Committee hears concerns on H.181 over working-group staffing, enforcement role and GHG methodology

The House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee on April 23 heard detailed testimony on H.181, a bill to update Vermont’s residential and commercial building energy standards, with Kelly Wander, assistant director of the Efficiency and Energy Resources Division at the Vermont Department of Public Service, saying the department "has a few concerns with the bill."

Wander told the committee the draft bill would extend the Building Energy Code Working Group “in perpetuity” and continues to assign the Department of Public Service (DPS) to staff that group despite limited staff time and the likely loss of contractor support. She said the department previously contracted facilitation and drafting support from Energy Futures Group at about "$50,000 a year" and that federal grant funding recently has been redirected to staffing other state energy-office functions.

Those funding and staffing limits, Wander said, make a long-term, department-led working group burdensome. She also said DPS does not agree with one anticipated recommendation from the working group: designating the Division of Fire Safety as the "authority…