House agriculture committee debates S.60 disaster fund; loggers seek inclusion and guardrails

At a hearing before the Vermont House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, & Forestry, witnesses and committee members examined S.60, a bill to create a Farm Security Special Fund to provide grants for agricultural losses caused by extreme weather, and discussed whether forestry and logging operations should be eligible and how the program would be triggered, administered and funded.

The issue matters because recent consecutive years of flooding and unusually wet winters have left some working-lands businesses — especially professional loggers and small diversified farms — without a federal or state mechanism for income replacement, witnesses told the committee. Proponents said the fund could close that gap if it is governed with clear eligibility rules, confidentiality protections and sustainable funding.

Dana Duran, executive director of the Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast, told the committee that Vermont loggers experienced repeated weather disruptions in 2022–24 that curtailed harvesting and increased costs. She cited a Vermont Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation survey of the July 2023 floods that found reported losses exceeding $2,500,000 and average reported losses per company of more than $46,000, while noting the survey limited claims to a seven-week period and capped individual company losses at $100,000. Duran said the sector was excluded from the state Business Emergency Gap Assistance Program (BGAP) because the program did not cover revenue losses and that federal programs require congressional authorization. She asked the committee to consider a program triggered by a disaster declaration — by the governor, the Agency of Natural Resources secretary, or a review board established by the law — with “guardrails for accountability” so funds would pay only for declared disasters and not routine weather variability. Duran also drew the committee's attention to H.229 and to the federal Loggers Economic Assistance and Relief Act introduced by U.S. Rep. Jared Golden and Sen. Susan Collins as models that add forestry to eligible recipients.

Maddie Kempner, policy director at NOFA Vermont, said a cross-sector coalition backing S.60 supports a review board comprised of agricultural organizations to administer the fund, review applications and report annually to the Legislature. Kempner told the committee the coalition favors: (1) a review board that provides farmer-led oversight and recommendations; (2) an initial agency screening step so confidential financial reviews occur outside public board meetings; (3) agency staffing funding so the program can be run; and (4) simplicity, speed and proportionality for awards. Kempner said NOFA's emergency grant work has demonstrated how small, rapid grants (for example, $5,000 awards turned around in about eight days) can help farms, but said the special fund should be able to provide larger, proportional awards when losses are substantial.

Committee members and witnesses debated several specific design points: who counts as an eligible recipient; whether contracts between landowners and loggers should determine eligibility; how to treat subcontractors in logging supply chains; whether awards should be capped or scaled by farm income; what data the secretary could lawfully rely on to scale awards; how to define the trigger for payment (local incident, county disaster declaration, state or federal declaration, or a board/secretary determination); and whether the program should accept dedicated funding streams such as registration fees or a targeted tax. Kempner and Duran both urged caution on creating requirements that would exclude small or diversified farms that generally lack access to whole-farm revenue insurance.

On eligibility and confidentiality, Kempner recommended that agency staff perform an initial financial completeness review to avoid repeatedly taking confidential farm financial information into public review-board sessions. On triggers, witnesses favored a state-administered declaration tied to objective weather indices or an official determination rather than reliance solely on slow federal declarations, which they said often do not deliver timely or sufficient relief for farmers and loggers. On scope, Duran cautioned that tying payments only to parties with a direct contract with a landowner might leave subcontractors and other supply-chain participants uncompensated; he warned that a narrow contract-based rule could create "a patchwork quilt" of winners and losers.

Several committee members raised funding mechanics. Some suggested establishing the statutory framework this year even if no appropriation is made immediately, so the vehicle exists to receive funds later. Kempner urged creating reporting requirements so the Legislature can track total losses and better estimate future appropriations. Committee members also discussed mechanisms to preserve some fund balance across the fiscal year (for example, reserving a percentage each quarter) and the potential role of the biennial appropriations act (BAA) or supplemental appropriations in replenishing the fund midyear.

The hearing included a review of specific numeric concerns and drafting problems. Duran and Kempner noted that the July 2023 survey limiting losses per company to $100,000 likely undercounts actual sector losses. Kempner asked the committee to remove or clarify statutory language that directed the secretary to base award amounts on a farm's net income relative to the median net income of all Vermont farms, observing that no current statewide median net-income statistic is published and that Ag Census reporting typically aggregates data in ways that protect individual farm confidentiality.

Members said they would continue drafting and that the committee would review an amended draft that incorporates language from H.229 and other suggested edits. The committee recessed to consider the next witnesses and signaled that members would return to this topic later in the session.

The hearing record contains no formal votes on S.60 in this session; committee members asked staff to prepare draft bill language and to bring the item back for further discussion.