§ 2750. Harvesting guidelines and procurement standards
(a) The Commissioner of Forests, Parks and Recreation (the Commissioner) shall develop
voluntary harvesting guidelines that may be used by private landowners to help ensure
long-term forest health and sustainability. The Commissioner may also recommend monitoring
regimes as part of these guidelines. In developing these guidelines, the Commissioner
shall:
(1) provide widespread public notice of the process to develop the guidelines;
(2) provide opportunities for potentially affected individuals, business organizations,
and members of the public to submit recommendations on the specific content of the
guidelines prior to their development and to comment on a draft of the guidelines
once the draft is developed;
(3) hold one or more public meetings; and
(4) maintain a web page concerning the development of these guidelines that provides notice
of all opportunities for public comment and all public meetings on the guidelines
and posts relevant information and the documents submitted to and created by the Department
of Forests, Parks and Recreation as part of the process.
(b) For contracts to harvest wood products on State lands, the Commissioner shall ensure
all such harvests are consistent with the purpose of the guidelines developed under
subsection (a) of this section, with the objective being long-term forest health and
sustainability in addition to other management objectives.
(c) The Commissioner shall develop a procurement standard that shall be used by all State
agencies and departments in procuring wood products from whole-tree harvests in Vermont.
The procurement standard shall include specifications on the retention of live and
dead trees.
(d) The procurement standard developed under this section shall be made available to Vermont
educational institutions and other users of wood products for their voluntary use.
(e) Working with regional governmental organizations such as the New England Governors’
Conference, Inc. and the Coalition of Northeastern Governors, the Commissioner shall
seek to develop and implement regional voluntary harvesting guidelines and a model
procurement standard that can be implemented regionwide, consistent with the application
of the guidelines and standards developed under this section. (Added 2011, No. 170 (Adj. Sess.), § 16a, eff. May 18, 2012; amended 2013, No. 24, § 1, eff. May 13, 2013.)
§ 2751. Biomass renewability standards; RES
(a) Definitions. As used in this section:
(1) “Commissioner” means the Commissioner of Forests, Parks and Recreation.
(2) “Distributed renewable generation” shall have the same meaning as in 30 V.S.A. § 8005.
(3) “Energy transformation project” shall have the same meaning as in 30 V.S.A. § 8002.
(4) “Renewability” means capable of being replaced by natural ecological processes or
sound management practices.
(5) “RES” shall have the same meaning as in 30 V.S.A. § 8002.
(b) Rules. The Commissioner shall adopt rules that set renewability standards for forest products
used to generate energy by distributed renewable generation and energy transformation
projects within the RES. The Commissioner shall design the standards to ensure long-term
forest health and sustainability. These standards may include minimum efficiency requirements
for wood boilers and requirements for harvesting and procurement. In developing these
rules, the Commissioner shall consider differentiating the standards by type of forest
product and scale of forest product consumption. (Added 2015, No. 56, § 9.)