Representative Pritchard urges shorter extension of expedited cell‑tower process; committee leans to find amendment unfavorable

The House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee met May 26 to consider an amendment to H.527 that would shorten the sunset on Vermont’s 248A expedited cell‑tower siting process and require duly warned municipal hearings before new towers are built.

Representative Chris Pritchard (representing Paulace/Timoth area) offered the amendment, asking the committee to move the statutory sunset back two years so the legislature will take up changes next year. Pritchard said local residents in small towns feel excluded from siting decisions and described one household facing a proposed tower near their property. "What is going on in Timoth right now is shameful," he said, arguing towns want "a say in their own town." He told the committee that some communities are raising money to pay legal expenses to fight proposed sitings.

Chair Kathleen James summarized the underlying bill and the committee’s approach, saying H.527 would extend the 248A alternative process and add a new requirement for a duly warned public hearing at the municipal level — the select board or planning commission — before a tower is built. "I think that the bill as we've structured it makes a meaningful step in changing the statute by requiring a duly warned public hearing," Chair James said, adding the statute would also require the Department of Public Service to attend and the applicant to appear at the local meeting.

Members divided over timing and tradeoffs. Several representatives warned that a short sunset could either provoke a rush of applications before the deadline or produce a de facto moratorium if developers pause projects while statutory authority changes. Lawmakers noted the current proposal addresses some town requests — chiefly local notice and in‑person conversation — but does not resolve many technical issues towns have raised, such as aesthetics, setbacks, balloon tests and alternative siting considerations.

Representative Brook Campbell and others said the committee had previously sought a PUC study (struck out by the Senate) and that the present bill makes incremental but meaningful changes. Other members said the item has been deferred repeatedly and that more exhaustive statutory reform will be needed to fully protect affected residents.

With the bells calling the chamber to the floor, Chair James moved that the committee find Representative Pritchard’s amendment unfavorable and conducted a straw poll; committee staff recorded "six favorable" on the motion to report the amendment unfavorable. Committee members noted the bill was on the action calendar for the floor later that day.

Next steps: the committee reported the amendment unfavorable by straw poll and planned to move H.527 to the House floor for further consideration. The committee did not adopt the Pritchard amendment during the session recorded in the transcript.