Data Center Development and Community Protection

The scale and speed of hyperscale data center development in Wisconsin and across the country demands strong protections immediately.

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

We urgently need to protect ratepayers, protect our water and environment, require transparency before decisions are made, make corporations responsible for related infrastructure, and make sure communities always have a deciding voice on these developments. I support the following policies to ensure data center development never comes at the cost of our communities, environment, and personal budgets.

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, substations, generation, transformers, or other grid infrastructure, the companies creating that demand must pay for these costs.

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 follow the demand.

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. Families should not inherit that bill.

Large developments that trigger substantial infrastructure investment should be required to provide meaningful 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, commit public resources, or provide tax incentives.

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

• Electricity demand and annual energy consumption.

• Water withdrawals and actual water consumption.

• Water sources and cooling technology.

• New power generation, transmission lines, substations, 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 telling 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 deserve 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.

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 push 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?

If not, the customers driving the additional need should carry an appropriate share of the cost.

8. Demand Accountability for Public Subsidies

Public incentives should never be blank checks.

When federal, state, or local taxpayers provide major tax benefits, grants, financing, infrastructure, or other assistance, those benefits should come with measurable and enforceable commitments.

That includes commitments involving infrastructure responsibility, jobs and workforce development, energy and water use, environmental performance, transparency, labor standards, and long-term operation when public infrastructure is being built around expected demand.

If companies receive substantial public benefits based on promises they later fail to fulfill, government should have meaningful clawback authority.

Public investment should produce measurable public benefit.

9. Create Good Jobs When Public Dollars Are Involved

When taxpayer dollars help subsidize these massive developments and the infrastructure serving them, workers should benefit too.

I support strong labor standards tied to significant public assistance, including prevailing wages where permitted, registered apprenticeships, workplace safety protections, workforce-development partnerships, domestic sourcing where practical, and accountability for employment commitments.

Companies receiving public support should also disclose how many permanent jobs they actually create, not simply advertise construction investment or headline employment projections.

10. 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 an important responsibility to protect ratepayers, oversee interstate transmission, establish transparency requirements, and attach strong conditions to federal taxpayer support.

But federal standards should generally establish a floor, not a ceiling.

Wisconsin should retain authority over utility regulation, water resources, state incentives, and matters within state jurisdiction. Local communities should retain meaningful 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.

The people who will live with these decisions deserve a meaningful voice before those decisions become irreversible.

The Bottom Line

We urgently need enforceable rules for data center development before communities are left carrying costs and consequences they never agreed to.

Before a massive data center is approved, people deserve to know how much electricity it will consume, how much water it will use, what power plants, transmission lines, substations, and other infrastructure it will require, what effects it could have on the environment, and who will pay for all of it.

When enormous new demand creates infrastructure costs, corporations should pay their attributable share.

When infrastructure is built around promised future demand, corporations should bear the risk if those promises disappear.

When public officials negotiate developments with enormous consequences, NDAs should not hide information the public needs.

When taxpayers provide valuable incentives, taxpayers should receive enforceable commitments in return.

And no community should lose its ability to protect its residents, its natural resources, or its future simply because some of the largest corporations in the world want to build there.

That is the approach I would bring to Congress: protect ratepayers, defend Wisconsin's water and environment, demand transparency and independent review, hold corporations financially accountable, protect workers and taxpayers, and ensure communities have a real voice in their own future.