House unanimously passes bill to end secret sweetheart deals on data centers
Just one day after nearly 200 citizens descended on the capitol to lobby legislators, the Pennsylvania House passed a bill 202-0 to require developers of data centers to disclose ownership and hold public meetings in affected communities to qualify for millions of dollars in tax breaks.
House Bill 2359, sponsored by representative Joe Ciresi (D. Pottstown) and cosponsored by 49 other representatives, requires any data center seeking to qualify for exemptions from sales tax and user taxes to certify to the Department of Revenue that it has:
* Disclosed in full the owners and operators of the proposed data center;
* Notified the municipalities in which the proposed data center is to be located;
* Held at least one public meeting at a convenient time and place to hear residents’ concerns;
* Disclosed any measure to generate electricity onsite or offside to reduce the impact on the electric grid;
* Estimated the average energy consumption and water usage over time.
The bill prohibits owners and operators of any proposed data centers from entering into any non-disclosure or confidentiality agreements with any agency “or otherwise restricts the agency from disclosing information to members of the public.”
That provision is intended to end behind-the-scenes sweetheart deals among developers that block out the public, such as the $20 billion project Amazon announced a year ago to build a large data center next to the Susquahanna Nuclear Power Plant in Luzerne County. Amazon plans to plug into the plant to provide the electrical energy for the center.
Data center developers stand to save millions of dollars under the sales and use tax exemption for data centers enacted in 2021 to attract data centers to Pennsylvania. Another bill, sponsored by Rep. Greg Vilai (D. Haverford), HB 2198, proposes to repeal the exemption altogether. It has advanced out of committee.
Microsoft is tapping into the remaining nuclear reactor at Three-Mile Island and other big tech companies are planning or building data centers in Pennsylvania.
The bill would take effect 60 days after it is enacted and would not affect projects already started, such as the Amazon and Microsoft projects.
Nearly 200 people journeyed to Harrisburg June 23 for a day of action sponsored by Food and Water Watch at the state capitol, proclaiming “PA Is Not for Sale.”
The group was highly critical of Gov. Josh Shapiro for supporting data center developments that occurred without public notice behind closed doors. While the governor is a big supporter of data centers as job generators, he has proposed voluntary standards for data cnter development knows as GRID.
Megan McDonough, the state director of Food and Water Watch, said the data centers are the next step for the fracking industry.
“It’s the same thing that we do over and over again,” Mc Donough told the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. “The AI data centers they want to build in Pennsylvania, they want gas-fired plants to power them. That inevitably means that we’re all on the chopping block for fracking again … and we’ve had enough. We’ve already suffered enough.”
The protesters are backing SB 1359 that would put a moratorium on data center development statewide for three years while the Legislature and governor work out a responsible way forward.
Senate Bill 1359 is sponsored by Sen. Kate Muth (D. Montgomery) who spoke at the rally, warning that the public would not stand for paying the electric bill for “massive high-voltage lines, massive data centers.”
By Jodine Mayberry for the Clearinghouse
