This is exactly what people need to start paying attention to.
I just read the Land Use Review Board discussion memo tied to H.727 regarding “sustainable data center deployment.”
The document openly discusses how large data centers can currently avoid Act 250 review depending on how projects are structured:
parcel size
zoning status
elevation
groundwater withdrawal
road thresholds
utility exemptions
It even notes that if a data center qualifies through certain energy-generation pathways, it may bypass Act 250 review entirely through the Certificate of Public Good process.
Then the proposal recommends expanding Act 250 jurisdiction so all data centers over 20 megawatts automatically trigger state review regardless of parcel size or location.
Think about what that means.
Vermont is already planning for:
massive energy loads
large-scale data centers
utility infrastructure
transmission expansion
land siting conflicts
and centralized oversight systems
Then connect the dots:
Act 59
100% renewable mandates
H.710
H.727
Act 181
Act 250
conservation expansion
utility siting authority
At some point, all roads lead back to one thing:
LAND.
Solar needs land.
Wind needs land.
Transmission corridors need land.
Battery storage needs land.
Data centers need land and power infrastructure.
And the question ordinary Vermonters should be asking is:
Who controls that land 20 years from now?
Because once you combine:
reassessment
rising taxes
permitting restrictions
centralized planning
utility carveouts
conservation expansion
and affordability collapse
ordinary families increasingly cannot afford to keep, transfer, build on, or maintain their own property.
And when local ownership disappears, ownership consolidates upward into:
corporations
utilities
institutional buyers
conservation structures
and wealthy outside interests
That is why people are alarmed. This is what people are actually afraid of.
Once you build a statewide system centered around:
centralized land-use control
energy mandates
utility siting authority
reassessment pressure
conservation restrictions
permitting barriers
And rising carrying costs
ordinary landowners slowly lose negotiating power.
Because if you cannot afford the taxes, cannot afford the regulations, cannot subdivide land for your kids, cannot build, cannot transfer property easily, and cannot economically sustain ownership long term, eventually the land changes hands.
Then large infrastructure projects arrive:
solar fields
transmission corridors
battery systems
wind projects
data centers
And people start asking the obvious question:
What happens when the state or utilities decide these projects are “necessary infrastructure” or serve a “public benefit”?
Because eminent domain authority already exists in various utility and infrastructure contexts.
That is why people are alarmed by proposals tied to:
utility siting
centralized review boards
renewable mandates
statewide planning systems
and large-scale infrastructure expansion
, while ordinary Vermonters are simultaneously being priced out of owning the land itself.
The fear is not just higher taxes.
The fear is a gradual loss of local ownership and local control, followed by consolidation upward into systems that ordinary people no longer have meaningful influence over.
These are not isolated bills anymore.
They are pieces of a much larger land-use and infrastructure system. #VT4VT
Join me today at the statehouse
https://legislature.vermont.gov/committee/document/2026/19/Bill/622241?fbclid=IwY2xjawR8BVhleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEebLZ2MmcLEjbsX3IDlh89yoNCNJunxEbVOvIJPUubGHANZqwFrxT1FZu8Zhc_aem_bwadJAGet37g0Ea0jQJRTQ#documents-section