Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Good morning, everyone. This is the Vermont House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. It is Friday, 04/17/2026 at 10:30 in the morning. So we're back from a short trip to the floor today, which was unanticipated. But we do have with us one of our legislators interns, Cabot, from the morning. Thank you for being able to switch your time so that you could come in at at 10:30 instead of nine. So we appreciate your flexibility, and we're interested to hear what you found out this week. Great. Good morning. Adam Sales. I'm from GBM. Happy to go at any time of the day. I'm going to

[Cabot (Legislative Intern)]: just go over a couple of bills from the Senate and Economic Development. Again, it'll be pretty quick. H2-eleven, first, data brokers. Some takeaways from the testimony this week. There was a big mix of support and some testimony supporting an amendment that would carve out insurance companies specifically from being subject to deletion provisions. And yet specifically there, was some follow-up from Chair Clarkson, who requested information from the insurance companies regarding exactly what information they need to underwrite policies, which was the main argument that we need information to be able to underwrite policies. So they're looking into what information might be essential to business and figuring out how to

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: exempt that. So they're looking at right now, I think as we passed it out, it was a user exemption. And now they're looking at a data, think, maybe? Yes, specific data. So

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I thought we'll be good. Well, use based with specific data. If you're talking about what specific data do you need, I thought that's what we did. But we'll see what they come.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. It's

[Herb Olson (Member)]: it's hard to use kind

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: of thing too, but focusing in on what they actually think they're looking at. We'll see if There was also a concern

[Cabot (Legislative Intern)]: that by deleting data, it might search at risk for receiving financial services, how embedded data that is. And then there was testimony from Consumer Reports that was influential in the other direction, arguing that a lot of data broker information is very inaccurate and denoting that Vermont, with this bill, makes it regionally consistent with other bills that are going on. And that's how it ended, and that very impactful there. The leaning is towards a possible exemption similar to California's model, where states or when data is regulated by the FRCA, GLPA, or DBPA, then data is exempt from deletion provisions regardless of its use. And then the H512 as well, with then ticketing. There was pretty much large support for this, but there was specific pushback from senator Chittenden who had, a number of things that he'd like to see in the bill, such as defining individual persons who sell less than a specific number of tickets. 10 was the example he gave to be exempt from the price cap. Defining ticket resellers specifically to, as sellers who buy tickets and sell them for profit to differentiate them from individuals. He We propose raising the price cap to 120% and specify that the price cap applies to tickets at Vermont venues and not out of state venues. Also define marketplace fee restrictions as a percentage of the original price. And he just wants more specific language in there. And he also proposed a sunset of the price cap in 2030 to see this as a trial period. The one point that he made that got some support from Chair Partison was creating a Vermont specific venue language. So saying that if I buy a ticket, I resell a ticket, the price gap only applies just to Vermont venues. If I'm in Vermont and I buy a ticket for a venue outside of Vermont, the price gap would apply there for reselling the ticket. And that's what if there are

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: any questions on there. Is there any conversation about that lower ticket individuals only there's only 10 tickets or whatever it was about how Ticketmaster or what was the other who Stuff up. Stuff up. Thank you. How they are like eBay. So a person selling a ticket is just one person. So did was there any conversation on that?

[Cabot (Legislative Intern)]: There wasn't. Senator Chittenden kind of laid out these requests at the end, so there wasn't any opportunity for much discussion there. But, yeah, that's

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: it. Okay. Don't really, can I hear again, define the market based restrictions as a percentage of the price?

[Cabot (Legislative Intern)]: So yeah, I think that's just him saying all the fees included in buying the ticket is the original price.

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: Oh, oh, okay.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: So face value.

[Cabot (Legislative Intern)]: Yes, not face value. Because that's been a reoccurring concern of sender cleanables, which is we want to make sure all the fees are included. What he continues to go back to is when I buy a ticket, there's so many fees that charging 110%, I don't actually make my money back. So very specific that all fees are included in the original price. I see.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: So I think you answered the question by saying that Senator Chittenden laid out these issues at the end of the session or the committee here.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So maybe this is already answered. Any any thought of asking some of

[Herb Olson (Member)]: legal folks about that distinction between in state, out of state, and how that might trigger out?

[Cabot (Legislative Intern)]: I think we're gonna see the actual language very soon Right. Of what what it looks like, but there was no no time for discussion.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Yeah. And and I if I remember the attorney general weighed in on

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Bill. So I would expect Bill. Yes. They'll probably weigh in on whether it's has a valid distinction in state, obviously. Yes. I will. Questions for Cabot? Okay. Thank you, Cabot. Thank you. Appreciate your work as always. Bailey submitted his report, So it's on our web page. Oh, okay. I'll take a look at it. Looks like he it looks like he he listed the tier three and rule rule regulation issues.

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: I should talk to him about my buffers.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Baby snots. Help me.

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: I'll tell you. I get hot because it's my city.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: You cook.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: You should talk to folks in the house in bed.

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: Give me five minutes to still calm down.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: K. Any questions, committee? We were so efficient on the floor this morning, which was highly unanticipated that we really don't have anything the rest of the day. You see? We haven't heard. Garden. Garden. Garden. Wanna discuss gardening? You wanna do that? No. I do

[Herb Olson (Member)]: not wanna pay. I wanna do it.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: You could come to my house and garden for me. I would be grateful. Would would you pay him so it's some economic the right set for Yes.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: We'll sell tickets too. And if you can't get one, we can get them on the secondary market. That's right. With a

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: cap. There's no cap right now. No cap now.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: We'll probably lose money on it, though.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I'll pay you to take my ticket.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Jesus. Anything anyone wants to bring up on any of those? Standing. You and Kirk will work on the culinary piece. Jonathan and Dave, If there's anything that you heard, either one of you heard, ethic tourism that you want to include in you know, I thought it was pretty interesting, especially what we heard from Brett. Knew Bob knew how to hear the issues that he had, which I found kind of interesting. He knew about VITIP, but I don't know if he knew about VITIP at the right time or not. And if he went to a bank outside of Vermont, he's probably not going to get information about what else is there. Sounds like he knew about Efficiency Vermont, but was it at the right time Yeah. You know, before he did upgrades and, you know, the issue with the fire marshal and understanding. But, you know, I think a lot of times when you bring in an electrician, he was doing a big project, I think you bring in an electrician, a plumber, they're going to tell you, because they know the codes, whether or not everything is up to par or if you're gonna have to rewire the thing. Wondering how that came as a surprise to them. Yeah, that might be something, I know, having a conversation, we were to follow-up with mister Jensen on that a little bit, just to see the idea that maybe Section 7 could have some really ensure that what we're asking for would be working at. So that's part of the process. Here's a great example of a new business and economics of things. Right, yeah. I guess the question there too is, how do we disseminate that information to the bankers, to efficiency Vermont, small business development center, making sure they all, the RDCs, So everybody has the information. So wherever a business might go, the drawback is with banks or financial institutions that are outside the state. Because I think our in in Vermont institution know about these. You think we'll treat some ideas of the meantime or something? Yeah, and if you You can touch base with Kiera too if you want to talk to Brett again. You could get his information. I think he had a lot of information what he went through. So how do we utilize that information to come up with the process that we'd like to see? Get in touch with you. Okay. So I think, you know, next week good. Our schedule looks like right now. I think we're gonna have to redo Redo our agenda. You know? Yeah. I think it's been slow. Question.

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: About tobacco products. Yep. I know that we passed it out of our community. Yep. I received a call yesterday for from a constituent that she was concerned that we didn't go far enough on on it, which I mean In what piece? She just said the bill that didn't go far enough, and she did mention the fees.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: K. So I think you should mention that our purview in that bill was consumer protection. Correct. That's what we did and now it's going it's up to

[Unidentified Member (possible real estate professional)]: Yeah.

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: And I did that and I asked her to send me something, but if she hasn't done it yet. But if she does send me something, if it falls within our jurisdiction, are we able to, like, take a peek at it to decide whether or not we wanna do something with it? If it's

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: if it's part of of Consumer protection. If it's part of that section of the bill, yeah. But if it's not, I will give it to Teresa. Yep. Oh, no. Yeah. And that's

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: what I told her. I said, you know, it's kind of out of our committee now and but I'll forward it on to the committees of of jurisdiction when you send it. But I just wanted to check. Are we allowed to tweak it after we have sent it? Or we can do anything we want right? But

[Unidentified Member (possible real estate professional)]: doesn't want to get sent back to us with the amendments that they put on and then we do a straw poll. Okay, so.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. Internet is really slow. I don't know why because I had my email opened in my phone. Didn't

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Did you that, did you indeed see that when the proxy sent in some suggestions?

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Yes, he's not.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: My name is not a reddit. The

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: day that we were in VA,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: There was another document that sort of refined something with her testimony.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, she just followed up from her verbal testimony with just some suggestions for the report. Is Ellen, Ellen had sent So

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: on Linda's is on the Yeah. Two So Well, I guess I'll do that because Abby won't be here. Okay. So on Tuesday at nine we're gonna take up 03:27. We're gonna have Dave Ramsey come in and talk about he's gonna talk about daily fees.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Not sure. No.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. No. Apprenticeship is in.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: The pilot program. Yeah, that's what I meant. Culinary.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: The apprenticeship is in 01/1973. So he can only be here for half an hour. But I think we may have either have if it's about this, we could have Cameron come in to go over to brush his pennies, Made a few small changes and he's come up with price card that we can put in the bill, pricing.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: To make it really clear what was rounding and what it looks like.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Something with the businesses we use assigned to provide notice. Right? So

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: we could

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: have him do that then. We got 03:27 again in the afternoon. So I think anything that you can come up with to give to Rick by Monday would be helpful. If if it's not by Wednesday, we need to think we need to try to move that day Wednesday. Which bill?

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Three twenty six. Economics bill. Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So we won't vote on it on Tuesday, but we'll try to vote on it Wednesday afternoon. So if you can get work on that, get stuff to we'll get it as much of it ready for two Wednesdays. We'll do that after the tour Wednesday afternoon. So Wednesday morning, Edye and I will be meeting with Beth on Monday, I hope, via Zoom to try to straighten out the

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Second.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: The state, straighten out the rural stuff. The issue there is a pre draft done, have AOE working with Black Ted and the superintendents come up with those, that pre draft, and then they'll go to the board for ruling.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: As you're having these discussions, might be just me, but I was quite taken aback by the testimony of the board. And just thinking about my past lives, if an agency doesn't wanna do something, it doesn't turn out well. Well, so

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: that that construct was brought to us by AOE in their first iteration using ESSA. That that was one thing that they had in there as well was to do a pre draft and get it to so we're just gonna add make sure that that that I I

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I hear you, and that that covers that sort of little piece Yeah. Of, you know, as opposed to getting

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: work done and then running the bias. Know? That's how I I don't think we're gonna need to have them run it by us before they take it down. Okay.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Right, you just wanna know, you just wanna have some connection so that whatever is out there, you actually have some input, right? I'm thinking about the larger context. My sense is the board did not wanna do this, and there were a number of different reasons, and I'm just worried. Like I said, an agency doesn't wanna do something, they can pass or aggressively dig in their heels.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. They wanted funding to do.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Yeah. Well, they wanted a lot of things, but the overall met and you could deal maybe with the specific issues. Yeah. But the overall message, I may have mistaken, but the overall message was they didn't

[Unidentified Member (possible real estate professional)]: wanna do this. I I not saying that that it was very clear. I agree with you. It was pretty clear to me they did not wanna

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: do that.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: So I I'm thinking I mean, I it's probably not the time to debate it, but I'm maybe gonna give a little thought to him over the weekend about some of the alternative mechanisms that he could use to get some things done in accordance with, we've identified some issues, and are there some other different ways to get that done, so that you'll be able to have something to sink your teeth into, and maybe enact into legislation next session? So I'll think about it, and I'll share it with you

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: before next week. Or don't. Yeah. Before Monday. Why don't you join us on Monday? That's fine. Well, just I'll ask Beth to send this Okay. To you. And I'll send something out to everyone.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Yeah, well, I guess a pair of glasses, like Michael's, I can garden while I'm

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Or you could come to doing my house and garden then join the meeting. There's a gentleman in this building, not

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: just me, that has the glasses. He saw me the other day and he pulled me off to the side. He's a he's a I think he's like a he's not a reporter, but he he has the camera from Lindenville, and he does have one, though. And he had the ring and everything.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Actually, it doesn't work for me, you know, because what I do is I'm gardening and thinking,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: you know, so I like to think. You

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: like to get to the brute?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: And pull out the you you got pull out games. I hate it. It's still alive. Still still So we'll have something to bring back to the video. Wednesday. Wednesday morning. So that we can hopefully try to wrap that up this week too. Education. Yeah. And then one seventy three will get out as well. Don't have it in our schedule, we'll it on. Yeah. Maybe Tuesday afternoon, we'll do three as much 03:27 as we can, and then we'll see if we can move up to this one seventy three. And so we'll let you know if there's a

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: vote on this. Yeah. Yeah. I can submit for that.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: We do have some other reports that we should hear from. We haven't heard from the Department of Labor yet on the state of the UI trust fund, which is a yearly thing that we have to do. Remember this. For those of you that are going to be here, every year you want to make sure you're hearing from the Department of Labor on the trust fund, make sure that we're keeping it healthy. Somebody else wanted to come and talk to but there there are some others that will give support. Some more reports, things that are happening. Maybe we'll hear from the private malaise or TikTok, how the UI upgrade is going, and if it's still planned on going live in the next couple of months, so stay tuned with that. And hopefully we'll know more today on S-seventy one going fast as well, so we'll let you know when that actually got a privacy. So with that, don't have anybody else to share. Everybody's been watching committees that they're shadowing and nothing new is going here.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Nothing's happening in New York. Nothing's happening at home. Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: You're right. But I think we have it.

[Cabot (Legislative Intern)]: No. I'm just kidding.

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: I'm just picked. Alright.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Think we possibly have a path forward on on some of the non compete. Yeah,

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: yeah. Ocean. Yeah, this is exciting.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: There's a

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: couple pieces on the non compete. Can I share? I can share.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Oh, sure. It's been open. Mhmm.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. It's all open. So it'll like, I'll go over for doing a walk through of the latest language at 11:30, but there's a labor bill that general and housing has from the senate. And we're working on adding a non compete ban for nonexempt employees, so hourly workers, and also a non compete ban for health care providers. So we're looking at some updated language. If contract with a health care provider, you wouldn't be able to have non compete in that. So those two elements.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Is there a piece of the answer for non solicitation, too? Yes.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: So there's a couple things, other elements. One, non solicitation, you mean for For the co co And exemption. Yeah, I'll double check and make sure it's in there. But basically, them to do that notice. And there's also some pieces from the health care bill about non disparagement as well. So basically, not allowing yeah. So that you can talk about where you worked after.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: So the limitation is on the nonexempt employees, hourly employees.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Hourly basic basically. A nonexempt employee, which is the most hourly workers.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Right up to what we had in the bill was was everyone

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: What we had in the bill was 300300% of minimum wage Yeah. Plus some duty requirements. So it is much more limited. So it's just limited to nonexempt employees. So it's not there's no specific salary cap.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Correct.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Because if you're but there is a nonexempt employees. There is the Fair Standards Labor Act, there are some there are some limits in terms of how much you make, but it's Okay. It's it's defined based on exempt versus the defined on the classification of nonexempt versus exempt. And

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: and so yep. Do you notice? Sorry, Herb. No. You talked for stereo.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I think Marc has, but I'll double check. Sure. Yeah.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Sure. So, you know, limiting it to nonexempt, are the provisions that we passed out applicable for them, or they changed those provisions as well? Is it just taking what passed out of committee and then basically adding a further exemption?

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: No. No. It's just saying, it's a much more simplified version of what we passed out of committee. So it's just saying non competes are not allowed for nonexempt employees. Oh. And also noncompetes are not allowed for health care providers. Correct. Correct. So that's those are pretty much the two pieces.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: And then you define noncompete

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Right.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: The same way we define it? Yes. Right.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Didn't we pull that mic? Right. Yes. So we've taken some pieces of it and put it in this other bill.

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: Oh, okay. So Okay. Just those sort of

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Just just another vehicle to move some of the thought that we added two zero five. Good issues never die.

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: Yeah. Well, I based on what you're saying, I think I can support it. Because just doing where my limit was before.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Right. That's what you wanted was that nonexempt versus exempt. And then the health care providers is really based on a specific need as far as our we want our health care providers to stay.

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: Do I mention the thing that shall not be mentioned?

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: We it it will not be an issue.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: The sacred child.

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: Yeah. It was it was like Baltimore.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Did you not mention the name that shall not be mentioned? Thank you for your follow-up. Mhmm. Now Of course. Not at

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: At 11:30, they're doing the next walk through. I'll make sure. And if anyone has any questions, let me know, and I can after the walk through, I can catch you up.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Cool. Yeah. Anything else?

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Have nothing to add. I think we've done all the education things, so that's the committee that I'm following. That was today on the floor. Human Services is doing some They've been looking at the childcare licensure stuff that came from the Senate. They've got some concerns about that. We'll see what the Health care services. Human services. It's the licensure of we would be the first in the country to do that. To license childcare workers. Yeah, I share a lot of their concerns about putting restrictions on a mark, making it harder for people, workers, to get into a field in a time where we have such low unemployment. I do as well, and I worry about it for not being the first state to do that as well. I'm not Yeah, so I think that my understanding, talking with folks on the committee is they've got a

[Cabot (Legislative Intern)]: lot of concerns about it.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: The standards that I'm familiar with are concerned about being able

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: to hire people, especially if the cost is location. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Plus the certification. Yes. Well, is certifications. This is my licensure.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: This is not a Yeah. That's that's high.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: But that's the licensure for childcare work and not a teacher. Right. Teachers already have their licensure. That's just more money, which means that their player needs to

[Herb Olson (Member)]: pay more money. Which might be strict. The number of folks you get.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Oh. Yeah. How would it restrict I can see. There's some issues that we've heard lately with some childcare workers and not taking care of kids very well. Absolutely. But still that still is on the owner of the facility to make sure they're hiring people that are in oversight. They need to provide oversight to make sure that so I don't think it automatically makes the system better for having them licensed. Yes. The most modern thing should be looking at

[Unidentified Member (possible real estate professional)]: the oversight. Yeah. But I mean, yeah, real estate settings.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. In real estate, if you are,

[Unidentified Member (possible real estate professional)]: I mean, there's licensure to be a salesperson, but it very, very clearly states in statute that the broker that's over you is 100% responsible. If I screw up as a real estate salesperson

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Right.

[Unidentified Member (possible real estate professional)]: It's the broker that's on hold for it. And I don't see why we can't do the same

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: thing here.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: And also, as a change change subject, quickly, I missed this when I was reviewing the human services before, but they did do a walk through of s one ninety eight, the tobacco bill. But they haven't I I would imagine they're getting more testimony next week. They just did a they just did

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: the walk through. Yeah. Something I've been thinking about in that too, the consumer protection side that we did. You know, talked a little bit about, you know, do we should we be adding another investigator? Maybe what we need is more information to better understand what they're doing. And I think the changes that we made to allow the attorney general's office to utilize consumer protection law as well will really help. The attorney general's office needs all the referrals from DLL. So maybe we should think about putting some type of report back from DLL on, maybe you they should, but I guess not how many hours the investigators are working on line to try to make sure that mid sales are taken care of and how many referrals go to the attorney general's office and then how many of those referrals has the attorney general been able to provide

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: What's the final closure

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: of that? What's that? Have you been able to stop them from operating in the state? Do you have any of fines that have been levied? Or I don't think it's fines that have been or any type of penalties that have been provided

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, I'd love a lot more data also from their tip line, how many tips they're getting, how long it takes to follow-up on that.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Who has the tip The DLL has a TIP law.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: DLL said they should check that. Yeah. And part of the attorney general did too, right? But it was not clear.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. We should touch on those. For that. We can see if we can get shoot an amendment. See if she's available. And we can put an amendment, we can ask Teresa to put it on, and we can put it on. I thought that was a place that we can ask. Everybody, I'm gonna go with that. Mhmm. Alright. Well, I got nothing else for you. Sean, I waste your time with me if possible before I let you go home. That ain't not me yet. Okay?

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I got brownies.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I think we can go offline. We'll be back.