Legislation seeking to create a regulatory framework that would address key issues such as electricity and water use from massive data centers continues to move in the Florida Senate, while the House has yet to take similar action.
The Senate Community Affairs Committee backed a measure Tuesday (SB 484) that seeks to regulate the facilities that are going up to support artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.
Bill sponsor Sen. Bryan Avila, R-Miami Springs, said the goal is to balance the state’s natural resources with being a leader in technology.
“We want to maintain that we are at the forefront of technological advances,” Avila said. “But again, we want to make sure that we also strike that balance and make sure we protect our ratepayers from higher electricity costs, which is what we’ve seen in other states.”
The measure, which doesn’t have a House companion, would require that the facilities pay costs of electric service — shielding residents and other businesses from getting hit with part of the tab — and putting in place water permitting requirements. Data centers need large amounts of water for cooling systems.
Business lobbying groups raised concerns that the centers are being overregulated.
“Data centers can have a huge economic impact here in the state of Florida, and we believe that they should be treated similarly to other economic development projects,” said Adam Basford, vice president of governmental affairs for Associated Industries of Florida.
“Data center operators do pay their full electricity costs under rate structures designed to prevent cost shifting to other customers. And many other concerns about water use and noise don’t match how the facilities actually operate,” Basford continued. “We have a lot of education to do around these things.”
Turner Loesel, a policy analyst at the James Madison Institute, said the organization has “slight concerns” that the data centers would have to go through additional permitting that isn’t required for other large industrial users.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has called for legislation to try to prevent Floridians from getting hit with costs related to massive data centers as part of his pitch for a state “Artificial Intelligence Bill of Rights.”
A bill involving “rights” (SB 482) in the Senate awaits an appearance before the Appropriations Committee. The House version has yet to appear before a committee.
A separate bill by Avila backed by the Community Affairs Committee on Tuesday creates a public-records exemption that could keep information about potential large data centers confidential for up to a year (SB 1118).
In voting against the bill, Sen. Jason Pizzo, NPA-Sunny Isles Beach, said the exemption should be available to all businesses and that it could create an appearance that local officials took a “kickback” and kept quiet when a center was being planned.
“Small pizzeria shop owners want this same kind of competitive protection against a neighboring pizza or a coffee shop or a dry cleaner or a cobbler, if we still have any of those,” Pizzo said. “We’re giving incredible inverse protection on the risks associated with the value of a property to the groups that need it the least.”
The data center bill, in part, would require the Florida Public Service Commission, which regulates electric utilities, to develop what are known as “tariffs” and service requirements to “reasonably ensure that each large load customer bears its own full cost of service and that such cost is not shifted to the general body of ratepayers.” That would include costs related to issues such as connecting to electric systems and increased power transmission and generation costs.
The commission has already faced the issue in a Florida Power & Light rate case last year and in a pending proposal by Duke Energy Florida. A settlement in the FPL rate case includes two sets of tariffs — which essentially detail types of rates --- that are designed for such large energy users as data centers. One of those tariffs focuses on Southeast Florida’s Treasure Coast region, where FPL has significant infrastructure such as transmission lines.
Speaking generally on the data center issue prior to the meeting, Andrew Sutton, a Florida Power & Light spokesman, said Floridians should not pay more for electricity because of these power intensive projects.
“One of the protections we have in place is that data centers will be responsible for funding 100 percent of the costs of that new power generation required to serve their project.”
Avila’s bill must still go before the Rules Committee before it reaches the Senate floor.
News Service Assignment Manager Tom Urban contributed to this report.