Companies looking to build massive data centers to power the rapidly growing field of artificial intelligence will have to pay for their own electric and water utilities with affecting nearby ratepayers under a bill headed to Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The Senate on Friday voted 31-6 on a bill (SB 484) that imposes restrictions on proposed data centers, including reinforcing the ability of local governments to refuse them.
But the House previously amended the measure to allow local governments to enter into non-disclosure agreements with tech companies for up to 12 months that would hide data center proposals from the public.
“I have some real concerns now that we took the prohibition against NDAs,” said Senate Democratic Leader Lori Berman of Boca Raton.
Supporters of the measure, though, noted the decision will still be left to cities and counties on whether to move forward with a new data center.
Some senators who didn’t like the removal of the NDAs provision but still voted for the bill reasoned the restrictions in the bill were better than nothing.
“My fear is we have no bill pass, there’s no regulation of data centers whatsoever and it’s just the Wild West,” said Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando.
–News Service of Florida
Laurel says
Yeah, why do we need to know what’s happening in our own neighborhoods and what it’s gonna cost us?
Please vote these idiots out this fall!