Pressure mounts for lawmakers to regulate new data centers
(The Center Square) – As more Illinois municipalities weigh moratoriums on data center construction, Gov. J.B. Pritzker is pressing state lawmakers to pass uniform regulations – despite light pushback from some who view the proposed rules as potentially misguided.
The Illinois General Assembly failed to pass legislation to further regulate data centers statewide through the POWER Act before the end of the spring session June 1.
Pritzker said late last week he’s not concerned about getting short-term solutions passed sooner than when state lawmakers return to Springfield for their Fall veto session.
“We’re trying to get the POWER Act passed for the state,” Pritzker said. “Which would require that these data centers bring with them, first of all, dollars to both invest in energy and the source of energy, hopefully clean energy.”
Pritzker said the state also wants new data center construction to use closed-loop water cooling systems so as to not use local water supplies.
State Rep. Jeff Keicher, R-Sycamore, said there are misconceptions about how data centers impact communities – pointing to the cooling at a Meta data center in his district in DeKalb.
“The water use at Facebook is evaporative and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.They use less water cooling their computers than a dorm building does on NIU’s campus,” Keicher said. “In the winter, they open up a venting system to allow the outside freezing air to cool the systems.”
Pritzker noted there isn’t always transparency for communities when a data center project is being pitched in a locality.
Keicher said data center non-disclosure agreements aren’t much different from privacy measures put in place when others purchase a property, but there should be transparency after that.
He also said there’s been benefits in his district including significant decreases to the property tax levy, even after Pritzker froze tax breaks offered to new projects, and the downsides have been very few and far between – though he acknowledged there are bad actors in the space.
“The levy rate based on the equalized assessed valuation in 2019 was 11.7%. Last year it was just under 7.9%. Now, housing values have gone up in that time,” Keicher said. ”There are going to be communities that say ‘absolutely we do not want a data center.’ And that should be their purview, right? But that shouldn’t inhibit other communities.”
Keicher noted even with tax breaks, the Meta data center in DeKalb allowed the city to also build a new school using funds, rather than borrowing, in one of the most underserved areas of the town. He said they’re now looking to build an early learning center too.
Pritzker put pressure on lawmakers to pass regulations during the fall veto session, noting his tax benefit freeze provided a slowdown in development until then.
“That means for a lot of them that they’ve got to either slow down or stop. What we want to make sure is when we get this law in place, we don’t want them to go away if we have this law in place,” Pritzker said.
The governor said he’s not worried about a patchwork of regulations across the state as the Power Act is still in the works because the act is intended to still allow community choice.
Lawmakers are set to return to Springfield for their six-day veto session from Nov. 17-19, and Dec. 1-3. The legislature is expected to return to bills that didn’t pass in May, such as the Power Act, an affordable housing and zoning reform act, a Chicago Bears stadium bill and more.
Mostly Sunny
