 been a law one of the library trustees here and we've been doing this every month since January I think next month is actually the last one of this session and maybe we did one in December yeah we might have done one in December too before we get going yep so today we have our senator Dick McCormick and Kirk White our representative here our other senators are off meeting with other constituents this morning I think I want to mix stuff up a little bit because of all the folks here last time we just had Kirk so we're all up to speed on workforce development less has been some major development there but folks are here I'm guessing they have things they want to talk about so do you want to start with questions from the folks how do you want to do that I mean good questions and comments doesn't even have to be a question all right jump shut up and listen I just come because I'd like to know what y'all are doing that I don't really have any questions I read a lot so that's a loaded question you know because you asked them what they're doing in an hour and 45 minutes later we're going wait I'll start with comments while I enjoy hearing what you guys are doing I would I would feel better if you was some way you could say okay ten minutes because it seems like every time I've come what kind of clock there's still questions and sometimes it seems to take a while for folks to get out of their cocoon and say all right I'm ready to ask a question but the sooner we start asking questions sooner or the more likely in my opinion on it more likely we'll get more of those so I don't know what that time period is but if you could how many come in get to how hard to break the ice and then once we do and we all leave with questions still yeah we have we have gotten many comments that we spoke to wall I take that to heart I have a question I'm sorry so listen chairs around the corner and we'll make space for a promise that's why the obviously it's not into it as much as you folks are but where I read it it may be important for those who are more fluent than me I don't see it being affordable for middle income folks and the two-year hiatus or whatever you want to call it about looking into it the way I read what I read is that's just a okay we're gonna hope this dies down and we're still gonna pass this thing so hopefully you could when you when you get time come you could give me some hope that that's not what's going to happen that we're really going to look at this for the next two years we're going to look at what it's going to cost people who are in the middle income to lower income and afford solar panels who are going against municipalities that are zoning solar panels out of their region or other kinds of alternative energy so anyway I think we've got the cart out in front of the horse I don't want to destroy their climate any more than anybody else for my children grandchildren but I think we really need to look harder at as an electrician batteries I don't think we've got I don't think we've got the right battery yet we don't I think there's there's an awful smart scientist out there and they may need to either prodding or maybe even some assistance financially or whatever might need to okay let's let's let's figure this out I you're bombarded on the television with electric cars electric just want to trucks electric electric electric and being an electrician I'm not sure we're quite ready to do that not not even my 2050 unless there's a lot of changes and I don't see those changes changes on the horizon. First of all let me say I will personally guarantee that we will be completely carbon-free by 2050 because 2050 because if we're not I'll be a 103 I won't have to answer although you never know they're making tremendous advances these days. You can give us as many guarantees you know. We had just talked about that we talked too long Dave you've raised the issue you raised has several many different aspects to it so I apologize I am gonna be talking for a while on this because there's a lot that needs to I need to say the first of all we start with the assumption with the understanding that that global warming is is a transcendently pressing problem and I wasn't it's just it's over arches everything else and it's nothing else really matters if we don't take care of that and we are way behind I think I've said this to you this group before Jimmy Carter in 1979 said we can start now and do this gradually and relatively famously or we can wait 30 years and we'll have a crisis so now it's 42 years and 43 years. The cleaner forms of energy solar panels windmills and so on the Sun doesn't always shine the wind doesn't always blow and if we're going to use cleaner forms of energy we have to have better ways of storing it which we do not have at this point but it's it's the another problem with batteries is the way in which the materials are accessed I mean and cobalt and such it's it in Africa there is literally slave labor child labor getting this stuff so we have problems with batteries that we have to address I don't think little Vermont is going to do that but we are operating on the recognition that that is a priority and then and nationally and then that none of this will work unless batteries are ultimately improved clean energy is and I'm moving towards that's five clean energy is not only cleaner it's it's cheaper it is less expensive to use solar panels it is less expensive to use an electric car to use wind people generally private don't use private wind on their own yards or those some might but certainly the the greener energy is cheaper it's expensive to get into and that's where you were Dave when you were saying electric cars might be a good idea but not everyone can afford them and the argument that's being made against s5 is one that that it's an elitist argument it's and people will call me very indignantly I can't afford an electric car and I'm driving a hybrid because I got a real bargain from my stepson is right I don't know if I could afford it otherwise the whole idea of s5 and the previous session where we had the clean heat act the whole idea is to make it easier and more affordable for people to get into the more the cleaner and ultimately cheaper energy and it is very frustrating for me when people kind of you know and I appreciate Dave you just now did not scold scold us and I appreciate that that's coming later but often it's a real scolding it's a real scolding is a what you you're not listening to the people you don't care about the real people son and the fact is what they're thinking is that because electric the electric alternative is more expensive to get into in the first place then it follows that that we are being insensitive to that expense and in fact the whole idea here is to is to address the expense and try to try to make it easier we had a bill similar to this in the previous legislative session the governor vetoed it the Senate overrode the governor's veto the house missed that by one vote of course anyone who voted against it was that one vote but we all blame it on one particular Windsor County guy who has moved away I don't think that's why he moved away in any case this bill it was a largely a response to the negative attitudes about the previous bill and as far as the the delay I actually I serve on the natural resources and energy committee in the Senate so I opposed that delay my sense is being a state senator I thought I should avoid certain indelicate expressions so the way I put it in committee was there comes a time to use the plumbing facility for its intended purpose or to vacate it I'll explain to you later what I'm referring to that funny in any case this was this is an assurance to people who worry that we're that we're rushing I don't think we're rushing into this I I start the clock in 1979 and so I don't think we're rushing but even there is that this is this bill this year is a reworking of a bill from started three years ago you get tax you get tax ramifications to that and you know how much it costs how do you know how expensive yeah I cut I've had quotes I was five years ago I was a lot greater sign-on until you know okay you got you got about 30 grand up front I just got a quote for less than that well I'm sorry where do you live you live where the sun shines I would have to cut the force down to get the sun to work on my property there are a variety first of all I'm going out that this this bill itself doesn't do anything at hands and again that's if I have any opposition to five it's this that it doesn't do enough and it doesn't do it fast enough but and it has other problems it's very tolerant of some kinds of fuels that I don't think count as green but we wouldn't politics is an imperfect activity and you're looking for an agreement among people who don't necessarily agree and so there are times when you don't ask do I think this is good it's can I live with this I voted against many other provisions in the bill and then when the time came for the bill I voted for the whole bill the ideas I made my my arguments my colleagues did not find me persuasive this is as good as I'm gonna get but in any case what what what can actually be done there are we are handing the job off to the Public Utilities Commission to actually put the specifics of the program together okay so that we and that sort of we go back to high school that we pass policy we know what what we want the law to be we know what we want the policy to be and then the bureaucrats actually implemented and that's really the way it's supposed to be because they're the experts we don't let them write the law because no one elected them but I sit here with people like you the Public Utilities Commission does not but they do sit there with their nerdy books and they know that they're the experts to certain extent the bureaucracy tells the legislature what it is we should tell them but to give a general idea of where this will be going there are for example ways of financing the startup costs in which when I said it's cheaper to run it's expensive to get into but it's cheaper to run you can calculate those savings and the monthly payments on the loan can be connected can be set up so as to equal the savings so that there's no additional cost you do that for example with home electricity and that can work as well by getting in on community there are I live in a wooded northern slope there's no way I can use solar but Cindy and I are looking at communities which is to say that there is probably a privately owned solar collection field and you arrange that you're getting your electricity from there and that's that's one kind of ways is there is the credit tax ramifications I'm sorry not to be giving you more details but I think we're doing it right that way because we're not rushing we're handing it off to people who know how to put it together I'm trying to think if I've forgotten anything I promise not to talk too much I think that's that's yeah that's right spend two years have the educating public advocating well also or doing what two years of the public utilities Commission putting the details together so that you have more specifics yeah people build support or not the bill would pass but the but but if the bill passes it gives a two-year yes yeah so yeah it's not two years till bill there will be another bill and I think I've addressed there's more on that yeah I knew that at one point there was concerns about what was going to happen to those solar panels when they aged out and there wasn't a plan a technology for that and I'm wondering if they're working on that and if that would be part of the bill moving forward to fund that kind of research into that technology it's actually two different questions okay are the ubiquitous they are they working on that yes that's not in this bill I don't think it is okay right now that bill is in the house so it's in the house environment and energy committee is it passed out the Senate and they are they're sort of starting from scratch they're they're trying they're basically dismantling the whole bill taking you know talking to different people all trying to get a sense of you know what parts they think work or don't work so it might be a different bill when it comes out or it might be the same bill but if you have those concerns energy and environment is the committee and can we meet at five or four o'clock on Saturday afternoon can we meet it's four o'clock on Saturday afternoon so I can be there no but you could remember who's the who's the chair of that committee now it was Tim Brickland but he's got me and I would like to attend but the meetings are at one o'clock on Thursday afternoon or 10 o'clock Tuesday morning times when I got to go make money so I can pay my electric bill but you certainly email or call since COVID we we we basically did we did the legislature ran on zoom and since we had it all set up anyway and people seem to like it one of the benefits of that all that was that that the public can watch all all our committee hearings that are on zoom you can get and they are recorded recording so you can you can I don't have the phone number it's easy to find this first of all I am not I think there are people who are stupidly delighted with computers I recognize that they do wonderful things and I live I live on a computer I am not I am willing to say things like the computer didn't work but in any case I'm an enthusiast for the Vermont Legislature's website and because it really you just follow the rules there's a Google Vermont Legislature you'll get the website and just you read the prompts you can find your way to the other thing is if you just go on to YouTube and search you know Vermont House Vermont Senate it'll pop up you'll get the whole array of what's that all those committee hearings get posted I think certainly that certainly the floor sessions I don't know if the committee sessions are so circumvented yeah so go ahead I was just going to comment some of us have left confidence in the quote experts at the Public Utilities Commission then others based on past experience especially in light of being beholden to the industry in terms of climate change and the in what I would call an inordinate influence of Vermont gas the electric utilities etc upon the Public Utilities Commission that some of their prior decisions have not been as sensitive a to climate issues or b to middle low-income marginalized populations etc so I just that's a comment and I would be happier if there were more direction to the Public Utilities Commission to take into consideration public hearings input from interested parties vested parties consumers etc but that's your no response and I voted for the bill but again my question to myself before voting is not do I love this bill it's can I live with this I okay I think I think your your comments Jean are actually have really a merit and and I I struggle in my own dealings with just another link in this chain that kind of segues into what Dave's been talking about but I have a friend who's a salesman for a solar installation company down in the upper valley and he's got all kinds of work lined up going a year in advance people are ready to go designed ready to install no electricians there are no electricians anywhere and and training wise who wants what electrician wants to be a master electrician and what master electrician wants to go and teach you know and get a fraction of the income they would have as a teacher so there's like a huge barrier there to going ahead with any kind of massive program and installing all these systems there's and so that this falls into my committee and and so workforce development is is across the board many not just electricians as plumbers as everybody trades or trades and so so they're there have been yeah I mean some of it is of course finding and incentivizing people that want to teach in those programs as you mentioned because in a lot of these kind of programs even you know they have more people applying for the programs than they have capacity to teach them and so you know as my committee we've we've been look we look spent a lot of time looking at where all those pinch points along there you know do they have and then you know do they have enough instructors do they have enough you know the things they need for the coursework pieces and the lab work pieces without you know all seven and so we've been putting in place funding for the certainly for VTC and there and help them get their get their programs even doubt we've been looking at things like forgivable loans for a variety of professions especially technical educations where we're basically you know because you know who wants to spend all that money right and then and then again go pay and you know work in a low-paid teaching job and so forgive below where every year that you that the the state pays for your tuition you basically have to agree to stay in the state if you stay that year then that one year then one year's tuition gets paid off and stay two years and especially we're we're playing in the nursing field especially because because you know and if you get people young enough right you know they've stayed two or three four years they're likely settled and and so that's the goal but it is no it's a it's a problem with every every level and who was I who just talking to which again it was it was a workforce issue but you know it was actually it was my committee's been talking to body repair places and you know the fees that the insurance will pay them basically have not changed in 20 years insurance companies just say we're going to give you this much and it's prevailing wage well why is it prevailing prevailing cost to fix it why is it prevailing cost because that's what we say it is right and so and so what they're having trouble same kind of thing they can't get anyone to even be an automatic person in part because right now given what they get from insurance they can they can pay someone about $16 an hour and they're like McDonald's is paying $17 an hour and McDonald's could actually offer them like you know health benefits and so so it's a problem across the board how do you get young people interested in working with you know how do you do that I mean I have grandchildren that I could put my foot somewhere as your problem there's so many things available to you get with it and they're running on 28 29 years of age I can tell you the answer that I've seen in my trade is that I've had young people work for me and they want to make what I make yes what I do day one yes okay I went through 15 years of gaining in four years of school two years electricity is two years after you've been schooled before you can apply for a mass like the six years to get where I am and these nineteen twenty year olds to come out of school I want to make that money I want to get now I don't want to use a hand shuttle down the ditch yeah I don't know if the legislature anything you go into schools do you go into schools and so it's not so the legislature that hit this originating house so the house commerce and economic development committee last session started to dig into the career and tech education programs so the tech centers but certainly at the high school level but even at the adult level because there are a lot of people who are kind of like yeah yeah they had no plan when they got high school now they are thinking maybe I do want a career and and it's a nightmare is what it is it's it's cobbled together there's there's you know several different types of tech schools somewhere associated with with schools and some are independent and summer and and they get their funding in different ways and you know set the adults get some fat money and the kids get of course the money comes to the school system so they so the schools don't want to send their kids to the tech centers because then they lose some of the money that follows the kid to the tech center so there are some schools that are setting up their own shop classes again basically to circumvent sending their kids to the tech centers the tech centers don't coordinate their schedules with the school schedules so the tech centers have different vacation schedules than the local schools or day schedules so it's a mess and so we we we actually we commissioned a study hired a professionals to go around around the state talking all the tech centers go to all the communities and just talk to people try and gather what's wrong with the system you know and and and and then look at what some other states and how they're organized and stuff like they just published the 74 page report last week and it was an article about it in VT digger I think this morning and so it starts to identify what some of those problems are and we're and so we'll be we'll be digging into those one thing it proposes is to separate the money from the schools basically the ed fund would directly fund the tech centers rather than it going through the towns another proposal was perhaps actually instead of having all 14 of them operating under their own plans you know maybe centralizing a regional sort of thing that coordinates all that either regional or statewide they threw out a few different some states do it one way some states you're doing away but you know to start really looking into all that and parse it out because because you know again right you know the kids that aren't getting a great tech education the kids don't know tech is an option in some places one thing they found was that a tech center that is in a school you know like the Randolph Tech Center Randolph kids go to the Tech Center but you know but if you're lived in Pittsfield wherever wherever you know you're a lot a lot less likely to go and and then you know and even last year my committee went on we actually went visited some tech centers as we're starting to look at this and and what the tech centers we've talked to a construction program and they said well the problem is is you know the the kids get you know they go to their school they get on then they get on the bus they come to the tech center so they get here by like 9 30 by time we get the kids organized it's 10 o'clock it's a half-day program so they work for two hours then I have to clean up everything then get back on the bus and send them back they're like two hours is not really enough to learn anything especially if you're a teenager in is doing anything to incentivize women in the trades I mean I'm familiar with Vermont works for women on profit focuses on that and I just had worked on my house and not a single woman came through in any of the trades whether it was plumbing or electrician or woodworking or any of that and I'm just I still don't understand that I mean I mean Dave a woman could do electrical work right I don't know these are women electricians that were good it's a what's the word stigma that yeah I'm just trying to understand why you know why young women aren't going to those trades you know why they didn't push into cosmetology or something that's sort of been traditional that is that and you know and I think that one of the things that needs to be an education is actually of our career counselors in the school you know and for a long time they've been sent of course for a long time they've been saying well don't go into the trades go to college right you know and and and so you know it has to be a reorientation of that and then and then also within that of course you know it doesn't everyone could get into the trades regardless of college and have a hundred fifty thousand dollars worth of debt you still start at the bottom yeah yeah or you go in the trades and at the end of four years you're making a good living sorry yeah I was 35 years in the granted industry sandblasting a little bit of CAD drafting but most of my time there was in sandblast either sandblasting lead person and being in there and I was one of a very few that were actually in there but the granted industry is a great program to get into it's unionized some people think that's an awful word but the pay is good the benefits you know and pension 401k the whole nine yards and I ended up retiring at 60 years old because I retired with the rule of 85 which is your years of service in your age equals 85 you can I retired with a full steel work for pension so you know we've had young men come in and they've worked for a couple years they're all excited but after a while it's like I'm sick of getting dirty it's like well where are you gonna go they go someplace and work for less with no benefits and then they can spend more time on their phone I mean we actually had to negotiate that in the contract that cell phone use was not allowed and it's a charge for for dismissal as well after a fashion but it's just so hard to implement but it certainly works for women is a great program and again part of the economic development bill that came out of the house the Vermont works for women is part of a group that's called earn learn and serve or some combination those three words might not have in the right order but it's a it's a collaborative work between Vermont works for women the the Audemars Society and what's the other there's four four four bodies that are working and basically it's all these paid apprenticeship processes because their their big argument is is the best way to get someone help someone get a job is to give them a job and so and so where then you can train them in it and so there's a number of these kind of programs out there some of its trail building for the Audemars Society that's what their their things are and and and what's the one body is one one of the organizations works with teens and a large part of what they do is what they call the soft skills of of working which is you have to show up every day you know and so they actually have these programs to teach kids this stuff and now when you're in the law department which I was for many years you can you can post a job national people would apply from Arizona to come work in a lot of them not in the mail center when you pay a minimum wage so you basically had people that live within 15 or 20 miles was your pool and then they would come but they often came out of families where they didn't it wasn't demonstrated to them that you showed up to work on time and that you did those things I actually had what we call the prep program where we brought I hired people based on what I thought they had a good work ethic or a good attitude and then I taught them what it meant to work at a fortune 1,000 company you show up on time you know all those things but it was sad to me to think that wow you know now you have to teach kids things that I don't know just seem like when I grew up yeah you didn't you took that for granted yeah I wanted to say a few words in defense of career counselors and maybe more broadly just a government in general which is that we have a culture with cultural forces that are subtle and nuanced and deep because when I used to chair the education committee and we had a lot of testimony from educators that it was a problem for them that all the boys wanted to go into auto mechanics and the girls wanted to be cosmetologists it's not that the counselors were saying to the girls you can't be an auto mechanic you have to be a hair it was that they were saying that's that's what I want to do and I would say also I know at least my son Noah he did not want to go to college he wanted to be a carpenter and I hate to admit it pressured him on going to college well he did he got a bachelor's degree I think to please dad and he's now paying off his student loan with his very good pay as a carpenter so I would also say my brother Kurt is one of four siblings and the other three including me are college educated he's an nutrition and at one time or another he has made a loan to each of his college educated siblings what year did you go through your partnership 32 so that would have been 86 86 mine was 60 you were 20 years ahead of him and I went to night school two nights a week and Rahmah I went to very tonight so yeah for five years and I worked for Welch's hardware store former and I was working 48 hours a week taking home $45 and 18 cents I got $64 and this is on my nickel to go to Rutland back and forth you you started school at 7 and get done it and get home at 11 11 30 at night yeah so that'd be at work the next day yeah oh yeah and five and a half days a week and and then I passed my math my math my apprenticeship and I got my journey when I got my masters and then got on to the committee in Montpelier and I preached to him then you could only have so many apprentices versus and I said you're gonna run out of plumbers and was I right or wrong you know but that what is the ratio now do you know I'm out of the plumbing business I have no idea I know that there is there was a so many journeyman so many apprentices apprentices under a master right right but I got I gave up on that because after four or five people that want my job they don't want any of the responsibilities or they want my pay right but they don't want any of the responsibilities you know yeah I do it myself now Jack for you I got a question for you yep what do you pay for registration for your car I got a question on that too okay I don't frankly Cindy takes care of all that for me my wife must have some idea what you pay just and what's what what where are we going my point is my pickup I'm paying 226 dollars a year for registration and I pay gas tax when I run it what are you paying for to use of the road yes of course I'm driving a hybrid so I pay so I so I pay gas tax how do you pay gas tax with a how much when I am a part of the price of the gases okay how about the total electric one what are they paying for the use of the road oh okay if that's what right now nothing and and and give them a subsidy to buy the electric car well it is there they're doing us all a favor I mean they're they're polluting the air less and do contributing to global warming less and we want an incentive that's not an oversight that is a conscious decision to create an incentive to hold that but also the the fact is revenues for maintenance of the highways are down because people more people are using less gas either because of a hybrid or electric cars but also even the gas cars are more efficient than they used to be and people try not real we had a Chevy Chevelle I can't tell you what year was got 52 miles a gallon as a diesel you're not getting that now now what year was that car have a look I can't remember was probably 20 years ago no more than I we've gone downhill well overall there's less gas consumption so there is the idea that at some point we're gonna have to start hitting up the users of cleaner cars I've always thought that about the use of the woods that I of course now I got the arthritis but for years I was a hiker and I was like there should be attacks on backpacks and hiking shoes and just that of that kind of gear because we do use the woods and the hunters think they own it because they have the hunters they think it's just theirs that the hikers are sort of trespassing on the hunters forest you know I'm willing to pay my share how about a bicycle how many million dollars we put in a bike pass and what do you get out of them for registration again I actually agree I think that for one thing that is paying your fair share but it's also buying into it you have standing if you're paying into it so I for one have always thought I would have no problem paying for a bike so well so that I do know that the House Transportation Committee is actually exploring the idea of some kind of fees to electric car users precisely to pay for their use of and and the question about bike paths actually bike paths what they do is there have been a lot of research on their benefit to the local economy so so what happens with the bike paths is is they bring people into those communities to ride their bikes and then they spend money at the restaurants and the stores and those kind of things so that's why they're trying so hard to get that the the Memorial Valley trail trail across the state because it's it's bringing so much winter time a lot of those for some of those rail trails snowmobiles yeah yeah yeah because I used to cross country ski on the one down outside 11 and you know and I'd be cross country skiing and just about getting run over by snowmobiles and they're like hey you guys got to share the road yeah and they just didn't want to but yeah everywhere oh yeah I think bicycles in the cities are also so much handier you can't find a place to park your car and if you if you do it costs you an arm and a leg and at least you can get a few blocks without you know I think I think a lot of it is geared to the the city people as opposed to those of us in Bethel Vermont I do you rent in Montpelio no during the city I rent a place in Montpelio during the legislative session and around this time of year as it starts home I start using a bike to get to and from the state house and I have often gone faster than the cars you know the cars have had the stopped at the red lights while I can pull right up to the front of the line and it's watch out the doors oh you got you have to you do we tend to think of bicycles as recreation here and bike paths often don't go anywhere that you got on the ride for the fun of it you go to Ireland for example and you see guys and overcoats with their briefcases riding their bikes to work you see nuns writing their bikes it's how you get from here to there I live a mile away and I usually don't ride a bike into town because there's that stretch just above Tessie's where the road is so narrow that I have to ride I have to ride in the in the car part and it's it's a little scary just quickly because then I have to run but can you give us a status update on our recreational trapping bill I know it's not popular with some folks but I'm wondering where things stand okay last year I introduced the bill to prohibit leg hold traps as often happens the bill did not well the bill passed but not in the form of which was introduced instead we set up a study a study in the Vermont legislature is usually a booby prize okay you want to build and do something and they say well we'll study it but it's not nothing and this is again a thing where my question to me was do I love this or is this as good as it's gonna get so I even I supported that study being conducted by a a group of various points of view put together by the Fish and Wildlife Commissioner my view then this this year there is another bill to prohibit recreational trapping my view was that having agreed to the study last year I really had to hold up my end of the deal which was I would not support legislation until after the study we're which is a booby prize which is a booby prize that's so I've gone down I've gone down fighting and glorious defeat more than once but you gotta be selective on how often you do that okay you're working with other people they don't agree with you so in any case we have now so far we have received a report from the Commissioner and we have a verbal report and we have a draft copy so we will have the report soon there is a bill again in this session to prohibit recreational trapping I did not sign on because as I say I had made a different commitment to get what I got it will it will not be passed this year but it's a two-year legislative session it will almost certainly come up next year there are other members in the committee who want it and so it will be looked at by the natural resources and energy committee which in the Senate is also the Fish and Wildlife Committee and it will be looked at next January can I ask you who did the study because there are concerns about fishing wildlife being hunter heavy that's oh it is it is and and and the group that that did the study is his hunter or in this case trapper heavy and even that the question their question is what's the best way to trap they're looking at best practices right as opposed to the more underlying question which is this something we want to be happening at all right you know now the animals feel pain that they're part of you know ecosystems and family systems and when we disturb that we create bigger problems and my concern is if the trappers are doing the study then that doesn't become a factor and if you're watching folks with videos on social media stomping animals to kill them so they don't destroy the pelts I think we know better than that and I think we need to do better it's an awesome damn thing a cultural unfortunately it is it has become an awesome damn thing which to a certain extent the statistics again it depends on who you ask the statistics it seems that that there are not an awful lot of people who trap recreationally okay however there are some and it is a Vermont tradition and you don't take that lightly I'm willing to outlaw it but I don't take that lightly there are some people who do frankly I wish they'd be a little more respectful as I you're saying to somebody this is a tradition but probably this it's not lots of things that were traditions that aren't allowed anymore because yeah they're ethical so there's this but this is a rough one I my first year in the Senate we had a bill from trout unlimited to outlaw pickerel shooting from Ozzy only stick that because you don't have to shoot the pickerel you just shoot the water and then the concussion that raises them up probably not many people have been for shooting no well I'll tell you that was that was a lesson for me I was a freshman senator I thought well that this outbreak of course it should be illegal I got a call from what it was one old woman you said you don't let him smoke cigarettes at the diner you don't let him have a can of beer on his way home from work you've taken everything all this old man has left his pickerel shooting and I said you know there are times when I think pickle shooting has sort of died down now I'm not sure I haven't done it in years the time of year has a lot to do with it right the very beginning of spring yeah about now and be walking along and it's laces sunk and all of a sudden you go in and I'll be a waiter it's so it is apparently I mean it's a heavily a lake Champlain sport but it's done mainly by guys from Windsor County yeah right it was my go forward to it yeah yeah ask one just quick question you're talking about trapping and yeah I don't have a horse and a race but she's how do you define a recreational trapper from any other kind of trap what is yeah I there John Murphy used to serve in the House of Representatives from Luglow and he used to he said he trapped to get his kids their summer clothes so is that a recreational trapper no that was a business he did it as a business he sold that's what I'm trying how do you yeah if you sell a pelt and she's referring to that's a business yeah whether it's it's also recreation because you can't select sugaring is that it's you can't live on that but you do it part of the package yeah I mean how do you so this guy it's his he's a business and he can go he can go trapping and but you can't can't trap all year round or whatever I mean I don't I know why the word is even in there it's either either trapping or it's not trapping it well that was two years ago that was my bill was just against leg hold trap and we don't now it won't be there there's I guess the quick answers I don't know the answer to your question that the people the or the anti-trap people have come up with a bill that they again and I'm not on this in this year's bill because I made promises last year so then and I will I will ask I'll ask them what I really don't care it's just a no it's a good point it's a it's a it's a valid point I got one more question go back to the electric part yeah same have you had any of your committees had seen the presentation by GMP about zero outage well we've seen so many things from so many I'm trying to I would hope zero outage would have clicked little oh are you talking about the program they're going to be here in Bethel yeah that a little plug for the we just signed on to oh plug for our slack 14 now there's three of us here we're on zoom so you want to know what we're doing go to zoom it's it's recorded it's there you can look way back we've had we had a very good presentation from GMP zero outage Bethel is on the docket if they can get the grant they're looking for from the feds to make it so that in four years there will be no outage in that we just signed on to that I just writing I because this is kind of part of my bailiwick I quizzed the lady pretty hard I thought that she had a answer and a good answer for every question first person I've talked to ever to answer my questions I mean even about the lithium batteries what we're going to do with that she's had an answer about what we're going to do with that our infrastructure she had an answer about that I'm not sure I'm well they all drew she's very articulate very believable who is she Tracy where is she that's the same one of the other night there the GM paper on a I think she will I think she also was a news anchor that's in four columns Colorado before she came here no yeah I know you're talking about Kristen yeah yeah yeah she's to work for WCAX yeah yeah no this lady and then lost them then because I was so curious I signed on to go to the Bethel Energy Committee because they had this presentation by another lady who couldn't make it to our meeting and these people if they do half of what they said they're way ahead of you guys where so I would like to think that you should maybe listen to what they're saying thank you I just a side note on batteries and to her question about recycling I just bought stock in a company who is is just built this big thing out in Utah Nevada to recycle lithium batteries because the cost the cost of recycling they expect when they is going to be cheaper and save the slave labor and all that sort of thing and they are also working on panels right now there's there's not a critical mass of the batteries but but solar panels are now a lot of them are 25 years old which is pretty much the end of the thing and and they're developing ways to reach to to make the thing so they're easier to recycle in the the whole nine yards so a lot of it is the the the the private sector if they can make a buck at it and if those are more individual people instead of having governments do those type of things I think there's money in it and just just a quick side note because I have solar panels and stuff I went from a house where I was paying somewhere between three thousand and and four thousand dollars a year for heat and electricity this last year it paid $300 using solar panels and heat pumps your house is that size right you're right it is substantially smaller and it's built in so it's insulated and and it did cost me but to your point of payback and from the house I went to what to from what I have now it was it's I know six to eight years and payback and that's not including that's not including the tax credits I got of course I was making money at that time but well I understand all that the reason I said that because but the payback isn't as bad as it might sound came to look at my property now you got to cut this tree that tree and you got to get your neighbor in those trees and we got to put twice as many panels on your roof because of your location and your roofs aren't directly at the right angle so that it drove the cost up to drive the payback into a much longer time yeah that's where community solar comes in that's that's where you can see every house should have its own solar panels you can still buy into you still can buy into it yeah with with these other other things that are placed in optimum in optimum areas and because I did I believe in like just one minute I've tried to propose places and I know a place where 150 megawatt place would go and nobody would ever know what's there but you want to do something right beside the road where the electric line right there well everybody's gonna drive by it and we have we don't want telecommunication towers anywhere but the PUC passed the thing for it was a municipality you can do anything you want it's a point no we want to see it when it was going to be up on Christian Hill or over on some mountain way the heck over here but now everybody's gonna look at that's my that's my dad I just the PUC and I don't see I don't yeah kudos to GMP for what it is doing right I am concerned about the issue of net metering with GMP and their resistance to to allowing net metering because of the the reliance on infrastructure that they and if they use the solar that's generated at that farm and they don't get reimbursed for the infrastructure that takes the electricity from that farm to the to the user there are resistances in GMP and the Public Utilities Commission to a full understanding and rollout as support for the the net metering possibilities it it's part it's an essential part of using solar that that is not being fully supported by the utility and so that's just kudos to where they're doing it right less kudos it's kind of like are you gonna put a field where it's out of sight or just just where it's most convenient to the elect to the utility those are all issues that if you get into the weeds enough that that become issues I also have a comment about aesthetics when we talk about the aesthetics of a solar array or a wind array aesthetics compared to what I used to live in Appalachia where they didn't put windmills on tops of mountains they took the tops of mountains away and replaced them with infertile meadows now you have a choice you can maintain aesthetics which would you rather see a barren what used to be a mountain or a wind farm up on that mountain range you have a choice would you rather see a McNeil dumping pollution into the air by burning wood or would you rather see a windmill on top of a mountain range it's it's it's not a question of it looks pretty it looks pretty compared to what the the is McNeil more aesthetically pleasing than a coal-fired plant to get our electricity you decide but let's let's ask the full question compared to what is is always an important question when it comes to aesthetic in Vermont where do you suppose those interview tax credit went to Connecticut yeah yeah we have to look at them they get the credit not that I'm opposed to I'm not because I'm right but we didn't benefit by some those are really very beautiful they're not well again aesthetically compared to what and I agree you know we shouldn't be selling those energy credits someplace else so that we can continue burning coal and well for years I don't pay much attention to my electric bill anymore but we signed on for 40% of cow power through GMP and it's not that much more expensive per kilowatt to jump on the cow power bandwagon not sure how much that has expanded or if it's even you know doing a home a whole lot more right now but using the methane gas from from cows and producing electricity VTC did that and I think so well yeah this now I haven't shut down how many thousands of dollars that he put in it has to be really big to be to work yeah they are not big enough the big arms over on Luke 7 was 1000 head yeah we were in and Barstow California we're touring a country on top of the mountain looked down and I said Bonnie it can't be a lake down here what it was is mirrors shining up onto these vessels and to produce and make steam to make electricity it supplied 6500 houses okay it cost 1 billion 200 million dollars it ran five years and they tore it down but that's our dollars it was a federal funded thing foolishness work was a foolish or was it an experiment that it's a pretty expensive experiment also last five years spent that kind of money and then they had to decommission that that's what it cost to build it now it's right back to vacant land again so what do you figure the cost per kilowatt hour was but up there it's like you said about your aesthetics on your soul if you you can put a right out in the middle of a beautiful hayfield you can put your solar panels in it God help you if you want to put a commercial building here you got to go through act two fifty and look what I got shit it would make employment so I don't know I just have a mixed feeling about this stuff on aesthetics I do want to say that I think government is not particularly good at making aesthetic judgments the Soviet Union had something called Soviet socialist realism that's a style of painting and it's dreadful looks like comic book art you know of course some people think comic book art is great but I would say you don't want the government making heavy aesthetic decisions but what government does for example you mentioned act 250 is that there are you cannot cause an undo undo is used in act 250 a lot you cannot do an uncreate an undue aesthetic degradation in other words don't do stuff that's really ugly is really what it's saying and and people will say well that's that's a subjective judgment and to a certain extent it is but I don't I remember once I had said I thought something was ugly and someone said well that's a subjective decision I said yeah so I've agreed I'm pleading guilty yes it's subjective now look me in the eye and tell me I'm wrong and you know he said no no it's ugly so it's sort of protecting the aesthetic values more than requiring that people do beautiful stuff is it if the then and Vermont is beautiful and we all agree on that and and that beauty is worth protecting I I think there is a lot there are a lot of places even in beautiful Vermont there are a lot of places that are already ugly and it won't do any harm to put solar collectors there a disused a used up gravel pit yes so parking lots around me just you know in fact they might even provide a little bit of shelter for the cars I do think we have to be careful about placement I was invited to a meeting in Taftsville village in the town of Woodstock by the bridge there and on route for say the bridges bridges every place there's a covered bridge with a power station and they did not want a solar farm right next to the historical 18th century back to the 18th century graveyard and I agreed with them that a solar array did not belong there but I said to them I said here's the deal anytime anyone ever says no to windmills or solar collectors if you're saying not here then the question is okay not here where if not here where and I think that's a reasonable position because boy we got to put them someplace one thing that we didn't discuss yet today housing yeah an employee one of the biggest employees here in town J. W. Moore Nolato I heard the other day they have about 12 15 Afghanis working in there they come from Brooklyn every day to do their job their temporary employees they pay them about 25 dollars an hour and now they say we got it down to you know you want to stay here to a lot less money and here you attract the people my point is about the refugees there are so many around and we keep on bringing them but we don't know what to do with them you know we think we know what to do with them or we find your job and here's a prime example you know they're thinking this guy's thinking of going to Texas how do we deal that we in one hand we say we have no housing on the other hand bring them in we'll take care of them what is the state's take on that you want to do s1 it's a Senate bill so you probably know more about than I do but I mean I play with it too we have s100 Senate bill on housing I'm not the best person I voted for it but again this was yet another example of I made my case my colleagues were not persuaded then the question is can I live with this and I thought I'm not going to vote against the housing bill it has nine four and has 90 million dollars in it to to help with low income housing we have people now living in all disused motels and as the weather warms up and federal money starts to dry up we're going to have people living in tents probably we already do but the main thrust of s100 is is it's the belief and it's a shame Allison Clarkson's not here because she's the vice chair of the Senate Economic Development Committee and this is their bill and she's an enthusiast for it and I will try to be fair the idea is that we don't want sprawl development Vermonters going back to Dean Davis in the 1960s in the beginning of the or the expansion of the ski industry in the wild development that was happening in the 60s have Vermonters have felt that there is a danger of Vermont becoming New Jersey and that we want to keep Vermont wonderful and now that was really where Act 250 came from the basic idea being if you want to develop you can develop here but you got to do it right and we have besides Act 250 a large variety of the agency of natural resources permits that are required for development and town zoning and town requirements as well the idea is that we want to continue to concentrate development in already developed areas and not have sprawl and that's that goes back in the 1960s it was identified and described in so many words but the actual practice goes back to the to the 18th century to the beginning of European settlement here and that is concentrated developments also called villages and little concentrated development called hamlets and surrounded by green space undeveloped land or agricultural land and that we want to continue to not make Vermont New Jersey to not to not be spreading the incentive that S 100 creates is that to basically weaken Act 250 which is why I opposed it but at least oppose that provision ended up supporting the bill to to lessen Act 250 protection in concentrated areas which is to say villages in towns that have zoning that have water and sewer that are basically where you want you development I have always thought for example that as you go out the back road to Royalton and you go up that hill there's this meadow that was once agricultural that's now filled with with nice houses it's a nice little neighborhood and there are people who complain oh that was a beautiful pasture and now it's houses and I think it's houses exactly where houses ought to be it took an existing village it just made it a little bit bigger expanded as opposed to what is happening all over America which is here's the village and I'm five miles down the road here's the housing development you know which and then well you got a housing development there in a village here why not put another housing development right between them the next thing you know you've got the yeah so anyway that the idea is we're trying as I say in the end of the question for me was can I live with this and so we'll see well thanks the house the house budget included one include 134 point five million dollars on housing investments and of course now that budget is over now Senate and they'll they'll fiddle with it and we'll now we'll see how it all plays out but part of what that included was certainly included included a number of things one was you know to provide capital for middle income for models who want to build a house right because because if you're low income there are a number of programs and obviously if you've got a lot of money you don't need it it really is the middle income that that no one can afford to build a house these days so there's some opportunities for that there as Dick was talking about there's some some changes to act 250 to allow development in places that already have the infrastructure in place some of that is also includes some funding for a rehabilitation of apartment buildings that have you know people can't afford to finish we've got I don't know what the status of the yellow block here is but you know but he's been working on that for a long time and actually I've been trying to try to hunt him down I can't find his phone number anywhere I'll get it because I love to tell him that there's some money for it you know and just like I just put Kevin Barry in touch with the Green Mountain Economic Development Corporation because his money to help him finish the apartments upstairs and so trying to get him to to to link in because that's housing we want the housing there's also some some changes and allotments in there for people who want to create an accessory dwelling right you know we didn't use to allow people to to to turn the the the the family you know they used to call the mother-in-law apartment but what you know but but you know that that piece in that little apartment turn that into something that you could use for rental to allow a place where like your afghan workers a decent place they can live so there's a number of programs that that they're putting in whether act 250 changes is also the allowability of actually basically duplexes instead of instead you know it's in places that used to be only single family homes so there's a there's a number of pieces that they're trying to put in place this is not you know housing is not my committee so I'm just going on notes that somebody sent me but but that's but that's that's some of the stuff we're working on we're fully aware that housing is a is a you know the big things workforce development housing because even if you get the workforce and I have no place to live and then if they have children they have no place to send the kids so they one of them has to stay home take care of the kids and so again that's another worker that isn't in there you know and that's income they're not making and so so it's this this sort of triangle of problems that all exacerbate each other that we're trying to to address and by 2030 you want to have 30% of the land controlled by the state the Vermont Land Trust or something like this that is what yeah I think that's the goal that by 2050 50% what happens to the taxes of the other people that's its own property that takes it out of tax roll right up in the court that's land trust pays taxes yeah yeah okay they do why my quarry was with 1,700 acres on 1,700 acres the taxes were $6,700 because I just have to pay it when I had the court what about and you can't ever do anything that land again they just what 1,700 acres they just got in Kilington we're just Vermont Land Trust is why doesn't money come from to pay for this land well first of all I'm not I'm not sure you're right that that it's all going to be taken off the tax rolls there and there are various protections you know to get what I'm saying is on 1,700 acres it should be more than $6,500 my we gave my son six acres that bind our house the tax of 1,500 on that and it's nothing there so if you got 30% of the land or 50% of the land by 50, 20, 50 yeah who is going to pay for the land who's and you can't do anything about land again well again they can't build your houses you want to build the conservation of land for tell me if I'm wrong on this correct that for example forest land is preserved it can still be logged it has to be long you know but you can't do anything well it's still be five or working landscape though in fact it was I bought it was 27 acres and all out of that 15 or 1700 acres and they were supposed to put in it was a seven acre sand pet mountain sand you know mountain sand as expensive they didn't put that into this thing so Dave the owner of it he he sold a million dollar apartment building in New York City he had to get his money back invested within a year so we want his primary is logging that's what he wants and so but he said I've got 50 acres I'll give you 15 acres for the 7th Vermont land trust that's nothing to one so there's a natural resource right there that we do to you you never touch it again gone right yeah right it's a private organization yeah where did the where does the Vermont land trust get their money from donors well they got to be something off of you when we go what are you supposed to be a right now this 1700 acres that was in the news last week and killing them what will happen to that land nobody ever build on anything again right I don't know you asked about a particular contractual arrangement last year particularly well I I read the news regularly but I don't memorize every single story you are also talking about a very fundamental issue in not just Vermont but the role of property taxes these are the income tax and who pays who pays the piper a progressive income tax distributes the cost among all of the people based on their ability to pay a property tax does not and it's so as long as we continue to fund our towns and our schools on the basis of property rather than on the basis of ability of the taxpayer to pay we are going to be caught in that kind of a conundrum and and at some point I would argue that we need to be we need to think about tax policy writ large so that we can do things like conserve conserved land that is to the benefit of all of the people and have those pay those taxes that are necessary to provide the public good but have that those charged to the people who are in the best position to perform to pay for that taxes are $800 a year our property tax of this great it's $20,000 a year for students that's where our taxes go to most of our taxes go to education I understand I don't think you get $20,000 with the education per year just agree with a hundred percent but I'm not arguing about whether or not we're getting our dollars worth I'm arguing that you are paying more probably than you should be paying for to pay for that $20,000 a year because if you were paying on the basis of your ability to pay not on how much land you owned that would be a whole different conversation I don't know Jean you should have opened this up right at 9 o'clock but a lot of the property on my road is owned by out of status and they do not earn any money in this state and so if it's all based on their income all that money's going to Connecticut or New York and meanwhile we have all this land here that they have sucked up because they have money so I think I fundamentally disagree with that but it is not a clock yeah so and I think I mentioned this before and someone did make the remark that we know there's lots of studies and again you know to go to Dick's point lots of lots of times not always right you know the house uses studies just like your parents use you know it's like dad can I borrow the car you know it's either yes no or we'll see and we'll see really means no I'm just not telling you yet and so lots of time studies are we'll see but but but the chair Emily Kornheiser of Brauber who's the chair of the Ways and House Ways and Means Committee naming tax which is the folks that figure out how to pay for stuff the taxes and the fees and all that stuff one of the things she did last summer was convened a study group to look at this entire tax question now I know there have been previous groups that have looked at this tax question and but she does seem pretty motivated while she's there to have to make some fundamental changes and other things after talking to all you know figuring the numbers with the fiscal offices and you know the administration and trying to bring in everybody who knows something they came up with four different potential solutions you know of how to transition to have a large part of the taxes that we currently have attached to our property be attached to income but but they never completely separate out you know second homes you know non-resident owners that they still are gonna they would still be paying property tax but you know so but that's why but then it's like well what percentage and who pays how you know how those percentages go and and then of course you know income tax if you if you base your all your funding for your town in your school on income tax well you know if you have a recession ever all the income goes down and you know and then so you can't afford your school and then you know and it comes up so so it's a lot it's a lot more fluid whereas a property tax you know you can always just hit them for the same amount every year unless it unless they read yeah unless they reappraise and goes up right so so it's a it's it's more fluid if you attach it to the income tax so trying to figure out ways to to stabilize but also still distribute it more more equitably amongst people who may have high income and live in a very beautiful one-acre home I know it's nine o'clock in this there are basically three ways the government taxes your money first of all while you're while it's coming into your life income there's an income tax secondly while it's sitting there that's a property tax thirdly when you spend it that's sales tax and Vermont has going has always tried to balance the three because each has advantages and disadvantages one of the real advantages of a property tax is that it's stable the property of course property taxes values do plummet they do go up but the appraisal is there for a while and then there's a week it's fairly predictable income tax can can go all over the place you forgot one if you get one that you save money they tax you on that too you forgot that one well that's income the the idea is to have a have a balance the income tax is especially attractive because it seems more just it seems more fair but and this is a Republicans argument but it has merit and I'm gonna make it which is there's a limit there's a built-in limit to how high you can soak the rich you soak them enough and they leave okay now where that point is is debatable and generally I might be a little more adventurous and taxing the rich than my Republican colleagues okay but there is a point of diminishing returns there someplace okay you got to be aware of that the problem with the property tax is that it can be very unjust in particular for someone who is a child of an old multi-generational Vermont family which means if you go back several generations probably they were farmers and what someone has inherited a lot of land which now is not valued you know of course you can get I'm jumping ahead of myself the problem being that the agricultural land is valued on what it's worth to a Connecticut lawyer okay and so it's worth a lot more than the air of a Vermont farm family can can afford that's why we have current use and we do have a variety of fixes for these problems such as current use valuation if you're if you're still using the land agriculturally and then we're pretty loose on what that exactly means that means also civil culturally you have a logging plan and you log it every 20 years then you are valued at its agricultural value not at its resale value that's that's a fix we also have a fix on the property tax which is income sensitivity that came about 20 years ago with Act 60 and I remember a woman once said me why this Act 60 is terrible it drove our race if I didn't have that income sensitivity I wouldn't be able to afford Act 60 and the answer is well Act 60 created the income sensitivity but there you're limited to a certain percentage of your income that goes into the tax on house and yard was two acres two and a half acres two acres and and you know your garage it's not any building there but you know attended buildings I think one problem is is in this I've always were whenever I say this I said dick you're committing political suicide here because people will misunderstand but there's more to property than real estate when we say property tax we mean real estate tax land and buildings there's other kinds of property and there are many many countries that tax and I'm not saying have more taxes just tax more different things which means presumably would tax all of them less that rather than just taxing real estate things such as your stock portfolio things you own if I put in two plugs to make sure we vote on the water bond next week because we cannot add any more houses within the village that's on the water and septic because we're not up to code so if somebody does have a land lot in town you cannot build a house unless you want to put in your own well or septic and then that's the next Tuesday the next Thursday the 20th I've been on the planning commission for a couple of years gene used to be on it we've been doing all the rezoning and that's going to be a public meeting I believe at 630 at the town hall on the 20th and we did talk what you were talking about the accessory dwellings shortening the amount of land you need to subdivide so we can find some way to add more housing to Bethel and we've been working on this the whole two years that I've been on there so that'll be up for public discussion but the water bill is very important to pass because we're not up to code with the state and we got a good bond and it's less than it used to be a couple of years ago and we gotta just make sure we have it while we can because if we need to do it again I mean one way the other what the water is going to get fixed whether people vote on it or not but if we don't get the bond with a cheaper interest rate we're really going to be in trouble so thank you you saved me from being a liar I promised my wife Cindy that I would make that announcement here and I completely forgotten it and you can vote absentee you can vote absentee yeah they'll mail you a ballot just you know bring back or just go to town office fill it out hand it right back I got two more plugs one the reappraisal doesn't necessarily raise your taxes a matter of fact quite a few people's taxes will go down because the appraisal changes the grand list yeah right the grand list determines what the tax rate is by how much money you need quite often if you've done nothing to your home since last reappraisal your property tax will probably either stay the same or go down so that as far as reappraisal causing your tax go up not true right the other one is the town plan that she's talking about on the on the 20th that that's available on the town website if you'd like to read it's 173 pages so be ready there's a lot on there a lot in there I've got through three quarters of it I'm supposed to be all the way through by tonight I don't think I'll make it but these people have done a shit about trying to make it so we can have housing so we can have infrastructure so we it anyway they've made some adjustments in the town plan that so far look good we work closely with two rivers out of Quichy the folks down there have really helped us they're on a lot he comes on either in person or to the zoom meetings because they have a broader ban respect they know more what's going on so when trees or Rick or any of us have a question Kevin Geiger can answer that question for us because he's been doing this for however long with all these other towns so he could say well this town did this and it didn't quite make it or this town did oh my god it did great but they know what hasn't worked legally through the system that you can't push through so yeah it's been a long time coming and public comment is welcome but definitely get your vote in for the water bill because we're going to pay for it one way or the other we might as well pay for it with the bonds that we have how old is the existing system oh my god it's a hundred years a hundred years some of the stuff that they've taken out is yeah it's average 50 to 75 but we have we still have a lead issue with galvanized which actually we do it now right now there's a baitment for that there's some money for us free Bernie Sanders we got what 600,000 that we've got a match 152 it's going to do all of the road work once the other part in my opinion and I think our board believes it that we cannot not do this are we gonna be digging up Main Street again no no no sand hill no sand hill has no water lines going through there and then that will be repaved and for anybody that walks or drives up there you must will be driving on a dirt road for the summer for the summer yeah yeah there's a lot of work in that bill so you know absentee ballot however you have to do it vote and vote on that bill while we have good funding that goes with it so thank you for putting up the the only one I really appreciate maybe Phil Paz is in car inspections every other year look what it costs you to just to get your car inspected a lot of people can't afford it do you think it will pass I mean so that was that was part of the transportation bill so that it's it might I mean so now it's over in the Senate all right so we'll see how do you two feel about line item veto I get sick and tired of seeing something at the bottom that exactly everybody hates because I can live with it because I get everybody hates it but somebody some want to be your colleagues this is what I want so I'm not I'm going to hold you up you know it's not quite it's not that sleazy I think maybe in Vermont I will say for example that that my I sang it Vince lose his wedding he's a Republican colleague okay I mean we were friends but if it can't have someone's merit well I can't you bring it up as its own bill okay in Vermont bills provisions in Vermont bills are germane and in Congress that's not necessarily true you can have a transportation bill and suddenly have a hunting and fishing provision just stuck into it we don't do that in Vermont that an amendment has to be germane and someone can rise on the floor and suggest well though if the committee passes it out then then that's the bill but in committee someone will say well that's not your main that's not what this bill is about I think generally it's a matter of well for example the housing bill and I mentioned there are things in the housing bill I don't like but I thought this is as good as it's going to get and the whole package now everything in that bill was about housing one way or another okay and but the bike to get to the house you mean okay what is the question of what is germane to a certain extent is a gray area and if you want it to be germane maybe you can make an argument but then your colleagues have to buy the argument or you're not going to get your way I had one many years ago I had a provision I wanted considered on the floor the committee of jurisdiction didn't like it it never got to the so I just kept offering it as a floor amendment but I got shot down every time so thank you we're gonna end with that