Legislative Update no 1

What Happened This Week

The Vermont House of Representatives passed H545 this week, which is a bill that authorizes the Vermont Department of Health to recommend immunization schedules that may vary from those reported by the current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  The Vermont Commissioner of Health will receive recommendations from the Vermont Immunization Advisory Council.

Immunizations are a personal and family matter, and this bill does nothing to alter that. It doesn’t require anyone to be vaccinated—or not vaccinated. It does allow the state of Vermont to create those schedules on its own, rather than relying solely on the federal government. H545 now moves to the Senate.

We continue to monitor and respond carefully to changes in federal policy, always keeping in mind the health and safety of Vermonters. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Committee on Commerce and Economic Development

In committee we’re looking at reports from agencies like the Agency of Commerce and Community Development on the establishment of a Sister State program to bolster trade, education, and cultural exchange. This would create a process for local sponsors to host a sister city program in their community. A study committee looked at which states have sister state programs, how they are manage, and which have been successful. Based on these findings they proposed a an application criteria and implementation plan for the program which will be house within ACCD.

We also passed H 649 a Department of Financial Regulation housekeeping bill that makes technical corrections to the Captive insurance statute.

We’re working on H. 211 a bill to limit the amount of personal data is sold by data brokers without a direct relationship to a customer. We are updating our nations first data broker law. We passed this law Act 171 in 2018 and haven’t updated it since. Now data brokers are buying and selling our data in our largely electronic world without enough protections for consumers. 1)This bill limits data brokers from selling the data of a consumers extended network. 2) It outlines a deletion mechanism for consumers to delete or otherwise opt out of having their information brokered (This is similar to the California Delete Act). 3) ****It outlines process of registration as a data broker and the reporting requirements, enforcement, and penalties that the Secretary of State and Attorney General can take in the case of data broker security breach.

This week we’ll be learning from Legislative Council and other experts on AI legislation at the federal level and what limits this may put on our ability to place guardrails on forceful influx of AI and the strain it will put on our resources and the cost of energy.