Policy Research Shop Testimony: January 24, 2013

PRS Student Testifies Before Vermont Committee of Fish, Wildlife, And Water Resources

On Thursday, January 24, 2013, a policy brief produced by Kevin Schorr ’15, Kamran Ali ’15, and Edgar Sandoval ’14 in the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center’s Policy Research Shop, was presented to the Vermont House of Representatives Committee on Fish, Wildlife, and Water Resources in the State Capitol building in Montpelier, VT. Kevin Schorr, the lone member of the team on campus for the winter term, provided formal testimony on their brief, “Assessing the Feasibility of a Vermont Statewide Stormwater Utility,” and responded to questions from Chairman David Dean and committee members.

Currently there are more than 1,300 stormwater utilities established across the nation. While some of these utilities serve populations as large as Vermont and other occupy land area close to the size of Vermont, there has yet to be a statewide stormwater utility established in the United States. The PRS research team developed a comparative case study design in order to construct a compendium of best practices across six design and implementation criteria that will serve the Committee in its future planning. After the presentation, representatives from the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources asked if members of the PRS team would be willing to attend one of their meetings to brief the Agency on the findings of the report.