SmartTranscript of House Environment Energy - 2024-05-10 - 9:15AM

[Chair ]: Good morning and welcome to the House Environment and Energy Committee. This morning, we are going to continue getting updates on Act fifty nine and hearing from members of the other working groups. Welcome. Thank you. [Gus Goodwin ]: Jack, may you begin? [Chair ]: Yes. [Gus Goodwin ]: Good morning. My name is Gus Goodwin. I'm the senior conservation planner for the Nature Conservancy in Vermont. I'm very grateful for the invitation to be here today to share some of the work which I've been happy to be a part of, related to the various work groups associated with the Act fifty nine inventory process. I've been a member of the conservation categories work group and the state lands working group as well as the data inventory working group. So I plan to present information from those three different work groups. I am not the chair or leader of any of them, so I will do my best to represent the body of thought that was presented in those various work groups. And I wanna say we're very lucky to have my colleague, Robert Zaino here, who is the chair of the conservation categories work group, who is available to answer any questions that you may have as well. So feel free to jump in as you see fit, and please feel free to ask questions to myself or Bob as as you like. Can you [Chair ]: just say one more time? You participated in conservation categories, state lands. [Gus Goodwin ]: And then I'm part of this group that's just trying to get the data together to actually do the accounting and inventory process. Yeah. Alright. So I'll begin with the conservation categories report, which as I said earlier, was co chaired by Bob Zano and Bill DeSola from Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and previously by Gannon Osborne and Katie Michaels. The charge of this work group was to review the conservation categories defined in the act and provide suggestions for developing any modifications or additions to these categories that maintain or complement the core concepts of ecological reserve areas, biodiversity conservation areas, and natural resource management areas in order to complete conserved land inventory. And I'll start with just reading those definitions as presented originally in the act. An ecological reserve area means having an area of permanent protection from conversion that is maintained or managed to maintain a natural state within which natural ecological processes and disturbance events are allowed to proceed with minimal interference. The second one is biodiversity conservation area, which means an area having permanent protection from conversion for the majority of the area and that is managed for the primary goal of sustaining species or habitats. These areas may include regular active interventions to address the needs of particular species or to maintain and restore habitats. And the third category is the natural resource management area, which means have an area having permanent protection from conversion from the majority of the area, but that is subject to long term sustainable land management. So to answer the charge that was presented to our work group, we prepared a report which I will submit to you. It's available on the, BHCB website, but I'll make sure that it is submitted to the record. And the report, leads with four recommendations and provides some additional guidance that we think is helpful practitioners to begin applying these categorical definitions to the wide array of conservation lands in the state. So I wanna walk through just quickly some of the recommendations. I can talk about some of the terms that we felt warranted some additional clarification and then a description of how we intend to apply those categories to different properties or lands. So the first recommendation, was we do not recommend any modifications to the definitions of the three conservation categories. That was a consensus decision by the group. We feel that the categories as proposed in the law were clear and with certainly, you know, any categorical definition is going to have its ups and downs. And we felt that our efforts were best spent providing that interpretation lens rather than trying to rework the definitions as written. The second recommendation is we recommend adding two or more conservation categories. One category to reflect permanently conserved agricultural lands that directly contribute to biodiversity conservation, and one or more categories to reflect other permanently conserved lands that contribute to important social or community resilience values, but do not directly contribute to biodiversity conservation. Can you say that second one again? Yes. The second half of that definition. Yeah. The second is one or more categories to reflect other permanently conserved lands that contribute to in social to important social or community resilience values, but do not directly contribute to biodiversity conservation. And we felt this was important, for a handful of reasons. The first being that the, in all of the three definitions that I just read, are defined as an area of having permanent protection from conversion. And there's a little bit of a duality there in a forested setting. Is it conversion from an natural coverage to an anthropogenic cover? And then also knowing that there's a charge within this bill to consider how agricultural lands contribute to this and that in an agricultural context, perfection conversion is probably better considered as you know, gauging agricultural production in perpetuity and not being converted to a non agricultural use. So with that distinction in mind, we, recommend that these categories be best applies to forested natural cover setting and that we, you know, delegate or recommend that the agricultural work group take up the as charged by the bill, take up the conversation about what types of biodiversity practices on agricultural lands should be accounted for in the bill. And then on the second recommendation is we recognize that lands are conserved for a huge range of important values, some of which are not led with biodiversity. And we think that accounting for that full measure of protected lands within the state is important even if they don't if they aren't directly managed or protected for biodiversity values. The third recommendation is that we recommend applying the criteria of intent management and protection for determining how an area of conserved land fits within these three categories. And this concept was, inspired by the work by our colleagues, at the Harvard Forest and the Wildlands in New England past, present, and future report, where they lay out those three dimensions to assess what makes a wild land. And we took that kind of logical framework and applied it to each of the three definitions presented by this act. [Chair ]: Representative Sakowitz, you have a question? [Representative Sakowitz ]: Yeah. I was wondering in that category of, lands that are protected but don't have primary biodiversity attributes. What's a couple [Gus Goodwin ]: of examples of what is my name? I'd say like a one that pops to mind is like the Richmond Volunteer Screen, which has soccer fields and baseball fields. And it's really a community resource in space, but there aren't specific intents to manage for the bioemergency values of the site. [Representative Sakowitz ]: And that would be considered promptly? [Gus Goodwin ]: Protected from country. That's that's it. But just in this other category, we didn't feel it was a great fit for the three categories specified by the bill, but that it was important to recognize that those lands exist. They have values, especially for planning across the conservation spectrum. And, yeah, I mean, conservation is done for so many reasons. And if we're maintaining a database and inventory of those conserved lands, we felt it was important to present those alongside even if they weren't explicitly directed. [Representative Sakowitz ]: Yeah. No. I got the idea. I was trying to imagine in my head what kind what kinds of things fall Yeah. [Gus Goodwin ]: Yeah. So that was one an example that came up really yeah, no jumps in class yet. [Chair ]: Dennis Dennis? Maybe it's just a question more [Gus Goodwin ]: for you. Not necessarily falling for the thirty by thirty or fifty by fifty. Okay. Like, parks [Dennis ]: and playgrounds. [Chair ]: Not the way we envisioned it. [Gus Goodwin ]: Okay. Thank you. Okay. So I was saying that the third recommendation was to assess each area through the intent management and protection. So those are the three criteria that have been identified in the [Dennis ]: Harvard reports [Gus Goodwin ]: for wildlands that we tried to scaffold down state, applied to the various lands in the three categories. So intent is their deliberate and evident conservation purpose, and this may or may not be codified in the, like, binding documents. So the deeds, the foundational management plans, other documents. Managed is the actual on the ground management consistent with the stated conservation intent. And then protection. Intent and management are codified in perpetuity or are open ended, but expected to persist into the future. So with those three lenses, we felt were important to describe and evaluate the various types of conservation lands and match them with the appropriate definition specified by Act fifty nine. And that is, examples and more additional information on those are presented later in the report. The fourth recommendation is that we, and this is an important one, recommend that the categorization of conserved lands be done at the scale of protection and management delineations rather than at the parcel scale. And I can describe that, but I would also just share a map. And we have two or three of these. So I'll pass one down each side if people wanna take a look and then I will hold one up. So what you can see here is a property that's protected through a conservation easement that has different zones that specify different conservation intents and management, and it assign different levels of protection to them. So in this particular example, we have three large wetlands that are protected, through the easement in a wetland protection zone with terms that are best matched by the biodiversity conservation area definition in Act fifty nine. So those are pulled out separately. The forest, is protected through this easement in a way that is most consistent with the natural resource management area definition. And then the small parcel piece of this parcel that was also protected to ensure that agriculture persisted in the area is pulled out separately and quoted as agriculture. So that's just an important thing to keep in mind as we're talking we're not talking about parcels. We're talking about management areas within parcels. And so the this example from privately protected land is a good one. There's also a nice analog with, like, our state land classification system or the way the US Forest Service describes different management zones on the national forest, you know, different objectives and crosswalk to the different act fifty nine definitions. Okay. So that is the last of the recommendations. There were, I think, four key terms, three key terms that, we felt warranted a little extra interpretation. So the first was permanent protection, which we interpret as an enduring institutional commitment to the maintenance of a desired use or condition. And we provide several examples. The other ones were majority of the area, which is fairly straightforward, but also becomes fairly tricky when you start to think like, what is the majority when you start to look at these individual parcels? And we basically we interpret this phrase as allowing for very limited conversion and development that'll otherwise supports the conservation purposes of this area. So that includes, like, it allows for the construction of public access access infrastructure and structures that support the sustainable land management. And then the last definition that we added some interpretation to is conversion, which we interpret to mean the anthropogenic change of forests, wetlands, and other natural communities to permanent development, such as roads, buildings, or lawns, maintain grasslands or agricultural use. The remainder of the port specifies and elaborates on the three three conservation categories and provides guidance on the intent, management and protection attributes that we'd be looking for to help us assign individual places or management areas to the appropriate Act fifty nine definition. And I can go into those in detail if people are curious. I'm also happy to pause here and answer questions or let Bob join if you have anything that I've missed so far. Let that elevate. That's great. [Chair ]: No. That was really great. How much more do you have to share with us? [Gus Goodwin ]: I'm happy to scale my The other to create time for, others. Yes. [Chair ]: No. I don't need you to scale. I'm just Okay. [Gus Goodwin ]: Thinking [Chair ]: how much more do you I'm just need some people planning here. Cut short. I won't You wanna hear me a target, [Gus Goodwin ]: and I can I can work towards it? [Chair ]: Well, we need, I don't know, ten ten more minutes. [Gus Goodwin ]: Okay. That's that should be taught to you. Great. Okay. So the conservation categories report, is in, you know, final draft form it's been submitted. Obviously, there's still the next step to think about applying these definitions and coming up with the charge of being able to quantify how much of these different categories are across the landscape. So I'm gonna transition into the data work group if that's appropriate at this point. Okay. So the foundation for this, the kind of spatial accounting of these different categories, the the group has decided to use the Nature Conservancy secured areas database, which was assembled in twenty twenty two. And that was done at the behest of the Northeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies as part of assessment conservation lanes across the Northeast. So it's it's timely, it's relatively complete. A lot of the apology and duplication errors have been resolved, so it's ready to use for accounting. And it most importantly uses an assessment of conservation lands that's fairly consistent with the definitions presented by Act fifty nine. So the amount of work required to assemble a new database is actually has been fairly low in the scheme of things. [Chair ]: Acknowledging that you, I know, because you we did I got a briefing with Gus earlier, done a lot. [Gus Goodwin ]: Yes. It will be [Chair ]: appreciation to the Nature Conservancy and to you for your commitment to it. [Gus Goodwin ]: Thank you. I would say the the lion's share of the work was done by my colleague, Anne Ingersoll, prior to her departure from The Nature Conservancy, really assembled this from the various sources and got it to a spot where it was very close to being able to to be suited for this purpose. So what we have done is provided a a crosswalk. We've looked across all the various land management, repeating land management classifications and ownerships in the state and this made sure they cross walk into the various act fifty nine definitions. We have a formula for that that I'm willing to share. And we have assembled the we've made some changes to the the decisions made by TNC in twenty twenty two, based on new information or, you know, slight differences between the conservation category that was used for that analysis and the one, specified by act fifty nine. So we have a a rough draft of that that that has yet to be distributed to partners for their review. That's the kind of the next step. We have kind of this mock up. It'll be shared out to the various partners who have protected lands. They can assess their own properties, provide updates as needed. And then from the when that has been done, which we expect to have the next three to four weeks, then we can start to begin doing inventory work in the kind of accounting across the state. End of that section. Alright. So if there are questions, I can transition into the next one. Representative Simmons. Maintain blondes. Is that, like, golf courses? Oh, yes. Or around your house. Yeah. Okay. Well, I assumed that, but I'm just I'm trying to it it's broader than just, like, your front yard. Right? It's the the term you mentioned being [Chair ]: too long. Hold on. [Gus Goodwin ]: Let me let me check back to the context there and make sure I'm answering it correctly. Thinking about conversion is where that came up. It's not typical. [Chair ]: Yeah. It's [Gus Goodwin ]: so if if a maintain grasslands oh, in that context, I I believe it is referencing well, but it's kind of a wide range, I think. You could talk about well, lawns are pulled out separately. Maintained grasslands, I believe, is talking about hay fields that are either managed for the production of hay or if they have some sort of conservation practice on them. Yeah. The last working group that I was a part of is the state lands working group, which was charged with an assessment of how state lands will be used to increase conserved ecological reserve areas as defined by the act. And this was, co chaired by Becca Washburn and Anna Phillips, both of FPR. And the kind of first step in there was a meeting with the conservation categories team to understand how the various definitions apply to state lands and recognizing all the various ecological reserve areas that currently are present on state lands. Again, this is detailed in the conservation categories report, but it's maybe worth mentioning here. This includes, like state designated natural areas, state lands that are protected with conservation easements that have a primary ecological intent or ecological protection zones, as well as the highly sensitive man, highly sensitive management areas in the state land management classification system. The group took a process that evaluated the existing tools the state has to designate and conserve ecological reserve areas, identifying gaps in the suite of tools, and then identifying a process by which state lands can be assessed and make decisions about which of the tools existing or proposed are most appropriate. The group ended with four recommendations. The first being to establish a new statutory designation called the ecological reserve area. The second is to update the land management classifications to add two new subclassifications. One in a highly sensitive management areas called ecological representation area. The second, subclassification would be in the special management areas and it would be called an ecological enhancement area. And the distinction there is, the ecological representation area within the highly sensitive management areas would be areas that are intended to be managed consistent with the ecological reserve area category. And then the different the second one in the special management category, the enhancement area is really a recognition that there are some places that may require a brief focused effort of active management in a restoration context to position a natural community towards a place where an ecological reserve area style management is appropriate. So having those two distinctions is a is one of the recommendations. The third recommendation is to eliminate the VHCV conservation easement co hold requirement for state land, fee land acquisitions and consider different legal mechanisms to protect public investments. That would be, you know, the the first two recommendations are ways they could be protected. And then this recommendation, is one about ways that rate of protection could be increased. And the fourth recommendation is to utilize landscape scale conservation planning to inform the designation of ecological reserve areas on state lands. So thinking about a systematic way to identify them across the network of state lands. And in recognizing that we're managing time, I will stop there for questions. [Chair ]: You have more that you were gonna share with us because we have another we have, Zach Porter who was, I think, on some at least one of these same groups. So I'm not sure how much time you need, Zach. How much do you [Dennis ]: need? I [Zach Porter ]: I would love to take advantage of as much time as the committee has. So Right. [Chair ]: How much other stuff did you wanna share with us? [Gus Goodwin ]: That is the high level thing, like summary of the things that I think are most important. I'm prepared to answer questions at a greater level of detail for any of these, but I don't wanna presume that we should spend all the time because they, both of the reports I think are very strong and clear and can provide that level of detail if you'd like to read them afterwards. [Chair ]: This was really helpful overview. I appreciate it. Do members have questions? Representative Balder. [Dennis ]: Just to make sure, is your testimony different than what's posted? [Gus Goodwin ]: There's an work. No. Okay. [Dennis ]: So you were just reading. [Gus Goodwin ]: Okay. Yep. We have summaries from the reports and prepared to answer questions is might have [Chair ]: that. Members have questions. Trey Martin. [Dennis ]: I don't have a question, but may I make one quick summarizing statement? So Trey Martin, I'm at the Housing and Conservation Board. I just wanted to reiterate one thing that Gus presented today is that this is as I showed you all the other day, we have had various different ways that we've been collecting public input, and these work groups have been a critical and and really big effort by a lot of people. So echoing the thanks that the committee extended to Gus and to Bob and to other people. But also wanna leave you with this thought about this this process is that it's very much unfinished as Gus said is that the the work that he did with the data group is still being analyzed and synthesized. The categories report is still being analyzed and synthesized. So I I think I sent this the other day, but I wanted to reiterate so that the committee is clear. If you go online to look at these reports, they are not the final reports from our process. The the process is still underway. And that's why Julie and I came in secretary Moore and I came in the other day to provide that process update and to make sure that you understood that we're we're gonna be working right up until till we post this for public you know, the full report for for a public look and comment in June. [Chair ]: And remind us the deliverable. You're due. It's due June first? [Dennis ]: No. No. It was July first. [Gus Goodwin ]: July first. Yeah. So Yeah. [Chair ]: We will look forward to receiving it then, and, yeah, we get it. We understand that. This is in process, and this is really helpful to learn about the process. [Gus Goodwin ]: Great. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate the invitation. Thank you. [Zach Porter ]: Good morning. Chair Sheldon, members of the committee, it's a pleasure to be back with you today. And, thinking about the last days of the school year with the beautiful weather outside and how hard it is to pay attention in class. I really appreciate, the, careful attention that you're getting to this conversation. I know you've listened to a lot of, testimony this session. And so really, I am grateful for this chance to visit with you. I am going to, try to provide, more of a personal perspective on the process and outcomes so far, as opposed to repeating the details of the reports that you just got an excellent presentation from, from Gus. And I wanna start by saying it was a real, you know, pleasure to work on the conservation categories work group. Bob Zano did a fantastic job, coordinating that group, facilitating that group. I'm impressed with the, the way that it was handled, all of the, participants involved. And I wanna also note that, there was broad agreement on, you know, most of the topics that we discussed that's reflected in the document where there were disagreements. I also wanna note that I thought that, Bob and and the other, you know, chair did an excellent job allowing for kind of a minority report to be included in the document. So that in in some of the you'll see some footnotes in there that touch on where there were areas of disagreement. And that was not, you know, something that was required. So I'm really appreciative that that was, the way that they approached, drafting the document. So, I also wanna note that, you know, we just heard from Gus. It was fantastic that Gus had the opportunity to serve on multiple, work groups during this process. Gus has a wealth of knowledge and skill that he applied ably in those different work groups. What was disappointing to me was that it was not a very transparent process for how people were selected to serve on the various work groups. And I work for the only organization, nonprofit organization in Vermont that is wholly dedicated to public land management and the state land work group. I would have hoped to participate in and was not able to, to do that, work, as a part of that, that, work group. And that was disappointing. And I want to make sure that the committee knows that, you know, the, not necessarily all the people who raised their hands to, to share expertise and to help, you know, craft these reports were allowed a seat at the table. So I want you to have that, that whole picture. And, you know, in general, I think that that also is a bit of a reflection on, and I wanna offer this as another kind of just note of awareness for all of you. The design of the steering committee of this process to date, what is now called the Science and Policy Committee, is I want to say to you all, over has an over representation of Vermont's Land Trust community. And an under representation of those organizations that work on how lands are managed and how in particular public lands are managed. And something that I have observed, this is gonna show you my own personal observations here. During the work of this implementation effort to date is that I think there is a overemphasis on land acquisition and thinking about what the significance of act fifty nine is and how it's going to shape the future of conservation in Vermont. Land acquisition is a huge part, a huge part of the act fifty nine endeavor. No question about it. The land trust community, our amazing land trust community is going to have a lot of work ahead of it to, to, to help strive towards those goals. So I'm glad that that work is going on and that it's a focus, but the other huge part of that fifty nine that you all insured was in the bill and really, you know, prioritized over every other goal was to, match the way that we're doing land conservation to the goals of Vermont conservation design. And that requires not just a quantitative look at conservation in Vermont, but also a qualitative look at conservation in Vermont. How are we doing the conservation? Not just are we adding land to the, to the ranks, but how are we actually practicing conservation in this state and balancing land uses? And I am afraid that that piece of this effort, that rebalancing of land uses is not getting to date the attention that it deserves. And so I'm hopeful and I'm certainly optimistic that we can, you know, change that and that in the, you know, kind of in the rest of the inventory process and in the conservation plan process that we can, you know, make sure that Vermont conservation design is at the kind of level that it needs to be. When you look at the language of the legislation, BCD and its mandate to, maintain an ecologically functional landscape that is central to act fifty nine. Everything else is subservient to maintaining that ecologically functional landscape. If it does not perform that task, it does not meet the criteria of the three categories that Gus just described to you. Biodiversity, climate resilience, those are at the pinnacle of why we are doing this work. Yes, we are trying to protect Vermont's broader landscape, the nature of our rural landscape, which includes all of those working lands that we value and love in Vermont. But if it's, if it's not working towards those VCD goals, it's not something that we should be focusing on in this context of thirty by thirty and fifty by fifty. And so that's a really important distinction. And I want to, and I'm not sure it's been emphasized enough today and I wanna flag that for all of you, so that it's just top of mind as we move forward. So, you know, I want to also just touch on that. And I mentioned this earlier this session when I was here talking about the Worcester range specifically, but that again, to keep in mind, that the, process here of inventorying and then creating a conservation plan for the state, you know, should not come second to finishing land management plans that are ongoing right now. And you should all be aware that we are still moving towards potentially final decisions on long range management plans that will have twenty year or more implications for land management. When we really should be pressing pause on that until this process is completed. It only makes sense, especially for those landscapes where we haven't had active management plans for quite, for quite some time. There's no real rush to get those finalized while this Act fifty nine process is going on. So I would, you know, as I do every day, argue, you know, to the state. And I hope that you all too see the wisdom of waiting on finalizing those plans until this act of deny process is complete. And that's not even to mention again, the rulemaking that the state has a requirement to do since twenty fifteen for state land management, that again, should precede the finalization of any long range management plan. So I'm just adding, adding that, that bit of context. I also just, I didn't say this earlier and I meant to, I wanna compliment, you know, I I mentioned the state lands group that, you know, was was disappointed not to participate in, but I wanna compliment that group for, putting forward some really important recommendations. And you'll see when you read the state lands work group report that they have recommended a new ecological reserve designation that would be in, you know, in statute. That would in theory be something that this committee works on in the near future. And so I think it's a really exciting thing. And I want to compliment again, the work group and ANR for, you know, including that recommendation in that report. And I certainly hope that it makes its way through into the final report that Trey just mentioned is, on its way a little bit later this spring, early summer. So, I've just gone over kind of a high level in a range of things that have gone well, some concerns for you all to be thinking about. I would love to, answer any questions that you have. And I can also, you know, yeah, dig, dig into pieces more than I have. [Chair ]: Sorry. Can you just reiterate the recommendation that you were happy with? And I missed, I got distracted. The last thing you just said that. Yeah. [Zach Porter ]: I do not want to speak for the state lands work group because I'm not honest, honest, but the report, includes a recommendation for a new, state lands ecological reserve designation. And, I will say that, you know, I would I would like to, and I will be offering, you know, written feedback on the contents of that, recommendation, if it makes its way into this final report, because we do have some concerns around the way that it's structured, the vision that's portrayed in that report. But overall, I'm really pleased and grateful that there is a recommendation of that sort in the document. [Chair ]: Alright. Thanks for your testimony. Do members have questions? Oh. [Zach Porter ]: Great. Thanks again. Great. Thank you. [Dennis ]: I'm sure. May I make one more statement to the committee? You may. Is it okay for me to [Gus Goodwin ]: to join you? Okay. [Dennis ]: I just wanted to this is Kate Martin again for the record. I just wanted to, again, note that we heard from over a hundred and fifty people in surveys, twenty, different focus groups. We had a number of interviews this session. Mr. Porter participated in a lot of those things, and we appreciate very much his enthusiasm and passion. I, one of the reasons why we were a little worried about having a lot of testing with this week is I've already expressed is that we're still very much finalizing these recommendations and don't want to leave the impression that we've made any final decisions or that we aren't continuing to work on these. Having one organization sort of come in as an advocacy organization and make comments about what they like or don't like, I think, misrepresents the number of people who provided incredible amounts of work on this. And it's just it does concern me that we have to, there are so many perspectives in this work. And standing trees offers an important perspective, and it's a perspective that many other groups don't share. And so we've taken that into account. We took that into account informing our work groups. We tried to spread people with different views around those work groups to be as equitable as possible and bring as many perspectives. But it is hard to hear that there's frustration about the way we made decisions when VACB and ANR were asked to lead this. This was a incredibly big lift. We did the best we could to be as inclusive as we could with as many people who wanted to participate. And we think we did a pretty good job of that. We we very much appreciated the trust in our organizations to do this, and, you know, wanna make sure that this is that you all understand this as a this is a moment in time in this process that's gonna continue for two more years. And, almost nothing is gonna be final just because it goes into an inventory report. Very many of the topics you've heard about this week are topics that are continuing to be discussed in the planning phase and are gonna continue to receive attention, including in this building. And so again, we thank you and and I thank you for the chance to to to visit with you this week. [Chair ]: Yeah. Thank you. I I think well, I'll just say we're a legislator legislature. We hear different perspectives every day. We work out our differences publicly, we understand process and democratic process. And I feel strongly that this process, which has been, it's so heartening for me to sit here and hear from the the partners who are making this amazing thing happen, especially BHCB and the Agency of Natural Resources, on behalf of Vermonters happen. It belongs to all of us, the process. And I think it's it's, it's great for us to hear that it's, going really well. Like, we're in the moment of the legislative process where we focus on our differences, but we have so much enthusiasm for our you know, like, the for the similarities which carry the day. And this process is really no different, and it's exciting to hear the progress. And we're looking forward to the July one deliverable and the planning process that will follow it. And yeah. Yeah. That's enough. Anyone else? Representative Smith. [Representative Smith ]: Thank you. This may be my last opportunity to say this in this committee. The first day I was here, we started talking about the hurricane and the the long stretch of road that the state build up through the, Sylvia Conte group. And this will be my last day to preach to about it. But have any of you been up to that, seen that road that is far longer than two thousand feet in the hurricane up there in Darden? [Gus Goodwin ]: No? I'm not there in Dutton. Well, [Representative Smith ]: if everybody is as concerned about conserving as you talk, you'd be up there looking at it because the state of Vermont built a road that's probably two miles long, and they've made it accessible to a a rear wheel drive old car without any problem. So that being said, I'm I'm kinda disappointed that none of the environmental groups in this state have gone up to look at that road to chastise what the state of Vermont did to it. So that's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it. But thank you for hearing me out. Thank you for allowing me to talk about it. I'll be back next year to discuss this road. I'll be sitting in that chair, though. If if you allow me. [Chair ]: Right. Alright. Thanks, everyone. The bell's ringing, so we will adjourn for the morning. As always, stay in touch with your email, and I don't anticipate that we'll need to come back, but we may. See you on the floor.

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