Sen. Watson: Bills Gov. Scott vetoed would have saved you money

July 8, 2026  |  By Sen. Anne Watson

At a time when Vermonters are worried about property taxes, electric bills, and rising costs, Gov. Phil Scott recently vetoed three bipartisan environmental bills that would have reduced expenses for taxpayers and ratepayers alike.

The data center bill (H.727) would’ve been the nation’s strongest data center regulation, designed to ensure that any data centers built here didn’t send Vermonters’ electric bills skyrocketing, didn’t increase PFAS pollution, and minimized both climate pollution and water use. Each of these has been an issue communities have faced across the country as a result of large data centers. 

Our bill had multiple provisions to ensure that centers would not increase electric rates, as they have in other parts of the country. It banned open-loop cooling systems and required that they maximize the amount of on-site renewable energy generation. This was a good bill, supported by both Democratic and Republican senators, and passed by the Senate 26-3. 

Unfortunately, the administration didn’t agree – they thought it was too strict, and the aspect that the administration objected to the most in testimony was the part that would have put money into the hands of Vermonters. Specifically, it would have created impact fees to help pay for Vermonters to transition off of expensive, foreign fossil fuels. They also expressed a preference (again in testimony) that data centers be allowed to build nuclear power generation to meet their electricity demand. This veto is particularly alarming now that a data center is being considered for the old Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station site. His veto of S.218, the salt waste reduction bill, would’ve saved taxpayers and property owners money as the need for winter salt spreading would have been reduced. The governor claimed that this bill would have increased the likelihood of slip-and-fall lawsuits. That might be true if we were reducing salt below safe levels, but safety was at the center of the bill. There’s no need to salt surfaces beyond the level that makes a surface safe. We’ve all seen salt piles on the road or in parking lots. Those piles represent wasted money. This tripartisan bill would have provided education for salt spreaders to optionally participate in (it was not mandatory as the governor claimed) about best-management practices for salt spreading. As this was a voluntary program, an additional incentive to save money was that salt applicators certified in the best management practices would receive some liability protection against slip-and-fall lawsuits. A further analysis of the governor’s veto of this bill can be found in this excellent article by Nathaniel Eisen. 

The bottom line was that the opportunity for Vermonters to save money has been missed because of the governor. 

This is also true for his recent veto of the renewable energy definitions bill, H.710. In the legislature, we referred to this bill as the “Single Plant” bill because it affected the definition of what counted as a single site for generating renewable electricity versus what counted as multiple sites. This matters because if it’s a “separate site,” then it needs to have its own infrastructure, like access roads and poles. So by clarifying when a site can be considered a single site, some solar could be built more cheaply, bringing lower-cost electricity to Vermonters. 

This bill would have made definitions clearer, made more efficient use of impacted land, and saved ratepayers on electricity costs. It was consensus language agreed upon by the Public Utility Commission, the Public Service Department, environmental groups, and industry representatives. When the governor’s veto cited the possibility of new wind generation, that came as a surprise. Any expansion of a wind project would have to go through the normal PUC process for a certificate of public good, which would not have been changed by this bill. There is effectively a moratorium on new wind in Vermont because of our very strict sound limits. We didn’t spend much time talking about wind because there is no new wind generation on the table right now. So for his veto letter to blame the possibility of adding new wind came out of left field. It’s notable that the governor’s objection regarding wind was never raised in committee. If he had, we likely could have adjusted the definition to exclude wind specifically, but that feedback was never offered. His veto of a tri-partisan bill wasted taxpayer dollars due to his lack of participation in the process.

These bills were not ideological wish lists. They were practical measures that won support from Democrats, Republicans and Progressives because they addressed real costs facing Vermonters. 

Whether the issue was road salt, renewable energy development, or data-center impacts, each bill sought to reduce waste and lower expenses. By vetoing them, Gov. Scott rejected opportunities to make Vermont more affordable.