This story was reported by NJ State House News Service, a content-sharing partner of NJ Spotlight News.
Lawmakers took another step toward forcing New Jersey’s proliferating data centers to submit semiannual reports on electricity and water use.
The Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee, in a vote on Thursday, unanimously released A4096, a bill to mandate reporting to the state Board of Public Utilities. An identical measure was passed 34-2 by the Senate in March.
“Transparency will help state agencies better understand the impacts of data,” Kathryn Fisher, the campaign manager at the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters, testified during the meeting, at the State House in Trenton.
New Jersey is home to 80 data centers to power the artificial-intelligence industry, and more are planned, according to South Jersey Climate News.
This legislation is in line with Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s agenda to increase supervision and regulation over data centers. Her plan, announced on May 27, includes establishing rules to make data centers contribute to building utility grid infrastructure, address local environmental concerns and create good-paying jobs.
One data center uses as much energy as 80,000 homes over the same time period, Fisher said. In addition, 5 million gallons of water are used by one large data center each day, she said, which is especially problematic in light of recent droughts.
Anjuli Ramos-Busot, chapter director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, was specifically concerned with data centers’ impact on farming communities. In Vineland, a massive DataOne data center is under construction, and she emphasized how the facility has provided no information about its current and future water and energy usages.
“No one has any idea of how much water this enormous facility is actually going to consume,” Ramos-Busot said. That includes the Department of Environmental Protection, the Board of Public Utilities and community members, she said. “We don’t even know if the Town Council actually knows this information.”
Last month, the Millville Board of Commissioners rejected what potentially was New Jersey’s largest data center project. Since then, all planned Millville data center projects have been banned due to concerns about energy affordability.
The bill passed the Assembly committee Thursday on a 9-0 vote.
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