ST. PAUL – Legislation Rep. Shane Mekeland, R-Clear Lake, authored to help soaring data center investments in Minnesota continue cleared its first committee hurdle Thursday.
Mekeland said the data industry is exploding in Minnesota, fueled by the growth of AI technology. He said plans are underway to construct a massive data center in his district, using two parcels of land totaling nearly 600 acres at the Xcel Sherco coal plant site in Becker.
He indicated obsolete regulations giving the Public Utilities Commission purview emergency backup generators exceeding 50,000 kilowatts are proving to be an obstacle at that site and other parts of the state where similar projects are proposed.
“Throughout our state, there’s easily $80 billion in private investment and thousands of permanent jobs hinging on this bill,” Mekeland said. “Not to mention probably 10,000 construction jobs lasting a handful of years at each site. This is an economic opportunity unlike anything Minnesota has ever seen, and we need to capitalize, or another state will. To put it in perspective, the potential investment from my bill is so big it even exceeds the governor’s inflated $70 billion state budget proposal.”
Mekeland’s bill (H.F. 28) exempts emergency backup generation at a single site with a combined generation of 50,000 kilowatts or more from needing to secure a certificate of need required for large energy facilities. The bill also makes a combination of emergency backup generators to serve one person or located on property owned or controlled by one person an applicable project. Furthermore, the bill provides more efficiency regarding environmental impact statements, with supplemental analysis.
“The environmental impact part of this bill is key because it eliminates duplicity, allowing a project to start based on responsible local government analysis and conducting additional environmental impact studies if the need arises in the future,” Mekeland said. “This is a time-sensitive issue that we need to resolve before this window of opportunity closes on us. Minnesota’s excessive regulations already have caused us to lose out to neighboring states too many times. It cannot happen this time, not with something this big.”
The House Energy Finance and Policy Committee approved Mekeland’s bill, sending it to an environmental committee for further review.
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