 Morning, it's Thursday, February 25th, 2021. We're taking up S-25 and actually in the miscellaneous cannabis regulation procedures. We've gone over the bill with legislative council. Much of the bill is technical amendments to the bill that we passed last year, S-54, I can't remember what the act number was, and that. So we're now taking testimony on proposed amendments from various individuals last year. So the first witness this morning is Graham, and I can't pronounce his last name. I do my best, I try, but I'm just going to refer to him as Graham and he can introduce himself. Thank you for being here, Graham. Thank you, Senator, and thank you for inviting me. My name is Graham Uninks-Troofenacht. I'm the policy director at Royal Vermont, and I'm also a farmer in the McAllister-Plainfield-Marshfield area. So again, I appreciate you all having myself and our coalition partners in today. I believe I spoke with this committee two years ago about what the time was S-54. And we've spoken a little with Senator White and Senator Sears over the last couple months about some of our concerns as a coalition related to agricultural access and equity and economic equity and racial equity in this bill and how we might be able to have some of our concerns addressed to the legislative process as well as the rulemaking process. In terms of S-25, I don't think there's anything in there that our coalition opposes from the town opt-in requirements to the CCB deciding about integrated licenses. We do have a number of our own amendments related to racial equity and disproportionately impacted communities, which I believe Mark will speak to later, that will be coming in a bill, which he will be able to tell you more about. And what we explained to Senator Sears a couple of days ago is that we expected all of our agricultural and economic equity provisions to also be included in a bill that includes those racial equity provisions. And unfortunately, they weren't. So we're sort of left in a position in which we have a number of concerns and bullets and findings and work that we put into this. And we don't have it in the most accessible form for you and for that we apologize. But what I'd like to do is at least go through some of our concerns and we also quickly also say that we've spoken to both the Senate and House Agricultural Committees as we'd really like to have an opportunity for our members, farmers, cultivators to speak to those committees. We've not had to some extent it feels like we're getting a little bit of a run around in terms of how we are able to get in front of those committees and get our members to actually have a chance to speak to people who have the expertise to sort of understand sort of the farm and agricultural and economic access issues related to agriculture that we'd like to get into. But in lieu of that, we can at least speak to you here and we'll continue to press the agricultural committees and also speaking with House members, Representative Ansel and others to try to find ways for our concerns to be heard. So I'll just quickly just go through some of our concerns and to be entirely transparent as well. I am required to be in another meeting at this time. So once I speak and if you have any questions I'll take them then but then I will be leaving the meeting to attend another meeting. We all understand that. Okay, I appreciate that. So just really quickly, you know, from the agricultural perspective we understand there were concerns which led to at the last minute cannabis being considered a non-agricultural crop and I think we'd like to speak a little bit to our concerns around that. You know, we propose a craft licensing structure and cost of craft licenses. We also recognize and realize that you all have been discussing recently the delay in implementation and some of the concerns around how we're going to have discussions about licenses fees and all the things we need to this session. So I hope that some of what we've offered here and I've forwarded some of it to Senator Sears is helpful in those conversations you all having at arriving at some some outcomes related to fee structure, licensing structure, and other things that we need to get accomplished before as implementation rolls out. I think from an agricultural perspective, you know, as we see this, you know, the required agricultural practices define an ag product as any raw agricultural commodity that's produced principally on a farm includes products prepared from raw agricultural ag commodities principally produced on a farm. From hemp to crops for alcohol, biofuels, these are all considered agricultural. The Vermont State Ag Plan has multiple briefs about the critical nature of alcohol sales, the production of alcohol, the cultivation of hemp, and a lot of non-food products related to the state's agricultural future. And we also recognize that, you know, the communities that we represent, small farmers, homesteaders, they have skillsets related to this. You know, some of them are already engaged in the existing economy. And when this crop is made not considered non-agricultural, it has a lot of impacts related to economic equity and access issues for the agricultural community. So when we think about agricultural easements, current use, these are valuations that affect people's ability to economically access land, access the ability to grow crops, which if this is considered non-agricultural, will put those folks at a disadvantage. You will not be able to grow this crop on land and agricultural easement in land and current use except for the narrow provision currently allowed under 1,000 square feet of land if the land is not transferred and if the land is already in current use prior to cultivation beginning. So we're just trying to help folks understand that there's going to be some impacts on farmers in particular who have worked over decades to get land into current use, agricultural easements, et cetera, which helps them to economically afford to be able to farm. And I think with this crop in particular, we recognize that there is a real challenge in farm viability right now, not just in the dairy sector, but in all sectors in Vermont. And this is a crop that we really feel has a high potential for farmers to be able to make more of a just livelihood in relationship to just as other people in the industry will. That doesn't mean that we think it should be treated like tomatoes or squash or any sort of saleable, you know, food product from the farm. But similar to alcohol sales based on a farm, for example, down the road from me is Hooker Mountain Distillery. And they sell their distilled spirits at their farm stand that principally produced on their farm. They still need to go through the licensing process as any other person who sells alcohol would and follow those procedures, et cetera. And I'm happy to address and speak to some of the concerns brought up around nuisance, whether it be odor or around civil or criminal asset forfeiture, which chair Partridge at the agricultural committee brought up with me. And I'd love to see some examples of those concerns playing out nationally, especially related to civil or criminal asset forfeiture. Then we get sort of into just so we would we are ultimately goals, you know, one of our goals is to have this declared an agricultural crop and to rather than having this sweeping regulation, which says this will not be agricultural, let's look at what can we do to put scale appropriate regulations in place to make sure that this can be an agricultural crop, like other agricultural crops that are more risky, whether it's raw milk, whether it's on farm slaughtered poultry, whether it's tobacco, whether it's alcohol ingredients, we can we can put some particular regulations on that that make it more appropriate, but doesn't just eliminate the ability for a lot of farmers to be able to produce this crop online that they have in agricultural reserve, agricultural use. We are we also break in a second grab and make sure I don't know how to get you to the agriculture committee. They basically don't want to deal with this. That's what I sense. I'm happy to redo what we did in current use in the Senate side, NS 25, if that helps to we had a much larger we ended up settling with the house on the square. Also the grandfathering in and all that. So I'm happy to to look at going back to that if the committee wanted to. Somehow we went to him and made that an agricultural product, did we not? Yes, and we have an apparatus set up for regulating it from seed to sale. What you're talking about is similar. Yeah, and in particular other states, the Departments of Agriculture also regulate cannabis sales in particular other states as well and it's designated as an agricultural use in particular states and in some states they allow that to be determined at the municipal level, which I'm not endorsing necessarily, but I think it's good to know that it this is how it's done in other states in some cases. Can I ask Graham, can I just ask you a question? What you're talking about here is the the regulations and the you know comparing it to raw milk and stuff you're talking about regulations and limits around the sales of it. But if it's an agricultural product, there is no no regulation around the growing of it. An agricultural product, agriculture has no zoning, it doesn't have to abide by local zoning or anything, so there's a difference between regulations around selling, but making it an agricultural product would mean that nobody can determine where it could be growing right next door to me on the empty lot there without any zoning requirements and the other difference is that like with hops and stuff they are not the product itself, so the security of hops isn't a real isn't very much of an issue because you have to do a lot to make it into liquor, but the security of it's an entirely different crop than hemp and hops. So I just point that out and ask about the lack of any regulation for the growing part of it if it's an ag product. Yeah, you're correct. I mean the regulation of the growing part would would hopefully be tasked with the agency of agriculture and I think it related to that question though we did suggest some parameters which would affect regulations around the growing, specifically we suggest differentiating between indoor outdoor and mixed light cultivation and the only cultivation we would recommend would be considered agricultural would be outdoor cultivation. We also recommend production caps such that the maximum amount that anyone could grow would be an acre outdoor. So we're saying that this would make us a much more accessible industry, you would sort of decommodify the crop, you would allow a lot more people to access it and you would put regulations such that the scale couldn't get very inappropriate and it couldn't get to the point that we see giant hemp fields right now where you have 60 acres in plastic which I think is a concern for a lot of environmental reasons but also as you talk about just concerns for neighbors etc we've seen hemp plants stolen at the community level etc. You know in terms of the security concerns I you know there are some provisions written into the law about how to protect crops and I'm just curious to have that conversation more about about safety and about some of the concerns related to it and I'd be curious to hear how that's played out in other states as well. I don't know if other states have right to farm laws like we do and that might be comparing them might be a little bit tricky. Senator Barouf. I wanted to second what Jeanette said and also what the witness is saying in a different place so I take the point about current use and agricultural easements I I think that's a very valid concern but I think Senator White is is correct and and my introduction to Vermont agriculture was sitting with Bobby Starr for two years on the Agriculture Committee my first session and you know one of the things Bobby drilled into me over the years was that you can't tell farmers how to grow their crops or you know there's a there's a sovereign view of the farm and I think that's sacred to a lot of Vermont farmers I think we would run into endless problems trying to create a secure and regulated growing environment if if this were a purely agricultural product and the coalition that got the bill and got it all the way through to law and is now looking to reform it part of what they had to give up along the way was the idea that growers would have complete control over the environment so you know there are controls established and that made certain people in the House and the Senate okay with voting for it so at this point it's hard for me to imagine that we would go back to a situation where you would say to Vermont farmers feel free to grow cannabis as you like on your property and I just don't think we'd be very successful regulating or limiting the power of the farmer. I appreciate that Senator I've never served that agriculture so I have also I would suggest that we do what we can on S-25 though and I think we could go back to our version of the current use I think that's you know anything that we do that forces us into big marijuana is it is going to go against what we're trying to accomplish here and so I think things like current use are an advantage to the partner maybe we can't do what in S-25 what Graham and others are asking us but I think we can at least plant the seeds that was a bad thing at least we can make some movement on a few things and then have a separate bill for next year that does some of the other things that you know it's hard to believe that we're a week and a half from crossover and have to pass these bills out and I understand and I can certainly sympathize with the frustration on the good news there's things that slowed down so bad that I think next year we'll be timely to some of this I do really appreciate hearing hearing the concerns expressed and I think you know one of my I think this is a great reason why it would be great to have this conversation in the agricultural committee where we could speak to you know we could have a conversation about how we could create regulation and I do understand that there will be concerns and there may be just be different disagreements about about levels of risk and you know what the benefits are but I'll just quickly go through a couple of other things that we're suggesting here and in terms of the you know the commodity scale cannabis I really think that the something for y'all to look at is our production caps and is some sort of supply management I think that would really increase access across the board for smaller cultivators it would make sure that we don't have certain types of players essentially engaging in this industry in Vermont the profit motive and the profit exploitation motive wouldn't be there if the cap on production were there I also urge you to look into differentiating between outdoor mixed light indoor cultivation because for example when we currently have things like a thousand square feet of production allowed for the cultivator small cultivator license it doesn't differentiate between that and there's essentially a scale of like four to one throughout the course of a year what can be produced in an indoor environment versus an outdoor environment based on what we've heard from cultivators across the country and from our partner Vermont growers association so I think there's some interesting ways we could look at regulating scale to affect some of the concerns here so we suggest a craft license tier you know this is already in the legislation there will be craft licenses and I don't need to get too far into it it's essentially a tier of small farmers small retailers etc who can sort of can only source from each other and they have to they're really limited in their scale we also propose you know a small farm craft license and this gets into what Senator White was saying and Senator Bruce and related to that you know if you have a product principle produced on the farm you are allowed to sell that product on the farm this would essentially be a craft license where again you'd have a lot of restrictions and regulations in place so for the safety of some period of that product but you're essentially saying this farmer can with you know fewer requirements and costs than a normal retail outlet be able to sell from their farm under it with a part of the meat x y or z conditions we also just talked about you know including the different types in different times of the licensing process and I'll leave that to I think my coalition member Jeffrey to speak to because he can speak to it better than me and lastly we just we've really put in some concerns around the regulatory body to CCD we noticed that there's really not a process for members of the CCD to be removed there's really not much ability for the advisory committee to have an active role so we suggested that the advisory committee have some ability to detail decisions in the CCD and also some ability to remove members of the CCD or somebody have that ability and I think you know from my concerns I might I might leave it there and let my partners speak to the rest of what we've brought forward. Senator White has a question I realize you got to go to another meeting. Just quickly I believe that the legislature has the veto ability for anything that the cannabis control board they have to come to us with their recommendations and we approve so there is a veto ability for the way I understand that it's structured and Jeanette maybe you can check me on this but I thought that the governor had the power to remove board members for cause. No the only way the according to the statute the only way there's three board members and the only way they can one can be removed is with the other two removing that person. Oh I see okay and is that only for cause like negligence or? It doesn't say it just says that the only way they can be removed so if two people on the board think that somebody is being obstructive or doing horrible things they have the right to remove that. Wow that's I would be in favor of looking into that because I think in in other boards where they're appointed by the governor if somebody is perennially missing meetings and then collecting the job something like that they can be removed with a hearing and they have the right to make a defense but if the other two board members can just vote. You know I think I think that's all it says in the in the statute but I think that that's certainly something that can Michelle can help us with this. Sure excuse me so um you remember the evolution of this section was that when you created the board originally in S54 you wanted it to be an independent entity so that you you didn't want you wanted to kind of isolate the board somewhat from kind of political wins depending on who is in the administration at the moment that changed somewhat with regard to the appointment authority and things like that once it was in the house but the provision that made that still made it through which was what you had in the original S54 was that a member may only be removed only for cause so okay it is cause is required by the remaining members of the commission in accordance with the APA and so it does have to be for cause but they're and you can obviously change this if you reconsider but your but your original thing was that you didn't want it to be that maybe a board member was taking certain actions they were uh that the maybe the whoever is the the governor at the time didn't agree with maybe politically or something and so you wanted to um to insulate that process a little bit. Thank you. Graham uh oh Senator Benning I I'm mindful of Graham need to leave. Yeah this is not for Graham necessarily but I wanted to jump in on this part of the conversation so if Graham has to go that's okay it wasn't something I was going to ask of Graham. I just wanted to remind folks that we received a letter from the governor way back when one of his issues was the board members and the administration was upset I'm reading from it now Board members are now only removable for cause by the other board members this removes the board from accountability to the governor and constitutes an unconstitutional usurpation of the governor's constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws this is a provision that exposes all of the work of the board to legal challenges so this area is probably ripe for some conversation that we might want to provide a clear death I think it could be relevant with all due respect to the Judiciary Committee members I think that's a government operation issue more than judiciary although it is a constitutional issue I suppose where frequently this particular administration has thrown up constitutional barriers that I haven't seen in my other years here on a variety of things and I won't go into the detail of it and I disagree with the constitutional issue I'm looking at the Constitution right now yeah well I I do too but I there was a reason that we made we I think of that the government operations committee level wanted to make this independent similar to the way we have an independent general well and if if the governor still retains the power to appoint and those are limits on the terms of those people it's not as though the governor doesn't have a lot of power over the board anyway any other questions for Graham Graham do you have any other comments for us no thank you for your time man I'm going to take my opportunity to leave and get into this other meeting and hand it over to my coalition partners but thank you all stay stay in touch I will okay Jeffrey welcome to senate judiciary this morning thank you senator can everybody hear me okay yes excellent I do have some prepared remarks which I am going to read and then I'll they'll be brief and I'll just go into some comments and take questions afterwards if that's fine that's fine all right uh I don't know if Graham's here anymore thank you Graham that was fantastic I appreciate it hard to follow up with that um so good morning senators thank you for the opportunity to address your committee today uh to speak to bill s25 uh and the language uh the sort of lucid amendments we would like to introduce uh to uh bring resolution to racial small business and the agricultural inequities that currently exist in act 164 2020 uh as outlined by our coalition in the language that we sent over to you guys and also as outlined as as has been mentioned earlier this morning already uh by the governor last year in his what we're calling the non-signing statement um it is our belief uh as a coalition that all of these uh inequalities must be addressed together and at the same time to successfully begin to bring redress and move Vermont beyond the failed war on drugs but also to arrive and adjust an equitable cannabis marketplace one that is innovative accessible craft-centric and uniquely Vermont for the record uh we're sort of the the new kids in the block uh so uh I'll introduce myself uh my name is Jeffrey Pizzatello uh I'm a professional cannabis grower I'm also the co-founder and the executive director of Vermont Growers Association uh we're a c4 social welfare nonprofit and we serve as the trade association for uh the state's cannabis professionals basically think of us as the Vermont Growers Association back during the 1990s with Greg Newton when him and his cohorts were seeking the craft beer marketplace that we basically enjoyed today so that's us um we study state cannabis law uh we network with other state cannabis organizations we connect with regulators in other states on an all important basis uh with that said a large percentage of our membership and our advocates are the state's illicit actors that want to transition into a legal marketplace uh some of them are BIPOC many of them are low income socially disadvantaged felons with past nonviolent cannabis convictions basically poor white people and people of color uh and that's why I just want to take a moment and say I'm so proud of our coalition that we have uh with the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, NOFA, Vermont, ROL, Vermont, and TRACE because we basically represent that fusion politics in the cannabis space in Vermont we're united by our shared interests and seeking just and equitability and also more importantly in recognizing that BIPOC have been disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs um again all of these inequalities must be addressed together we feel and at the same time other states have laid this groundwork it is possible and now's the time to get it done in Vermont and so thank you again uh I will speak for a moment uh about social equity before I go into uh some of the agricultural concerns that that Graham had highlighted a moment ago uh just to share some stats with you guys um by the end of 2020 the emerging legal cannabis industry in the United States was estimated to be valued at around 40 billion dollars and responsible for about 320,000 new jobs according to Leafley uh of those stats only about four percent of that industry is black-owned businesses so a 40 billion dollar industry just over four percent black-owned ownership uh that is what systemic racism looks like this is a new industry this is an opportunity um and that four percent ownership is a tragic number Vermont Vermont's new law does not include a social equity program as you guys are aware and that's one reason why we are here today I will say that is unique for 2020 it is now common place for cannabis legislation to include a social equity program it is uncommon not to include one with act 164 Vermont is going down that path senators that status quo four percent ownership path unless we change course now now is the time this year is the time to be implementing this and not simply including a social equity program but rather refocusing and recentering uh social equity and restorative justice as our priorities for the state for our new adult use marketplace other states are doing this as you guys know Illinois Massachusetts is exploring this with uh some innovative licensing California has this at various municipality levels Oakland notably New Jersey is rolling out a they just passed tax and regulate they're rolling out a social equity program at the start of their program and they're finding success and we don't want to be left behind so as a partner in a statewide coalition our organization the Vermont growers association supports the language put forth by the racial justice alliance to refocus equity and justice in our emerging marketplace moving over to small business and agricultural inequities Vermont cannot arrive at adjusting equitable legal marketplace without also addressing the small business and agricultural inequities that exist in act 164 as also outlined by the governor's non-signing statement quote a primary concern is the licensing construct which will disproportionately benefit Vermont's existing medical dispensaries by giving them sole access to integrated licenses and an unfair head start on market access he goes on this creates an inequitable playing field held both for our smaller minority and women owned businesses and other small growers and entrepreneurs so right now the illicit cannabis businesses in the in the state of Vermont largely unfortunately do not see themselves in this law so if transitioning illicit businesses into this legal space is a concern now's the time to address that clear uh and fair land use as uh my colleague Graham had mentioned and farmland regulations that make sense for our farming community we are after all an agrarian state uh to allow for reasonable not again uh wild wild west tomatoes but reasonable regulation and I do point to California, Massachusetts, Maine and other states that are doing this which I look forward to exploring with you guys um but also defining cannabis cultivation not as a commercial activity specifically we suggest that should be removed um moving on equality and equity in licensing is also central to this perspective that's shared throughout the cannabis community with regards to 164 the marketplace is not accessible to them and so that's why our coalition proposes language with clear definitions for accessible and fair licenses for everyday Vermonters. Act 164 is filled with a lot of these so-called kind of to be determined clauses uh one of them is the craft license uh page 26 I forget the actual number uh there is a clause that says you know we will look to develop a craft delivery license craft etc etc etc so what we do is we took feedback from Vermonters over the past year we researched and consulted with other states and regulators and advocates and we built out as Graham had alluded very thoughtful craft licensing in our language that will reform act 164 and address directly the small business and agricultural inequities that currently exist look at Massachusetts look at Oklahoma parks of California Oregon they all show us the importance of fair and just licensing and what that has in the viability overall of an adult use marketplace also critical to addressing the small businesses and agricultural inequities is accountability as we had also mentioned in the ccb I won't uh say what the governor had left in his signing statement I believe that Senator White had just mentioned that or maybe that was Baruth I apologize but his criticisms of the ccb we share and we do think that and it sounds like there may be agreement uh today that that is an area that is worth looking into and I just bring up one anecdote uh we see other states have dealt with this and that is issues with the regulatory body uh and its impacts on rollout and formation notably in Michigan Michigan had a similar bill as ours years ago they developed a state uh level commission that was appointed by the governor selected by their legislative body and after about a year and a half of operations Michigan ultimately needed to dissolve that commission because it turned out that one of the commissioners on that body was a little too close to the dispensaries and and their rollout their market rollout was grinding to a hole and so they dissolved that commission they corrected that and they they're now moving towards at a at a more reasonable pace so just to echo that concern uh as as my colleague did a moment ago um and that basically concludes uh my written my written remarks but I do want to follow up just briefly um and add that a lot of our language uh is designed to mitigate and eliminate a lot of the concerns that we are now hearing um not just from your body but from other elected officials throughout the senate and the house with regards to act 164's implementation and formation process I've watched every committee hearing on uh s25 to date um and in some of your meetings uh you guys senators have rightly so expressed numerous times uh concerns about rollout how well intended bills in other states flounder uh at formation and we see that happening in this state with act 164 and now is the time to take preventative measures to prevent that a lot of our language that we we hope you guys will adopt uh will seek to eliminate those issues that we think will only increase unless we take action this year so we share those concerns in implementation and formation we share those concerns that you're expressing about what is legislative responsibility what is rulemaking responsibility a lot of what we're proposing is what other states are enacting at the legislative level licensing is a legislative priority so thank you for your time uh and I'll take your questions if you guys have any senator white so thank you I'm curious about your um comments about the control board and how you would structure that and I found it very interesting that if in I think you said Michigan where one person was um instead of just kicking that person off they just dissolved the whole commission and so I'm just because I'm on the nominating committee and we have sent just sent names to the governor and I can tell you the people that we interviewed are um very serious about this and are um looking to do their very best so I just would wonder how you would restructure the cannabis control board well uh thank you for that question um I think it can be as simple as and we want to stay simple and reasonable and realistic because it's important for us to get these reforms past this year because we are in implementation and formation so timeliness is relevant here so uh we're not suggesting necessarily a reconfiguration of the board in so much a little more accountability vis-a-vis what Graham had mentioned which is allowing the state to adjust for these issues if they come up because we have seen in other states that they do in fact come up you know it is a multi-billion-dollar industry we should not be surprised with special interests it's just part of this country so we need to navigate around that and we're not implying that the board as of this moment is is corrupt no we're trying to be preventative because of other states I still don't understand how you would reconstruct it so that because it does the accountability is to the legislature for the board well there would be an advisory committee I think well there is an advisory committee right so that's where the right exactly uh we we would uh in our language that we sent uh it does rely on the advisory committee to perform more of the accountability that we're so it wouldn't come to the legislature we go to the advisory committee as of this moment uh and we're we can explore that together to to to find out what's best for for us but I would say that would be a starting point hmm okay mr chair if I may know where what is the status of the advisory michelle if you're still with us so the uh at 264 required the advisory uh committee to be seated by may 1st that was premised on that the board was going to be seated by january 19th and so the advisory committee works under the under the authority of the board um they do not have so they are making recommendations and working with the board but they don't have independent authority I think what the witness is is referring to is in his proposal uh he asks that the advisory committee have veto power over the board um and uh and a few other things so that's but they don't have anything like that now right now that's it's comprised of uh I think 12 members with varying expertise and their job is to be assisting the board in developing the policy that's going to guide the rules and the and the application process and how are they appointed remind me the advice it varies depending so there's different appointment authority so some is by the speaker some by the by the committee on committees the AG's office etc yep and the governor I'm he has posted on the website uh jeffrey's um outline of um which could be a legislative proposal I guess um and kind of helpful to have that access to that outline that he provided to the committee um I again the senator roof uh sorry about that mr chair so um I guess I go back to um the witness's statement about timeliness I agree I think timeliness is of the essence I I think at this point if we were to in essence I think what you're suggesting is that we reverse the power dynamic between the advisory board and the cannabis control board so in effect the advisory board would become the one with the power um in the equation and that might you know that's a discussion that could be had I think it would add quite a lot of time to the to the calculus because we're we're staffing now based on the idea that the people on the advisory board are purely advisory and so they have expertise or whatever but they were not selected with an eye toward hiring and firing um the control board so I I think at this point what you're talking about strikes me as kind of a uh not repairing the car but putting in a new engine and I I think it can only add time to a process that is woefully behind time now um so I think there are a slate of things that we would look at a couple of years down the road and it may be that that's one of them I'm satisfied now that I know that board members can only remove one another for cause and the governor has the power to appoint and then they're term limited after that so um you know I I take your point I just think it's uh it's it's probably not the moment for addressing it thank you for that go ahead oh Michelle I just wanted to add I um just to remind everybody that the uh advisory committee those folks are per diem and expenses they're not uh employees of the state and they're not and so they're not salaried or or anything like that so um the only folks who are full-time employees are the three board members and the executive director and the administrative assistant so nothing but I'm sorry oh thank you Michelle thank you uh senator and Michelle uh yes uh just stepping back for a moment the the intent here is to uh help accelerate uh and also meet the the deadlines this year while providing a more thorough build out of the implementation formation vis-a-vis licensing structure uh land use opening up agriculture for the agrarian state or at least making a little bit more accommodating for our farmers uh and also bringing accountability so I take your note uh senator bruce uh if the accountability is there uh the satisfactory you know threshold has been met uh that's fine uh but I I will say that you know what we're proposing is not intended to slow down and so if it is seen that way uh that is not our intent just just to underscore that um so it is you know we see look studying other states it took main about five years to arrive in adult use market it took massachusetts about three and a half and that's after they open up and start issuing licenses that's that's at that point in time the clock the clock says go and so we have some of our members for instance uh you know I won't name any names but some of the most reputable cbd and hemp storefronts in the state and when they tell us they will need at least 12 months after from the day they get their license to then participate in the marketplace what does that say for the rest of vermonters who are in that position so that speaks to uh how quickly you know that speaks to viability that speaks to maturity of market that speaks to success in rollout we want to have a successful rollout we want to include as many vermonters as early as possible without slowing down this process and so that's overall what we're proposing and that also gets out a lot of our primary intent of this legislation and I don't want to speak for you guys which is to transition vermonters out of that illicit market into that legal space so this gets at that so many ways here I feel like this committee is not so much of this has to do with agriculture so much that has to do with the government operations committees um and so I'm a little thankfully we have Michelle here who understands thank you very much jeff we appreciate the testimony and also the written yep thank you guys okay uh mark Hughes morning mark mr chair morning senator abinning senator radhika senator fame ruthen senator white i'm mark Hughes i'm executive director of racial equity the racial i think it's the racial equity you know what you know what i am the justice alliance and justice for all and um I just want to thank you for taking some time with us today here to discuss uh s 25 and also the bill that will be emerging from the house to that seeks to address the racial equity so first of all I just want to give a shout out to um definitely know fame and growers and rural and trace uh we've been with them we've been working with them um weekly we meet on a weekly basis um since probably last august except maybe July or something like that it's a serious uh relationship and I just wanted to let you know that the first thing we did this is we sent we spent two sessions which were each an hour and a half um covering systemic racism um I presented that so that's how we got on the same page that's where we started in our commitment to one another because I know you see a lot of coalitions you know this is really worth the conversation it's I think this is really really important to um this coalition and the work that we're putting forward to you and in what you saw us doing last session with s 54 and and you saw fierce opposition to um and uh so what we what we came up with was is we thought it'd be a good idea to to learn I thought it'd be a good idea to learn about ag and I and I thought it'd be and they thought it'd be a good idea to learn about systemic racism so and in increasingly we're hoping to be able to um further educate our constituents and to be able to bridge those um bridge those areas as well because there's a lot in common we discovered that we were pretty powerful um because a lot of times um you um the best um barometer is is when when people come after you when you bring forward an idea and uh we were essentially attacked uh last uh session uh from all sides um but we're glad to be here we're glad the governor chimed in it is non-signing statement uh at the end we're glad that uh you senator sears under your leadership and also the willingness of uh some others uh did circle around with his off session uh even as recent as just a couple days ago having more conversations about this we are appreciative so thank you for that you know regarding systemic racism I just wanted to say that I think that um what I've seen and I too you know you know god bless you too you know I too have uh been in and out of a lot of uh committee meetings to include uh committee meeting discussions in um various committees across synod and house and conversations and I see uh conversations about systemic racism and around systemic racism and many people just trying to still trying uh still trying to um uh I guess prove that it exists almost like a global warming conversation uh so um so yeah I just wanted as far as what we're doing the work that the alliance is doing here we're here in this area as a result of something we stumbled across uh last biennium in act 250 and that was is that we came to understand that our land use law I had a 50 year review and there was not one word on racial equity in it not one so as uh as 54 emerged that seemed to make sense I drew I drew a connection we took some of the lead and then the the work became a little it made a little bit more sense but and now we're in the middle of a triple pandemic and there's a racial reckoning and we're still having this conversation um what we wanted to see is more uh language equity language in in the policy we put forward some recommendations it didn't it didn't necessarily happen until actually I think it actually left your committee because if I'm not mistaken you know the language that we were seeking to emulate came out of Illinois which was after what far after crossover if I'm not mistaken but we were not able to track it down in house and when we know the rest of the story so I just wanted to um you know just go back to Senator Beirut's comment about putting a new engine in this thing and and uh and also um this whole thing about time because time seems to never be on our side uh because it wasn't on our side last biennium towards the end of the session because we were asking the slowest thing down so we can make more sense of it so we can get it out there in a way that made more sense uh and now since we you know we're we were not successful in doing so we're here on the other side and there's still not enough time so I'm wondering when in the hell there's going to be enough time at some point or another to actually get some of this work done um but yeah there is there is a new engine syndrome in that because that's kind of what we sidestepped because the the water's already under the bridge if you know what I mean as far as the structure of this thing we've got serious concerns about structure and process uh with this uh with this particular uh you know in this endeavor to get regulation underway but we're down the road we've got it out of the gate so now what we're doing is doing in-flight plane construction and we're hoping to be able to get some get retrofitted with some um some additional language now I just want to pause here just for a second and just say briefly that every single aspect of what our my colleagues and my good friends have brought forward they're running in tandem with what I'm bringing to you right now it's not a separate conversation we haven't changed pages or anything like that we're in full support of and would not like to go forward without these these uh these requests that have been put before you with uh with these folks unfortunately there's some other folks who couldn't attend um and I just wanted to just backtrack a little bit because I know Senator Sears you said that some of this stuff doesn't pertain to this uh this uh this committee um and I saw um my brother Graham's frustration and I continued to watch him going from committee to committee trying to figure out where his you know grievances should lie or where his um his recommendation should be submitted um and um so I of all people can relate to that because there is no racial justice committee uh and we've we've been doing this for a while and Senator Sears with the Joint Justice Committee you and I had some conversations after that um and you know we're dealing with a structure of government you know that has had a habit of oppressing black and brown people since its inception that was that wasn't designed to accommodate us and I think what they're doing is they're running up against the same issues fortunately we do have the government operations chair sitting in with us today so that's a good thing and if it's more appropriate to have those conversations relating to government operations in uh in that committee we we love that invitation we love to come uh you know over to have those conversations three things on s25 the ballot question social equity in the percent of cannabis flower um the um you know I'll start with the percentage of cannabis flower and so forth you know you know we now I'm going to go to just what's going on over here at the alliance and I want to stay transparently I haven't we haven't I haven't had this conversation with my colleagues on our coalition um but I think they would agree and I think largely they already have agreed that that you're not really finding problem with this but I think it's that that's largely I think I just want to comment just positively and and just uh you know compliment the uh innovation uh I thought I think I thought that's a good idea I thought it was a good idea I don't know where the numbers came from but it's awesome um the uh and that's I think that's over in um page six yeah um page page six it's um lines 10 through 12 to 12 so that's that's really good uh backing up into social equity um you know I I think I think it's a start uh it's you know I I think it's a start in it and what I've sent over to you you should have in your email right now uh is is I think is a place for to build upon uh that that type of language uh is definitely a start uh it's beginning to go in the right direction is it's better than where we started uh where we left off that last year and as far as the ballot question is concerned you know you know I view that as largely reactionary I don't even think it was an issue last year I know we've done some local work here in Burlington um I know Chris uh was at those meetings he certainly wasn't happy uh that that what we were doing was is urging the city of Burlington to um to have an option to divide that question um for the purposes of delaying um market entry for the larger businesses to give smaller businesses an opportunity to get out in front of it so I view this as mostly reactionary um I honestly I personally just from from mark I just think it's an example of the legislature coming back to in just response to activism that's happening in the community and just closing uh what is largely kind of maybe a loophole or something like that so it's kind of disappointing um that that's in there but and it's also it seems as though it's it's uh um it's kind of it's kind of hard to get after because there's a lot of uh uh um communities that have already pulled a trigger on that so that's I see a lot of expressions on your faces right now so I'll just pause right here follow where you are I might my expressionism trying to follow where you are talking about the senator white really but I was I wasn't okay all right you're talking about the votes in 25 communities yeah um yeah right okay okay is there something that was your question that you had senator senator white I'm glad to answer any questions that you had well I was just going to say the reason that's in there is because because the um compromise had towns doing an opt in instead of an opt out the the fear was that some towns would just never hold a a um a vote and therefore um retailers anybody who wanted to be a retailer would have no idea whether they could set up in that town or not so this is a drop dead deadline telling them that they buy a certain date they need to have a vote or they will be um a town that has that allows it that's that's all this is thank you and miss mr chair I've just I just I don't I wanted to spend maybe a couple more minutes here but I would like to check in with the chair to find out if if we had how much how much more time we had to to have to have to have an hour well it's not gonna take that long so I just uh so yeah that that's that's that's yeah I get it I understand uh this is you know this this question again mr chair I think that the that the question is overly prescriptive I think that the question is it does uh it does eliminate the ability for a town to put a question on a ballot that would give them the ability to in some way or another divide that question in the wake of the work that we've done here in Burlington to do exactly that as well as many other cities and towns across the state I won't belabor the point I get what the senator was telling me but that's not what I came here to talk to you about I just wanted to give you mark's opinion on this policy in response that was that happened with it okay um as far as this um what I put before you um and I would mr chair I would I would I would love to entertain an invitation given the fact that we bifurcated the way in which we're addressing these issues and I know that this is not the committee to have that particular discussion that I just went over but I would love to you know go into whatever committee of jurisdiction that has and we can have more conversation about it um and but uh again it's it's it's just overly prescriptive and I think it's uh the the premise in which it's it's basically telling the cities and towns what to do uh in terms of how they want to pose that question um I'm assuming that the committee has received the the document that I just sent over I don't have it on the committee webpage right now I just posted it okay well then I'm gonna what do I have to do a refresh it uh yes that should work are we talking about uh representative chinas language that's correct okay okay what about representative representative senator roms language I don't have that language in front of me but I can say um just on behalf of the racial justice alliance not the coalition you know I would say we are supportive of representative roms language we would like a separate entity a different entity besides the the department of public safety being a grant granting entity we think it kind of flies in the face of what it is that we're trying to do here I know that there are a lot of white people with political and economic power that don't understand folks who have been uh impacted um you know systemically systemically impacted you know by systems of oppression to include uh those that are so-called public safety related and that question would be who's who's safety are you talking about because seemingly the more white people feel safe the less black people feel safe uh that's why I'll be in uh committee this afternoon over in um the government operations having that conversation with a legion of police that are rotating in that that revolving door coming out of there but uh yeah we don't really see a good reason why this should be administered by public safety we don't like we don't well the the proposal that senator ram rom put together mr chairman as it was my understanding that her original amendment had public safety the administer and I'm fully aware of that because I've been in in direct conversation with her we're taking testimony on her proposal in our committee um because I think that that was the agreement with senator sears so we're taking testimony on that and actually what she did is she asked that it be administered by somebody other than the training than the justice council and the justice council is not part of the department of public safety yeah free information not yet uh so so yeah but I'm fully aware what the justice council is and what they represent and and maybe I may have misspoke in that particular area but no we have we have no desire to have the justice council um be the grant entity that was the original language I am aware that she did uh walk that back but that was the original language and that's what I'm that's what I was told here here's where I'm getting confused senator white um now we have all I've got so many proposals here that I'm totally I just don't have the ability I'm sorry I think I may not be the brightest guy in the world join the club I know I'm not but now I'm confused I have mark's proposal which is representative sena sena's proposal we have senator rams and you're taking senator rams proposal up this afternoon we are my understanding was that we would accept for the um whatever that section is that deals with the social equity section that that that we would deal with the rest of the the issues and since her um amendment was proposing the um creation was proposing to um commit funds we took that up it didn't it wasn't part of that social equity thing so but I'm happy to do it in here if you want to no I don't go as it gets done we've taken some testimony and we're taking um more this week go ahead mark so imagine the confusion of the activists uh there's no there's no there's definitely no uh committee for like I said for racial justice but you know uh what I had to jump off earlier because I was on on taking a call with tom stephens as well so we're trying to cover all of this you know this you know to if systemic racism really exists if it exists anywhere it exists everywhere so we're we're trying to we're trying to figure this out maybe we should restructure the government government I don't know but I would like to be able to at least do this effectively so what we'll talk about now is this racial equity and everything that I've heard so far leads me to believe that I've landed in the right committee to have that conversation so um if you uh you were me for a minute and in turn over to page uh let's see here I want to go to chapter 39 and just talk a little bit about definitions which you know which we I think is really important one one second mark chapter 39 being that's uh page three of 20 my apologies okay go ahead so we want I just wanted to I'm not going to read all of these to you um but but I just wanted to just make it clear we are defining agency we're defining center we're we're defining importantly disproportionately impacted areas um there's um there's so there so we can make sure that we're we're talking about um the same thing member of an impacted family program board um the whole idea of where people have resided where they reside and so forth so and I and I think the the challenge that we're having with this kind of policy is is that I think we have this I think there is a tendency to want to try to take a look at the uh regulation of an industry whatever the industry is in saying okay did you know this weed hurt somebody and who is that and trying to find out who they are uh and uh and also you know and I think a lot of times that helps that you know that does two things we miss the fact that systemic racism hurt a lot of people and this played into it this is a part of it and we also miss the fact that as a result of the condition of vast categories of people with anomalies and there are anomalies you see them frequently many of them serve with you is is that you know there are these folks are disproportionately disadvantaged to the extent that they don't have necessarily the upper leg to be able to even get into this market or others so I think though those are the conversations I think that we need to frame this stuff in so definitions are good I want to keep moving um the development fund is over on uh page six of 20 mark before you move on from definitions yes I'm looking at social equity applicant yes and am I missing it it doesn't mention race at all where does it where is it where tell me where the um this would be page five five social equity applicant social equity applicant means an applicant that meets at least one in the following criteria right but there's no mention of race and in disproportionately impacted area there's also no mention of race I don't know that it would necessarily be are in disproportionately impacted areas but I would think that it would be in social equity I've noted it and I'll come back to it okay I didn't notice that believe it or not is this a a bill that's being proposed by representative Tina in the house is that does he have a bill in the house yes this originated with the racial justice alliance and and it was submitted in the house Michelle you're you're doing like this is making me nervous well um I just wanted to say the version that you provided to the senators is not the version that uh that member signed out so well that's problematic can you can you can you can you get that out to us because we we originally the bill originally the sponsor has it um I can look it's in the queue uh for introduction I don't think it's made it out for introduction yet but um I had seen that version and I had a conversation with the sponsor and the language that some of the language and the you had changed the dates in there and I was instructed to go back and change them back to the date so but I think we have the I have the you know unless the motivation is changed or you know structures change well I think you so much for that Michelle that's helpful it's just disappointing and it's almost tempting to just terminate this this uh testimony right now but I'm not going to do that because what I do know is that um the uh the difference between the two versions Michelle if you can just please uh help me out here you don't without divulging too much but largely I think that those it was largely those dates uh that we were struggling with um and I will attempt to continue unless unless Michelle thinks no no go ahead here we go no go ahead fine I just didn't want anyone thinking that that version is the version that's being introduced because it's okay that's incredibly helpful um but I but I do think that um all right why don't we go why don't we move forward with this version and we'll see I'm trying to I'm following this version um and I don't know where this committee will come down if I don't I need to talk to the house members too if they're taking this bill up um we meet in the middle or whatever but let's follow through the bill this is this is the proposal that the racial justice alliance is supportive that's correct thank you and I just ask is this proposed as an amendment to s 25 or is this language that's being advanced in a different bill on the other side let's consider an amendment to s 25 and but if they're introducing a bill on the other side I'm first first of all Mr. Chair if I may the um the answer to uh to Senator uh Benning's question is yes this has been uh introduced on the other side and yes we would like to consider it as amendment if you recall if you will recall in 2017 with h 492 uh the bill that would later cross back over in a vehicle called 308 that became that became acts 54 we started work on s 16 on with s 116 which was on the wall here before h 492 crossed over so this is not unusual work that we're doing here well maybe it is unusual but it's not unprecedented so I I mean I understand your frustrations uh senator white not to be too direct but this is not unprecedented we did this we did it in this committee mark can I just pause you for a second yes sir about a year ago we were working on a bill that eventually came out and you were trying to get language introduced and I distinctly recall you and I having a conversation about whether there was time to get language in uh given the time frame that we had to operate in you were frustrated that we couldn't get it in I think we were all frustrated that we didn't have time to get it in so a promise was made to have us all take another look trying to figure out a way to plug this conversation back into the mix at some point in time so when I signed on to s 25 originally I knew that there were provisions that we had to deal with this morning I've been wrestling with trying to figure out where you were going and unfortunately we didn't have it posted on our website until just a few minutes ago so I'm hearing that this language is introduced in a bill in the house I'm also hearing that a portion of this conversation is being dealt with in gov ops and I'm thinking to myself we are a week and a half away from crossover if you discount the um discussion that we've got I'm not the discussion but the break we're taking next week and I'm trying to wrestle with how we're going to do this and we're all looking at the same time frame we had the last time around which is very frustrating for all of us you included um so I just want to make clear this language you're introducing now is something you are requesting as an amendment to s 25 in its last draft form yeah that is that's the case yes okay that's all I needed to know if I could it was it was uh it was in the email that the that the that the document was attached to when I sent it to you it stated very clearly that it was that was I was requesting it as an amendment right and and if I could add just one thing I think correct me if I'm wrong mark mark is saying he wants us to consider it as an amendment he's also working on it in the house and as he points out that's very common to have a vehicle in both bodies you know because one can die or one can not make crossover so senator sears has already said let's move forward with consideration of this as an amendment so yeah I just don't want to get stuck on process because that's like the last move before god you know I'm suggesting we just get going so so I want what I'd like to do is get going as well but I just wanted to state senator benning that your concerns and your observations are precisely the reason why we are approaching it in this manner because time because of the false deadlines that have been established by this body that we call crossover that you know you have rules you can suspend if necessary but you know let's play within them and because we're playing within them what you what we can do here is is we can just introduce a bill in the house while at the same time considering as an amendment in the senate uh in a chair so you're okay with that so moving on um the um the area I think we're at the social I'm at social equity loans grant or yeah okay I just wanted to stop uh Mr. Chairman over at the cannabis business development fund uh this is language that should not be unfamiliar on page uh six of 20 um and the language is as follows is the fund and just to be clear the fund is um is uh um it's comprised of fees collected from integrated licenses this is pursuant to the last chapter that we're going to cover we've got we have a whole cover a whole chapter that is it basically mirrors your integrated chapter as well we'll we'll get to that it talks about uh some uh 200 000 being transferred from the cannabis registration fee fund it also talks about that um 10 of revenues raised of the cannabis excise uh tax uh that's not to exceed two million dollars uh there's um a fund that is loosely used for the following purposes and and you can just read that the low interest grants and loans mark can I just um ask you a question about that would it not make more sense to have to actually have an appropriation ahead of time if we want to give uh loans and grants to people to um get them on an equal footing if we wait until there's funds generated from the revenue that's after the fact so wouldn't it make more sense to have a to ask for an actual appropriation to to um begin that fund um beforehand so that people can have a leg up before things get going just to be clear um you're talking about general fund yeah I mean I would I would I would lead back to the committee uh as well as you know I think that this is where our thought process started um we do rely on you for some things so yeah I mean I would I would defer to the committee and if that seems like uh a better approach we would be amenable to that because we have already discussed um both here and in appropriations pre-funding certain parts of this operation to get things going so what um senator white is talking about would become part of that pre-funding um I think she makes a good point I think so too and and the other piece of that is and I'll keep it moving is is that we've also and you probably saw a letter that came out from us last week um asking for a plate a holding spot in appropriations for uh for cannabis I think I think it may have been a part of I mean I might be mistaken don't hold me to that social equity loans and grants um I think this this part is pretty straightforward we're talking ACCD um these are loans and grants to equity applicants which are defined in the forefront in the front here this is large most of this language is largely just uh emulating as as senator uh Ben and you had said before that you've seen the Illinois language this is this is you know it's not cut and paste but it's pretty close to the stuff that they're talking about there's um um charging collecting um any premiums fees charges costs uh coordinating assistance under the program with uh activities of the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation Agency of Agriculture this is all stuff that the agency's going to do I won't I won't go down that list too much I am certain that all of the language that I'm covering is in the final uh is is in the actual um the one that was actually uh placed in if if it was not Michelle would interrupt me uh then we get down to grants made uh pursuant uh to this section uh in section DE beginning uh since so now we I'm not going to touch anything on dates because I think what happened is is there was some confusion on folks were uh throwing dates out there that were um that were um you know pre act 164 they were actually looking at the existing policy when they're trying to line dates up I think most of these dates uh should be you know may of may of 2022 or something like that at a minimum that might be right I'm going to keep it moving I think most of this language here is pretty straightforward community social equity program is 10 of 20 um and I'm just going to breeze through that you know that it's established uh there there are um you will see um what we played around with is is how do we how do we reduce the number of folks that are actually on this so this is our that was our final cut which you saw moving of 12 of 20 um following through with um um Mark yes if if I could just uh echo something I said earlier even on the social equity program piece there's no mention of race all the way through this bill and I'm wondering that just strikes me as bizarre um because uh I had it's not completely bizarre um you know I think I think that I think that there may be some areas where we can it's interesting because when you just come out and you say look you need to give black people stuff and then our senator who's a lawyer knows that you can't do that uh because the um because the um the civil rights act of 1964 you know you fly in the face of something and then you get reverse discrimination and everybody's tolerant so now we figured out how to create language to do so and I'm being asked why no I I think you're misreading what I'm saying I'm I'm saying that you defined um you know uh social equity in the bill without reference to race it's just reference to uh to poverty um and and to policing and so I understand that could include the BIPOC community but there's no legal reason why you can't mention race or you know in the same way that we have all kinds of programs that are that that have a component of that um so I just the reason I say it seems a little bizarre is because this is coming from uh the most racially sensitive people that I know in Burlington um people that I that I look to for guidance on that area I I feel as though if I had produced this bill without reference to race people would say what are you thinking um so I'm I'm just I'm I'm reading through it and I'm every mention of social equity or disproportionately impacted community is is completely free of the discussion of systemic racism etc. I get you you got a fair you got a fair point there and I think we we struggled really hard with this and and I and I think and we're not done with it it is it is introduced as an amendment and there could be nothing more gratified than a member of uh Senate judiciary telling me that we need to talk more about race trust me so yeah we'll definitely um we'll definitely get and maybe we've accomplished what we sought out to accomplish in some ways is is to to make them say it so you said it uh so now it's time for us to um to to get to that you know we're running out of time but Senator Beirut that is really well taken and I appreciate that um that I really appreciate that and we we got some work to do here and you got to understand even the racial justice alliance we're trying to figure out um you know how do we position this policy in a way where it's going to be most effective and um just like everybody else we don't always get it right so we our hope is to be able to continue to work with the committee to get this this language right and and we're expecting tons of testimony uh on this as well okay can I ask a question mark sure given given these um concerns and needing to do it right and to get um to continue working on it and getting more testimony does it make sense for us to try to push um this huge um these huge issues and amendments through before crossover is there a real reason why this needs to actually be passed this um session or would it make sense for us to continue these conversations in really meaningful ways and work on it and have it ready to be acted on next January by both bodies because we're talking about some time out anyway before things get um in implemented so I just I just wondered so frankly I'm I'm just I'm going to say it you know as I always say just say it is is that you know we really what we're talking about is some language that should have been in last biennium and what we're talking about is the fact that you know it seems like we always find a reason to wait um and also understanding that the truth is is that um whether this moves forward or not whether we get the testimony and whether this is integrated as a part of the bill is really in the hands of white political and economic power and you're going to make that decision at the end of the day I can tell you whatever I want to tell you but you're going to you're going to do what you want to do but what I will tell you is is that um enough is enough we should move this forward and we should stop making up reasons not to do it uh that's that I think like last I think if we would have did it last biennium we wouldn't be having this conversation now I mean I appreciate what you're saying senator white because it you know of course you want to get it right but then let's not let perfect be the enemy of done uh no I didn't it didn't hinder you last session I I was just at this thinking that some of the egg issues were very complicated also there are certain parts of this bill that mark has proposed that are absolutely part should be part of this bill I'm looking at section three of the bill page five as introduced a vest 25 talks about social everything here that talks about social equity I don't see it as being you know maybe we can argue about the fees we can argue about other stuff I don't see a reason not to have some more expansive language in here whether it's the whole bill or a portion of the bill thank you thank you mr chairman and again you know this being the committee established that this was the committee of jurisdiction for racial equity issues then I'm gratified that the chair has chimed in on it and I would just say you know I'll just take you to section two to enclose on the integrated license piece is really the big deal here is is notwithstanding provision uh this is page 17 of 18 really this is just about how do we deal with integrated license um there's a um there's a program uh that we you already read about on the on the previous pages that I told you I was going to get to this so there's some fees there's a $30,000 non-refundable fee for cannabis for the cannabis board I don't know I don't that that might be a good swag but there's also a non-refundable payment of 3% of the dispensaries total sales between a certain period of time or a hundred thousand dollars whichever is less being paid into the cannabis control board and deposited into that that business fund that business development fund that we talked about earlier in the in this in this policy okay and it goes on it talks about um you know conditions for licensing um conditions uh at the time of receipt of a conditional license the dispensary is going to commit to the the dispensary is going to commit to one of the following either you know make a contribution to 3% of your total dispensary sales from a certain period $400,000 or less make a contribution to 3% of your total sales for another period or $100 left whichever is less for training or education programs uh at a Vermont community college uh or make a donation of $100,000 or more to a program that provides job training to persons recently incarcerated or that provides services in disproportionately impacted areas okay and then um again you can also participate as or host the cannabis business establishment incubator program approved by accd um in this is um that that is in which a dispensary agrees to provide a loan of at least $100,000 and a minimum one year mentorship uh to a cannabis establishment licensee that qualifies that qualifies as a social uh equity applicant okay um once we add BIPOC in there then that'll make it a little sweeter right uh senator Beirut so the um I'm going to conclude there this is again what was floated in the legislature last year the house appropriations kitty told god bless her wish she was still here and they also had that they were provided the 15 page document which was the precursor to this the house government operations group was offered the 15 page document which was a precursor to this you have seen the 15 page document which was a precursor to this this was uh slight this is slightly modified in that so we do have a head start we're not starting at the beginning uh the governor's already you know give us a little shove on his non-signing agreement that he would be in support of stuff like this um I believe that um you know if we take this thing forward we can if we can corral on the other side uh folks on this ag piece at the same time pull my colleagues in in senator white I do agree with one thing that you use many things that you said but what in particular is is that you know regarding the ag piece um we're right or die so if they if they're not going with us we don't want to go okay so as far as how we want to put this whole thing together I'm pretty sure that if the if the will is in this committee because this is room one in the big house um if the will is in this political will is in this committee then I think we can make it happen but I am urging you I'm imploring you and I am kindly requesting your support uh on on this particular amendment to uh to s25 and also your political capital uh across the state house to uh to bring your colleagues in the line with the work that we're trying to do I appreciate your time I'm glad to take any other questions any questions from mark thank you thanks mark I appreciate your time it's always good to be um yep nice to talk with you and I um I think again if you look at section three of the bill is introduced obviously April 1st 2021 doesn't work either the Michelle will tell you that the the dates are what is are generally jacked on the on this bad copy of well we can get um we can certainly I understand the thrust of the bill the wording may not be perfect um the house bill I'm talking about now so um I appreciate the testimony we're going to take a short break and then come back to hear from um some other witnesses and I've lost my agenda