Good afternoon friends and neighbors,

The Legislature adjourned for the year last night. Thank you to those who joined me this morning for an early debrief on what happened with the education bills.

Here is an update on several major bills that passed during the final days of session, including changes related to data privacy, fish and wildlife, telecommunications siting, ticket resale practices, and other issues we worked on this year. Most of these bills are awaiting action from the Governor.

I’ll send an education, tax and budget update next in the next day or two. I’ll also send one final update focused on some of the larger unresolved debates and end-of-session issues that shaped the final days of the session sometime this week.

Housing

Housing remains one of Vermont’s biggest challenges this year. The Legislature and Governor continued investments and programs intended to support housing development through S.127, while also revisiting last year’s Act 181 land-use changes through S.325. For many communities in Southern Vermont, the repeal of the proposed Tier 3 and Road Rule provisions was the most significant housing and land-use outcome of the session, reflecting concerns raised by local residents, municipalities, and property owners about how those policies would affect future housing opportunities and rural communities. H.772, a bill aimed at improving landlord protections, carefully balanced with tenant advocate requests when it left the House on a vote of 120-21 in March, blew up at the last minute in the Senate.

H.928 – Fish and Wildlife Technical Changes

H.928 is primarily a fish and wildlife technical corrections bill. The House version updates parts of Vermont’s wildlife violation point system so it better matches current Fish and Wildlife Board rules. That includes updates related to deer, bear, turkey, moose, trapping, shooting from vehicles, and use of lights while hunting.

The bill also changes how annual hunting and fishing licenses work by allowing them to remain valid for 365 days from the date they are issued instead of automatically expiring on December 31. Another House change gives Fish and Wildlife temporary authority to establish fees for new big game tags or permits before the Legislature formally approves them.

The Senate added language allowing the Fish and Wildlife Department to establish fees for use of department facilities and lands, including waterfowl hunts, conservation camps, meeting rooms, special use permits, and event rentals at facilities like the Kehoe Education Center and Buck Lake Conservation Camp.

The bill has passed the House and Senate and is now headed to the Governor

Cell Tower Siting

This week the House concurred with the Senate proposal of amendment to H.527, a bill I sponsored to extend Vermont’s existing statewide telecommunications siting process under 30 V.S.A. § 248a through 2029. This process is used for many wireless and telecommunications infrastructure projects across the state instead of the Act 250 process and has been in place for close to 20 years.

During testimony on this bill, we heard from Vermonters who felt local communities were not always receiving enough information early enough in the process or did not feel meaningfully included before applications were formally filed. Both the House and Senate worked to improve the public notice and local meeting requirements in response to those concerns.

Under the final proposal, cell tower applicants will still be required to provide advance notice before filing an application, but for most larger projects municipalities will now also be required to host a public meeting during the preapplication period that the developer must attend. The Senate proposal also requires the Department of Public Service to attend those meetings.

The goal was not to stop telecommunications projects, but to improve communication and local participation earlier in the process before positions harden and conflicts escalate.

This bill will soon be on it’s way to the governor

Event Ticket Reselling

H.512, the event ticketing bill, passed both the House and Senate and is intended to address some of the frustrations Vermonters experience when trying to buy tickets for concerts, fairs, performances, and sporting events.

A major focus of the bill is the resale market. Under the proposal, ticket resellers generally would not be allowed to resell tickets for more than 110% of the original ticket price for events held at smaller independent venues, nonprofit fairgrounds and community venues, and many amateur or collegiate sporting events.

The bill could impact platforms like Ticketmaster or other online resale exchanges when they are operating as the resale marketplace for covered Vermont events. However, the bill is narrower than a statewide cap on all ticket resale prices. Larger national arena-scale events and some resale arrangements authorized directly by venues or artists may not fall under these restrictions.

The bill also prohibits “speculative” ticket sales. That means sellers cannot advertise or sell tickets they do not actually possess or control at the time of sale. The law is currently a temporary program and will sunset in July 2028 unless extended by the Legislature.

Privacy, Data, and Consumer Protection

One area where the Legislature continued to struggle this year was consumer privacy and personal data protections.

The reality is that, in many ways, because we are so late, we are dealing with the proverbial horse being already out of the barn. Vermonters’ personal information is constantly being collected, analyzed, shared, sold, and used by online platforms, apps, advertisers, data brokers, artificial intelligence systems, and technology companies with very limited public visibility into how those systems actually work. There is a definite sense of entitlement to your data that is harder and harder to overcome every year given the scale of investment in advocacy on this issue.

Recent lawsuits and investigations involving large technology companies have also increased concerns about whether online platforms have deliberately designed products to maximize addictive use, particularly among children and teenagers, while collecting enormous amounts of personal and behavioral data in the process.

Just this week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to block Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark’s lawsuit against Meta over allegations that Instagram was deliberately designed in ways that harmed young users and fueled compulsive use, allowing the case to continue moving forward in Vermont courts.

At the same time, Congress and federal regulators have largely failed to create meaningful national privacy protections, while many large technology and business interests continue to resist stronger consumer safeguards and transparency requirements.

Despite those challenges, the Vermont Legislature did make some modest progress this year through several bills focused on consumer privacy, online surveillance, cybersecurity, and genetic information protections. Much of that work was driven through years of persistent efforts by retiring Representative Mike Marcotte, retiring Senator Alison Clarkson, Representative Edye Graning, and national privacy expert and Vermont State Representative Monique Priestley.

The three bills below are all headed to the governor for his consideration.

H.211 – Data Brokers

The Legislature passed H.211, a consumer privacy bill intended to give Vermonters more control over how their personal information is collected, shared, and sold online.

The bill expands Vermont’s existing data broker laws and requires many companies that collect and sell personal information to register with the State and provide more information about the kinds of data they collect and who they share it with. That includes categories like precise geolocation data, biometric information, reproductive health information, and other highly sensitive personal data.

The proposal also strengthens breach notification requirements and creates additional penalties for companies that fail to properly disclose or secure consumer information. It requires data brokers to disclose security breaches to both consumers and the Attorney General within specific timeframes.

The Senate also added additional cybersecurity and educational technology provisions, including updates related to school technology products and adding legislative leaders to the State Cybersecurity Advisory Council, an objective I have worked for for years.

The current fiscal note estimates the bill would increase annual data broker registration fees and strengthen penalties for companies that fail to properly register or disclose information. Fiscal note

Vermont Data Privacy and Online Surveillance

The legislature also passed S.71, the Vermont Data Privacy and Online Surveillance Act, which attempts to establish consumer rights over personal data collected by companies operating online.

The bill is intended to give Vermonters more ability to understand what information companies are collecting about them, whether that information is being sold or used for targeted advertising, and whether consumers can request that certain information be deleted.

The proposal would allow consumers to request access to personal data collected about them, correct inaccurate information, request deletion of data, and opt out of targeted advertising or the sale of personal information.

The bill also attempts to create stronger protections around especially sensitive information, including:

• precise location tracking,
• biometric information like facial recognition or voiceprints,
• reproductive and sexual health information,
• gender-affirming health data,
• genetic information,
• and data collected from minors.
  Another major focus of S.71 is limiting certain forms of online surveillance and targeted advertising that rely on tracking consumers’ behavior across websites, apps, and devices over time. The bill would also require companies to provide clearer privacy notices and allow Vermonters to opt out of some forms of data collection and sale.

H.639 – Genetic Data Privacy

Another bill, H.639, focused specifically on genetic data privacy and direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies.

As more Vermonters use DNA testing and ancestry services, concerns continue to grow around who owns that information, whether consumers are aware of how it may be used, and whether genetic data could eventually be shared, sold, or accessed in ways people never anticipated.

Genetic information is uniquely personal because it does not just identify an individual — it can also reveal information about biological relatives, inherited conditions, family relationships, and long-term health risks.

The bill attempts to create rules around consumer consent, disclosure, and legal protections involving direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies and genetic information collected through those services. It also preserves a consumer’s ability to pursue legal action if a company fails to properly protect or handle genetic data.

These bills are not a complete solution to the larger privacy challenges created by modern technology and artificial intelligence systems. But they represent incremental efforts to give Vermonters more transparency, stronger consumer protections, and greater control over some of the most personal information people possess.

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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

Session adjourned means its gardening time!