciate your, your patience as we kind of wade through conducting our business via zoom. There are a variety of topics we'd be interested in hearing from the department on in the, you know, in the wake of the governor's declaration of an emergency a couple of weeks ago. You know, two big areas clearly are how our telecommunication system and connectivity is, is performing in the state right now. And I know that folks from the department had testified yesterday with the Senate Finance Committee on some similar topics. And then also how our energy infrastructure is functioning. One of the things that we've been paying attention to around the region and around the country is how loads have changed across the country to some extent, but, you know, interested in a high level and generally how our energy system is functioning as a state just as, you know, our way of life has changed pretty significantly in the last, in the last week or two. But with that, I just want to welcome you and I know you're extremely busy and thanks for joining us today. So it's definitely our pleasure to be here, Tim. Can you confirm with a hand gesture that you can actually hear me? Yep. Great. I cannot see myself on the screen. So I assume that I don't look completely ridiculous. You look great. I do look ridiculous. No worries. It really shouldn't matter because the substance is the value that it has, regardless of how I look. Very briefly to give you a fair warning. I have two individuals on the phone or who are appearing today who need to be elsewhere in fairly short order. That's Ed McMurray and Riley Allen. So I will ask that we put them on first with what they have to tell you about how our electric infrastructure is holding up and the potential rate impacts and pricing impacts that you indicated in interest in hearing about. And then we'll go to the telecom piece. I think we also have with us, I think today director Jordan, who is our electrical engineer. If anybody has any specific technical questions about the system, but in a nutshell, it seems to be doing fine right now. I'm saying that because I want to offer reassurance. I don't think our infrastructure, whether on the electric or the telecom side has ever been tested the way it's being tested right now. And from all indications I've seen it's been holding up seamlessly. It's important to distinguish between that fact and our aspirations, what we wish our infrastructure could do on the electric side. I don't see any wishes going on fulfilled at this time on the broadband side and sell side. Obviously the story is different. But for right now in answer to your larger question, what is the department's focus been since the onset of the state of emergency? Our focus has been first and foremost on continuity of essential service. And I think that has been going very well. It has been on making sure that the utilities have their contingency plans in place and are acting on them, meaning that they are getting out there to do the necessary work that also fits within the parameters of the governor's executive orders to ensure that the systems remain functional and delivering essential service to remonters while also planning for care of their workforce, whether it be in terms of prescribing and enforcing social distancing policies, or in holding an appropriate amount of their workforce in reserve to in order to plan for the possibility that if their frontline folks get sick that they have people they can rotate in. We have been discussing this a great deal in the healthcare space, but it is also a factor to be considered in the utility space. And that has been one of several regulatory supervisory functions that the department has been exercising during this time. Very briefly on disconnections. There are now a disconnection moratoria in place for both residential customers and nonresidential customers. That is a process that was met principally through voluntary service. And then there is a regulatory framework within which the essential services that utilities deliver are being managed, reviewed, and acted on as needed in order to ensure that people have lights on and basic telecommunication services. So unlike other areas of state government, there is an already in place mechanism that allows us to do a lot of the reacting and prescribing that may need to be done under this emergency set of circumstances. There are some instances where there are potential needs for either legislative fixes or executive orders, but they are at this time have not been absolutely pervasive. So there are some instances where there are potential needs for either legislative fixes or executive orders, but they are at this time have not been absolutely pervasive. The first point of action has been either my reaching out to utilities and saying, hey, what can you do here? Hey, what are you doing here? Get back to me on what your plan is for this, that and the other. And as necessary going to the PUC for action. So with that introduction, I'd like to pass this on to Ed McNamara and Riley Allen, if that's all right with you. That's great. And I think we have a very high level. Question that probably goes across the department of public service function, which is, have you seen, to what extent have you seen an increase or none at all kind of in the consumer complaint world or issues raised by consumers on any front, but just more consumers are at home now. More people are, whether it's conducting business or quarantined at home. What are some of the issues that you're seeing in the consumer complaint? This is an area that we are keeping an eye on. I receive a report every evening from my consumer advocacy division on this. I have not seen a noticeable uptick in traffic when it comes to complaints. They are well within the normal parameters, which would suggest to me not so much the people don't have complaints, but rather that it's not necessarily the first person that tends to be about service not being available, which as you know, is in the broadband space of predicament because we don't have the jurisdiction over that, but we do nonetheless take in the complaints because we gather that information as a statistical base to help us with policy. But I can't say that there's been a, you know, a rush to complain. And frankly, I'm not surprised because as I said, I think our, excuse me, our infrastructure is holding up to the needs of the public. And I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. Which is distinct from whether it is everything we want it to be. Does that make sense to you? It does. That's helpful. Thank you. You're welcome. So we're going to turn it over to Riley now. To add if you went in mind. Oh, okay. Great. Yeah. Great. Thanks. Yep. I'm here. Perfect. So Ed. I'm playing director for the department. And if you can get a little closer to your microphone, that, that would be helpful for me. I'm having a little trouble hearing, hearing it. Is that a better. Yeah, that's much better. Thank you. Okay. Great. Thanks. So I'm just going to give a overview of some of the regional impacts on a region-wide basis. I said New England is seeing about a three to five percent. Lean in. Sorry, it's not a pretty useful computer here. That's all right. I said New England is seeing about a three to five percent reduction in load in the last couple of weeks. This time of year, April, May tends to be relatively low load levels. Usually during the winter and summer, the highest load. Also this time of year, you're seeing more hydro production as you're getting more of a snow melt. So you're seeing quite a bit of hydro production. Solar is just starting to ramp up this time of year as well. All those factors in addition to low natural gas prices are leading to very low wholesale market prices. And that has two different factors. First, during this time of year, when our utilities that have a lot of committed hydro resources and solar resources. Those run of river or solar resources, the utility. We're losing yet. And my apologies. Having trouble with interconnect over here. Okay. So I said knowing that we're sorry utilities are selling into the ice in New England market. And they're selling at lower prices. This is sort of the worst time of year for utilities to be reselling power because wholesale prices are low. And there's a lot of excess generation because of the hydro and the ramping up of solar. So there's a cost pressure on utilities because they're getting less revenues from the power they're selling into the ice of New England market. I'm going to turn it over to Riley to talk about the retail impacts associated with that. Good morning, Riley. Good morning. Can you hear me? Okay. I'm using a. First set. Yep. You're coming through well and I'm getting thumbs up from other reps. Okay. Yeah. So I just wanted to quickly cover a couple. Points. I want to talk about. The retail rate payer exposure and sort of building on. Ed's comments. From our perspective. We think the exposure really emanates from. Three or four things. First is kind of the, the lost margins, if you will. From the difference between retail revenue and wholesale costs to our utilities. We estimate that it's approximately in the. Area of about 10 cent per kilowatt. Hour that is lost. From. Reduce sales that Ed was referring to. There were also other areas of. The retail. The essential pressure. On the utilities. It comes from the resale. Point that Ed had made. That's also relates to. The potential resale of. Some of our utilities are relatively rich in. The attributes of renewable energy. And that's, that's being felt. By the way, I'm going to talk a little bit more on the. The renewable energy credits. There's also potential cash flow implications from the. Disconnect of policy. But just to, just to give you a sense, a high level sense of what it is that we're. Talking about in terms of rate payer exposure. On a statewide basis, we, the state has. We've seen that in the last couple of years. We've seen that in the last couple of years annually. Roughly $67 million on a. Monthly basis. What we're seeing in Vermont is at least in, in March was a 10% drop. In. Electricity sales. Now, not, not all of that is associated with the. We've had 19 and related directives. Much of that is just weather related. Eating degree days or down about 20% in the month. March. So that's, that's a fairly major influence. The other secondary influence is. The effect of all the new renewable. Distributed generation that's come on in the last year, we've had almost 60 megawatts of additional generation. But at the end of the day, it's about a 10% drop in, in March from electricity sales. And I just thought I would kind of share the, you know, the implications of that. And I think that's a, you know, a little bit more of a, you know, a little bit more of a $60 million a month relative to. Essentially a $67. Million a month electricity bill. Overall. So that, that'll give you a sense of proportion as. The longer the more months they go by with lower loads. If they continue to kind of. In terms of, you know, the increase in the total energy consumption of the energy consumption, you can see roughly four to $5 million and essentially. Lost margins from our utilities. And again, some of that you ascribe to weather and some of it you described to reduce demand just from lowered commercial activity. Yes, exactly. Thanks. So. process and how it kind of functions when our utilities are financially strained. There are a number of recourses for our utilities. For our largest utility they have a decoupling mechanism in place so there's a place for it to essentially recapture lost revenues and associated margins in the framework of its power cost adjuster. So on a quarterly basis there is a mechanism in place to essentially flow back to those lost margins. And they can be kind of spread and adjusted so the impacts aren't too great in any given quarter. The rest of our utilities have the rate making mechanisms that are in place. There is essentially a 45-day rule that requires our utilities to give notice but they can essentially file for rates and put rates into effect. Subject to refund within 45 days of providing notice and that applies to all the co-ops and municipal utilities. Various other kind of mechanisms that we can kind of speak to but I think that at a high level our thinking now is that regulatory mechanisms in place are flexible and will essentially be responsive to the needs of our utilities as they unfold. The last point that I would make is that the Federal Relief Act also provides additional provisions for emergency relief related to the COVID-19 epidemic. And so there's some potential additional relief for our cooperative utilities that rely on our US funding. I'll stop there. Okay. We've got one hand up, Riley. Scott, did you have a question? Got on mute. There you go. Hi Riley. Excuse my voice is terrible and sick for the last week. Sorry, you were talking about, sorry, lost margin due to reduced sales. I guess you're kind of using economists speak and I just want to wonder if you can explain a little bit more what you're talking about. Four or $5 million reduction in sales means presumably some reduction in I think when I guess I'm thinking of margin as the difference between between revenue and costs. So if we have a reduction of sales of say $5 million, and there's, that's not a reduction in profit. Yeah, well, whatever the word is for revenue over costs for non-profit. Right. So I just wanted to explain that a little bit more. I appreciate the question and I apologize for reverting to my eco speak. So what I mean is, so there's around $67 million a month is our electricity bill that's about 10% reduction is 6.7 million and kind of gross revenue reduction. But part of that is associated with the cost of providing the electricity and there's a kind of a relatively short run cost marginal cost that is associated with that. And that's about, you know, in the neighborhood of 6 cents per kilowatt hour. So on a roughly 16 cent per kilowatt hour revenue, the incremental or short run incremental costs associated with each kilowatt hour is about 6 cents. So in between those two is is that that margin, that contribution that helps to carry the cost of the system, the joint common embedded costs of our utility some of the longer run cost considerations that aren't so caught up in the cash flow concerns. So 16 cent revenue, I think 16 cent revenue, 6 cent incremental or affordable costs, and then there's a differential of roughly 10 cent per kilowatt hour and that's being felt by our utilities as they go forward. And that's the, you know, when you do the math simple math it's roughly four to $5 million of margin, if you will, that's lost per month that has, you know, real puts real pressure on our utilities. Thank you. Riley I've got another hand up from representative in touch. Yes. Yeah, thanks. It's always happens. I'm writing those point. We can come back to you like. Yeah, please get back to me. Robin, did you have a question as well. You got to unmute yourself. Yeah, thanks. I did and I lost my hand raise hand button somewhere so the old fashioned way. Riley, I think building on, on Scott's question. You talked about a loss in revenue for utilities selling electricity into. I saw New England. Is that correct. Selling electricity to other utilities. Yeah. Yeah. I'm wondering, I mean, that works both ways, right? That electricity costs are then lower for utilities purchasing power. How does that figure into the numbers you are giving us the 67 million or 10%. I wasn't incorporating that I was kind of leaving that out because a lot of this is just unknown to me at this point it really depends some of our utilities most of our utilities are hedged relative to other states in the region. It's partly because we have vertically integrated utilities and they engage in longer term contracts and own generation where in other states they're restructured and they don't necessarily hold those positions so in the spring time in April, for example, there's a lot of, well, there's hydro we have, you know, the hydro Quebec generation but we also have, you know, a material number of kind of run of river hydro facilities that tend to run very well and in the spring that's when we get the runoff and that's when we have just a lot of electricity being produced by our electric utilities. That's typically when we tend to see, you know, more electricity flowing then than we necessarily need. And that's when we're in a position to essentially sell some of that electricity to to our neighbors so it's in part a function of the, the regulatory environment that we have here and part of the function of the types of resources that we have but it doesn't that was separate and apart from the, the math that I had done earlier that math earlier was just on the question of lost margins and I haven't factored in the implications of the question you're asking about which is that those resales. Okay, you also made a passing comment to if I got it right with my hand scratch. There are revenue impacts due to disconnect with policy. So disconnect policy, those are just kind of the, the, I mean, this is extending essentially that there's, there's a kind of a wintertime moratorium on disconnects to protect consumers that ends that ended yesterday effectively in March. And that's been extended by virtue of essentially the voluntary interventions of the utilities, coupled with the order from the commission. That means that the leverage that utilities have to put customers on notice that there is going to be a disconnect and the, you know, they lose that leverage and so there is a cash flow concern that would be associated with the slow payments or payments that ensue from the absence of that that leverage. I misunderstood the comment I heard it as a disconnect from policy, as opposed to a disconnect policy. Thank you. Mike, did you have a question. Yes. And I have to remember to write these things out when they pop into my head. The question I had is this, can the utilities expect any help from the federal government in terms of lost revenues, or are they a different category than other businesses. Part part of my response is, I don't know, I mean, I just that just created this federal cares act, I think it was signed into law. And I know that there is relief that is expressly given to the cooperative utilities. In relation to COVID-19 related costs, I don't know if that includes lost revenues or not. So there are also various provisions of the federal cares act that relates to state and municipal government. And, you know, again, that's an area that is unfolding and it's not clear to me that the lost revenues would necessarily be covered by that. So it's, it's, it, you know, I guess my earlier point was, we feel that we have the mechanisms in place through the regulatory structure that that we have to provide some relief. And I know that June has her hand up as well so I'll let her kind of jump in. So that's okay. Okay, just to point out everything Riley said, I agree with completely. Another thing to consider is that there's no legal bar to there being federal help if the Congress chooses to adopt that. But more importantly, the Congress may choose to afford ratepayers relief. And that secondarily is helpful to the utilities. For instance, if a rate payer accrues a significant rearage, because they have been paying their bill. The federal government may choose to grant help to individuals much as they're doing with the $1,200 checks. And then if that proves to be the resource that allows the rate payer to pay off your rearage that in yours to the benefit of the utility, that's all I wanted to point out. Right. Thank you. A follow up there if I may. Since the utilities are regulated. And they're guaranteed a certain return on investment. Does that mean that if they have a loss of revenues that the rates that would tend to cause a rate increase. So that is, I mean that's a complicated question but the, it varies by the utility system. I would characterize it as a guaranteed rate of return just just for a safe clarity. It's an opportunity to earn a fair return. But the plan that we have in place for essentially three quarters of the state through green mountain power essentially is a decoupling plan. A decoupling plan is intended to help kind of reduce the motivation financial motivation to sell more electricity and take that off the table and that's part of the power cost adjustment plan that exists within the green mountain power framework. And within that framework, there is a mechanism that looks at the volume of sales and adjust for the volume of sales and ensuring that the utility has kind of fairly been given an opportunity to recover, you know those lost revenues and lost margins, along with other kind of variables related to power costs. Now with respect to co ops and munis. There is a more as inherently as kind of a shorter trigger for kind of responsiveness that is to the extent that they feel like they're heading into rough waters they all they have to do is provide 45 day notice of the need for great relief and they those rates can go into effect they can also have those rules even the 45 day rule waived. If, if granted by the commission then they can kind of move forward, even, even more quickly but there are opportunities for fairly quick responses for the cooperatives and the municipals for the own utilities there is a kind of an inherent decoupling mechanism that provides, you know substantial relief in this area. So, Riley, I want to be respectful of your time and add as well I know that you guys have other things to head to today something that I want to bookmark that, frankly, even if we had our entire hearing to talk about this today might not be enough but I am interested in, say a month from now, maybe even sooner, hearing back from the department as to what type of rate impact. You might start to see coming out of, you know what what maybe a blip in in load in our system or might be something that's more prolonged, depending on how things evolve with this public health emergency in the next year. Or the next month, hopefully not next year. But I'm interested in feedback from the department as to, you know, some of the conversation we've started here as to what are the rate impacts going to be. And also, this may not be relevant or it may be but we've got, you know, 15 to 20 electric utilities in our state and are there any that are particularly severely affected by, you know, some of the issues that that are related to demand changes. And again, maybe that won't become more obvious until we've got some more weeks under our belt of what is actually occurring here in terms of load changes. So. Yeah, happy to provide more information and suspect that the answer will be a hedge I think we'll have a better sense of what the kind of dollar implications are and then it's a matter of kind of sort of regulation to kind of figure out how to kind of smooth those those rate implications and but we'll we'll have more to say about that later June has her hand up to go ahead. Just to reinforce that point. The committee should be aware that there is already one action that was taken through the PC process to defer rate changes that otherwise would have happened today. So one concern that the department has been keeping an eye on is with those decisions having been made, and with those bills coming due conceivably in July, we already know that there is going to be some rate adjustment process necessary. There's a second utility that is in the process of weighing a deferral of that nature as well. So I'm just flagging that for you by way of example that this issue is already in the the thought process the sorting had if you will, of the regulatory framework, and something that we are attending to and so we'll be happy to brief you on that. Right. And again, and this discussion is getting along a little long in the tooth in terms of the time that you have and the time that we have. You know a question, a very general question I have there as the kind of pressure builds behind the dam on this is that will that more affect utilities financial health or what more impact rate payers in the state of Vermont's financial health and and I'm sure it's going to split be, you know, be split between the two, but there will be an impact here as we defer, as we defer these these rate changes so no that's something that I'd like to bookmark to catch up on as we get into April. Mark, it would be helpful if you kept in mind the analogy to storms. You might think of this as a very, very severe storm, but the regulatory process has mechanisms for dealing with storms and the cost consequences of coming back from storms. And with that, I will take your cue and let you move on. Okay. Well, since you're orchestrating your team here, Commissioner, I'm presuming the next person to introduce would be clay purpose to talk about the telecommunications and connectivity side of the house. That is correct. And to the extent that there are different questions clay may pitch some of them back to me. So I'll be on standby for that. But right now, we'll have clay stuff up. I can't see you but you may be on the line. I am on the line hold on just one second. If this works. Can you see me okay. Somebody can but I can. Oh, there you are. Okay, good. Hi, how are you. Well, thanks. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. So thank you for having me testify today. For the record on clay purpose the director for telecommunications and connectivity with the Department of Public Service. Just a profit some of my or my testimony with an update on what what has occurred, both in the industry and at the Department of Public Service, since the start of the pandemic. And I think March 13 is probably the, the date where things started to happen. In the industry wide. The pandemic is not something that affects the industry like it's affected other industries. Our telecommunication systems are all still working. In fact, we're as we sit here today on zoom. We are relying on them more than we ever have before. Carriers have through the FCC made various commitments to things like suspend disconnections of internet and phone service. Wave data caps increase bandwidth for their consumers where they can. And some of the carriers have also opened up by five hotspots. So carriers like Comcast and charter. Have allowed non customers to access their customers modems to use the internet. So if your neighbor is a Comcast customer you can use Comcast service for free. They've all rolled out plans that either offer short term service at low or no cost. So that folks with school age children can sign up if they need to to do things like schoolwork or telework. So we're seeing a lot of that. All of these things are happening in Vermont just like they're happening elsewhere. But a question we're getting a lot is with the increased traffic on these networks. Is it going to break the internet. The answer is no, that's not something that's happened yet. Carriers are reporting increased traffic. We've reached out to all of the major carriers. They say that they have the capacity to handle the type of traffic that they're seeing. Longer peaks, they're seeing a change in peak usage, the time of day in other words. But they are built to handle that and given that many of them are doing things like waving data caps and increasing bandwidth. That is something that indicates to me that they have the capacity to handle the traffic that we're seeing. Clay, I'm going to ask you to hold on for just a second and I'm going to give you a chance to catch your breath. Representative Sebelia has a question. Laura. Good morning, Clay. So I just wanted to with regard to the notion of the increased traffic not going to break the internet. That is a relief. But I think I just want to make sure that we're clear. When we're thinking about folks that have like a four one or five one or seven one connection. We're now trying to participate remotely from the legislature and do education remotely from high school and work on a job somewhere else that we may be seeing that not functioning well or are we not hearing about that. So lower speeds, higher demand, my question. You are definitely hearing about it. I must admit that my connection is a four one and my children are preoccupied watching a Netflix documentary right now. So if I seem pixelated, that's why. But from what I'm saying, I look fairly clear. I do think you can do some amount of work on a four one connection. Because I've been doing it and no others who have, but depending on the type of work that you're doing it course may not be adequate. And so, you know, we have 2324% of the building locations in Vermont where for one maybe all that's available. Something less than 25 three which is the federal definition. And it may only be for one. So I didn't want to, you know, happy to hear continued reporting I just wanted to kind of stick a pin there that while the overall network, it's I think a relief to hear that that's holding up the increased residential uses in places that can't access higher speeds. That's not necessarily smooth sailing which I, I'm sure I know you are experiencing as a mind. So, yes. Yeah, I understood that that's that's been a long standing problem it's a problem that we've been trying to address well before the pandemic and I do, I do think that that the risk of sounding callous that the pandemic is going to highlight for America. The real effects of the digital divide. People are used to using the internet at school or work and maybe they can say, I don't, you know, you don't really need it at home because you have it accessible to you in other places but now we've taken that away for health and safety. You have to be home right now. And you are totally dependent on your home internet. That's why you continue. Oh, I'm sorry, did you want to jump in. I just wanted to underscore Clay's remark. Clay said he at the risk of sounding callous he thought this would highlight the digital divide. My, my view on that is that I fully intend to use this as a battering ram with the federal government to get them to understand. As I mentioned already, how this pandemic highlights the need to think about this critical infrastructure in the essential nature that it actually has which is that it is essential. And it needs to be treated as a matter of public policy and funding as necessary. That is something that the federal government has resisted to this date and I am. I'm hopeful because frankly I don't know what it takes to get through to Washington DC, but I can say that the department is definitely turning up the volume on its advocacy in that direction. And in that sense this crisis proves to be helpful and I hope that doesn't sound callous. No, it's, it's actually sound hopeful you just don't sound optimistic, but so I appreciate that. As a patriot, as a patriot, I'm hopeful. Yeah, as a as a realist looking at the immediate, you know, past. It's it gives me great consternation that there's even a question that the federal government would see it this way. But I think folks understand what I'm saying. Yeah, I do. And some place that I would like to lead you in terms of your testimony is that, and I listened in to some of the discussion in the Senate Finance Committee yesterday, which is some of the and actually I will also give the speaker Johnson credit for trying to focus our committees on things that we can do to address the immediate emergency issues before us, as well as as commissioner Tierney was referring to, you know, never letting a good crisis go to waste, you know, hopefully that there are opportunities for us to shine a light on things that have a longer term impact in terms of the work we're doing here. What I heard in this, you talking about in the Senate Finance Committee yesterday related to kind of issues of availability. And it's something that our committee and you have spoken about in our committee with frequency in the last year, where are parts of the state where people, even if they wanted access there is not access. And access sufficient internet speeds that allow them to kind of operate in the modern world. In that issue, relative to an issue of access related to things like affordability. Maybe you have a Comcast line or a fiber line going by your house, but you simply have a home that has school children living there that frankly can't afford the service. And the department has been able to distinguish between, you know, an issue of availability relative to an issue of, you know, access related to affordability is that something that that and I know we're early in this but is that something that you've been able to discern. So, as far as kind of affordability goes, that's kind of a hard question to answer as in who, who does that affect. There isn't a whole lot of good data nationally on that issue. And I don't know that we have data on the state level on that I think it's something that we're working with the agency of education that will want to pin down for students especially, you know, how, what are the barriers to access and his price one of them, we do know a couple of things. We connect. Apologize for the pun between folks who are eligible for lifeline programs and folks that actually take advantage of the lifeline, excuse me not take advantage but use the lifeline program to to get broadband service and get or get telephone service. And, you know, that's likely a result of efforts by the FCC to cut down on waste fraud and abuse issue that they are concerned about with the lifeline program they've done some things over the years to to verify people's income and that So we see, you know, in the state and I think all states overall that the number of people that would technically qualify for lifeline as much higher than the number of people that actually use it. And we don't know for every person who doesn't take advantage of it whether it's because they don't want to or because they can't give us some barriers so that's certainly an area of inquiry and maybe looking at how we could promote lifeline better in the state might be helpful. I know the CDC does collect some data so we'll look into that as well. But in all likelihood it's it's an issue. In Vermont, like it is everywhere else it's an issue. You know that's in New York City or any any major metropolitan area but also in rural areas as well so. Well, I will interject clay is I've spoken with representative web, who's the chair of the Education Committee and we've spoken in recent days and I have asked her to reach out to the agency of education to see if we can get better data quickly about what our school children in the state who to whom internet access would be available, but for issues of affordability. And if there are children, students who we can tie into remote learning that's available to them at their schools, but it's not available to them because they live in a house that again for reasons of affordability does not have internet access. In the last couple of days I've reached out to all the present all the principles in in schools that I represent and just ask them, you know, give me a rough number. How many students do you have that live in homes that cannot afford internet access and you just, I've been getting back more anecdotal information but I'm pressing them because I would like a number that we can react to, you know, if we have a policy solution to that that we can implement quickly that is something that I would like to see. You know whether it's a we whether it's the department whether it's something that we do through an emergency appropriations process that we, or something we do working with providers. And I would encourage the director that that's something that we click, you know, rectify as, as soon as possible but I just wanted to mention that and I would encourage other people to reach out to your principles. In your local schools to see how big an issue is this in your local schools. There's a couple of hands up and representative Campbell, I wanted to call on you if you still have a question. What about leveraging the crisis for for cell phone services well, and wondering if that might be a way of getting at least some internet service to, to be aware of none right now, as well as, as well as broadening cell phone coverage which is something else we need to do. Yes, certainly wireless is a possible solution. I think that when you talk about availability. Folks that don't have access to it because the facilities aren't there their house. You know that's a that's a longer term problem I don't think it's one we should ignore or lose sight of but you know if you started today to build something. You know they the construction would go through what the projections are for the pandemic. You know, with that said, certainly we're always looking for for solutions to that problem. Well, I get if I may, I think one of the things I was thinking about was not so much in the in the current acute phase of the crisis, but when we get it get into recovery we have some recovery money or stimulus money whatever you want to call it to spend. How are we looking at team up using some of that money to expand our cell phone network coverage. We certainly have the connectivity initiative, finding ways to get carriers to take connectivity initiative funding. The dust I don't think is quite settled on the federal bill. And so we're not clear yet what dollars can be used for what there are those several provisions that were added to the stimulus that beef up some of the existing federal broadband programs. And there may be opportunities there. There's a lot of money for telehealth and distance learning, for instance that may be able to tie into a wireless solution or even a wired solution. Just going to question or the comment by the chair. I did want to say that you know we are working with the agency of education, and we're putting together a survey that that we hope will get some of that data I don't know if it'll be a complete data set but it should be another data point that we can rely on to get a sense of what the affordability or barrier to access issue is like in the state. I appreciate that. Thank you. Mike, I don't want to put you on the spot, but I saw your hand come up. Yeah, actually what clay just said, address the question that I had, you know, folks, you're all set. Yeah, pretty much, I guess. I just want to remark that folks have been advised to go to libraries and school buildings, park in their car and have the kids do their homework in their car. And I think that's pretty cool and you know anything that can be done to help them get better access. Yeah, certainly that's been a criticism we're hearing. We're not representing that our, our Wi Fi hotspot map is a normally solution here but it's something that we could put together quickly. And for people that really need the internet for one reason or the other. We want to let people know that they there are places they can go to get it still. Certainly no one wants to see children doing their homework in their parents car in the cold at night but that is that is an image of rural Vermont that that we've all seen well before the pandemic. That's that's a way that a lot of rural Vermonters still access the internet and go to the library is one thing. But when you take that away, we wanted to make sure people knew that you can still get the service. So, I've got two hands up, Robin, if you could go first and then Laura. Well, I also noticed June has been raising her hand and I don't know if she wants to comment on this before I ask my question. Sorry, sorry, you weren't on my screen go ahead. You're quite all right we're all still learning just briefly I want to point out that as Clay said, it's not like we're happy with the idea of folks going to hot spots. But it's important in a crisis situation to try to keep in mind chronology. And so those are actions that were taken in the early days to respond to immediate needs. So the conversation we're having as I'm sure you're aware chair Brooklyn talks more about the, the window going out and things that need to change. And so to that end the point I'd like to make is increasingly I don't draw a distinction between cell service and broadband. The need is for connectivity. And that is the one of the points of advocacy that I intend to emphasize at the federal level, when it comes to funding. And that does speaker Pelosi intends to bring another stimulus package before the federal Congress. And one of the highlighted items in there is infrastructure. So I'm quite sure we haven't seen the last of movement in that area. And I think it will speak to these issues that we're talking about because the crisis is highlighting that this infrastructure is necessary and it's inadequate. And from the department's perspective, none of it's accept acceptable. The issue is funding funding and more funding. And so data collection is definitely a priority in terms of finding out where the students are who have affordability issues. It's one of the things that has become manifest through the crisis because now we have the government directing people to stay home.