SmartTranscript of House Commerce 2025-01-10 - 10:45AM

[Chair ]: Thanks. Good morning, everyone. This is the Vermont House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. It's January tenth twenty twenty five at ten thirty five in the morning. We're all back from a lovely interlude outside. See if I why am I not? We're all refreshed. So we're here this morning. I think probably our second committee meeting. Generally, the first year of biennium, we bring in our legislative councils who deal with this committee with their subject matter so everyone can where and who they are. They'll discuss what their portfolios are, and, we'll continue this on for probably the next week or week and a half of bringing departments and and agencies in, as well as, bankers and credit unions and and a whole bunch of others that that work with us. So this is our first group to come in and speak and, of course, thank you, and thank you to all our fine ledge council members, for joining us this morning. [Tucker Anderson ]: Well, good morning, Tucker Anderson of fine legislative council. I've been told in the past, wonderful to see you all again. Welcome back. I actually don't work in this committee very much. I would say probably two or three bills of biennium when my subject areas tuck touch on issues related to commerce and economic development. So, occasionally, liquor liability, things like that will rub up against insurance, and I'll come in to talk about those portions of the bill. I'll probably talk to most of you at some point over the buy in about the Public Records Act when records requests come in because I'm also the records officer for alleged counsel and through extension most, if not all, of the legislative offices and you all. And I also have the great honor and privilege of being the team lead for the team of attorneys that will be primarily serving, your committee. So those are the attorneys that work in government operations, commerce and economic development, labor and employment, libraries, open government, and a whole host of other, not junk drawer because they're all important, but random items that comprise the, portfolios of these attorneys who you'll also get to meet this morning. Give you, you know, information about my background, but like I said, you'll only see my face from time to time in committee. So if you wanna get to know me, maybe we can connect some other time. [Chair ]: Thank you. Questions for copyright? Tucker, how long have you been with legislative council? [Tucker Anderson ]: I'm entering my ninth session. So I started my first session was in two thousand seventeen as a law clerk. I clerked for two years under Betsy Ann Rask and Damien Leonard Leonard. Excuse me. Still cold from being outside. Okay. And so I worked on, under Damien, labor and employment, a lot of commerce and economic development issues, and under Betsy, government operations. And then after my clerkship was over, I applied to come back as legislative counsel and was thankfully granted that opportunity to join and be half of the government operations team. And then as time went on and I became more proficient and fine as a legislative council, more things got added to my portfolio, and I started working with more and more committees. And that's how I find myself here today. Yeah. [Chair ]: Thank you. Thank you for your service to us as well. Thank you for the opportunity. [Rick Segal ]: Maria? Maria? Maria? Maria. [Maria Royal ]: I'm not the most senior, really. Herb Olsen is the most senior. Maria Royal. So I've been with legislative council for twenty four years, and I had the great privilege of overlapping for a brief time with Herb when I started. So some great mentoring from him, which I appreciate and I'll probably still call upon given his work experience since, leaving our office. So my subjects are banking, insurance, property and casualty, not health insurance, and securities. Those are the three topics that I'll be covering in this committee. Also as part of my portfolio, I do utilities broadband. So I'll be in the energy and digital infrastructure committee a lot as well. Is Michael here yet? Hi. Am I allowed to hand it to you? [Chair ]: We [Maria Royal ]: do. With the official rules here. Thank you. Okay. [Speaker 4 ]: Thank you. Thank you. Thank [Chair ]: you. [Maria Royal ]: So, like, maybe just a very few preliminary things about the subjects that are just very big picture, just to orient you a little bit, banking, insurance, and security. So insurance is particularly interesting because under federal law, the McCarran Ferguson Act, it is regulated at the state level. What that means is there are a lot, there's a lot of activity on insurance every year. As you can imagine, there are a lot of model laws and acts so that the national companies can do business in all states. So states work collectively through different organizations to try to keep their laws pretty similar, but there are some discretion and differences at the state level. Banking, there are a lot of federal regulators. Banking doesn't come up very often here because it's not unlike insurance. It's primarily regulated at the federal level, not entirely. But there are a lot of new technologies, fintech companies, payment processing, a lot of digital applications where financial transactions occur, money services. So there are a lot of emerging activities and issues in that area, which you'll hear about. And then kind of a banking securities, I'm not actually sure because I think it might be a little of both. Cryptocurrency, some issues about how it should be regulated. Obviously, it's a big discussion, and that's happening at the federal level and in states as well. So those are just kind of some of the big issues related to those subjects for your situational awareness. And [Chair ]: Also deal with with captives as well. [Maria Royal ]: Yes. Captive insurance. [Speaker 5 ]: An example of state level [Speaker 6 ]: regulation. Yes. [Maria Royal ]: Yep. Yep. Absolutely. And you'll so DFR, the Department of Financial Regulation, almost every year has kind of an omnibus bill that they'll ask to be introduced, through a sponsor that includes some of it's just housekeeping and some of it's policies that they think would be in the public interest of the state. And that bill, will come before this committee. You'll hear from DFR. They'll explain the rationale, what they're looking to do. But that's you'll you'll have that that legislation to review in the coming months, for sure. [Chair ]: Marie's working on that Yep. Draft right now. [Maria Royal ]: Literally. Dropped it off with editing before coming here. So but not quite [Speaker 6 ]: there yet. Right. Yeah. Yeah. [Chair ]: Any questions for Marie? Interesting stats. Yeah. [Maria Royal ]: Very interesting. [Chair ]: He's been here longer than I [Maria Royal ]: have. Oh. Yep? [Chair ]: Yeah. I've been about this in our twenty first year. [Maria Royal ]: I'm so [Chair ]: old. [Maria Royal ]: Oh my gosh. Okay. [Speaker 6 ]: Not as nervous. Not as old as her. Yeah. [Maria Royal ]: And not as varied experience either. [Speaker 6 ]: Yeah. I think the issues with securities, [Chair ]: No. [Maria Royal ]: There are a lot of issues that come up with securities. It's kind of regulated through the Securities Exchange Commission, but investment advisers and broker dealers, they're licensed in the state. They register with the state. So there's there's definitely, some activity. Yeah. Thanks. [Chair ]: Regulatory authority in banking world Always with DFR if the banks are chartered in the state of Vermont. We've seen a lot of banks put their charters, and they're now nationally chartered, federally chartered, so they're regulated by the by the feds. But we still do have some state chartered banks, and that also goes along with the with the credit unions as well. But they have we have both state, federally chartered. There's advantages and disadvantages to both, and we've gotta be you know, if we wanna keep our banks that are chartered in the state and if credit unions, we wanna keep them regulated here, then we have to be careful of what kind of regulations we put into effect because they could very easily just look at Charter. And the insurance, Maria was saying, all states have their own insurance regulations, but we have two different organizations, NCOIL, which is National Conference of Insurance Legislators. And then there's also the NAIC, which is National Association of Insurance Commissioner. And so the NAIC brings about model law and changes to statutes and add additions so that we can stay pretty much in step with the other states. And then COIL works on the same same issue, but some of the same issues. They're not totally always in box step with each other. But that way, by the states doing that, as Maria said, that the insurance companies can operate in all fifty states without having to make major changes in each state. And it makes it much easier for them. And it keeps the fed away from the regulation. It's much better for our business community, much better for our citizens if they're regulated in the state and not by the federal government. [Speaker 5 ]: So that mentioned there's broad similarity between states. Yes. Are there does Vermont have any, apart from, like, its captive insurance industry, any defining or new or distinct characteristics? Things that are unique about the way it's [Chair ]: Well, captives are Mhmm. Captives not every state has captive insurance. Vermont is the number one domicile of captive insurance in in the country not in in the world now. So we we have that's kind of a niche that we have, and it's because of our strong regulation and the availability of us to talk with the reg with the the regulators and with the with the industry as well, then that we can we're very nimble. We can make changes when when they need to be done. And the strong regulatory regime that we have here in Vermont actually brings in the best captives that that are out there. So Interesting. We've been yeah. We're we're well known in the industry in the state of Vermont over captives. And we'll have they'll be coming in at the end of the month to to talk with us and to bring a few captive insurance companies with them and have those discussions with us. So you'll be able to ask questions about any learning more about captives. Any other questions for Maria? Thank you, Maria. [Maria Royal ]: Welcome. We're so forward to working with you all. [Chair ]: Morning. Hey. Very ready. [Rick Segal ]: Rick Segal, office of legislative council. A lot of new faces here. So I started ledge council last October twenty twenty three, so I'm pretty new. To the team, I'm senior. But to the the ledge council, I'm I'm still relatively new. I moved here from Texas, in twenty twenty three for this job, actually. This job was something that looked really exciting to me, and turns out it is exciting. I love it. I love living here. I love working here. You will maybe get sick of me in this committee. I will be here a lot. My portfolio is almost a mirror of what this committee handles. So I'll talk about that. My primary areas are workforce development, economic development, commerce, business organizations, information technology, cybersecurity. Yes. Where we why yeah. We're still talking no. I think we're talking about that. Consumer protection is kind of a ongoing between me and you'll hear from Cameron Wood, one of my colleagues. We're kinda sharing that. So as far as what I would cover would be more of the IT tech business y consumer protection. Cameron's portfolio is more about housing, and there's a lot of consumer protection there as well, and he can talk about that. So that's probably ninety percent of what I cover. There's a few other things like trade, tourism that occasionally comes up in my portfolio as well. So, some of the major topics that may come up this this session, is biennium. You know, privacy, data privacy, social media regulation. Those are, you know, AI, that kind of stuff. These are big topics. Should the government regulate it? To what extent should government regulate AI? Those kind of things, I have no doubt, will come up, this biennium, and I would be your contact point for those types of discussions or information or bill requests. Happy to answer any questions that you may have about my portfolio or me. [Chair ]: It sounds like a a a very interesting portfolio you have in terms of scope of things. A lot of things kinda new, you know, to to all of us. So we're glad to have you. [Rick Segal ]: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of I mean, new new to everybody. It's these are especially AI. These are very new technologies that aren't really regulated by very many states or the federal government. [Chair ]: So You and I need [Rick Segal ]: to get together. I'm in I work in IT business. [Chair ]: So there you go. There you go. [Rick Segal ]: I we got a laptop. There you go. There you go. It's how do you pronounce your last name? Nicholas. Nicholas. Okay. Very good. Yeah. I look forward to working with you all, and I'm as available as I can be. I think you have our staff information, the directory, right, with my name and email. If you don't if you forget it, it's on the website as well. You can reach me that way as well. So looking forward to [Chair ]: it. What part [Speaker 4 ]: of taxes? [Rick Segal ]: You asked that very suspiciously. It's it's the part of Texas that just got snow actually yesterday. It snowed, in Dallas Fort Worth. So it's kinda north north Texas. It's a weird shaped state, but, you know, kind of a couple hours from Oklahoma border. [Speaker 4 ]: That's my wife's family. Texarkana. [Rick Segal ]: Texarkana. Okay. Yeah. East Texas. Yeah. Different that's like a different Yeah. They probably have East Texas accents, which is a very different accent from the rest of Texas. [Speaker 6 ]: Yours yours is rather than the public. [Rick Segal ]: It well, I I I don't think I've ever actually taken an accent. Not intentionally. I just it's never really taken to me. So I I definitely don't have a East or West Texas. Yeah. I don't have that that that role. Y'all. Did I say y'all? [Speaker 5 ]: Just jumped right out. [Rick Segal ]: I tried. Yeah. Yeah. At least I didn't say howdy. I could've said howdy. [Chair ]: I didn't do that this time. Alright. Thanks, Rick. Thanks. There's a bill that I'm circulating around that Rick wrote. It's produced from the task force that we've been working on for a couple of years of creating the the executive director for strategy and development. Yeah. And the governors end up with you know, the government. We're about to now, but it'll circulate around and give it That's a good go. Give everyone an opportunity to sign on to it, read the bill if that touches that. But, you know, the committee has an interest in it. We'll be taking it out, you know, in the next couple of weeks probably. So Rick will be in to talk for us about this. Alright. [Rick Segal ]: That's been you all. Thank you very much. [Tucker Anderson ]: You too. Yep. [Sophie Zdatny ]: Morning. I'm Sophie Zratney, with the office of legislative council. And I've been I'm just, I guess, almost senior because I've been there since October. And so I'm not the the newest person at this point. I do have an accent. I'm originally from England, but I've been here a long time. So sometimes people think I'm from some other anglophone country, but originally from England. My portfolio is labor and employment. I also do military affairs, veterans, and Native American issues. But so I probably won't be in this committee as much as I'm in general and housing, but, I will be happy to see you all, when I have the opportunity. Labor and employment is, historically been my background when I was in private practice as a lawyer. I spent seven years on the plaintiff side and seven years on the defense side. So, I've had a lot of experience, from different perspectives dealing with different issues. So I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. [Chair ]: You're dealing with us on the UI side of [Sophie Zdatny ]: Right. Unemployment insurance. Yeah. So I do workers' comp all those in our seven different labor statutes and stuff. Yeah. [Chair ]: Yeah. No. Yeah. But I do think that the department will be brained, so we should come another week or two, and we'll pass that on to you and bring bring up their their ass and have those discussions with Sophie in in the department as well. Sophie, wanna talk about your other life before you came to me? [Sophie Zdatny ]: So my immediate life before I was head council is I was chancellor of the Vermont State College system. And before that, I was general counsel with the so, again, doing a lot of employment and labor related things in that role. And then I'm yeah. I've also migrated. I got as I mentioned in a previous committee, I was actually emigrated into Texas because I got married down in Texas. And then my husband's a university professor, so I've kinda moved around with him. So been in Illinois, West Virginia, and then Vermont. So headed north. You [Chair ]: know, stabilized state colleges. They're on a good path now. Hopefully, they continue that way as [Speaker 6 ]: well. So [Chair ]: Cheers for Sophie. Thank you. [Sophie Zdatny ]: Very much. [Speaker 6 ]: The camera. [Chair ]: You know, certainly not certainly not someone new to his credit. Good morning. My name [Cameron Wood ]: is Cameron Wood with the office of legislative council. I am the junior member of this team, also junior member of Legislative Council at this point. This is my tenth business day on job. I started last Monday. I'm not necessarily new to legislative council though. Quick quick story about my background, then I'll talk about my portfolio. I'm originally from Alabama, and but I've been in Vermont for eleven years now. It's actually eleven years this January. As far as, you know, it's gone by really fast. I've enjoyed every minute of it. The cold does not bother me yet. [Chair ]: Eleven years. Yes. [Cameron Wood ]: So I went to my undergrad and law school at the University of Alabama, but I did my last semester of law school. I did at the Vermont Law School as a visiting student. And at that time, I actually did kind of an internship here at the Office of Legislative Council, working under Michelle Childs. And then after I moved here after law school and passed the the bar, I did two sessions as a clerk for for the office, and my supervisors were Michael O'Grady and Betsy Ann Rask. So similar to Tucker, I had the the the benefit of of working for Betsy Ann, which was which was great. So I really enjoyed my time here. From there and and for the past nine years can't believe it's been that long ago, but for the past nine years, I've been with the Department of Labor. I started there as the director of the unemployment insurance division, and I maintained that role for nine years. And then for the past two years, I was their policy and legislative affairs director. So started working in some of the other, you know, policy areas of the department. That is why I am not new to this committee. I've spent a lot of time here over the past nine years, and I will say I've I've always enjoyed my time in this committee. So no pressure, but I think you all have a a high bar to live up to. And no, it's it's always been fun in my experience being in this room, even when talking about some, you know, difficult and contentious topics. I've always appreciated the the the working relationship. And in my new role, I I have no doubt that will remain the same. So, as I said, I'm this is only my second week, with legislative council in this capacity. My portfolio is is housing is is probably the, you know, the the biggest topic there. But I also do, some consumer protection as Rick mentioned. So I I will be in this committee, you know, covering some of those topic areas. And then I also will be handling retirements and pensions. It's kind of the other the other big topic under the umbrella. So with that, I I look forward to to working with you all. I will mention now and and probably frequently, as as I just kind of walked through, I do not have a history in housing or a ton of experience in in the areas under my portfolio. I'm I'm working as diligently as I can to try to get up to speed as quickly as I can, but I have no illusions of being an expert in these fields come May. So I will be learning a lot alongside you all in these areas. But I I like to think of myself as a hard worker, so I'll be doing my best to make sure I'm providing effective counsel to you all throughout the session, but I'm just mentioning it mentioning it now. There might be a lot of I don't know. I need to look into that and get back to you. I just appreciate your patience, and it's I'm really excited about the opportunity to learn, and [Chair ]: and we'll do that together. So Okay. See. Awesome. Yes. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you all for joining us this morning. It's a good introduction for our new members. Appreciate an introduction to you all as well, who we are, and we look forward to working with all of you. And sure we'll have a great session. It's gonna be some hard work, but get through it together. So thank you for joining us. Good to have you. Well, I think I'm gonna definitely fill one o'clock. So our joint fiscal office will be in at one to chat with us about that. What they do for us, this committee specifically, and then at one thirty, it will have IT come in and just speak to us about what kind of services they provide for us and what they're doing there. Some of the no no's that we shouldn't do, but more online and things like that. So k. Any questions up to this point? What did we oh, that's right. So we're done till one, but I would like you all to take a look at the other committees, kinda see what they do because we name a a liaison from this committee to and it's all the other committees. Yeah. And so your responsibility will be to contact the other committee, find out who who is your liaison, who you talk to, and to kinda look at the legislation that's going in those committees and to make sure that there's nothing that overlaps with our jurisdiction. See if there's things that we may wanna take a drive by. So we we don't ask for the bill officially, but we may take some testimony on it to better understand what they're trying to do. Sometimes we do take take possession of the bill as well. So take a look at that of of all the other committees that are dealing with fourteen, see what you have an interest in, and you may because there's only ten of us who are I'm not gonna take one off, but they have to double up on on some of them. Some of those committees. [Speaker 5 ]: It's like a list of three or four to reach that we think makes sense or are relevant to to. Two. Two. [Chair ]: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And just see what we have an interest in, see what their subject matter is. I already know my two. Yeah. How much time we have this afternoon? And then, you know, if you've had that bad time, you can let us know. And if you still wanna think about it over the weekend, then we can talk about it on Tuesday. Any questions? [Speaker 4 ]: Just give me clarification if you have any like, you mentioned take possession of the bill. There's only one committee that's the lead for each bill. Yep. [Chair ]: So I know the speaker, they send bills to different like, we have h twenty four, but there could be subject matter in that bill that that concerns this committee. [Speaker 4 ]: Right. [Chair ]: So sometimes we'll just ask for whoever the reporter of the bill is gonna feed to come down, playing the the thinking of the committee and spend what we're doing. If we're in agree if we're agreeable, that's fine. If there's things that we see in there that they haven't looked at but concerns us, then we may ask possession of that bill. So then when it goes to the floor, then it will be at it'll be sent. We'll ask it to be sent to this committee so we have official possession of it. [Speaker 5 ]: Is that generally a temporary thing that it then gets sent back to the original? Or Not. It's not meant to be temporary. [Chair ]: Usually usually, it doesn't come here. We'll work on it. When we're done, then we we'll bring it to the court's office. It'll go on the floor. And it could be it could be an amendment from us if we found something in there. And we'll work with the with the original committee to make sure that it's agreeable with them as well. We don't wanna go on the floor and fight with another committee. We don't have it. So Thank [Speaker 6 ]: you. And just to add to that, anytime there's money in a bill, so it costs money or it's a tax issue, then it would leave our committee and go to either Appropriations or Ways and Means. And then automatic. And that's automatic. That happens. So every time we send a bill to the clerk's office, they they determine whether it needs to go to one of those committees. So sometimes, you know, it goes there even if there isn't money because it's adjacent to something financial. And so but only one committee can have possession of a bill at a time, and then every committee that had possession of the bill will do some kind of a presentation on the floor to the full body k. As part of that. [Chair ]: Yeah. That's another thing that you can talk about here is is as we work on bills and we both bills out, hopefully, one of you will wanna be a reporter so that you will report on behalf of the committee to the floor. So you go out and explain the bill to the to the full body. And so you'll, you know, or it's good to really listen, try to do your best to understand. You work with pledge counsel. You work with others that they will come in to testify on helping you form your your explanation to the to the rest of the house. [Maria Royal ]: And we'll support you. [Chair ]: Yeah. We'll hear the support. Yeah. [Speaker 5 ]: Withering interrogation from [Speaker 4 ]: It could. I mean [Speaker 6 ]: But you can always call in you know, you can always say I [Chair ]: I or to share. Yeah. You can yield. I see [Speaker 5 ]: that. And, actually, yesterday, [Tucker Anderson ]: it was one fifty, one forty nine. Yeah. [Chair ]: Yeah. Yeah. So we, you know, we ask that that each member takes on a bill, get your feet wet. Also, at the end of the session, you could wind up with committees of conference. So there's there's disagreement between the house and senate. So there'll be three members from the house, three members from the senate that will be appointed to committee conference. Then you kinda get together and try to hammer out your differences and bring it and it goes back to the floor in the in the housing and senate. And, hopefully, there is agreement, and it goes on to the governors. But Nice. That's what we just up there for right now, just keep it in the back of your mind, and we're not there yet. Anything else? Is there anything else? Any other questions? Okay. We can go off live.

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SmartTranscript of House Commerce 2025-01-10 - 10:45AM

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