State Senator McEwen: More info needed on proposed data center

DULUTH, Minn. — Minnesota State Senator Jen McEwen (DFL) is proposing new legislation to improve transparency in the building of large-scale data centers.

Sen. McEwen argues that large projects like Google’s data center planned for Hermantown need more facts and legislative oversight.

She wants the public to have more access to facts and data on topics like environmental and economic impacts, light and noise pollution and jobs.

The Senator believes the community deserves this information sooner than later – allowing residents to better decide if a large-scale data center is worth having in their community.

“We need laws and processes in place that will actually get us the information that we need to be able to evaluate whether we think a project is a good idea or not, and right now we just don’t have the laws in place in Minnesota, or really anywhere in the United States at this point,” said Sen. McEwen.

Sen. McEwen says there is current legislation on the books to regulate small data centers, but not the large ones.

She wants a pause on any future big-scale data center projects until legislation can be updated and authored legislation for transparency.