I, Professor Gerald Friedman, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, and I'm here today to talk about monopolies and how monopolies price. Monopolies are smarter than perfect competitors. You can be smart too if you pay attention. Monopolies act thinking about the effect that they have on prices. So monopolies think about if we produce more, what will happen to the price? You can answer that. The price will go down. So monopolies think about we can sell more by producing more and lowering prices, but we will be giving discounts to everybody who was already buying our stuff. That's why monopolies don't produce where marginal cost intersects the demand curve, which is what we did for perfect competition. Monopolies produce where marginal cost equals marginal revenue, which you remember from last time, is below the demand curve. So monopolies produce at a lower marginal cost, which means that monopolies are producing less because marginal costs are rising, so to get a lower marginal cost you have to produce less. Now while monopolies are producing less, that means they're charging a higher price because you're moving up the demand curve. So monopolies charge higher prices for less. They make life worse for consumers by charging higher prices and not delivering products that people want, and they inflate business profits because they're producing at a lower cost and charging higher price, so they must be increasing their profits. So monopoly, bad for consumers, good for business, smart business for smart students. Thank you very much. Have a nice day.


The wife of the Akiti State Governor, B. C. Fayemi, and Chairman of the Nigerian Governor's Forum Wives Association has been named as the women leader of the year in a statement issued by Fumi Ajalla, Senior Special Assistant Media Office of the Wife of the Governor in Adoakiti. The award was presented to Fayemi at a gala night to celebrate the inaugural International Women's Day Awards. I am truly delighted to have been nominated in the company of such great women, all of whom are equally deserving of this prestigious award. I would like to dedicate this award to all Nigerian women. Regardless of all that has happened recently, particularly with the disappointing news we heard from the National Assembly last week, when a number of gender-friendly bills were shut down, I would like us Nigerian women to remember that we are worthy, we are powerful, we have contributed significantly, we are important, we matter, and therefore I would like to continue to dedicate my life to the promotion and protection of women's rights.


You might have recently gotten a scary diagnosis from your physician, or maybe you've been dealing with a chronic illness, and you haven't been getting any answers to your problems, any answers to any of your questions, any solutions to any of your problems. And like me, you've been through the ringer of the modern medical system. And you know, it's not exactly very good at treating chronic illness. Well, in this video, I want to leave you with just some thoughts, a very interesting old wise phrase, a one liner from one of our medical classics in Chinese medicine on how healing is always possible, no matter the stage of the illness or the kind of illness. So in this video, let's jump in and I want to share this with you now. Hey, I'm Alex Hein, author of the book, Master the Day. Now the first link in the description is actually a free download for five daily rituals that can help you add 10 years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. And it'll give you some of the core daily practices you can start trying out and investigating yourself. You'll also get a weekly email on my newsletter and how to use those practices to live better. So you can check out the first link in the description. So in one of our oldest medical classics, that's almost 2000 years old, there's a saying in the first chapter of the Lingxu that says, 言不可置者, 莫得其数也. And this saying 言不可置者 is just like saying or the person who says it cannot be treated or cured. Is someone who has not yet achieved or obtained or realized that level of skill. So this is this idea that I deeply believe and there's a lot of evidence throughout history that the person, whether it's an entrepreneur who says it cannot be done, well someone else is doing it or will do it, or the physician who says it cannot be cured is probably someone else on the planet who has cured it or has treated it. I mean, we look at a lot of the major illnesses today that were huge killers throughout history, tuberculosis, many other illnesses and diseases that we now vaccinate for. These were major, major, major killers throughout history. Even look at the crippling effects of polio. That's almost eradicated from the planet now. At one level in time and in history, these were very, very difficult or impossible to cure. And now many of them have been. So our major killers now today, I feel confident we will regain control over them and also new illnesses and new challenges will show up. But if you're dealing or struggling with chronic illness, there are a couple things to keep in mind. So the first thing is that healing is always possible at any stage. Now the most obvious example of this is spontaneous remission. Now I'm doing some work on studying spontaneous remissions, which is crazy because spontaneous remission has been shown in almost every kind of cancer at almost every level and stage. Now it's extremely rare. Some researchers have estimated it's a 1 in 100,000 rate, some less, some more, but the fact that it does occur regularly says that it can occur. So there are people of the most advanced cancers that have spontaneously remissed. We don't know how, we don't really know why, there are theories. But the fact that it has occurred suggests that it can and it will still occur. And how do you know if you're not the person with a very serious disease that it may not be you? It doesn't mean stop seeing your physician or your doctor, it doesn't mean any of that. It just means that entertain this is the treatment, this is what my doctor recommends, but entertain this idea that it is possible because it is possible. The second idea to think about is that sometimes the advice you're being given from your healthcare practitioner about what's treatable or what's possible is just not true. I mean, we all do the best we can, but sometimes when you go to another practitioner, you get another opinion. That's the value of seeking out a second or a third, a tertiary opinion because one would think if all these people we seek out for our health are all experts, they would all have the same evidence and opinions, but it's not really true. So sometimes what one person says is a death sentence or can't be treated or we don't know, we don't have options, I don't know what it is, can be resolved by going to see another practitioner and getting a second or a third opinion or even a person outside of the traditional sphere. And I want to reiterate that because my own journey has been, I was diagnosed with IBS when I was in my early 20s. I went through the general practitioner, dietitian, nutritionist, GI specialist. They were all great people, but no one gave me a single useful piece of advice. Not a single intervention they did gave me anything useful or did anything to resolve my symptoms or improve them in any way. And it was me saying, okay, what now scratching my head. And sure enough, a friend was seeing a Chinese medicine doctor that I saw and the very first herbal formula he gave me, I had the best results with my digestion and bowel movements of my whole life of 30 years. No one told me that Chinese medicine was an option. I thought it was some witchcraft voodoo stuff. Sometimes you have to look outside of, you have to have that lateral thinking. These are all the established ways of doing things. This is something that's coming out of left field or right field or something that's different. And sometimes that's what works. And to always maintain that possibility that there may be someone else out there that knows how to fix what I have, what is going on within me, to always maintain that possibility. So these are just some things to keep in mind when struggling with illness that who's to say what can be cured, what cannot be cured. Most physicians are looking at a dot on a line plotting the medium, just trying to see where that median, the average line is, the line of best fit.  But like a great book by the same title, every patient is a sample size of one, is an end of one. We're all extremely different, extremely unique. And also, of course, to go seek out other options if you aren't getting the answers from the person that you're seeing. And that advice could apply to medicine just as easily as it could to being an entrepreneur where everyone is telling you it won't work, but you have to be the one in a million that has that vision, like all the visionary entrepreneurs who never would have tried if they listened to the people around them. So just some thoughts today on the possibility of miraculous healing at any time, because it is possible. And of course, if you want, check out the first link in the description for a few exercises and Chinese medicine practices that can add years to your life. It's a free download, the first link in the description. You can also check out my last related videos there and there.


The most recent Michigan Public Policy Survey here at the Ford School included a battery of questions on public sector employee unions among local governments in the state of Michigan. So these are counties, cities, townships and villages all across the state. And what we found is that 27% of these local governments have employee labor unions, relatively small percentage. But among those jurisdictions, 78% conducted negotiations in the last year on a variety of topics such as employee pay, fringe benefits, staffing levels and work rule changes. Across these four topics, the most common outcome was union concessions on fringe benefit issues. Among jurisdictions that negotiated on this topic, 69% report that labor unions made concessions on fringe benefits, only 5% report that the jurisdiction made concessions. Well, we think that these union concessions are driven by a number of things. Certainly some of these state laws are having an impact. But a number of our local government leaders told us as well in their jurisdictions the labor unions came to the bargaining table this year, ready to make concessions because they understood that their employers, these local government units are in fiscal distress. The bad news for unionized employees among Michigan's local governments is 60% of these jurisdictions expect to seek new concessions in the upcoming year. Among jurisdictions that are significantly less able to meet their fiscal needs, 85% expect to seek new concessions from their labor unions.


I'm Kim Mitchell, Special Defense Coordinator for the City of Columbia Parks and Recreation Department. I'm here to talk to you today about our annual senior holiday gala. The gala will take place this year on Saturday, December 7th, at the Busby Community Center at 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. The senior gala consists of dinner, dancing, door prizes, surprises, and a whole lot more, but you have to come to find out what the extra things are. Tickets are $10. You can get them from any City of Columbia Park or you can come and get them from our administrative office located at 1111 Recreation Drive. Come on out, if you haven't bought your tickets, go ahead and buy your tickets now. Seats are limited, so I would go ahead and purchase my tickets today.


Hello. Welcome to yet another session of our NPTEL Long-On Linear Adaptive Control. I am Srikanth Sukumar from Systems and Control IIT, Bombay. As always, we have this nice background image of the SpaceX satellite in our background. And we are hopeful that it motivates us to develop design algorithms that help systems such as these operate autonomously. So in the sixth week, we have started our exploration into adaptive control problems and adaptive control design. And we've already covered adaptive control design for a first-order scanner system. That's what we did. We also analyzed the stability and we could essentially conclude that we can show that all closed loop signals are uniformly stable with respect to the origin equilibrium. And we could also show that the tracking errors converge asymptotically to zero. Yeah. What we could not guarantee was that the parameter estimation errors in fact were possible. And for this, we said that there is a requirement for a persistence of excitation evolution. And this is what we had looked at in the week preceding to this. And we sort of used a little bit of that theory that we learned in order to claim parameter convergence for certain special case scenarios. Yeah. So this was what we had for the first-order system. At the end of the last session, we sort of started looking at a second-order scalar system, which is not significantly complicated. What we do here is just add an integrator to the standard first-order dynamical system. Right? And as usual, we have X1 and X2 evolving in the real number field. And control also takes values in real numbers. And the parameter is also real value and so on and so on. So this is essentially a scalar second-order system. Yeah. Then we still want the control to be such that X1 tracks a new light trajectory. Right? We only give a tracking for the X1 and not X2 because subject to the matching condition, the desired trajectory of X2 is dictated precisely by the desired trajectory for X1. Yeah. So this is not something that's a left choice. Yeah. So that's how it works. So we should write the objective in mathematical terms. It comes out to limit as t goes to infinity. X1 minus r goes to zero. And limit as t goes to infinity. X2 minus r dot is to zero. All right? So like we already mentioned, this double integrator system is in fact a standard model for several mechanical systems on Euclidean spaces. Yeah. So that's, so there's already a lot of motivation for looking at systems like this. Yeah. So subsequently when you look at robotic systems and spacecraft dynamics, where the spacecraft dynamics is not exactly like this, but it's like a nonlinear integrator, nonlinear double integrator. And the robot dynamics looks pretty much like this except that these X1s and X2s start to belong to vector spaces. So r3 and r4 and rk and so on and so forth and not just scalar ones. Yeah. So anything that changes the way you start looking at other real mechanical systems. All right? Great. So this is where we stopped last time when we introduced this problem. And today we're going to start designing the adaptive control for this system. Yeah. So this is where we begin. We are on lecture number, sorry, I thought it means 6.5. And we're on lecture number 6.5. So it's the fifth lecture of the sixth week. Yeah. And this is the error model. Right? Just like before. So all the steps will start to seem rather similar to you. Yeah. Just like before you design an error model, in this case there are two errors because of course there are two states X1 and X2. So I construct an error corresponding to each state and its objective value. So objective for the X1 is r, objective for X2 is r dot. Yeah. So again, if you start thinking in terms of mechanical systems perspective, X1 is sort of the position variable, a position state, and X2 is the velocity state. Simple. All right? Great. So then as always, we again, once we have an error model, we want to, sorry, once we have an error definition, we want to construct the dynamics of this error. So that's what we do. And you carefully take a derivative. E1 dot is simply X1 dot minus r dot. And X1 dot is X2. And therefore, E1 dot is exactly equal to this, which is E2. That's what we write here. Yeah. So this happens. This equation 3.11 looks exactly like the original system only because of the matching condition. If this, if r and r dot were not here, instead I had 2r dot or r dot by k, then this will not happen. And we already discussed this at some length last time that that is an infeasible trajectory. Trajectory has to satisfy some matching conditions. It has to be consistent with the dynamics. All right. I cannot make the system follow trajectory, which is not consistent with the dynamics. And the dynamics dictates that X1 dot has to be X2. All right. So that's it. So that's what we have. E1 dot turns out to be E2. And then E2 dot is just X2 dot minus r double dot. So the second derivative of r. And so I just write X2 dot here. And then minus r double dot. And just moving on from here. OK. So this now becomes the dynamics that we are going to work with. This becomes our error dynamics. So this is what we call. So this is what we call the error dynamics. All right. This is what we call the error dynamics. Great. Now, how would we do the control design for the non-parameter case? So what we do here is that we, as usual, try to find a target system. Yeah. So what is the target system that we choose in this case? We choose the target system as this even dot is E2. I cannot change that because there is no control here. So even the target system even dot has to remain E2. But now in the E2 dot, there is some control. So I can more or less dictate whatever structure I want for E2 dot. So E2 dot is minus K2 E2 minus K1 E1. Now, why do we choose this? This is a system that we have analyzed even before using the Barbara, that's lemma and strictly appano construction and so on and so forth. So we know and just by computing the eigenvalues of the system also, it's a linear system. I can very easily conclude that this system is, in fact, globally exponentially stable at E1, E2 equal to 00. This is a globally exponentially stable system at the origin and that is why we choose this as a target system. So there are two requirements, right? First, it has to have nice properties for the states, which it does. It in fact is globally exponentially stable. And second, it has to be consistent with the dynamics, which is even dot is continuous to remain E2, because I cannot change it. And here I can change the right-hand side to almost anything I want. So I choose nice stable right-hand side, stabilizing right-hand side. Great. So now in order to get from here to here, what is the control I choose? It's very simple. I just obtain this by subtracting the two. And so the control I choose to go from here to here is just cancelling these two terms, that is this guy and that guy, and then introducing these terms. That's this. There's just two pieces. Cancel these two. And then introduce these two. All right. And that's it. Okay. Since I have assumed already that I know the parameter value, it does start. So I can, in fact, implement this controller in 3.14. Yeah, this is implementable. And I'm good. So what's the next thing I do? I have to do a Lyapunov analysis, right? So I have to choose a Lyapunov candidate. Okay. All right. So what do I do? I choose my Lyapunov candidate as half K1E1 squared plus half E2 squared. Now we've already seen this kind of Lyapunov candidate before for the system. This is what we used for the Babelart-Slamma type analysis. And we know by taking the derivative, so I'm not going to take the derivative here, because we've done this a couple of times. Yeah. We took this, then we, if you take the derivative and you plug in for the dynamics from here. So that's the directional derivative of V along this dynamics 3.13. You get V dot is minus K2E2 squared. You don't get any term in the E1. You do not get any term in the E1. All right. So once we understand that, we know that V dot is only negative semi-definite. Yeah. But we already have done this kind of a, we have already sort of dealt with this Sprigma's Damper problem with exactly this Lyapunov candidate and with this negative semi-definite V dot. If you do not remember this, I strongly urge you to revise. Yeah. I strongly urge you to go and revise our lecture on example of how to use the Babelart-Slamma. All right. That's what it says here. V dot is only negative semi-definite. So we can at most claim uniform stability from the standard Lyapunov theorems. But then we can use signal chasing or Lassal invariance, either one of them. And of course signal chasing with Babelart-Slamma or Lassal invariance to show that both errors converge to zero. On top of uniform stability, we can also obtain convergence by either using Lassal's invariance principle or by using signal chasing and Babelart-Slamma. So we have done this. So again, for those who do not remember, I strongly, strongly urge you to go back and revise this material. So great. So of course, there is some nice terminology here which gets used in non-linear control theory often. These kind of Lyapunov functions with the system is known to be asymptotically stable. So the Sprigma's Damper is in fact asymptotically stable. Yeah, it is well known. But the Lyapunov function that we choose to analyze the system is only negative semi-definite p-dots. It's called a non-strict Lyapunov function. Okay. So we know that the Sprigma's Damper is asymptotically stable. It's in fact exponentially stable. We know that you can even obtain this result by simply computing the eigenvalues for this linear system. However, the Lyapunov candidate that we've chosen only means a negative semi-definite p-dot. Yeah. Which does not allow us to conclude, you know, from the Lyapunov theorems that the system is asymptotically stable are called non-strict Lyapunov functions. Yeah. And in case of non-strict Lyapunov functions, as has been mentioned, you have to use signal j-z-plus-bablatz lemma or LaSalle's invariance, in the special case of time invariant systems, to conclude asymptotic stability. All right. So it's a sort of weakness. It's a sort of weakness of, I would say, our analysis method. Yeah. The system is known to have the nice property of exponential stability or asymptotic stability. However, because of our, say, not so good choice of Lyapunov candidate, we cannot conclude that from Lyapunov. So there's a lot of research in non-linear literature, non-linear control literature, on identifying good strictly Lyapunov functions for different kinds of non-linear systems. So that's one of the problems that non-linear control theorists do for us. All right. Excellent. Now that we understand that. So let's look at this. So now we want to do the unknown case. Okay. So what is it? We use the certainty equivalence principle. Yeah. As is mentioned here, C is the certainty equivalence principle. What does it say? Keep the same control structure and replace the unknown parameter with its estimate. That's exactly what you've done. All other terms are the same. The only changes in this, where we had theta star earlier, and now we have a theta hat. All right. Let's just prescribe an update law for this subsequently. And now if I substitute this altered control here, because it is not theta star, the term with theta does not exactly cancel out, but you're left with a theta tilde. All right. So earlier this was not there. Earlier we only had this much. In the known case, there was only this much. Right. But because now we are assuming that the parameter is not known, we replace the true value by its estimate, and therefore you get a theta tilde term. And this is what we used to, in fact, compute the update law for theta tilde. All right. So how do we do that? We take the Lyapunov candidate that we already had. Remember, this is what we always do. Even the previous scalar first order system case, that's what we did. There we have only one term, half events, half is squared. So here we had two terms. So we take the same two terms and then add to it a quadratic in theta tilde. And as usual, this gamma is positive when it's the adaptation or the adaptation gain. Again, just like the first order case. Yeah. So take the same Lyapunov candidate as the known case and add to it a quadratic term in the parameter estimation area. Yeah. And now if I take the derivative carefully and substitute, I get this first term, which I would have gotten if there was no parameter.  Okay. Not too difficult. I mean, if you are not convinced, you can just go here and do this. And then can just go ahead and do this sort of computation quickly. So V dot will be K1 E1 E1 dot plus E2 E2 dot minus theta tilde theta hat dot over down. We have used the fact that theta tilde dot equals minus theta hat dot because theta star is constant. Now if I substitute, here I have K1 E1 E2 plus E2 E2 dot. Sorry. Plus E2 E2 dot. Plus E2 and E2 dot is minus minus K1 E1 minus K2 E2 minus theta tilde f minus theta tilde theta hat dot by down. So I've substituted for E1 dot and E2 dot but theta cap dot is still not been decided. So that is being retained as it is. Okay. Now it's not difficult to see that K1 E1 E2 and this K1 E1 E2 cancel out. Right. And what am I left with? I'm left with minus K2 E2 squared plus or infinite minus theta tilde E2 times theta hat dot divided by gamma. Let's see if the sign has turned out to be correct. Yeah. I think this should have been, if I'm not wrong, this should have been plus. That's what the error is given. This is a plus. This will be a minus E2 f. Yeah. This is all correct. It's a plus. And so that's how you, that's what you get. And this is what you get. And this is exactly the same. All right. Now what do I do? I do the best I can. Right. As always, I do the best I can. I cannot make this term negative definite because that would require me to introduce a minus theta tilde here. And I cannot introduce a minus theta tilde. This is very clear to you. Theta tilde is unknown because theta tilde contains theta star, which is the true parameter value, which is unknown. Okay. Therefore, we cannot implement a minus theta tilde. So there's no way of making this negative definite. So that I do the next best. I just try to remove this term because it's not a definite term. And in order to remove this term, I choose an appropriate theta hat dot to cancel this. And that's what it is. This is the appropriate choice. Once we make this appropriate choice, I will get V dot is minus K2 E2. Okay. Great. And this is negative semi-definite. And notice, again, notice the pattern. The, although the V is different, the V now has an added one over two gamma theta tilde squared in the adaptive case. My V dot expression, which is minus K2 E2 squared turns out to be the exact same expression that I get in the non-adaptive case also. Yeah. This is always the case because this is how, because of how we have chosen the Lyapunov candidate for the unknown case, this always ends up happening. Yeah. That V dot will have the same expression as the known case. Yeah. Even though V is different. Right. So now in the known case, also in the second order case, it was semi-definite. V dot was semi-definite, negative. And here also it is negative semi-definite. Okay. So we have no choice but to apply. Well, of course, we can claim uniform stability at best and using Lyapunov theorem. And now we apply signal chasing. Okay. And we do the same steps. So I'm not going to elaborate too much on these steps because we've already seen it. We do the same steps. First is V is lower bounded and non-increasing. Yeah. Because V is basically one-half k1 e1 square plus half e2 square plus one over twice beta teriors squared. So obviously this was greater than zero, already unbounded in fact. Right. Therefore it is lower bounded at zero and it is non-increasing because of this. So we have a V infinity existence. And it's finite. Now because V is finite, because of the fact that V is non-increasing, we have that all these e1, e2 and theta tilde are bounded functions, are real infinity functions. Then just like in the previous case, we can integrate both sides here. Yeah. And we can actually obtain that e2 is an n2 signal. Okay. All right. Because V dot is integrable from zero to infinity. Again, same step as in the case of the first order system. Yeah. And further e2 dot is also in l infinity because e2 dot is nothing but this guy. And everything in the right hand side, e1, e2 and theta tilde are bounded. So if I assume something on the boundedness of f or bounded argument, again just like the scalar case, then e2 dot is also bounded. Now if e2 dot is bounded and e2 is l infinity and n2, then by the corollary of the Bar-Balatz lemma, so from the corollary of the Bar-Balatz lemma, we can claim immediately that e2 goes to zero. So we get, again in the context of mechanical systems, a velocity. So we obtain a velocity tracking. Okay. So we also obtain that, of course, e2 is the same as e1 dot. Therefore, we obtain that the derivative of e1 also goes to zero. And the derivative of the velocity tracking happens. So difficult velocity matching in a robotics syndrome. Okay. Now we do this again, do similar steps as before. Now that we have proved e2 goes to zero, we will try to prove that e2 dot also goes to zero. Right. So this is, again, standard steps. Right. We said that the sequence of steps, the sequence of steps are again identical. In the first order case also, we did the same. We proved that e goes to zero. So then we, therefore, we have to go on to prove that e dot also goes to zero, which is which we did. So that's what we do here too. So now we know that e2 dot is integrable because e2 infinity is zero. Right. So e2 dot is integrable. Right. And since e2 goes to zero, as t goes to infinity. And with appropriate assumptions, again, on f, you can also prove that the second derivative of e2 is also bounded. Because the derivative of e2 dot is bounded, it means e2 dot is uniformly continuous. So with the original bubble at Slema, e2 dot is an integrable uniformly continuous signal. Therefore, it goes to zero as t goes to infinity. So as before, we've proved that e2, not only e2, but e2 dot also goes to zero. However, in the first order case, e2 dot contained only e and theta tilde. Right. So now the e2 dot contains e2, e1 and theta tilde. So if we know that e2 dot goes to zero and we know e2 goes to zero, we are still left with the fact that this sum goes to zero. Okay. All we can say is that this sum goes to zero. Okay. That's what we write here.  But unfortunately, this does not guarantee that the position error is going to zero. Look at this. It's a rather nonlinear function. I have the position error, sure. But then I also have theta tilde times f added up to it. So the summation going to zero does not really tell me anything about the error e1 going to zero. So therefore, in this case, I cannot even guarantee that the position tracking happens. All right. And this is what is called the detectability obstacle in adaptive control. And this happens because we started with a non-strictly upon a function for the original or the known system. If you start with a non-strictly upon a function for the known case, then you will end up with a detectability obstacle. And what it means, what does it mean? The detectability obstacle. It means that you may not be able to prove convergence or tracking of all the states. Okay. You will not be able to prove tracking of all the states. And that's rather disappointing. As an adaptive control theorist, I said we don't care about parameter convergence person, but we definitely want the system to track the trajectory. Yeah. As of now, we've only been able to put nice boundedness and stability, things like that. And that the velocity matches with the desired velocity. We've not been able to say anything about the position. And this is called a detectability obstacle. Why does it happen? We know that too. It happens exactly because I chose a non-strictly upon a function for the original known system. Yeah. Excellent. So that's how do we fix it? Choose a strictly upon a function. Obviously. All right. Great. Great. So one of the other alternate solutions was sort of proposed by Romeo Ortega in the 90s. He's still a relatively active researcher. He's retired from CNRS in New Paris. But he still continues to publish articles. But one of the interesting things he proposed was a Lyapunov-like function, which helps us avoid the detectability obstacle. All right. So what is it? So if you consider the spring mass damper system, I mean, let's not look at the system we had, but a simple string mass damper system. And suppose that we want to prove that X1, X2 both goes. We want to show X1, X2 converge to 0. S goes to infinity. All right. So what did he say? He said that if you choose a Lyapunov-like function, because this is not a Lyapunov function anymore, I hope that's evident. It's only positive semi-definite. Why is it only positive semi-definite? V minus alpha k comma k is identically 0 for all k. This is k comma minus alpha k is exactly 0 for all k. So there are values of states outside the origin where V becomes 0. And that's not allowed for positive definiteness. And so therefore it's only positive semi-definite. It's not even a Lyapunov candidate. Lyapunov candidate requires that you have a C1 function, which is positive definite at least. So we don't even have a Lyapunov function. We call it a, we call functions such as these Lyapunov-like functions. And what was his claim? His claim was that I can use or we can use a function like this in order to prove that both states go to the same. All right. So he did not even care about coming up with a strict Lyapunov function. He in fact came with a function which is not even a Lyapunov function. He went further down in fact in some sense. But he could still show that both states X1 and X2 will converge to 0 as t goes to infinity using this kind of a choice of function V. All right. So how does he do that? Is what we will see in the upcoming session. All right. So great. So what did we sort of see today is the adaptive control for a second order system. And by the end of the session today, we could only arrive at the detectability obstacle. And what is it? The detectability obstacle is that because of a choice of a non-strict Lyapunov function for the original known parameter case, we could not prove that our parameters or even the states, the position state in this case converges to 0. It converges to the desired trajectory. And this is very bad. And we are definitely not happy with the result of that thing. We just don't want just bounded trajectories and then the position states not matching the desired positions. And that is definitely something that we cannot live with. So we started to see this order construction which hopefully will help us alleviate this issue. This is what we will see in this upcoming session. All right. Excellent. So this is where we stop now. And I'll see you again soon.


We're looking at draft 1.6 strike off amendment to S-54. And I think where I'd like to take you is to the section on the canvas registry. So if you look at page 39 in the highlighted language. So with respect to the call that the reason this language is in here is that as of January 1st, 2021, the medical registry was shipped over under the purview of the board from the Department of Public Safety. And you'd also have the commercial retail up and running shortly thereafter and then orders from the scale down version of the registry and the board would be adopting rules for the other programs. And one of the things in here was that in the bill is introduced the definition basically for the qualifying condition to get on the registry was a definition that the Senate had passed a few times previously in various medical canvas bills where it was broadening the definition for the qualifying condition to include basically anything that your health care provider determined was appropriate. And the medical society I believe has testified against that. Senator Sear does mean to go back to the existing language. So that's what I've done. So what we have is page 39 for the definition of qualified medical condition. So that term is different than what is currently used which is debilitating medical conditions. So we're changing the names to be qualified medical condition and the definition so what you see on line 7 through 17 on page 39 is the definition under current law. And that because we will have a medical marijuana bill for that time to be able to distribute. Yup. So next change is on page 40. And you see the bottom of the page, Subsection C and this has to do with information in the registry that would be exempt from public inspection. And that's language that you've already seen from Senate Gov Ops. Why don't you draft 2.1? 1.6. 1.6. No wonder. Do we have a draft 2.1? Well, I have one. I'll draft 2.1. I think it's copy. Huh? Is it 2.3? No, 1.6. 1.6. Since 8 is February 13th? No. You'll be right over. Yeah. Marijuana? Yeah. The bill is introduced. Something happens. It's gremlins coming in at night. No, I just took them on those days. I got draft 1.22? No. I think you're probably looking at the earlier versions of the bill before it was introduced. Peggy, do you just have an extra copy? No, I can print it. Here, would you like mine? No. Use my copy. Well, I don't have my copy. Everything else, if something happens. I know what you're doing. Go ahead. Go through it. You just print me a copy. Yeah. So just on this. How did we take it out to take it to something? So the language on the public records exemption with regard to the registry is essentially what they do now. So there's certain, you know, in terms of individuality and identifying information about patients and caregivers would be exempt so that information would not be publicly available. And you see at the top of page 41 there's so many words again that we have currently which is that in response to persons with critical property specific and created by law enforcement then that information would be able to be released to them. So it could be that neighbor calls he says while I see the canvas running in my where it's back to ours or something and they've got more planes than I think it could be able to have under the regular law and law enforcement that person doesn't have a copy if they're a medical registry or something. That's how it works finally. So the next page is page 45. Actually on 41 those highlighted stuff. Oh I'm sorry. Before you need that then on line 3 it says the board may verify that just curious is it why may let it be. That's how it's structured now on how it's stated. I think you can fire it out. I'm fine with may because it stresses that it's a phone the firing destination but then I would do may. I would do may too. It may well be that the person whose case it is would really maybe they want them to get the photo of it. Turn out a bona fide I mean I can say I've never in terms of what I haven't heard anything from the department that they've had the issue of it. So page 45 this is in the new chapter for dispensaries once they shift over and this is language with regard to dispensaries and information not being accessible relating to security, transportation, public safety, trade secrets and employees that are contained in an application. Tell me what section you're on and I'll try to follow the bills introduced. Well I'm going to give you mine. I've gone through this so many times by heart. Thank you. So we're on page 45 at the bottom of section B and again this is language that came over that I've already talked to you about but I just want to show it's in your amendment now this came over from GovOps and this would be the PRA exemption with regard to certain information with regard to the dispensaries and again kind of just modeling what they do currently with the front of public safety. Next I'm not going to let you see the places where I change it to from children to persons under the age of 21 but I don't think I need to talk about those. Next section changes bottom of page 49 and this is on criminal background checks for applicants for dispensary license and again this is language that we talked about earlier because in a few different places around when the board is adopting rules for determining whether an applicant should be granted a dispensary license and through the background check the board is going to be adopting a system and you know whether they go through and determine points for certain offenses like some states have done or whatever their process is for determining whether or not somebody's criminal history record should disqualify them for dispensary application and you see the language starting on the bottom of the page on the 1921 that's based on factors whether the applicant presently opposes the correct public safety or the power function with the regulated market that language also you see in the next section on page 50 it's starting on line 13 and that has to do with the dispensary identification part so if you work in a dispensary again just like now you have to have a card and you get a background check and you have a recognition card that they have Next changes are to the tax section so page 53 and section 7902 so you guys have already discussed this of a bit and both Sonic of Ops and in here about changing it was a one percent option and then I think you discussed about it being two in here and then Sonic of Ops said they'd like it to be to say like essentially up to two so it could be less than two so it shall not exceed two and then the language that struck in subdivision B one this is just relating back to the local government authority about what they can regulate and it just the way that it was originally draft it kind of made it sound as though they you know somebody wanted to make the argument despite all your saying that you can't do these things over here it just sounded like maybe they possibly could perfect their retail sale through something other than a vote and so this is just kind of a clarification language it doesn't change anything substantive I just think it was it was probably the popular can you just remind me so at this it should this pass then that municipality would be able to totally ban the shop by a vote of the yeah not to continue in the earlier sections this is just a cross-reference but this references the reference there is referencing some other things having to do with their inherent authority under title 24 around nuisance and things like that and by referencing it we don't want to give the impression that they could somehow completely prohibit it through using a nuisance ordinance which is what you guys have prohibited earlier it's kind of like if you if you want to ban it you have to do it through the process that you set for it all right so good job I wish I will find my copy well I have a new one the problem is quite frankly that we're all in a rush here we've got thousands of things going on and we don't have staffing we don't have the it just people expect out of this legislature things that cannot be delivered because of the constraints of the legislatures budgets it's unfortunate Peggy does her best to keep us track of us all but I decided to keep my own cannabis file and here's what's happened and that's part of the problem and we just do not have any people expecting more from us than we're able to deliver and particularly this year the unfortunate thin shell of Senator White and I were talking about it earlier and I'm sure the other members of the committee have all done whatever reason this year difficult year for the staff to try to the number of drafting requests and then we have house committees and line of staff for three, four days in a row so our committees can't get them this needs to change for this legislature won't be able to function and I understand house members they go for drafting requests that have first come for basis but if you have a bill like the youth justice bill if you're trying to work with a list of stakeholders before you introduce the bill I still haven't even signed it out yet because Brenner's been working with the stakeholders and they're trying to get to agreement on a number of issues and I've gone over it three or four times and there's one sticking point so none that gets held up because the Proofers are doing some bill that will never even see the light of day so that's my rant for the day thank you staff for doing what you do Peggy you know and then you have the staff members this place is dysfunctional right now in terms of trying to do legislation we're working from drafts we've never done that before yesterday we worked from the draft on bills where we have gotten a record number and it keeps well it's not only that but the system says first come first served and when you have something that is a must pass bill we're close to it for whatever reason because obviously it wasn't first it gets backed up because you're trying to get agreement before you introduce it so that's going on in every committee and we're going to have some problems this year that we haven't confronted in the past and when they come up we'll be surprised I will mention since you brought it up that so I haven't had any of these amendments prove just because there's not the capacity down there but what I'm going to do is I've already gotten almost all the amendment based on your last talk you've done I'll make any little tweaks here I'm ready to come back like as soon as like 30 minutes with you so you can talk about it vote on it but it won't be it won't be proved until later the next decision that has to be made is whether or not to include the a special exemption or whatever you want to call it for the medical dispensaries to be able to start up earlier than the others and you know I think we've already talked about it is there a motion to add that to the bill I'll make a motion to add that to the bill okay Senator Nick is that a motion to add the early start up to the medical dispensaries to the bill is there a discussion I realized that I was put in the position of potentially being the decided and I still go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth but where I think I've landed is that I don't have an issue with a monopoly I don't have an issue with an equal play bill because we know that there's probably nothing that we can do to make it truly an equal play well I appreciate the fact that the dispensaries were willing to take the risk when they did and have put in a lot of effort and a lot of infrastructure and capital into it I do think that there are issues around it they have an entirely different structure they're vertically integrated these are not vertically integrated the rules will be different I'm and I heard from some patients that they don't want to go to the same place that by their medicine that somebody would be going and I realize it would be different door or whatever so I believe I've come down on the side of not and I'm sorry that I'm because I really thought that it might be and if we're doing it just for the money I don't think that that's a reason to do it that's a good point but I it's a debatable issue knowing that it's in the House bill that they come back at us so I haven't changed my mind and the cultivators are much earlier than the cultivators for the retailers so that a dispensary could be applied to be a cultivator earlier it's also a decision that can be revisited next year yeah senator bedding you are not the great decider I'm not the great decider I didn't have to make a decision I was already planning on exercising my republican prerogative of being able to change my living actually I listened to the debate I was several of us the other day and I thought Dick had more credible points to his argument at that point so that's where I'm coming in now I can be associated with Bush but you are we're not going to add that so I would like to say that I read some place that I wanted that because it would be faster hardly the case I wanted it because it would be I think a smoother roll out and the money isn't the issue I wanted to be if I have this I wanted to be able to work well in communities I think the opportunity for as you said if it was for five to get it going and have it be smooth rather than kind of the potential chaos that might happen when the roll out occurs and it's not handled in a way that is respected I hope we'll learn from Massachusetts mistakes on the roll out it has been helpful for me to be able to read the Boston Loads articles every day and I try to share many of them with you and the fact that the entire city of Boston which is obviously larger in population the state of Vermont only has nine licenses makes you wonder what would happen if we granted 10 early where the competition might be but also Massachusetts has had a long roll out there the commission is still developing rules and things come up and then they have to do a roll with that you know it's the the other issue, one other issue that we kind of lost over was delivery by the way have we added delivery or have we asked the board to look at it with the other things that you put in to ask the board to look at I don't think the delivery Do you remember there was a discussion here about delivery because it's clear that those that are growing and giving are delivering and even some that might be selling are delivering and whether the board should consider that but you've got your list that's the one other issue that I thought we did really we had a list of things the board would consider remember we discussed that yes I have that I took off the cafe lounge stuff for the next person so the only things you haven't come back on are kind of like the year two roll out and and how to work with other agencies that's part of the year one roll out there's one other thing the medical delivers yeah they deliver so we don't want to interfere with that well they can still I don't think we had no I don't remember I thought you all decided in the bill's introduced it said no delivery or retail I'll leave it that way okay I thought can't deliver or can't well under this there would be no provision that would allow delivery then I can add something if you want the board to come back with a proposal or to address it I think that whether we do or don't it's going to pop up as an issue because the attorney general has tried to quash the gifting thing but delivery will fill gaps I think it might not be a bad idea I think we bogged down a little last time over whether it would be a recommendation because that seems to lean in the direction of doing it but if we don't have the board consider the issue of looking at other states yeah are there any other issues that we've missed before the cell re-race do you want to talk about the Avanaki issue here in the OP I've agreed with Senator White committee but maybe other members of the committee would not agree I think it wasn't my committee it was me okay we didn't even have that discussion okay I think that it's on page 30 of this and my recommendation is not to put to reference at all online too and to just put a period after Vermont and I believe that members of the Avanaki community would be covered under lines 10 and 11 and to single them out to give preference is I don't think makes sense I oppose that I agree and I think they're also covered under the minority ownership provision well that was something I saw as being a frightening frightening the week being something that would recognize particularly there's status as an unrecognized federal tribe but as recognized by Vermont government but I don't think to me that you know there's the you're correct they are would be seen as but oftentimes it seems like even when I was looking at the the racial bias bill that just passed that's an education committee there's references to various groups but it seems like Native Americans get left out of these groups that have been discriminated against or am I wrong about this I would say we have testimony from from an Avanaki chief who voiced similar concerns and we have assurances on the committee that the definition of ethnic group that's there includes in two ways but and that's true the proposal from the attorney general as well there was nothing there I talked about if that's I think during the racial bias discussion we should talk a little bit more about this because if I just feel like our discussion frequently center upon people of color or sexual orientation or disability and it seems like they get left out as people of color I just I'm sensitive to it because I remember having a couple of kids in my program who were having Avanaki and it was very difficult for them to they have a whole different system in terms of the federal foster care system and there are other rules for Native Americans anyhow I'm finally not having it in here but I think we should be conscious of that to be discussed I think we're going to have testimony from the same person that you probably heard from so I don't know if we talked about this or not but under the priorities and I think it's in my mind it's just for cultivators so I don't know how you put that in because there are no priorities for the different things but I would like to see priorities for cultivators given to small local growers and also and I don't know how to say this who have experience in horticulture science agriculture something trying to get at the people who are currently doing it that they should be given some priority and I don't know how we put that in there so the idea being that illegal growers are brought in somebody help me with what is small they shouldn't be having experience in cannabis cultivation because that's been illegal you know what it's been one of the issues when I was asked on DPR and other places what is small and I guess it's something that's in the folder I kind of responded something that's small enough to still be profitable if the person is able to provide a secure type of operation then that would be as small as they could do it but it has to be secure blah blah blah and I'm wondering if we've ever defined small well we have a section in here that gives special that they can establish special rules for people who are on my 500 square feet and I guess my concern is that there are a lot of people out there who aren't this isn't going to be their only endeavor they're going to their farmers out there who are it's currently and could or could be a supplemental income for them and they so that is their business plan wouldn't have them supporting themselves entirely by this but I think they should be given some preference to granting the permits for the cultivators but the problem is you still need to have a secure capability and they can they'll do special needs to be they have to go through certain regulations that they wouldn't have to go through for other products I remember having a conversation when this was maybe three or four years ago the first time we did this bill in economic development we had testimony from a couple of small you know black market growers and we talked to them about would they be willing to accept certain security things and those people were resistant at that time to the idea that they said they would continue to grow as they are now because they didn't want to go through the whole system so I don't know I also don't have to pay taxes I don't know how you cut into that well there is a section in here and I cannot find it ever when I'm looking for it that says that they should consider slightly different regulations for people under the rule section but my question I guess for you is because I think it's mixing a few different issues which is is it that you want so remember the board is going to be establishing the tiers for the cultivation determining and so they may say we're going to have an unlimited number of 500 under licenses where we're going to have larger amounts and so what Senator Sears says is well what is small I think I mentioned here that when I was looking at comparing with other states Vermont what you had in 241 as the largest grow operation that you would have allowed under 241 was the second smallest that mass is doing you know so it's all and you know whatever however you decide to do it and so the board is going to develop those tiers and determine how many permits are available under that if you want if you want illegal growers to come in well let's say there's like the illegal grower issue then there's like the small separate and apart if you want the board to say I want priority for small growers then I wouldn't do it in priorities I would say it separately and say when the board is issuing cultivator licenses it shall prioritize issuance of you know tiers smaller tiers or something along those lines I would go that direction then you had mentioned before about you wanted priorities that if it's a cultivator license for people to have experience but I think that's going to be something that they're developing the rules and doing in terms of like if you're doing it illegally now and you're going to you're going to get the VIP pass to the front I'm honestly I'm not clear about how to write that but if you'll do this put some language in there about this small that satisfies but I do want to recognize that I understand that it is a policy decision that you know a large private bill is in many different places intended to bring people from the illegal market into the regulated market and that's a goal of this in order to kind of minimize the illegal market as much as possible but so I get it but I'm from the drafting standpoint I'm a little stumped on what you said she'll call strip liability medical bond and build thank you Mr. Chairman and if you could give me a minute just to amend my testimony to add in your last point there it might help us in our the anti he would object to that so again thank you Mr. Chairman we believe this will associate the industry to her mom we appreciate the time we're providing for some additional testimony and at the committee's time so I'll try to be brief and talk mostly about the recommendations would be a few at this point clearly as we've testified in the past it should be no surprise we share the concerns of a raise about the impact on costs and availability of insurance on the certainty of operational costs and the other issues that have given a lot of concern about the legislation but with regard to making recommendations for the committee's consideration what I'm trying to do is look at how this legislation has evolved at different points including last year's version some of the recommendations that other witnesses have put forward and also with regard to trying to find some on the ground on monitoring provisions looking more closely at what some of the other states that have gone down the path we seem to be laying out that maybe address some of the concerns that we've had so I'll try to go through all of that at this point first of all and obviously it's a big ask but we would recommend the strict liability provisions from the bill separating that question you know but to be honest it's hard for us to come up with ways to try to massage that language that doesn't still we have that was the path this legislation took last year in terms of separating the questions for different areas of further consideration we would certainly recommend that this legislation follow a similar path as that beyond that we have made a recommendation in the past it might be better to look at maybe addressing some of the remedies or recourses in 6615 of title 10 where you have the state response to the releases of the damages or concerns that people seem to address in those sections of this bill could maybe be addressed in some way in that area so our second recommendation is to this one you've certainly heard before including in this go around so to go ahead and exclude permitted releases that are in compliance with statutory regulatory requirements from the viability provisions of the bill you know it's been raised that that's not always a defense of the context but that doesn't mean that it's not a reasonable defense or criteria in this context we think that that certainly speaks to the question of whether a company is acting negligently or irresponsibly and also there's sort of predictability and confidence that both companies and their insurers or other finance or others have if we were to do that that that would actually hurt efforts to hold somebody accountable who had created under current law created a toxic environment I'm thinking specifically the same domain accepted responsibility for polluting even though it's questionable that the permits were there when they did it this would exclude them from that because if they had the permits this would be dramatic change I would think and maybe I'm reading more into it and I wish Mike was here but I'm thinking that this would actually give more protection to the polluter that's currently available that's certainly a fair concern maybe I'm wrong I'm happy to be wrong I hope I have I have the disadvantage or advantage of also not being a lawyer I don't think what we would recommend is taking away three courses that currently exist except this legislation changes criteria or perhaps increases exposure to liability that that be focused on I would that would be one question that I would request that somebody who looks at this either Mike or Grady or somebody else to explain to make sure that if we were to accept this we wouldn't be going backwards I was going to ask Bill a question about that but in that definition you would leave intentional work on it but could degree do what you wanted to an unintentional violation of a permit that would be covered and you know if we yield on that maybe we would like to massage that for a little bit the core of the definition the third point how would that hurt that's my favorite of what I was just about to yeah the one that's your definition right so I'm concerned with that is that yes right and this seems unnecessarily and so broad you know showing by actually simply increasing the risk of development of the latency that gets back to the question of whether the coffee in your cup or the cream in your coffee the sugar in your coffee it's going to be encapsulated or captured by the scope of the legislation and our view is that if you look at the other definitions that are in there in terms of the list they're on there's the health determination of the Department of Health you'll get all those other categories that capture what a cup or a cup chemical would be just seems very comprehensive and sufficient in our view the alternative would be to incorporate within this provision all sorts of criteria about the scientific standards that provision was added after the bill I believe it was not in the original there have been varying versions that I have to have around that that's true but as far as it's so broad that it would bring in as it's current what is harmful we found that something was harmful I don't know who you'd sue for that I'm trying to figure it out because it's harmful maybe my mother didn't tell me we were sunscreen so next we're going to the amendment that we forgot on Tuesday I'll just follow that on page 8 so the first one addresses the first criteria and we would certainly move into torturous conduct because I think we didn't step forward from what the original language was we think it would be more clear and appropriate to be more specific about requiring negligence or reckless conduct if you look at the states that have court precedence establishing medical liability it appears that most of them have negligence as the standard and we get that out in a more appropriate way this precise formulation I just took from the testimony that was suggested which seems to be the reason for the formulation obviously there are others if you look at those court decisions sometimes just negligence but we would recommend that change the next one again that has come up is requiring exposure to exceed background levels and I would also suggest consideration of looking at actual state and federal health guidelines because these responsible authorities have looked at how much of an exposure is of concern and that would seem to be relevant to this topic again certainly background above background level exposure something that other states have looked at again pencil that and when I speak of Pennsylvania the source I was using was the decision on the motion to compel that I think was put into your record on Tuesday I'm not getting tense to read through it but it included a list of some of the criteria in Pennsylvania that seemed I think Pennsylvania gets referenced for how many and a lot of the language seem to be make sense for what we're trying to to offer here finally again this is against these two sort of the level of the level of harm and criteria rather than being too open-ended that's to require as approximate result of the exposure that the person has a significantly increased risk of contracting a serious life disease again that's from the Pennsylvania description the current language in here number three is simply just any increase in risk which is again seems too much of a de minimis threshold to really have a significant meaning and there's also the concern and controversy over whether there doesn't even have to be a serious life disease it seems like language like this in other from other states would have a more reasonable bar to meet would be more appropriate in that sense also similarly in terms of having criteria for the need of the monitoring again this is just combined from two of the provisions in the Pennsylvania descriptions which is that rather than simply having any affiliation of prescribed monitoring without any sort of standards associated with that she would instead say that prescribed monitoring is different than that normally recommended in the absence of the exposure and that the monitoring is reasonably necessary according to contemporary scientific principles again obviously something like that would be in two different ways I simply borrowed the working from that Pennsylvania overview and then the last point again this has come up and I apologize I haven't been here when the committee has discussed this and every time that there's a reason but there has been a question again is this really retroactive or isn't it and I know a number of folks concerned with the legislation have been interested in making sure that's not retroactive so as to write greater clarity going forward as opposed to uncertainty and risk going backwards and I know there's been a lot of discussion I would be sure to admit if it's the interest of the committee to have it not be retroactive just to be explicit about that in the legislation to avoid the argument about that I have a question about retroactivity that would need to be answered that is I'm fine if we wanted to exempt something that's already in a court system like the Sanctuary of files that's the thing that was already in court files but what about a product that was used 10 years ago that we now find has impacted the groundwater that would be we couldn't go after it because it happened 10 years ago it's like it's like looking at a statute of limitations and having a zero statute of limitations so I would I would be more concerned about things that are that we haven't discovered yet well I could see a say well it's already in the court system the courts are already dealing with the current law this could actually confuse I suppose but I don't know how I say well I have though we found out that another chemical company had exposed reminders to some serious health then we would be exempting them because we said it wasn't retroactive it would be only futures bills future congratulations I would be my concern there I understand where you're going yeah and I appreciate that I didn't have wasn't able to find time to dig it up I know there was some legislation some language discussed on the house side you know that's that's a good or bad I tried to address that question how do you address retroactivity you did not make it into the final version that went through the process but we tried to dig it up and see if there's time to see that any other questions we do have one question about background weapons yeah did that I mean at the background I didn't think of that I was not even in Wellington I have a constituent who's arguing you with me because it was well tested at zero and I'm sorry that you don't have toxic waste on your well. We don't know why it tested at zero but keep testing but you know there is no contamination so really you're not eligible for the oh it's system and the other things that were provided that was really kind of a humerus but it was odd because he wanted to be contaminated so so I wonder if that is already there. I know it popped up in and out of versions going out. I think I don't have any problem saying if you're and if you're not contaminated under the background levels that have been established by the state. I don't base in the draft that the draft you got Tuesday and also and also I do want to make it clear that you know exposure above background levels you can find that in other states. I don't know if there are other states that address state and federal health guidelines that's that's just our recommendation. It's not in the bill right now. No but the exposure is above yeah the background level is I think it's actually the other way the reason enough of the contamination in your right it says that the exposure increases the risk of developing the late disease. Right so if it was below the background level let's say there were a number of wells that were below 20 parts per trillion. That several wells below 20 parts per trillion those weren't considered to be in their major level and there was a retest of them because some of them that were below that level were actually near wells that tested high above so there's no you know shallow wells might test lower deeper wells may test lower it's hard to tell how the PFOAs went through the ground water but so right so your point is your because the background level was it was then you were exposed that exposure right increases your risk but if your exposure was over 20 then you are considered to be a risky population and do we I mean in that case do we know what the background level was before I mean like in what in our case with Vermont Yankee we know that there is a certain background level of radio activity in in the air and in the ground and in our bodies but so if your exposure is above that that level then it's considered exposure but if it's if it's at that level and it will be fact that just you know I think Yankee is a good example of because radio you know radio activity can come from multiple sources you know that exposure increased your your risk of developing the if you were bound to be above that background level but I'm I don't know I hear more comments but it does seem to me that if you're that there should be an exposure above a background level in order to I think that's a policy decision committee if they want any other questions those are those are our key recommendation thank you it's just one of the first of your top I could go along with that The final witness of the meeting is Ken Brunel always stumble on your last name Ken I'm sorry there was an attorney for Vermont law school and they had some comments about some of the recommendations for the recommendation Well first of all I'd like to share that everybody does have to do my last name which is why my wife did not decide to take my last name She did not want to be called Mrs. Rumlet for the rest of her life So I'll take a stab at addressing some of the comments that Mr. Griskell just and I think I want to start off with the background levels issue because that is anything fresh on everybody's mind the key issue in any claim for medical monitoring is what has happened to you as a result of exposure to the defendants chemicals so in order to prove that we need to prove that a defendant caused you to be exposed to a certain concentration of chemicals in whether or not monitoring is required in that scenario doesn't depend on existing background levels the question is whether that contribution is sufficient to warrant the need for medical does that make sense no no oh it doesn't to me because if you already have a I mean I'm not as familiar with the PFOA issue but I am very familiar with the Vermont Yankees if I have that level of radioactivity and in the that's the background level how can I claim that exposure to Vermont Yankee has let's say the threshold for the need for monitoring is 20 and there's a background level of five if you're in monitoring is only again required or recommended if you have an exposure of 20 well I don't understand that because it doesn't say that is that what it says here but that we can establish the level for let me track an expert will come in and testify that above a threshold exposure of say 20 whatever units those are monitoring is recommended does that make sense yeah and let's say there's a background level of five assuming we all agree on what the term background level is which is another story in so therefore in order to get monitoring under a medical monitoring claim you would need to prove that the defendant is responsible for an exposure of I get that and that is so it would always be above whatever would be considered though but I think that goes back to the second criteria there's a probable length of exposure to the toxic substance and the late disease and so if the exposure is based on the background level if you have what the scenario now there's also the situation where there is some background exposure say five again in the defendant is responsible for 15 and the plane to prove that well the question then is is their contribution to the plaintiff exposure that puts an active level something that they should be responsible for you know I think the answer to that yes if you've sent somebody over the edge then liability to attempt now the other issue with background levels is there will be a large debate over what background means and how to calculate it with something like PFOA which is not a natural chemical what should the background be zero I think that's pretty plain to see there's other types of substances for which like radiation there might be some background levels that aren't a trivial to you anthropogenic sources but why get into that debate the question is whether your exposure that's a result of the defendant's conduct is enough to put you in a situation where monitoring is recommended and what about the issue of some of suggested are we done with the background I am some of suggested that there be a level of this of the toxic discharge and be by gallons or whatever that is is that problematic in determining how many you know I only still 50 gallons which is a thousand gallons well I would recommend and I think you were speaking to the scope of defendants who might fall under the medical monitor or the strict libelization we have now exposure right you were to expose the population to it in my view the issue is whether whatever was released is enough to cause harm in or or necessary part or requires monitoring as a result of exposure in order I understand there's a concern over not bringing in mom and pop business into the realm of strict liability or medical monitoring I think that's a fair concern I would not I would not add a requirement based on the amount of any particular chemical rather look at the capability of the business or industry to address the risks and I think a good indicator of that is the number of employees either cat a particular facility or corporate life that's in the build-up or in the draft I might have one more thing I think if you have this issue of having to determine how much of a particular chemical is on site there would be debates or active ingredients in the next year and it overly complicates the situation that really isn't about regulation right this isn't requiring somebody to do or refrain from doing anything file reports hire somebody to look at you know complying with OSHA or other the issues just who should who has the level of sophistication to understand the seriousness of using toxic chemicals and releasing them to the environment I believe that's the concern there was testimony about excluding from strict liability releases that are permitted under a current permanent or future permit in I think we have to go back and look at why we're here in the first place we're here in the first place because the law and the regulations were not sufficiently protective or remonters if there were releases of a chemical that was not regulated still isn't regulated nationally certainly and as a result of that people are in a bad situation so to the extent that there's a desire to exclude a car about permitted releases that ignores the entire problem and I think eliminates the safety net which is why this legislation is being proposed in the first place the other thing I've mentioned is that I want to dwell on that for a minute because I think that there's been a lot of misunderstanding about the goal of the bill. It is because the laws is not adequately currently protected by the industry's concern they realize the insurance industry's concern I realize nobody wants to be held responsible for something that happened and the industry would rather have the taxpayer or the victim pay by that you found no other system in this nation that holds the victim accountable for the damages done by the perpetrator. We deal with criminal law all the time. I mean it would be absurd to put the victim in jail rather than the perpetrator of an aggravated sexual assault. That's my grant for that one. You had your rent for the day before. No, it's the second rent of that. It started out as a bad day all around. But I thank you for raising that point. I really think that's something that's been missing at least in the conversation. Why would we do this in the first place? That's a nice segue into what I wanted to say next which is that it seems odd to me to request an exemption for permitted releases under strict liability if you truly believe those permitted levels were protected. And safe. I think it comes with an understanding that they're not. Or that there's certainly a significant risk that those standards aren't protected. So I find that a little conflicting in my personal view. So I'm just not sure. So you're saying the standards set by the state, for example, are not safe? I'm saying that there's a possibility, certainly, that they're not safe. And if there was 100% confidence that those levels would be protected for now and forever, in the setting of those standards there was only concern over risk to human health and the environment. And on that basis, those standards were set, which is not the case all the time. Certainly not under, you know, statutes that require a look at the economic impact of regulations. Then it would be more palatable in my view to say we should carve these permitted releases out, but we know that's not the case. We know that there is no, I think, perfectly protected standard. No, 100%. And maybe less than that. We've seen, certainly, in the case of PFOA, that industry had knowledge of the impacts of the chemical on human health, and that was kept from the public, kept from regulators. And as a result, for many, many years, and still today, it's not a regulated chemical at the national level. And I think Vermont is now working towards regulations, but, you know, this is already four or five years after discovery of PFOA issues. So in another setting last night, I heard from our, the chair of our Natural Resources, and he, I don't remember the exact number, but there are something like 5,000 PFAs or PFs, whatever they're called. And it went from five that had some definition. I believe he said we're now up to about 60. That's 60 out of 5,000, or whatever that number is, is not. So you're right. We're way, way, way behind. We are way behind, and that the standard for a class of chemicals for regulation is absolute proof of harm, we're not going to know.  Right. And everybody else in town. And everybody else in town. So moving right along. There was concern over the language in the bill about the standard for medical monitoring with respect to an increased risk of harm. The concern was that it's overly broad, and there should be additional qualifiers on the issue. And I would say one, when you incorporate language, which is in some other states. That's on page 7.50 and 16 of the bill. I think this is one of those issues though. We could argue all day about that. Whenever you add qualifier like significant, what you're doing is inviting litigation over what that term means. And I think the real question is whether when taken as a whole, you look at all of the elements that a plaintiff would need to prove in order to get monitoring. And the difficulty in proving those, that there's an understanding that we're not talking about situations where you drink a cup of coffee and you see the coffee coming. That's kind of an absurd read of how this would work. Because there's other provisions about who can be held liable. There's provisions that require a release from a certain type of facility. There's provisions that say that the exposure, that testing is reasonably necessary for the exposure and the definition of that. So I would caution the use of any of these qualifying words that are just going to be by litigation. When taken as a whole, the statute would address those concerns. And on top of that, and we've spoken about this before and I know there's been testimony about it, these are not easy claims. It requires a tremendous amount of resource. They're also very much population based claims. This isn't someone going to see a doctor. This is a whole community that's been exposed. That's traditionally where medical monitoring claims have been brought. So again, I would just caution against those kinds of, I like to call them measly workers, entering into the statute. There was testimony about defining tortuous conduct more specifically. I'm not sure exactly where the issue is. I know there's probably a desire to limit what kind of conduct could trigger medical monitoring. I would say at a minimum you would want to include, if it's further to find negligence, fairly reckless conduct with the one that you could include, but also the common law torts of trespass and nuisance. Those are often included in these kinds of claims where there's been a release that has a substance into the environment. And I really think that at least my memory is that the issues over whether strict liability would apply here. And that's of course a decision that his body can make. There was testimony that the medical monitoring language should require testing that is different than normally recommended in an accorded to contemporary scientific principles. I go back to what is it that we are dealing with here. Very similar to the background level of exposure issue that we talked about earlier. Different than normally recommended? Well the question is whether the defendants cause the exposure and as a result this person is required to have some kind of testing. In order to find that, or I'm sorry, detect that lane disease as early as possible. And that's it. Why look at whether in the absence of exposure what they would be required to look at the question is did this conduct necessitate testing? And if so, should a person, should the defendant be viable for it? Otherwise we're going to get into issues of well, what's your medical history? What are you normally tested for? What is anybody normally tested for? And that actually would open people up to having their irrelevant medical records become part of the case and prolonging the litigation substantially. So there's a risk there. And then finally the issue of retroactivity. My understanding of the month law is that a statute is not retroactive unless it expressly says so. So the language has to be explicit and that's just a decision again. What about a, even Michael or yourself? Can we distinguish between those things we don't know? I'm going to sound like no once in a while. No, not no. No, not no. We know there has been pollution but we haven't identified it yet so we don't know what we don't know. And if we don't allow some recourse for prior bad acts, I just, you know, again, I'm certainly fine with saying cases already been disposed of or the cases in court right now and it's not going to be affected by this new law. That would be really retroactive if you're kind of really upset a case that's already been decided. But I'm just worried about what we don't know. If you asked me five years ago, was there contamination in my neighbor's wells? I would have said no, they'd probably get a better water than I'd got from the town.  We had already decided that that would not be something that could be looked at. I'm really worried about that. So I don't know if there's a way to say, I don't know how to write it. So, Mr. Rommel, correct that under state statute 1BSA 213 says the laws operate prospectively, unless it's expressly provided that it applies retroactively. And you do retroactive laws that really have not been challenged by our constitution. Look at that building over there. Somebody designed that, an architect designed that 50 or 100 years ago, right? And we did do statute of limitations. Right, so this is what under 1BSA 214, the law does not affect any right privilege obligation or liability acquired accrue or incurred acquired to the extent of the amount of other repeals. So part of what 1BSA 215 has is when does the liability accrue or something like the PFOA releases when the contamination is discovered. And there are standards for that as to when it triggers the statute of limitations that you were just discussing. So I think you have some opportunity if you want to write language. I don't want to leave any futures contamination. That was a product that we thought were just wonderful. I remember when they banned it, my father going to the store and stalking up before they did it aloud. I was a little worried about it, but I was pretty young then and I didn't dare tell my father not to do it. But he thought it was a wonder thing to get rid of it. It was done. It was done. Anyway, I think of things like that when it was first applied it was seen as a wonderful thing. And I'm sure today we are using chemicals and we are using I mean who knows what the impact of cellular phones is that we're all using. My constituents can tell you. Yeah, well, I've got some constituents who have some real beliefs about the ways but I won't go there. But who knows what might be discovered later. So I think it's important that there be some form of that in the bill. Yeah, because if we had done this five years ago would it have completely exonerated? I mean it wouldn't have, yeah. So we need, I think, Michael. I don't think we should make things worse than they are today. Good night overall. I can try to work on that. So just to look at that, I hate to keep telling you about Senko Bain but for the people who haven't filed how about if the class action suit was withdrawn and started again? Well, are you saying would that somehow that they'd be outside the statute of limitations? Is that your concern? No, that they could do it again based on just thinking well, nobody's questioning what they're doing now. Well there's already litigation ongoing right now. Right. And there's another provision in law that says the acts or repeals that you adopt do not affect the ongoing litigation. So the law at the time that litigation was initiated will be the law. But there you can do some language around like when it was discovered or when it would, whatever. Yeah, I think just any statute of limitations should be after the discovery. Interesting. Are there any other questions for the professor and lawyer? This is, you know, both of you have been extremely helpful in identifying some of the issues. I don't know if they'll be satisfactory whatever the committee comes up with. But hopefully this morning we'll get further along.