Part I: Agriculture, Economic Development, Environment, and Transportation
The legislature adjourned in May 29, (two weeks overdue), passing four of the most significant bills on the final day—the budget, education transformation, the yield bill, and miscellaneous tax. Part I of our end of the session report focuses on legislation passed in agriculture, economic development, environment, and transportation. Next week will cover education, healthcare, housing, and energy and digital infrastructure. . We are planning an in-person public meeting in late June/early July—to be announced shortly.
AGRICULTURE, FOOD, FORESTRY
H.739 bans the use of paraquat, an herbicide linked to Parkinson's disease through wind-borne dispersion. Although paraquat is outlawed in over 70 countries, Vermont is the first state in the nation to prohibit its use. The bill was signed into law in May.
H.536 requires manufacturers of baby food and infant formula to test their products for lead, mercury, and other toxic heavy metals, and to make the results of those tests readily accessible to consumers online and through package labeling. The bill was signed into law in May.
In 2025, the General Assembly reaffirmed our previous commitment to Universal School Meals by rejecting the governor's attempt to repeal Act 64. Act 64 ensures that students have access to healthy meals and helps families.
H. 167 (Act 34) created a new Vermonters Feeding Vermonters grant program. The legislation builds on a program run by the Vermont Foodbank that provides food-insecure Vermonters with access to local produce, meat and eggs, while providing a market for 300 Vermont farmers.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
S.69 (Act 65) creates the Vermont age-appropriate design code, which requires businesses to protect minors from certain harms when processing their data. The act requires businesses to have the default privacy setting of their digital products set to the highest level when used by a minor, and prohibits the collection or sharing of a minor’s personal data unless necessary to provide a service. It also restricts the ability of a business to permit an individual to monitor the activity of a minor.
H. 385 (Act 106) prohibits coerced debt and provides protections and remedies for victims of coerced debt. This type of debt is different from identity theft in that the debt is in the victim's name, which can make it difficult to hold the perpetrator accountable. The act allows Vermont banks to place holds on potentially coercive transactions to ensure their customers don’t get scammed into giving away their money.
H. 512 is an act relating to the regulation of the event ticketing market. The bill regulates the resale of tickets through improved transparency and the prevention of predatory and deceptive practices. It also caps the price of a ticket being resold to 10% above the original ticket price including taxes and fees.
ENVIRONMENT
H.723 addresses barriers to posting one’s land from hunting and fishing,and is intended to reduce landowner-hunter conflicts. The law, which was passed and signed by the governor, no longer requires dates on postings, but continues to require annual registration with the town clerk for legally posted land. It also ensures land will be considered legally posted if there are minor ways in which the property is not perfectly posted--for example, if the occasional sign is missing or damaged.
We have over 1,000 dams across the state, including 77 high-hazard, state-regulated dams. High-hazard dams are those that pose a risk to human lives if they fail. H.778, an act relating to dam safety, is now signed into law, ensuring Vermont’s Division of Emergency Management provides support to municipalities downstream of high-hazard dams through the development of emergency operations plans.
We heard testimony throughout the session regarding the implementation of Act 181, passed in 2024 to modernize Act 250, Vermont’s land-use regulatory policy. Act 181 created the Land Use Review Board (LURB), a professional board to oversee Act 250; initiated a process for the development of regional future land-use maps; created the opportunity for municipalities to request delegation of land-use regulation such that Act 250 permits would not be needed in municipal areas meeting certain criteria; and initiated rulemaking for a road rule that would trigger Act 250, and Tier 3 areas with critical working lands and natural resources that would require additional oversight.
It also included a variety of Act 250 exemptions for certain kinds of development, particularly for housing in downtowns and villages. The House Environment Committee made changes to S.325 which include: repealing the road rule and Tier 3; initiating planning for a public-engagement process to explore how best to protect working lands and critical natural resources; creating a legislative oversight committee to increase communication and coordination between the legislature, the LURB and the Agency of Natural Resources; and aligning the expiration dates of Act 250 permit exemptions for housing. The bill awaits the governor’s consideration.
S.212, an act relating to potable water supply and wastewater system connections, creates a general permit at the Agency of Natural Resources to streamline permitting for connections to community water and wastewater systems. Permitting authority could also be delegated to municipalities in certain circumstances. The bill awaits the governor’s consideration.
TRANSPORTATION
With construction costs up over 60% in the last five years, funding for road and bridge maintenance across the state is increasingly challenging. The legislature added an annual inflation adjuster to the funding formula for town highways and structures in the FY 2026 Transportation Bill. This year’s FY2027 Transportation Bill further augments funding to municipalities by adding $3 million in one-time surplus, and by creating a new Local Option Municipal Transportation Special Fund, to be funded by a percentage of excess PILOT revenues (this legislation was ultimately moved to the FY2027 Budget Bill). The Agency of Transportation has budgeted to increase the miles of state highway maintenance projects in FY 2027 to make up for a below-average paving year in 2026.
As gas tax revenues continue to decline, AOT is working to stabilize its almost $1 billion budget. The agency eliminated 62 positions this past year, in a department of 1300-plus full-time staff. Revenues coming into AOT were once healthy enough to share with the Education Fund (receiving approximately $50 million annually through receipt of one-third of the purchase and use tax) and the Vermont State Police for Highway Patrol Joint Transportation Oversight Committee (JTOC) revenue transfer ($20 million). The JTOC revenue transfer ended in the 2026 transportation bill; the 33% revenue transfer to the Ed Fund changes to a 27% transfer in FY2027 (proposed in the transportation bill, enacted in the Miscellaneous Tax Bill). An increase in the gas tax continues to be discussed, but the governor has signaled he would veto such action.
EV CHARGERS
The FY 2026 transportation bill funded the planning of a mileage-based-user-fee program that will charge EV users for road use (EV owners currently don’t pay into the gas tax, but do pay a higher registration fee that has been funding EV chargers statewide). The FY2027 transportation bill includes a mileage-based-user-fee that starts in January 2027, lays out the payment tied to the annual auto inspection.
The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) grant to install Level III electric chargers has been reinstated. One charging station in Bradford has been up and running since 2024; another eight locations across the state should be functional by year-end 2026.
The FY2027 DMV Bill requires the DMV to update the annual inspection manual to prioritize safety issues and provide relief from minor maintenance requirements. Among other items, the bill tightens accountability on trucks illegally passing through Smuggler’s Notch, on snowmobiles using VAST trails without a permit, and requires the use of a personal flotation device while boating in winter.
The DMV finished its multi-year modernization project last fall, replacing a 50-year-old mainframe computer system. The new system offers much-improved customer service for individuals (license and registration renewals), and for municipalities (instantaneous VT Haul Pass permits). Visit mydmv.vermont.gov.
