Data Center Development and Community Protection

The scale and speed of hyperscale data center development in our communities and across the country requires strong protections immediately.

These enormous facilities require extraordinary amounts of electricity and water, and often drive construction of new power plants, transmission lines, and other infrastructure. These impacts create long-term consequences for local ratepayers, taxpayers, communities, and our environment.

We cannot allow massive corporations to push these costs onto Wisconsin families and businesses, receive taxpayer-funded subsidies they do not need, or make decisions behind closed doors that leave our communities carrying the consequences for decades.

Before projects move ahead, communities must have full transparency about electricity and water demands, independent environmental and financial reviews, clear corporate responsibility for infrastructure costs, and a voice in whether these developments move forward.

I support strong, enforceable protections that put Wisconsin residents, our natural resources, and our communities first. That means making corporations pay their own way, protecting ratepayers and taxpayers, demanding transparency, and ensuring local communities retain control over their future.

1. Protect Families and Businesses From Higher Energy Costs

Families, farms, manufacturers, and small businesses should never be forced to subsidize the extraordinary electricity demands of massive data centers.

If a project creates the need for new transmission lines, generation, or other grid infrastructure, the companies creating that demand must pay for these costs….period.

Federal regulators should establish strong protections against shifting data-center-driven transmission costs onto existing customers. States should do the same for generation, distribution, and other utility costs under their jurisdiction.

When extraordinary corporate demand creates extraordinary infrastructure costs, the financial responsibility should be assigned to those driving the consumption.

2. Protect Ratepayers From Stranded Infrastructure

Communities and utilities can spend billions of dollars preparing for projected electricity demand that may never materialize. A data center can be announced, delayed, downsized, relocated, or canceled after utilities have already begun investing in infrastructure to serve it, as we saw with the Foxconn debable. Families should never inherit the bill in these scenarios.

Large developments that require substantial infrastructure investment should be required to provide guaranteed financial commitments, including appropriate upfront contributions, minimum demand commitments, credit requirements, bonds, guarantees, or other financial security.

If infrastructure is built around a corporation's promised future demand, that corporation should carry the financial risk if the promise disappears.

3. Require Full Transparency Before Projects Are Approved

Communities deserve the facts before governments approve projects or commit public resources.

For major data center developments, the public should be able to review the projections for:

• Electricity demand and annual energy consumption.

• Water withdrawals and actual water consumption.

• Water sources and cooling technology.

• New power generation, transmission lines, and other grid upgrades.

• Wastewater and environmental impacts.

• Backup generators and fuel requirements.

• Roads and other public infrastructure.

• Construction and permanent employment.

• Development phases and timelines.

• Public subsidies, tax incentives, and other government support.

• Who is expected to pay for required infrastructure.

Material changes to a project should require updated disclosure. The public should understand the impacts before government grants final approval or commits public resources.

4. Stop NDAs From Keeping Communities in the Dark

Legitimate trade secrets and cybersecurity information can be protected without allowing corporations to conceal the basic impacts of massive developments.

Non-disclosure agreements should not prevent government officials from informing residents how much electricity or water a project will use, what infrastructure will be required, what taxpayers or ratepayers could be responsible for, what public subsidies are being offered, or what environmental consequences are expected. Private agreements should never override the public's right to understand major commitments being made in its name.

5. Require Independent Impact Analysis

Communities should not have to rely solely on studies and projections produced by the corporation seeking approval.

Major developments should undergo independent analysis of their potential effects on:

• Residential and business utility rates.

• Electricity generation and transmission.

• Grid reliability.

• Water supplies and groundwater.

• Wastewater systems.

• Roads and other public infrastructure.

• Environmental resources.

• Long-term taxpayer and ratepayer exposure.

Developers should pay the reasonable cost of these reviews, while government or independent regulators select or approve the experts. Before billions of dollars and decades of infrastructure commitments are locked in, communities must have an independent factual assessment of what they are being asked to accept.

6. Protect Wisconsin's Water and Environment

Wisconsin's water is one of our greatest natural resources. It should never be treated as an unlimited resource for industrial development and consumption. Before approval, communities should know where a data center's water will come from, how much will be withdrawn, how much will actually be consumed, how demand could affect municipal systems, groundwater, private wells, rivers, lakes, and watersheds, and who will pay for required infrastructure.

Large withdrawals should receive appropriate hydrological and environmental review before approval. Policy should also drive developers toward water recycling, closed-loop and lower-water cooling systems, greater energy efficiency, clean energy, energy storage, waste-heat recovery, and technologies that reduce demands on the surrounding community and environment.

7. Make Transmission Planning Transparent

Massive projected increases in electricity demand can influence decisions to build transmission infrastructure costing billions of dollars and spanning multiple states.

Before major transmission projects driven in significant part by projected large-load growth move forward, regulators and the public should know:

• How much projected electricity growth comes from data centers and other very large users.

• Which proposed developments are included in those forecasts.

• How firm or speculative those projects are.

• How much electricity they are expected to require.

• What infrastructure would be needed without that additional demand.

• What infrastructure is being accelerated, enlarged, or built because of it.

• How those costs will be allocated.

The central question should be simple: Would this infrastructure, at this size and at this time, be necessary without the new demand driven by data centers? If not, the customers driving the additional need must carry their share of the cost.

8. Stop Tax Breaks and Corporate Subsidies for Data Centers

I oppose providing special tax breaks, subsidies, and financial incentives to attract or support massive data center developments. Many of these projects are backed by some of the wealthiest corporations and investors in the world, with billions of dollars available to finance their operations and expansion. Wisconsin taxpayers should never subsidize their growth.

That includes special tax exemptions, property tax abatements, direct grants, subsidized financing, or publicly funded infrastructure built primarily to serve these private developments. Our public resources should be invested in priorities that directly benefit Wisconsin residents, including schools, healthcare, public infrastructure, and essential community services.

Corporations with billions of dollars at their disposal should pay their own way. Wisconsin taxpayers should never be expected to help finance their expansion.

9. Hold Corporations Accountable for Existing Public Commitments

Where governments have already provided tax benefits, grants, financing, infrastructure, or other public assistance to data center developments, taxpayers deserve enforceable protections. Those agreements should include measurable commitments involving infrastructure responsibility, employment, energy and water use, environmental performance, transparency, labor standards, and long-term operations.

If companies receive public benefits based on promises they later fail to fulfill, government should have meaningful clawback authority to recover taxpayer funds or financial benefits.

Public commitments must come with enforceable accountability, and taxpayers should never be left paying for corporate promises that go unfulfilled.

10. Protect Workers and Require Honest Job Commitments

Massive data center developments can involve substantial construction work, but communities also deserve a clear accounting of the long-term employment these projects will actually provide. I support strong labor standards, including prevailing wages where applicable, registered apprenticeships, workplace safety protections, workforce-development partnerships, and domestic sourcing where practical.

Where public infrastructure funding is involved, these standards should be enforceable, and the corporations benefiting from that infrastructure should meet explicit employment and labor commitments. Developers should also be required to disclose realistic permanent employment projections, distinguishing temporary construction jobs from lasting positions.

11. Protect Local Control and Community Voice

Decisions this consequential should not be made behind closed doors or forced onto communities from Washington. The federal government has a responsibility to protect ratepayers, oversee interstate transmission, establish transparency requirements, and attach strong conditions to federal taxpayer support. Federal standards should establish a floor which states can further build upon for local protection.

Wisconsin should retain authority over utility regulation, water resources, state incentives, and matters within state jurisdiction. Local communities should retain authority over zoning, land use, development agreements, infrastructure, and whether a proposed project fits their community.

Congress should reject broad federal preemption that prevents states and communities from establishing stronger protections.