Hello Friends and Neighbors,

This Memorial Day, I hope you will join me in remembering those who lost their lives in service to our country. Behind every name on a memorial are families and communities changed forever. May we honor their sacrifice not only by remembering, but by being aware of the decisions made on our behalf that ask others to serve and sacrifice.

This coming week will likely be the final week of the legislative session. It appears that the Governor has come to an agreement with House and Senate negotiators on education reform and the entire House and Senate will consider this in the coming week.

I’ll be holding office hours on Saturday June 6th at the Dover Free Library at 11 am, and I hope to resume meeting on the 3rd Thursdays of the month in the evening at the Wardsboro Library at 6 pm beginning on June 18th and then again in August on the 20th.

Education Reform Update

H.955 passed out of Senate Appropriations last week and is now on the Senate Action Calendar. House Education also reviewed a side-by-side comparison prepared by Legislative Counsel outlining differences between the version passed by the House and the Senate Finance amendments.

• Side by Side for Sections 1-29 link
• Side by Side for Section 65-86 link

An amendment including the details of a further Senate, House and presumably Governor agreement is now on the Senate Calendar which you can find here.

Work continues on education finance and tax stabilization discussions, including proposals involving the use of surplus funds and buy-down mechanisms intended to moderate property tax increases during this transition period.

I will hold an online session to walk through the final bill on Saturday May 30th at 9 am on Zoom.

S.325 Conference Committee

The conference committee report reflects the Legislature’s ongoing work to revise and implement portions of Act 181, the major land-use and Act 250 reform bill passed last biennium. Overall, the conference committee kept most of the House approach in place.

The biggest changes are in Section 6 in what has become known as the “Burtt Amendment” on accessory on-farm businesses.

The conference committee allows concerts and farm stays as accessory on-farm businesses, limits farm stays to five or fewer units, and adds new operating standards for events and activities. The amendment sets a 70-decibel noise limit at the property line, requires events to end by 10:00 p.m., and requires agriculture to remain a meaningful part of the activity or event. The conference committee also delayed implementation of this section until July 1, 2027. This report passed on a voice vote in the House. I expect this area of policy to receive ongoing oversight and adjustment next year.

Data Centers, AI Infrastructure, and H.727

One issue that received significant attention this session was H.727, the Vermont Sustainable Data Centers Act.

Last year, while attending conferences and discussions related to energy policy and grid operations, I became increasingly aware of the impact very large data centers are having on electric systems and natural resources in other parts of the country. It was clear to me that Vermont should better understand these issues and establish a framework before facing similar pressures ourselves.

Vermont already has very small data centers supporting communications systems, cloud computing, hospitals, businesses, and government operations. These are not the hyperscale facilities creating large impacts elsewhere.

Hyperscale data centers tend to locate where electricity is relatively inexpensive and where large amounts of water are available for cooling. Adapting to the infrastructure demands these facilities can create, particularly when project planning and timelines are not transparent early in the process, has been difficult in other parts of the country.

This is why I sponsored H.727.

The bill does not approve or guarantee any future data-center project in Vermont. What it does is establish standards, public review, utility protections, and environmental oversight if proposals are brought forward here in the future.

The legislation requires large facilities to cover infrastructure costs associated with serving them rather than shifting those costs onto existing ratepayers. It also establishes review requirements related to grid reliability, environmental impacts, water use, and transmission impacts.

I am pleased the energy and Digital Infastructure Committee and the Senate continued working to improve the legislation as it moved through the process. H.727 is now with the Governor awaiting his signature.

I recently wrote a longer piece explaining the legislation and some of the broader national discussions around AI infrastructure, electric demand, and data-center siting. https://laurasibiliavt.com/2026/05/22/sibilia-vermonts-approach-to-regulating-data-center-siting/

Regional Governance and Pilot Program

H.762 extends the work of Vermont’s County and Regional Governance Study Committee, which is examining challenges facing towns, including staffing, emergency services, and complex responsibilities.

The bill gives the committee more time to study whether services like emergency management, dispatch, policing, tax administration, and planning would work better regionally.

It does not eliminate towns or local control, but it asks whether some services make more sense at a regional level. This bill has already been signed into law by the governor.

The Legislature also recently passed the Windham County policing pilot through S.255.

The pilot creates a voluntary regional law enforcement governance council for towns without their own police departments. Participating towns could work together on policing, dispatch, and public safety coordination instead of each town trying to manage services independently.

The pilot lasts five years so communities and the state can evaluate whether a regional model improves service, coordination, staffing stability, and costs before making any long-term decisions.

The larger issue behind the bill is one Vermont is increasingly facing across many systems: whether some services function better regionally than town-by-town.

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If you need help with state services, please reach out. I do not have staff and I work year-round, so if you do not hear back in a day or two, please follow up or send a text. If you find my work useful and are able to support it, you can do that here.

Thank you for staying engaged and staying in touch!

Rep. Laura Sibilia
Windham-2 District (Dover, Jamaica, Somerset, Stratton, Wardsboro)
Email: lsibilia@leg.state.vt.us
Phone: (802) 384-0233

With Rural Caucus leadership following a very warm day in the State House: Rep. Lucy Boyden of Cambridge, Rep. Lisa Hango of Berkshire, and Rep. Monique Priestley of Bradford.

The Rural Caucus is made up of members from different parties and regions across Vermont. We continued work this biennium on issues affecting rural communities, including outreach to our constituents about and improvements to Act 181 implementation.