This week in the 802
1. Montpelier: two answers to the same AI question.
WPTZ sat down with the two candidates for governor on Thursday. Phil Scott said he still wants federal rules, not a new state stack. He pointed to the AI Economic Task Force he named this summer and said shutting the tools down is not realistic. “AI is already here,” he said. “It can be used for good. It can also be used in countermeasures that wouldn’t be conducive to good government.”
Amanda Janoo said the question has been backward. “The focus has been for too long, like, ‘How do we use this technology?’ As opposed to how do we actually protect ourselves from this technology, which is what we’re hearing from the tech companies themselves.” Cybersecurity would sit at the top of her list.
That is the same split that produced the H.727 veto in May. Scott said that Act 250 and the Public Utility Commission already cover a large data center. Janoo told Seven Days in early September that the federal government is trying to limit what states can do and that opening the state to five companies for jobs is a bad trade. Election Day is November 3.
2. Vernon: the reactor is gone. The next use is not.
The Brattleboro Reformer toured the old Vermont Yankee site last week. Scott State, now NorthStar’s executive chairman, called the demolition “99 percent done.” The five-story reactor building is down. About $8.5 million is left in the decommissioning trust. Physical work is slated to finish in 2027. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission still has to release the land, which State said could take a couple of years.
As a condition of the tour, NorthStar would not discuss PowerTransitions, the Texas firm that holds a lease to study reuse. The Reformer still named the options on the table: battery storage next to the VELCO substation, a data center, or a small modular reactor. Vernon officials have said the town’s focus is batteries.
H.727 is still vetoed. If a data-center plan shows up in Vernon, the review runs through the rules that already exist, not the statute the legislature passed in May.
https://vtdigger.org/2026/09/23/vermont-yankee-decommissioning-is-nearly-complete/
If it lands here
Senator Peter Welch and Senator Michael Bennet put out the AI Regulator Act on Wednesday. It would create a five-member Federal Digital Commission with power to pause a frontier model for up to six months, require pre-certification, and fine a firm up to 15 percent of last year’s global revenue. Welch: “It’s clear we can’t leave it to AI companies to self-regulate.” That is the federal shop Scott says he is waiting for. It is not Vermont law. It does not change Act 156, Act 75, or a selectboard vote in Morristown.
The number
UNH Survey Center, Thursday: 882 likely Vermont voters, 60 percent Democrats in the sample. Janoo slightly ahead of Scott. That is a horse-race figure, not an AI-use figure. Treat it that way.
Try this / skip this
Try this: The Council on Artificial Intelligence’s regular slot is the first Friday of the month at 2 p.m. The next one is October 2. The September agenda was Pathfinders training and the council’s reporting work. Public comment is on the agenda.
Skip this: Treating a federal bill announcement as if Montpelier already adopted it.
Also in the pile
Morristown’s two-year pause on data centers and “high-impact uses” did pass. Seven Days reported the unanimous select board vote on September 9. Royalton has a five-year voter ban from Town Meeting Day. South Burlington capped footprints over 20,000 square feet in August.
Poitras v. Clark is still live. The Sessions injunction covers one video.
Act 75 disclaimers on deceptive synthetic campaign media stay in force through November 3. Satire is exempt.
Act 156 still bars a company from offering mental-health services by AI alone.
Edtech providers have been required to register with the Secretary of State since July 1.
Lamoille South’s student-AI ban and analog middle-school homework stand. No matching district letter opened this week.
Close
From Wallingford. Drafted with tools, edited here. If a fact is wrong, hello@aiinthe802.com.
What town are you in, and if a data center or a school AI rule came up at your last meeting, what did the board actually vote?
AI in the 802