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Data center bill clears House with community benefit and environmental provisions
Summary
House File 16, an act relating to data centers, passed the House after sponsors said it extends tax and administrative provisions, creates a fee for large data centers and requires early water coordination for facilities using large volumes of water.
The Minnesota House passed House File 16, the data center bill, after members agreed to suspend rules and take up the negotiated conference agreement. The bill creates rules and fiscal provisions for large-scale data centers and includes community-benefit, environmental coordination and fee provisions supporters said were part of a negotiated deal with industry stakeholders.
Representative Davids, the bill’s author, described the proposal as updated policy reflecting earlier data-center statutes (he corrected an earlier reference to the date in debate). The bill creates a large-customer subclass, requires data centers using more than 100,000,000 gallons of water per year to provide pre-application information to the Department of Natural Resources, creates a fee on qualified large-scale data centers deposited into an energy and conservation account, and extends a sales-tax exemption sunset for data-center equipment to 35 years in certain circumstances. Sponsors said the provisions were agreed to by a data center coalition and the building trades as reflected in an energy‑environmental addendum.
Representative Acum and others said the bill contains guardrails for very large “hyperscale” facilities and establishes a community benefit program intended to fund weatherization and energy-efficiency assistance to offset demand placed on the grid by data centers. Supporters argued the bill balances economic development and local protections; some members warned that tax exemptions are incentives that merit careful scrutiny.
The vote on final passage was recorded by roll call. The clerk announced “85 ayes and 43 nays,” and the bill passed. Remote voting entries show Representative Olson voted yes as recorded on the roll call.
Votes at a glance: House File 16 — final passage: 85 ayes, 43 nays (passed).
