Vermont should spend 10% of the $92 million Meta settlement on creating a new arm of state government to enforce child-protection restrictions, a legislator running for the state Senate said this weekend.

Rep. Monique Priestley, D-Bradford, a member of the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee, said Vermont should use roughly $9 million of its $92.7 million share of the settlement to establish a privacy and digital protection division within the Attorney General’s Office.

The settlement includes restrictions on nighttime social media use by minors, a two-hour daily limit, a school mode, stronger age verification for children under 13, and restrictions on like counts and beauty filters.

“Vermont won. Now let’s build the division that keeps us winning,” Priestley said. She is a longstanding advocate of digital consumer protection laws, including a bill opposed by Gov. Phil Scott because, he said, it would have inhibited online startup businesses and existing online businesses from accessing the Vermont market.

Vermont has a mixed record of spending funding secured by AG settlements on the specific problem addresses in the settlement. For example, a huge tobacco control settlement secured by then AG William Sorrell continues to provide health care consumer relief, but relatively little for tobacco addiction treatment and recovery. Much of the VW carbon emissions settlement was spent subsidizing electric buses, which have had difficulty operating in Vermont winters.

Priestley praised Attorney General Charity Clark and her office for their role in the $17 billion settlement with Meta, which would impose new restrictions on Facebook and Instagram use by minors. But she said the state lacks the personnel and technical expertise needed to enforce Vermont’s expanding collection of digital consumer-protection laws.

“I support this week’s $17B Meta settlement and congratulate Attorney General Clark and her office for their work to see it through,” Priestley said. “I also know the office that just won this case is not staffed to keep winning.”

Priestley said Vermont already has adopted provisions that in some cases go further. She helped write portions of Act 63, the Vermont Age-Appropriate Design Code, also known as the Vermont Kids Code, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2027.

Unlike the Meta settlement, Priestley said, the Vermont law applies broadly to covered businesses and imposes legal duties that cannot simply be changed through user settings. Among other provisions, she said, Vermont’s law restricts companies from using minors’ data to rank or recommend content unless requested by the minor, requires strong default privacy settings, and limits push notifications.

Priestley said she supports using settlement proceeds for youth mental-health programs, an idea she said has widespread support, but argued some of the money should be reinvested in enforcement.

“This settlement money flows into a fund controlled by the Legislature,” she said. “Nearly everyone I have talked with, here and in other states, wants it directed to youth mental health. I support that. I also want us to look at the broader system at play. Meta is not the only offender, and these harms reach well past our kids.”

Priestley pointed to online pricing, internet fraud targeting senior citizens, advertising fraud, automated rent-setting, artificial intelligence and the collection and sale of personal information as areas where Vermont consumers face emerging risks.

She has sponsored or worked on legislation involving surveillance pricing, companion chatbots, wearable and neural technology, artificial intelligence transparency and liability.

Priestley said the need for enforcement becomes particularly important when lawmakers remove provisions allowing consumers to sue companies directly. Without a private right of action, she said, enforcement falls largely to the Attorney General.

“We can work as hard as we want to pass strong consumer protection laws, but if the office enforcing them has inadequate staffing and expertise, all we have made are policies that nobody will follow,” Priestley said.

A provision in privacy legislation considered this year would have created a privacy and digital protection division in the Attorney General’s Office, but did not survive the legislative process.

Priestley wants lawmakers to revive the proposal using Meta settlement money. She said the new division could oversee digital-technology regulations, administer data-broker and educational-technology registries, expand oversight into artificial intelligence and participate in multistate enforcement actions against technology companies.

“The Attorney General took on one of the largest companies in the world and won,” Priestley said. “Now it is on the Legislature and the Governor to make sure she is not doing it shorthanded.”

Priestley, a Democrat, is currently a state representative from Bradford and is running for the Vermont Senate against Republican incumbent John Benson.