Officials in Page, Arizona, a small city near the Glen Canyon Dam, passed a land sale agreement last fall that establishes a framework for future construction of a data center.

The sale of the 500-acre parcel about a mile away from the Colorado River’s Horseshoe Bend — one of the most visited natural landmarks in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area — to Huntley LLC for $7 million specifies that the company intends to build a 1 gigawatt data center.

Residents have been pushing back and launched a petition earlier this year to stop the planned data center from being built. 

About 5 miles south of the city, a group of tribal leaders began to take notice. The proposed data center borders the LeChee Chapter of the Navajo Nation, located in the northwest corner of the Navajo Reservation. 

Like most of Arizona, the community has run into challenges from severe drought conditions this year. After learning how much water it could take to cool the thousands of servers housed in the massive facilities, members of the tribe grew increasingly concerned about the proposed data center.

The LeChee Chapter also passed a resolution opposing Page’s decision to sell the land to the developers. 

“Water is precious to us,” said Irene Whitekiller, president of the LeChee Chapter. “ … Water is used for everything, like with holy water in church and traditional ceremonies. But with a data center coming in, it’s going to take a lot.”

Data center developments are continuing to spread throughout the country as the demand for digital processing power grows — especially as artificial intelligence systems become more prevalent. But in addition to concerned residents, some federal, state and local officials are worried about how data centers could drive up utility bills, strain water resources and hurt the environment.

And now, tribal communities are grappling with the fact that more developers are eyeing their land for future data center projects.

“Because of the history with treaties, removal actions and those sorts of things, tribal lands are probably more pristine and not as developed as other state, federal or local government lands,” said Tana Fitzpatrick, the associate vice president of tribal relations at the University of Oklahoma and a member of the Crow Tribe in Montana and a descendent of the Lakota Sioux, Ponca and Chickasaw nations. 

“That might be one of the reasons why tribes are finding that people are coming and wanting to build data centers on their lands.”

Some tribal leaders are also concerned about President Donald Trump’s ability to alter regulations related to federal lands. While most of Trump’s executive orders don’t apply to federal land belonging to Native nations or reservations, Whitekiller said that could change.

In July, for instance, Trump issued two executive orders to revise the boundaries of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and the Bears Ears National Monument so the lands could be “put to a higher-priority use,” such as extracting minerals to invest in national security. The orders faced backlash from environmental advocacy groups and Native nations.

“We’re trying to educate our people to say no to this kind of thing (data centers) because we want the land the way it is. This is a federal land that we live on, but Trump doesn’t respect that,” Whitekiller said.

In March, the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma became one of the first Native nations to enact a complete moratorium on data centers. Honor the Earth, a national nonprofit organization advocating for the protection of Indigenous sovereignty and the environment, has helped communities like the Seminole Nation organize against data center development on their land.

Some companies see tribal land as a regulatory dream, said Ashley Leitka, an enrolled member of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and the director of the department of sovereignty and self-determination at Honor the Earth. She is also part of the Oglala and Sicangu Lakota nations.

While municipalities are pushing back against data center developers by tightening codes and enforcing stricter regulations, she said some companies are hoping that tribal nations will be more lenient. As sovereign, self-governing nations, tribes are not required to follow all state and local laws.

“These companies are really preying upon the lack of economic diversity in our tribal nations,” Leitka said. “The reality is our tribal leaders are given a mandate to care for their nations, and whenever there’s opportunities, it’s pretty difficult for them to assert why they would not consider it. I just think it’s several things happening at the same time — that makes tribal nations prime targets.”

A handful of other tribes have taken action against data centers. In July, the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma’s Business Committee formally declared its opposition to construction and operation of data centers on its lands. 

And in August, following a report detailing the impact of data centers on economy and environment, the Cherokee Nation announced it would be banning hyperscale data center development on tribally owned and trust lands, according to the nation’s official news site.

However, some tribes are considering how data centers could help their people. Colusa Indian Energy, for instance, has become one of the only tribally owned microgrid companies helping lead data center partnerships with Native nations.  

And in the past few years, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs has encouraged tribes to consider data center projects by offering financial and technical resources to assist.

Data centers are a significant way to bring economic opportunities to tribal communities, said Eric Mahroum, the office’s director. Mahroum said data centers also offer a number of jobs to community members.

“I think that’s why a lot of private companies are approaching tribal lands and the tribal governments to partner with them,” he said. “And we’re here to help them with that. I’ll be the first to say that there’s a lot of private companies and a lot of bad players that want to take advantage of the tribes. But then there’s a lot of great players that want to help the tribes.”

As more communities push data center developers out and states consider rescinding tax breaks, some of the country’s top tech developers and data center companies see tribal land as an easier option.

Microsoft, for instance, recently proposed a data center project in Fernley, Nevada, about a 10-minute drive from the boundary of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation, according to Honor the Earth’s Data Center Tracker. The company’s community-first AI initiative outlines steps Microsoft will take to be a “good neighbor” in the communities where they build, according to an unsigned written statement from the company.

In the meantime, tribal leaders have expressed the need to continue studying the impacts of data centers through task forces. And now, more Native nations are considering moratoriums to allow time for more discussions, said Fitzpatrick, of the University of Oklahoma.

“In general, every tribe is their own sovereign nation,” Fitzpatrick said. “Regardless of the issue, every tribe is going to have their own ways of governing, choosing their priorities and looking at their citizens’ priorities.”

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Faceless megacorps scouring rural Wisconsin for land have put residents on edge – and it showed in the state’s primary earlier this month.

The big story in Dairyland isn’t the narrow defeat of state Rep. Francesca Hong, who preached a data center moratorium before losing the Democratic primary by roughly 3,000 votes to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley.

The big story comes from a small but consequential place that residents love and vowed to protect. Wrightstown, Wisconsin, just wrote the playbook for communities confronted by the proliferation of AI data centers, sometimes planned in secret. Residents learned of a potential project, organized against it, pushed village officials to pause development and forced the issue onto the ballot.

Then nearly 9 in 10 Wrightstown residents spoke through their votes on Aug. 11 and said “Yeah, no” to AI data centers. And what happened next? Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican  candidate for governor, made more than a dozen online posts claiming Crowley is too soft on data centers, according to an Aug. 23 Washington Post analysis. Crowley’s campaign countered by highlighting Tiffany’s congressional vote for legislation that included a 10-year ban on state and local AI regulation — and his previous description of data centers as “exciting new technology.”

But as the Wisconsin Examiner reported, the candidates largely agree on key guardrails: Both support giving communities the final say, banning local government nondisclosure agreements and protecting utility customers from added costs. Neither supports a moratorium, though Tiffany wants to repeal state tax incentives for data centers while Crowley has called for scrutinizing whether those incentives benefit taxpayers.

The political brawl comes after an LLC swooped into Wrightstown earlier this year, armed with a generic name and hungry for rural land deals.

Village officials denied at spring community meetings that they’d seen a project proposal from developer Cloverleaf Infrastructure. Yet emails released in response to an open records request revealed they’d been communicating with the company since January, WPR reported.

Residents pushed for and got a June pause on all AI data center projects until they could speak at the polls. Village board members in July unanimously extended the moratorium to a year as residents prepared to vote in a nonbinding referendum on Aug. 11.

NetChoice, a tech industry association that counts Amazon, TikTok, Meta, YouTube and other  Big Tech players as members, threatened legal action over the referendum.

But the industry couldn’t defeat months of grassroots organizing.

According to Ballotpedia, Wrightstown was the only Wisconsin municipality with a data-center-related measure on the primary ballot. Nationwide, Ballotpedia is tracking eight such measures in six states, including California, Illinois, Michigan and Nevada. As of Aug. 26, voters had approved four measures that limited development, none that favored it, and four remained pending.

In Wisconsin, Wrightstown’s vote followed Port Washington, where 66% of voters in April backed a measure requiring voter approval for future tax incremental financing districts exceeding $10 million — a referendum spurred by opposition to incentives for a massive data center.

Janesville voters will weigh in next: A November referendum will decide whether projects exceeding $450 million at a former industrial site must go before voters. Any referendum on a specific data center project would come later.

Why do we supposedly need these data centers in the first place? 

First, let’s look at some of the people behind these projects.

Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams sprang to action in Wisconsin Rapids this month as a paid adviser to the PNK Group. You may recall that Adams faced an indictment in a five-count federal bribery case. President Donald Trump’s administration bailed him out.

Adams is flacking these days for a 150-megawatt data center campus in Wisconsin Rapids. Attendees didn’t hold back at the pitch meeting, with one asking: “So, one question is how can we trust you because you’re a convicted felon, you’re indicted for bribery, and secondly, you talk about how AI and the medical use of AI, but given your ties to cryptocurrency and to the Russians, what is your AI data center going to be used for?” Adams was indicted but not convicted. Wisconsin Watch reported Aug. 28 that the two partners behind the project have strong ties to Russia — including being born, educated or having worked there.

I’ll get out my scythe now to cut through the facts and hammer home the details.

Residents booed Adams. They pushed for answers about water use, electricity demands, jobs and foreign ownership. Wisconsin Rapids’ Planning Commission will hold a hearing Sept. 16 and recommend whether the City Council should approve a conditional use permit for the proposed data center, Wisconsin Watch reported.

Without solid information on the who, let’s move to the why.

Big Tech has ready answers, citing national security for instance. 

They cry “Just trust us!” as Elon Musk’s company xAI fights for the right to nudify kids.

Does national security include spying on U.S. citizens with Flock cameras, which are so universally loathed that people are chopping them down? The Washington Post documented at least 50 cases across the country of law enforcement officers misusing the cameras, including to stalk women. Right- and left-leaning communities are ending contracts.

So, what’s next? Our state and federal lawmakers should wake up and follow the Wrightstown playbook.

Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered a first-in-the-nation statewide AI data center moratorium.

There is room for bipartisanship in Washington. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.,  and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., introduced the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act to impose a pause on development of data centers.  

Elected officials are finally catching up, with Republicans increasingly criticizing data centers nationwide, according to a Washington Post analysis. 

What the Flock are the rest of you waiting for? Lawmakers, act now or suffer at the ballot box. Your political action committees can’t save you.

Juliana Keeping is the founder of  Keeping Strategies LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy communications firm specializing in moving evidence-based bipartisan reform at scale. She also serves as strategic artificial intelligence adviser at Our Lady of the Lake University in Houston and a Rotarian. She is the author of Keeping Shop, a newsletter on Substack.

Guest opinion: Big Tech wants Wisconsin land for data centers. Voters are saying ‘Yeah, no.’ is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Update: The city of Wisconsin Rapids announced Aug. 28 that its planning commission on Sept. 16 will hold a hearing and make a recommendation to the city council on the request for a conditional use permit for the proposed data center. 

Editor’s note: A breach-of-contract lawsuit in Pennsylvania against Andrey Sharkov remains pending, but a claim of fraud in the case was dismissed. This story has been updated to note the claim’s dismissal.

No matter where in the U.S. an artificial intelligence data center is proposed, communities express the same worries.

Water scarcity and contamination, electricity rates and reliability, air pollution, noise.

Residents are voicing those same concerns 100 miles north of Madison in Wisconsin Rapids, where developers want to replace a former paper mill with a 210-acre data center. 

But there’s another worry in Rapids that makes the situation different from other Wisconsin communities where data centers have been proposed:

Russians.

“I hear it from other people; people bring it up very often,” data center opponent Mary Olson said.

Ruslan Zinurov, the man who first proposed the data center, was born in Russia.

Anton Voronkin, who has since taken over the project, was born and educated in Russia and worked there for years.

Marissa Johnson, a leader of a group fighting the data center, said that while residents have environmental concerns, the Russian ties are “a sticking point for people.” Some residents don’t say so publicly, out of fear of being perceived as xenophobic, but they worry about the developers’ past business practices, she said.

The questions aren’t limited to whispering.

At public meetings, residents mostly express common fears: How much water will the data center use? Will my electricity rates go up? How can we know it won’t cause air and noise pollution? 

One woman urged city officials to “just do the right damn thing” and find any way to block data centers.

But at a city meeting in July, a woman said a “Russian national” had applied to the city for a permit for the data center.

In August, at a meeting organized by the team proposing the data center, one audience member drew applause from the audience when he said to Voronkin: 

“We like to know who’s running this operation. And from what I understand, you, sir, are not an American citizen; you’re Russian. Am I right or wrong?” 

Voronkin’s reply didn’t seem to satisfy the crowd. “I have worked in many countries overseas,” he said.

Russian born, Green Bay ties

The first record of the data center proposal is an email sent Dec. 16 by Zinurov to Wisconsin Rapids city planner Kyle Kearns. He wrote that he was looking to acquire a site in the city of 19,000 to convert into a data center. 

The location turned out to be part of a former paper mill site near downtown and the Wisconsin River.

Kearns replied the next day, writing: “It is exciting to hear about your interest!”

By February, Zinurov had met with Kearns and Mayor Matt Zacher. He said in an email that he was working to acquire part of the mill site. He wondered if the city could help secure electricity and natural gas for the operation.

The proposal didn’t make news until April, when the city planning commission announced a public hearing on Zinurov’s application for what is known as a conditional use permit.

The 43-year-old Zinurov identified himself as being with California-based Performance Computing Holdings. In a 2020 article about a Zinurov-led investment in Ukraine, Zinurov told the Kyiv Post he was born in Russia, his wife is Ukrainian and he had been living in the U.S. more than 15 years.

He also has Wisconsin ties.

Zinurov’s cellphone number has a 920 area code, which covers Green Bay. According to his LinkedIn profile, he has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, plus a master’s degree in the same subject from the University of California, Berkeley.

Zinurov’s profile also says he founded a company originally known as Consensus Technology Group. In a 2024 interview, he said that company operates data centers in North Dakota, South Dakota, Pennsylvania and Missouri. 

According to news reports, Zinurov also partnered with Chinese tech company Bitmain to convert a former paper mill in Washington state into a cryptocurrency-mining business.

Zinurov declined Wisconsin Watch’s requests for an interview, noting in a text that Voronkin has taken over the Wisconsin Rapids project. 

Zinurov wrote that he “spent a good chunk of my life in Green Bay, so Wisconsin indeed has a special place in my heart. Go Pack.”

New face of the project

As Zinurov has worked behind the scenes, Voronkin, 42, has become the public face of the Rapids proposal.

By early May, a week after Zinurov filed the permit application, city planner Kearns had turned to emailing with Voronkin instead. Kearns noted that Voronkin and one of his team members, former New York City Mayor Eric Adams, had made plans to visit Wisconsin Rapids.

Adams’ background has also riled some residents. While mayor, he was indicted on federal conspiracy charges, which he denied. In April 2025, the charges were dismissed at the request of the U.S. Justice Department.

Voronkin, who was born in Russia, says in his LinkedIn profile that he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in St. Petersburg, Russia. The profile says he worked in commercial development in Russia from 2009 to 2022, when he began development work on Neom, a $500 billion ​mega-project in Saudi Arabia.

The nonprofit group Human Rights Watch reported in December 2024 that Neom workers suffered abuse, such as being paid less than they were promised. The same month, a Wall Street Journal investigation found Neom employees reported incidents of gang rape, suicide, attempted murder and drug dealing on the site. 

In 2026, Voronkin became chief development officer, including for data centers, at PNK Group, a New York-based developer of industrial buildings. 

PNK began operations in Russia around 2003, according to the Scranton Times-Tribune in Pennsylvania, where PNK is proposing a data center. 

Voronkin said at the August meeting in Wisconsin Rapids hosted by his team that PNK “withdrew the brand from Russia in 2024.”

Data center opponent Mike Schmidt, a local attorney, said he doesn’t trust PNK because of Voronkin’s work with Neom and what Schmidt described as corruption allegations against PNK owner Andrey Sharkov.

In two federal court lawsuits over business matters, Sharkov was accused of fraud in Pennsylvania and is the subject of a racketeer/corrupt organization lawsuit in Utah. Both cases are pending, but the fraud allegation in the Pennsylvania case has been dismissed, and Sharkov has denied the allegations.

“It’s not just that they’re Russian, it’s that they’re behaving in a corrupt fashion,” Schmidt said of Voronkin and Sharkov.

Voronkin declined Wisconsin Watch requests for an interview. In messages, he wrote: 

“I am not aware of such concern about my work for Neom. I am proud to be a part of the biggest development in the world and most likely in history. I wish more people had same level of ambitions and could think about the future same way as Neom. There are no corruption charges against Andrey Sharkov.”

He added: 

“I have indeed worked on some unique projects, but I don’t think my background is the most exciting subject for Wisconsin Rapids.”

City nearly poised to act?

Mayor Zacher told Wisconsin Watch that perhaps 15 data center developers and another 15 manufacturers have explored the former mill site but most didn’t move forward. According to his understanding, most data center developers didn’t think enough electricity was available. 

Zacher said he has tried to remain neutral as the current data center proposal has advanced and opposition has increased. The city must consider business proposals based on the project’s merits, not who makes them, he said.

Voronkin’s group has continued to try to build local support, holding a series of four webinars in August.

Zacher said the city is waiting for Voronkin’s group to provide more details on their proposal before it acts on their application for a conditional use permit and indicated the waiting time is limited.

“I would say we don’t want to go months,” he said.

In Wisconsin Rapids, data center objections include developers’ Russian connections is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Microsoft and Wisconsin ratepayer advocates are asking federal regulators to hit the brakes on a proposal to allocate the costs of transmission infrastructure built to serve data centers. 

Both argue that We Energies and the American Transmission Company’s (ATC) recent proposal to federal regulators fails to adequately protect Wisconsinites from picking up the construction bill, among other concerns. 

The utilities’ plan — setting a minimum transmission charge for Microsoft based on its Mount Pleasant data center’s anticipated electricity needs — mirrors elements of a strategy approved by Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission (PSC) earlier this year. 

We Energies and ATC argue the minimum charge will help prevent their other customers from paying for overbuilt infrastructure if the facility uses less electricity than anticipated.

Microsoft and ratepayer advocates, however, argue that the proposal falls short on protecting Wisconsinites from cost shifts and that the two closely related utilities left little room for input from those most affected. 

Who pays for data center transmission upgrades?

ATC anticipates spending more than $500 million to upgrade the Mount Pleasant facility’s connection to the electrical grid. The utility passes infrastructure costs to customers of all kinds through their electrical bills; We Energies, for instance, estimates that transmission-related costs account for about 10% of customers’ bills. 

The PSC can’t require ATC to bill data center developers for the full cost of infrastructure built to serve them. Only the five-member Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which oversees interstate transmission, could overhaul billing rules to fully shield other customers from the costs of new lines and substations for data centers.

The PSC signed off on a work-around this spring, requiring We Energies to set a minimum transmission charge for its large data center customers based on their projected electricity use — the same projections used to plan transmission upgrades. 

ATC and We Energies asked FERC earlier this month to approve a one-off transmission billing plan for Microsoft’s Mount Pleasant data center. The arrangement would require We Energies to pay ATC for the data center’s projected transmission capacity and pass that cost to Microsoft. The 15-year arrangement would take effect once ATC completes the infrastructure needed to serve the facility. 

“This is a customer protection mechanism that follows the ‘cost causer, cost payer’ methodology,” an ATC spokesperson wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch.

Microsoft says proposal leaves gaps

The utilities didn’t consult with Microsoft before filing their plan with federal regulators.

“The entire purpose of these agreements, by ATC’s own description,” is to serve the Mount Pleasant data center, Microsoft’s attorneys wrote in a protest to FERC on Friday. Moving ahead without Microsoft’s input, they added, would risk “the timely interconnection and operation of this infrastructure.”

In their view, the utilities’ current proposal contains “systemic” flaws.

Some, they argue, pose risks to Microsoft’s finances, including an early termination fee that could force the company to pay “excessively more” than the remaining value of the transmission infrastructure if it backs out of the agreement before the 15-year mark.

Both Microsoft and the Citizens Utility Board (CUB) argue other elements of the proposal pose risks to ATC’s other ratepayers, including those outside of We Energies’ territory.

In a separate protest filed Friday, CUB regulatory affairs director Corey Singletary noted that the proposal would base minimum transmission charges on ATC’s standard interconnection rates.

“The electric demands and associated supporting infrastructure investments are so large relative to traditional loads and investments” that ATC will almost certainly undershoot the actual cost of data centers’ transmission needs,  Singletary wrote. 

“While ATC’s proposal would likely be an improvement over the status quo,” he added, it still falls short of shielding the utility’s other customers from data-center-driven transmission costs.

Microsoft’s attorneys echoed those concerns, emphasizing that Microsoft signed the White House’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge this spring: a commitment to “pay for all new power delivery infrastructure upgrades required to service (its) data centers” and “ensure that these expenses are not passed on to the ordinary household.”

Microsoft urges more scrutiny

We Energies’ parent company, WEC Energy Group, is ATC’s largest shareholder.

“A negotiated bilateral contract between them — especially one involving such large sums — should be further scrutinized,” Microsoft’s attorneys wrote.

Microsoft also pointed out that the proposal wouldn’t require the utilities to seek their company’s input before amending some terms of the contract, nor would it “create a clear path for Microsoft (or anyone else) to inquire and scrutinize the scope or prudence of expenditures made on its behalf.” 

Microsoft’s attorneys called that opacity “a recipe for future misunderstanding and litigation.”

Microsoft is asking FERC to send the entire proposal to a settlement judge, creating a venue for all parties to work through their concerns. As an alternative, the company’s attorneys suggested that the commission reject the utilities’ proposal outright. CUB, meanwhile, urged the commission to create a uniform transmission cost allocation process for all large data centers in ATC’s territory — including those in Port Washington and Beaver Dam.

ATC has yet to file a response to the complaints. 

“ATC is reviewing Microsoft’s filing and will respond through the established FERC process to demonstrate that existing customers are fully protected by the agreements,” a spokesperson wrote in an email on Tuesday. “We remain committed to cost transparency and protection of existing customers while ensuring reliable transmission service.”

Microsoft, ratepayer advocates challenge ATC plan for data center transmission costs is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

 

 

Behind the meter: On-site power is rewriting the rules, and it all runs on fuel

On-site generation is solving the electricity problem. But the megawatts are only half the story, the other half is fuel.

Somewhere on your facility sits a utility meter. Easy to walk past, but that unassuming box marks the front line of the biggest shift underway in energy: who makes your power, and where. Everything on the utility’s side is “in front of the meter.” Everything on yours is behind it, and behind the meter is suddenly where the action is.

For decades, behind-the-meter power meant a backup generator that coughed to life a few hours a year. No longer. Manufacturers, hospitals, campuses, mining and midstream operations, and, most visibly, data centers are designing on-site generation as primary or supplemental power. Why? Interconnection queues that stretch years. Demand charges that keep climbing. Grid congestion at the worst moments. Uptime the grid can’t promise. On-site generation puts the schedule, reliability, and cost structure back in the owner’s hands, and keeps the facility’s demand off the shared grid, where it would compete with the surrounding community. It’s no longer a workaround. It’s an energy strategy.

There’s no bigger issue in the Wisconsin governor’s race than data centers. Republican candidate Tom Tiffany, who was hoping to run on not canceling Thanksgiving, quickly pivoted after democratic socialist candidate Francesca Hong lost the primary, moving to capture the issue that galvanized Hong’s supporters: opposing data center development. Tiffany spent the first week of the general election campaign attacking his Democratic rival by labeling him “Data Center David Crowley,” warning that Crowley’s pro-data-center policies would mean “our lakes run dry, family farms paved over.” 

Crowley, meanwhile, has not come up with a message that satisfies the Hong supporters who embraced her call for a statewide moratorium on data center construction. Neither he nor Tiffany favors a moratorium. In fact, as Baylor Spears reports, despite Tiffany’s attacks, the two candidates don’t appear to be very far apart on data center regulation. Both say they will protect communities’ right to reject new data center construction; both say the state must ensure that ratepayers aren’t stuck with higher utility bills; both promise to protect Wisconsin’s land and water and insist on transparency in data center contracts. Both have also taken money from data center supporters — Crowley from the building trade unions that want to construct the new facilities, and Tiffany from the lobbyist for the Wisconsin Data Center Coalition, which supports nondisclosure agreements and data center tax exemptions.

Crowley, as the county executive of an industrial hub that has suffered from the loss of manufacturing jobs, has a more optimistic view of the job-creation and economic development potential of new technology than many voters in Wisconsin, a majority of whom see proposed hyperscale data centers as eyesores and energy hogs. But Tiffany, as Spears reports, is not that different. He voted for a bill in Congress that would have banned states from regulating AI and has called data centers “exciting new technology.”

What specific policies should Wisconsinites demand from their political leaders on data centers?

“There’s a simple answer,” says Joel Rogers, a University of Wisconsin professor who created a center for the study of “high-road” development based on shared prosperity, environmental sustainability and democracy. “First, inspect everything that has already been approved and make sure it conforms to labor, environmental and design standards,” Rogers says. “Second, no public money for people who are richer than Mammon. We are spending hundreds of millions on tax breaks we can’t afford on these data centers. That should stop immediately.”

Rogers is not against data centers in general. “Water and noise are the big issues,” he says. He wants to see strict regulation that compels companies to design structures that dampen noise pollution. Water use, he says, is not a big concern inside data centers with closed-loop, water recycling systems. Rather, it’s the massive generation of electricity that, without intelligent planning, will tax Wisconsin’s water supply. “If you produce energy in an inefficient way, it creates lots of excess heat,” he explains. “The way to cool it is with water. That’s catastrophic.” Discharging warm water into lakes and streams causes thermal shock, fish kills and algal blooms. 

But creating a more efficient and sustainable electric grid is, in Rogers’ view, a big potential upside of data center development. His hope is that data centers could spur serious investments in renewable energy and reduce the tremendous waste involved in our current electricity-generation system. That could mean more plentiful, cheaper power for ratepayers and a more rational, environmentally friendly energy grid.

“If you increase power production investment, that should be good for ratepayers, not bad,” Rogers says. “A bigger base means lower rates.”

The problems with data center development currently is “intermediate,” in Rogers’ view. “States are trying to attract data centers, there’s inappropriate siting, like in dry areas. It messes up farming and ordinary water usage.” 

“But if we are serious about climate we should be for heat pumps for all … electrify everything,” he adds.

Rogers’ position is similar to that of a candidate who didn’t get a lot of traction in the Democratic gubernatorial primary — state Sen. Kelda Roys. 

Roys’ plan to stop unregulated data center development includes passing a bill that gained 49 cosponsors in the Legislature, laying out sturdy environmental, labor and transparency regulations. In addition, Roys called for repealing tax subsidies and incentives for data center developers (something Crowley has declined to endorse), creating a statewide public negotiation team to help local communities drive a harder bargain with Big Tech firms, and demanding big upfront payments from those firms to fund a clean energy infrastructure bank. 

“Wisconsin has no fossil fuels, so every dollar we spend on hydrocarbons leaves our state,” Roys points out. Investing in clean energy is good for the state economy as well as the climate. Her plan leverages data center development to make a faster transition to a green economy. 

That’s a step further than Crowley has gone, although he is campaigning on a pledge to make data center developers “bring your own clean energy.” Tiffany has been attacking Crowley precisely for his clean energy pledge, warning that it will disfigure the landscape by blanketing Wisconsin with solar panels. A recent Tiffany campaign press release declared that “using solar to generate the equivalent annual electricity needed for just the Mount Pleasant and Port Washington data centers would consume roughly 100,000 acres of Wisconsin land.”

But just saying no to both renewable energy and data centers does not amount to a plan. For one thing, there are already 47 existing data centers in Wisconsin. Local communities are struggling over how to regulate them separately all over the state. Melissa Scanlan, the director of UW-Milwaukee’s Center for Water Policy, told the Examiner’s Henry Redman that Wisconsin’s failure to address data centers comprehensively will soon put a big strain on the state’s utilities.

“Doing it in a piecemeal way, where you’ve got local governments deciding about hosting, but then utilities that are committed to supplying the electricity and water, is going to very quickly bump up against the realities of our ability to generate electricity in a responsible way,” Scanlan told Redman. 

Rogers remains optimistic. “Data centers are coming, whether they are in Wisconsin or nearby it doesn’t matter,” he says. He doesn’t favor a moratorium in one state that drives massive hyperscale data center development over the border, when everyone in the region relies on the same water resources. “I’m not for rivalry and scarcity,” he says.

Instead, he maintains, thoughtful policymakers could address worries about data centers by creating policies that address the larger, existential environmental issues that confront us all. 

Imagine that.

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Oracle moved to voluntarily drop its lawsuit against Wisconsin’s utility regulator on Monday, nearly two months after the tech giant turned to the Ozaukee County Circuit Court to challenge new credit rating requirements for data center developers in eastern Wisconsin.

With the case put to rest, the credit rating rules — intended to shield other Wisconsin ratepayers from fallout in the event a data center developer goes bust — now stand unchallenged. Oracle previously argued the requirements were overly stringent and could dissuade other companies from setting up operations in Wisconsin.

Oracle’s share price has begun to rebound after a collapse that began in early June and continued for weeks after the company sued Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission (PSC). Its credit rating, however, remains well below the threshold at which it could avoid posting hundreds of millions of dollars in collateral as a condition of buying electricity for the Port Washington data center.

Vast power needs for data center

The Nashville-based cloud computing firm is a co-developer of the data center campus in Port Washington. The trio behind the project — Oracle, OpenAI and data center developer Vantage — expect the facility to require 1.3 gigawatts of electrical generation capacity in its first phase, or enough to power roughly a million Wisconsin homes.

We Energies, Wisconsin’s largest investor-owned utility, must meet the campus’ energy needs by a tentative late-2027 deadline.

The Port Washington facility’s energy needs are so vast — an order of magnitude greater than the Saukville steel mill that was, until recently, Wisconsin’s largest electricity user —  that state rules require it to buy its electricity under a specialized rate structure.

The PSC approved that rate structure for We Energies’ largest data center customers in May. Among other rules, the commission’s order requires the facilities’ operators to pay for the construction of new power plants needed to meet their energy needs.

But constructing a new plant can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and any unpaid debts tied to the plants could fall on We Energies’ other customers if a data center operator becomes insolvent.

To shield ratepayers from a potential cost shift, the PSC set an A- credit rating threshold for data center operators seeking electric service from We Energies. Companies below the threshold must post steep collateral, either in cash or lines of credit.

That requirement could cost Oracle over $100 million per year in financial security payments. The company held a BBB credit rating when the PSC approved the credit rating standards, largely because of its aggressive borrowing to finance artificial intelligence ventures and its business relationship with OpenAI. 

S&P Global Ratings, one of the “Big Three” credit rating agencies responsible for assessing creditworthiness of government and corporate debt, lowered Oracle’s rating to a BBB- on July 9 — the bottom edge of the agency’s “investment-grade” tier.

PSC declines to reopen case

We Energies asked the PSC to reconsider the rule in June, arguing that the added cost could dissuade other companies from operating in Wisconsin. The PSC declined the request last month, and We Energies CEO Scott Lauber reassured investors on a recent quarterly earnings call that the credit requirements pose no threat to the Port Washington project’s viability.

Oracle, however, sued the commission in Ozaukee County Circuit Court as a backup to the reopener request. The company’s June lawsuit asked Judge Sandy Williams to “set aside, reverse, and remand” the credit rating requirements, arguing that they aren’t “needed to prevent harm” to We Energies’ other customers or shareholders.

The commission responded last month, accusing Oracle of trying to dodge regulatory scrutiny by seeking “to overturn over one-hundred years of established caselaw” and “dictate one-off preferential terms of service” with We Energies.

Questions remain for data center developers

Oracle’s attorneys filed a motion to voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit early on Monday morning.

Ratepayer advocates who supported the credit rating requirements celebrated the end of the lawsuit.

“We were confident the PSC would win and that the consumer protection safeguards the CUB team sought would remain in place,” said Tom Content, executive director of Wisconsin’s Citizens Utility Board. 

“CUB believes the safeguards the PSC established are critical to protect We Energies customers from the risks of tech companies overextending their borrowing, calling into question the long-run solvency of those companies.”

“This is an important win for Wisconsin since these safeguards — which We Energies claims would  ‘narrow the pool of investors’ for AI data center projects — could be used as a blueprint in other parts of the state,” said Clean Wisconsin spokesperson Amy Barrilleaux. 

The end of one legal fight doesn’t guarantee smooth sailing for the Port Washington project. The PSC voted last week to require the American Transmission Company (ATC) — the transmission utility responsible for connecting the data center to the grid — to restart the six-month application process to build the requisite transmission lines and substations, citing a series of design changes the utility made after the commission began reviewing its proposal.

Though the redo will leave ATC little time to meet its December 2027 deadline to plug in the Port Washington data center, the company has yet to announce changes to its timeline. 

Meanwhile, data center developer Cloverleaf Infrastructure signaled that it is considering developing facilities in Madison Gas and Electric’s territory. The utility, which serves the core of the Madison metropolitan area, is awaiting the PSC’s input on its own data center rate structure. 

MGE’s proposal would also require developers with credit ratings below A- to post collateral, with lower collateral requirements for companies rated BBB+ than for those with BBB ratings or below.

Oracle drops lawsuit challenging Wisconsin data center credit rules is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Republican gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany began his general election campaign against Democratic nominee Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley by seeking to paint his opponent as a fan of data centers. Data centers have become a source of great concern for Wisconsin voters. Crowley’s Democratic primary opponent Francesca Hong made the issue central to her campaign before narrowly losing to Crowley last week. Neither Tiffany nor Crowley supports a moratorium on the construction of new data centers, as Hong did. Both Tiffany and Crowley support new guardrails for data centers. 

Crowley has cited the issue when contrasting himself with the candidacy of Hong, who was the only candidate in the Democratic primary to support a one-year moratorium on the construction of new AI data centers. Crowley says a moratorium would do nothing to regulate the data centers that already exist in Wisconsin, and says that his own strategy includes stringent regulation of both existing and prospective data centers.

In a July Marquette Law School poll, 73% of Wisconsinites said the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits and 27% said the benefits are greater than the costs.

Crowley and Tiffany have expressed support for some of the same policies when it comes to data centers, including prohibiting nondisclosure agreements between the companies that build them and local governments, allowing local communities to have final say on whether a data center is built and protecting consumers’ utility rates. 

“Data centers should pay the full cost of the infrastructure, energy demand and public services they require,” Crowley has said. 

Tiffany has highlighted protecting the state’s farmland and Crowley has highlighted protecting the state’s natural resources, including by encouraging companies that seek to build in the state to “bring your own clean energy,” which Crowley refers to as his “Beyonce” plan. Crowley also proposes that the state require contributions to Wisconsin’s Focus on Energy fund, an energy efficiency and renewable energy program, and that only union labor be allowed for the construction of data centers. 

One area of difference — Tiffany supports repealing a tax credit that was passed by the Republican-led state Legislature and signed into law under Gov. Tony Evers, while Crowley has not committed to doing so. 

“I do not believe Wisconsin should automatically roll back all data center tax incentives, but I do believe we need a more rigorous review of whether taxpayers are receiving sufficient value for the incentives being provided,” Crowley told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in July.

In a recent statewide ad, Tiffany’s campaign introduced the Milwaukee County executive as “Data Center David Crowley.

The ad follows days of his campaign highlighting the issue, including releasing a clip of Crowley being interviewed on NBC news in which he says he does not support a moratorium on data centers and circulating a video of Crowley saying at a forum early in the Democratic primary that Wisconsin had the “opportunity” to become the “AI and data hub not only for the entire country, but for the entire globe.”

“And he wants you to pay for it. Data Center David Crowley won’t roll back tax incentives. Our lakes run dry. Family farms paved over. Why? Because Crowley’s campaign is funded by the people building them. Big Tech wins. Wisconsin pays,” the ad states.

The ad is referring to contributions that Crowley has received from unions including the Wisconsin Pipe Trades Association PAC Fund and the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 139 PAC. 

Tiffany told reporters the day after the primary election that it sounds like David Crowley will give “a blank check to data centers” and that data centers “do not need to be subsidized by us, the taxpayers.”

However, Tiffany has not been a big critic of data centers until recently. He called data centers “exciting new technology” in an interview in January. While in Congress, he voted for a bill that would have banned states from being able to regulate AI developers for 10 years.

Tiffany also recently received a $5,000 contribution from Robert Marchant, the lobbyist for the Wisconsin Data Center Coalition, which lobbied against a bill that would ban data center nondisclosure agreements and lobbied for sales tax exemptions for data centers. 

The Crowley campaign has responded to Tiffany’s attacks by sharing videos of Crowley explaining his positions on data centers, including highlighting his support for allowing local communities to decide whether they want a data center. 

“Communities should be able to make a decision whether or not they want a data center. It shouldn’t be steamrolled; it should be brought to the table. If they don’t want a data center, they shouldn’t be forced to have one. There are no ifs, ands or buts about that,” Crowley said in a video posted to social media over the weekend. “If they decide to make their own decision, they need to be transparent. They need to protect taxpayers. They need to increase the level of renewable energy production and protect our water. They need to do all of that while providing family-sustaining opportunities for Wisconsinites, rather than bringing people into Wisconsin. If they make a decision not to do it, we need to honor that decision. We need to make sure that we are holding these folks accountable because, right now, they’re getting all these tax breaks and steamrolling local communities.” 

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Wisconsin regulators voted Thursday to send the American Transmission Company (ATC) back to the drawing board as the utility attempts to build the grid infrastructure needed to plug in the Port Washington data center. 

Public Service Commission (PSC) Chair Summer Strand called the move a “reasonable reset” after ATC repeatedly adjusted the project’s design, which commission staff and ratepayer advocates argued left both regulators and the public with a muddy picture of a grid expansion expected to cost well over $1 billion. 

ATC and its partners, however, warned the decision — likely the first of its kind for the century-old commission — could set a dangerous precedent that drives away investment in Wisconsin’s energy sector.

Data center connection at risk

ATC, which owns and operates transmission lines in the eastern half of Wisconsin, is on the hook to connect the soon-to-open Port Washington data center to the electrical grid. 

The company approached the PSC last September for permission to break ground on the project as early as this past May. Its initial application outlined a more than $1.3 billion infrastructure package, including a high-voltage transmission line and five new substations spread across Fond du Lac, Ozaukee, Sheboygan and Washington counties, needed to “reliably serve” the new data center by December 2027. After two months of back-and-forth over the “completeness” of ATC’s application, the commission took up the proposal in December 2025. 

ATC has since been vocal about the urgency of the infrastructure buildout needed to support the data center boom. The company is part of a coalition of utilities asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to speed up regional transmission projects needed to serve data centers by suspending competitive bidding, arguing that “bureaucratic red tape” presents a national security risk as the U.S. competes with China for “dominance” in the artificial intelligence race. 

Meanwhile, the utility has repeatedly adjusted its plans since December, redesigning proposed routes and adding a set of temporary bypass lines needed to avoid outages during construction. The PSC is responsible for reviewing those changes and giving other parties, namely ratepayer advocates and affected landowners, an opportunity to weigh in. 

Some commission staff sounded the alarm as the pile of revisions — and questions — grew.

“I don’t recall any other comparable cases in my experience with as many application material document revisions and ongoing design changes throughout the process,” PSC Environmental Affairs Coordinator Adam Ingwell wrote in testimony filed last month. “The sheer volume of documents and revisions, without adequate explanation, likely makes it more challenging than typical for a member of the public to find specific information about the project.”

Those concerns reached Administrative Law Judge Michael Newmark, who criticized ATC for creating an “unreasonable burden” on commission staff and the public by scattering “a plethora of changes, modifications and updates” across six months of filings. 

ATC, on the other hand, cast the revisions as “routine.”

“Every application develops during review,” the company’s attorneys wrote on Wednesday. “Changes far larger and later than ATC’s have never cast doubt” on whether an application should move forward, they added, citing a Barron County solar farm the PSC approved last March despite an “eleventh-hour” overhaul that included “relocating an entire substation.”

“There is simply no principled basis on which to treat ATC’s lesser and earlier changes more harshly,” the attorneys wrote. 

Ratepayer advocates weigh in

Ratepayer advocates generally avoid wading into fights over transmission line routes and substation siting, which Wisconsin Citizens Utility Board (CUB) Regulatory Affairs Director Corey Singletary described as a “zero-sum proposition” in which a victory for one group of landowners means shifting construction impacts onto another group of landowners.

But CUB raised concerns that ATC’s revisions make it difficult to forecast the project’s cost.

The route changes and new bypasses make the price tag “a moving target,” said CUB Executive Director Tom Content, as does the possibility that ATC still attempts to complete the project by December 2027. “Would they be paying double overtime or triple overtime to build it that quickly?” 

The Wisconsin Utility Association itself weighed in on Wednesday to warn the PSC that any additional delays in the project will “lead to increased costs for customers.”

Transmission utilities generally pass along the costs of new infrastructure to ratepayers of all kinds via their electrical bills; We Energies, for instance, estimates that transmission-related costs account for about 10% of customers’ bills. 

The PSC can’t require ATC to assign project costs to the companies developing the Port Washington data center. Only FERC, the five-person federal regulator that oversees interstate transmission, could overhaul billing rules to fully shield other customers from the costs of new lines and substations needed to serve data centers.

The commission offered an ad hoc solution this spring. The PSC’s May order creating a new billing structure for We Energies’ data center customers requires data center operators to pay a minimum transmission charge based on their projected electricity use. Wisconsin PSC Commissioner Kristi Nieto called the arrangement a “temporary stopgap measure” to protect other customers from the costs of overbuilt infrastructure if data centers use less electricity than anticipated. 

ATC and We Energies have since asked the PSC and FERC to approve a minimum transmission charge agreement with Microsoft, the operator of the vast new data center in Mount Pleasant. “This is a customer protection mechanism that follows the ‘cost causer, cost payer’ methodology,” an ATC spokesperson wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch.

The utilities have not yet asked the commission to approve similar agreements with the companies developing the Port Washington facility: cloud computing giant Oracle, artificial intelligence firm OpenAI and data center developer Vantage.

In testimony filed last month, Singletary urged the commission to enforce “cost containment” measures for ATC’s project, including requiring the utility to cap its annual revenues from the new transmission lines. He also suggested that the commission push ATC to disclose any bids it receives for “work to be performed and equipment to be procured as part of this project,” which he argued would help keep an eye on the company’s efforts to rein in costs. 

‘Least-bad option’

All three commissioners aired matching frustrations during a Thursday afternoon hearing on ATC’s infrastructure plans before concurring on what Commissioner Marcus Hawkins called the “least-bad option” — requiring ATC to resubmit its application and restarting the case’s 180-day clock.

“There needs to be flexibility in the process,” said Nieto, “but there also has to be some point at which the changes become significant enough that we need to evaluate whether we are still reviewing the same project that was originally proposed.”

“This PSC is not opposed or hostile to data centers, construction, generation, (or) transmission,” Strand said, calling the decision “an unfortunate outcome.” Nevertheless, she added, “this application represents a cautionary tale of when unrealistic and unreasonable speed-to-power expectations collide with a deliberative regulatory process.”

ATC has not indicated when it will resubmit its application as of Thursday afternoon, nor whether the December 2027 deadline is still within reach. “ATC is disappointed with today’s Commission’s decision and is considering its options,” a company spokesperson wrote after the hearing. 

But the company’s final filing before the hearing signaled the possibility of a legal fight. “To date, the Commission has processed the application consistent with the law,” the company’s attorneys wrote. “At this stage,” restarting the process “would be the one action to depart from that.”

Wisconsin regulators send ATC back to the drawing board on data center connection project is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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A year ago, most Wisconsin residents thought little about data centers.

But today, the computing facilities — and where they get their energy — are a key issue in the hotly contested Aug. 11 Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor.

At a lively town hall last week in Milwaukee, five Democratic candidates vied to outdo their peers in tough talk about data centers and their developers, described as ​“Big Tech oligarchs” by state Rep. Francesca Hong, the leading contender according to recent polling.

Whoever wins the nomination will likely run against Tom Tiffany, a Republican candidate and a current U.S. representative for north and central Wisconsin. He too has focused part of his campaign on curbing data centers, promising to prevent the use of farmland for the facilities and repeal tax breaks for them. But unlike the Democratic hopefuls arguing that AI facilities should be powered largely by clean energy, Tiffany is pushing state regulators to keep decades-old coal plants online past their retirement dates to help meet ballooning power demand.

While data centers are an increasingly hot-button topic nationwide in the run-up to the November elections, the tension is particularly pronounced in Wisconsin as developers have recently flocked to the state, drawn by its cool climate, access to water, robust transmission and generation infrastructure, and generous tax incentives passed by the Republican-dominated Legislature and signed by current Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in 2023.

That’s spiked public fears about the facilities’ impacts, including that the boom in energy demand will drive a buildout of polluting power plants and increase household utility bills. A July 22 Marquette University Law School poll found that over three-quarters of Wisconsin voters say the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits, up from 55% in October 2025. Almost nine out of 10 Democrats and two-thirds of Republicans who answered the poll held this viewpoint.

We Energies, the utility serving over a million customers primarily in southeast Wisconsin, is planning to meet data centers’ power demand with two new gas plants, one of which would be the state’s second largest. Meanwhile, Wisconsin’s first hyperscale data center went online this summer near Milwaukee. That and another data center under construction not far away in Port Washington are expected to need 3.9 gigawatts of power — far more than is used by all the homes in the state combined.

“This story isn’t going away. It will only grow in importance to people,” said Elizabeth Ward, director of the Sierra Club’s Wisconsin chapter. ​“People are worried about air pollution, water pollution, land impacts, especially when gas plants are being built just to serve data centers. We hope to have a strong governor who passes safeguards against them.”

How the candidates want to curb data centers

All the Democratic candidates at the data center–focused town hall vowed to keep the industry on a tight leash and ensure that community protections are enforced by the Legislature, governor’s office, utility regulators, and state agencies.

Hong, the choice of 38% of respondents in a July 29 poll by Marquette University Law School, is calling for a moratorium on data center development to give the state time to develop a robust regulatory framework. New York’s Democratic governor instated a similar policy last month, the first of its kind in the U.S.

While none of the other candidates support a moratorium, each says they would aggressively pursue ratepayer protections and clean energy investments from data centers and utilities that serve them.

Hong calls her data center plan ​“Control-Alt-Delete,” and her website says that ​“if a community decides it wants to proceed with data center construction, it needs to be powered by clean energy.” She says taxes paid by data center developers should be invested in a green bank to fund energy and climate solutions, and utilities should be forced to report how much energy large customers use, to ensure regular customers aren’t footing the bill. Hong also advocates for the expansion of public utilities, which her campaign says currently provide 11% of the state’s power and charge significantly lower prices than We Energies does.

Joel Brennan, a civic leader and former official in Evers’ administration, wants to make data centers invest in larger transmission upgrades and clean energy. At the town hall, he said the Legislature needs to pass a law codifying the commitment to 100% carbon-free energy by 2050 that Evers set with a 2019 executive order. He also said data centers should use battery storage instead of diesel generators for backup power.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said he’d order data centers to bring their own 100% clean energy to the grid. Crowley had dropped out of the race July 8, then reentered 10 days later, and won Evers’ endorsement when another candidate — Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez — withdrew.

State Sen. Kelda Roys pledged to work with the Legislature to ​“immediately pass” a bill introduced by Democrats in the last session that would — among other things — require data centers to get at least 70% of their energy from renewables in order to qualify for tax breaks. (Republicans backed a separate data center bill in the last session that likewise did not advance.)

Roys previously told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which sponsored the town hall, that she would require ​“significant upfront payments from large data center projects, hundreds of millions of dollars each, to capitalize a public clean energy infrastructure bank,” which would provide zero-interest revolving loans for clean energy upgrades to public buildings.

Longtime environmental justice advocate and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes was also at the town hall and pledged to demand a renewable energy commitment from data centers. But he withdrew from the increasingly chaotic primary contest the day after the event.

It appears the November election will be a close one. Polls show Hong and Tiffany evenly matched, with people largely voting along party lines. Wisconsin is a purple state, with Republicans modestly outnumbering Democrats, and independent voters making up about a third of the electorate.

Coal plant concerns mount

Wisconsin Rapids residents Aryana Khan and Cloey Hilliker drove nearly three hours to attend the town hall. A proposal for a data center on the site of a defunct paper mill has drawn controversy in their town. Khan has asthma and worries that fossil fuel generation that is built or continues to run to fuel data centers will have serious health impacts on Wisconsinites.

“Why should a Silicon Valley man that was born into wealth get to dictate whether or not I can open my windows because the air is so bad I can’t breathe?” Khan told Canary Media. ​“This is an industry that will not last long. Something new will come along that is shiny, and people will flock to it, and we will have overbuilt for an obsolete technology.”

During the town hall, Peg Sheaffer, spokesperson for the public interest law firm Midwest Environmental Advocates, lamented that utilities are rolling back their plans to retire coal plants because of data centers.

“What actions would your administration take to hold utilities accountable and to keep Wisconsin on track to retire coal-fired power plants?” she asked the candidates.

Hong suggested that a public health expert should be added to the state’s Public Service Commission, whose three members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate, for staggered six-year terms.

Multiple candidates emphasized the role that the Public Service Commission plays in deciding where data centers get their energy, and who pays. Brennan called the commission a ​“black box for people outside state government” and ​“one of the most powerful entities inside state government.”

The commission has long been criticized for acquiescing to utilities’ requests to raise rates and invest in fossil fuels. Roys referred to the body under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker as ​“lapdogs for utilities.”

But the regulatory body has recently taken some steps to limit data centers’ impacts. In April, the commission instituted a special electricity rate for data centers in the Milwaukee-area service territory of We Energies to prevent regular customers from paying for the energy to serve data centers, a move praised by environmental and consumer advocates.

Tom Content, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, a consumer watchdog group, thinks the gubernatorial race helped influence the commission to reject We Energies’ original proposal and institute a standard that goes further to protect ratepayers.

“You had candidates on the right and the far left that said the Public Service Commission is not doing its job,” Content told Canary Media. ​“I think the commissioners themselves were like, ​‘We’re going to side with the consumer.’”

Content and other advocates said that data centers underscore Wisconsin’s need for integrated resource planning, a centralized process that many other states use to ensure demand is met with the most cost-effective and cleanest energy. Currently, Wisconsin regulators consider utility proposals piecemeal.

Roys is in favor of such a reform. At the town hall, she said, ​“The fastest, cheapest new sources of energy are wind and solar, and I’ll add geothermal in there, too.”

She noted that energy efficiency, grid improvements and virtual power plants can help utilities retire coal plants even as electricity demand grows.

“There’s so much that we can do, some of it enabled by modern technology and AI to actually make better use of what we’re already generating, and to waste less,” she said. ​“This is absolutely within our reach.”

A version of this article was first published by Canary Media.

Data centers take center stage in Wisconsin governor’s race is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

At a forum hosted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Democrats competing in the primary for Wisconsin governor debated data center regulation. Freelance videographer Jonathan Klett captured full video of the event, featuring current candidates Joel Brennan, David Crowley, Francesca Hong and Kelda Roys as well as Mandela Barnes, who dropped out of the race shortly after participating in the forum.

 

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Click here to read highlights from the story

• Microsoft’s new 15-year electric service contract with We Energies includes outdated language limiting where power plants serving its Mount Pleasant data center could be located.
• The Public Service Commission rejected the geographic restriction, which would have limited Microsoft’s access to wind energy from neighboring states.
• We Energies says the commission’s order — not the outdated contract language — will govern Microsoft’s power purchases.
• Consumer advocates question why We Energies asked Microsoft to sign a contract that didn’t reflect regulators’ decision.

Microsoft’s new 15-year electric service contract for its Mount Pleasant data center includes a provision Wisconsin regulators previously rejected. 

Signed last month, the agreement with We Energies specifies that power plants built or purchased to serve data centers must be located in eastern Wisconsin or Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. But Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission (PSC) voted in May to remove those geographic constraints, which critics argued would cut off Microsoft’s access to abundant wind power generated elsewhere in the Midwest and Great Plains. 

We Energies says it will follow the commission’s order — as opposed to the contract’s language — while it works with the commission to resolve the discrepancy. In the meantime, some observers question how an outdated version of a high-stakes contract made it this far.

Where should data centers look for power? 

The mismatch traces back to one of many disagreements that arose during the PSC’s deliberations on a new rate structure for large data center customers: Should those facilities rely on nearby plants alone or be free to tap energy sources elsewhere?

The PSC-approved rate structure allows large data center operators to “subscribe” to new power plants, picking up the bill for purchasing or constructing them in exchange for the right to use the electricity they generate and revenue from selling surplus electricity on the wholesale market.

We Energies argued that those plants should be located as close as possible to the data centers they would serve. 

Longer distances would increase the risk of grid failures disrupting data center operations, WEC Energy Group Director of Planning Jody Arendt told the PSC in January. WEC Energy Group is We Energies’ holding company.

The local power plants would be within the territory of the American Transmission Company (ATC), a transmission utility in which We Energies owns a majority stake — a relationship that could simplify coordinating repairs and upgrades, Arendt said.

Ratepayer advocates and clean energy groups criticized the plan, arguing it would limit data centers’ access to wind energy. 

Electricity generated by onshore wind farms is, by some measures, cheaper than electricity generated by new natural gas plants. The Midwest’s regional grid operator has approved billions of dollars in grid upgrades over the past five years, in part to streamline transmitting wind energy from regions with high winds to population centers and industrial hubs. 

We Energies fully or partially owns a half-dozen planned and operational wind farms in Wisconsin, including the new Badger Hollow wind farm in Iowa and Grant counties. But neighboring states — especially Iowa and Minnesota — have far higher average wind speeds and generate vastly more wind power.

“Any Wisconsin customers should be able to benefit from lower cost resources like the wind profile in southern Minnesota,” Wisconsin Citizens Utility Board Executive Director Tom Content wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch. 

The PSC ultimately sided with CUB and clean energy groups, striking the location constraints from the data center rate structure it approved in May. 

“Over-indexing on a smaller geographic area comes with its own risks,” said Commissioner Marcus Hawkins, adding that planned grid upgrades could resolve some of the challenges of powering data centers from afar. 

Outdated contract

With the rate structure approved, We Energies sent Microsoft a contract to implement the new rate structure.

Microsoft asked the PSC in June to reopen the case, in part to address “multiple errors or inconsistencies” in We Energies’ contract — including the provision limiting new power plants to eastern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula.

We Energies offered to drop the line, among other “ministerial changes that could streamline or improve” the contract.

After the PSC declined to reopen the case, Microsoft signed the contract as-is on July 16. A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment on the contract.

Because the commission “did not reopen their decision or take up these changes,” the utility still needs to work with the PSC to fix the contracts, We Energies spokesperson Brendan Conway wrote in an email. “We do not have a timeline for when the language will be updated.”

“From a practical perspective,” he added, Microsoft will be held to the PSC-approved rules, meaning it can subscribe to plants outside of eastern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula. 

The companies are legally required to abide by the PSC’s terms, commission spokesperson Meghan Sovey-Lashua wrote in an email.

“To the degree there are conflicts” with the PSC’s order, Sovey-Lashua added, “there are procedural options” to bring the issue back to the commission for a resolution.

Ratepayer advocates, meanwhile, wonder why We Energies asked Microsoft to sign an outdated version of the contract in the first place. 

“There’s a basic and common-sense expectation that a utility’s filing would be revised to reflect changes the PSC made to a proposal,” Content wrote, “particularly for an issue that generated a fair amount of discussion during the seven-hour deliberation on this issue.” 

Microsoft has already signed up to purchase electricity from the planned Red Oak Ridge Energy Center in Kenosha County. We Energies is currently asking the PSC for permission to buy the natural gas plant from developer Invenergy for $1.8 billion while Invenergy awaits PSC approval to build the plant. 

We Energies says Microsoft won’t be held to contract terms that conflict with state regulators’ order is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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It didn’t get much attention at the time, but last fall an out-of-state developer proposed an artificial intelligence data center 35 miles north of Madison in Columbia County.

At $10 billion, it would have been the third-largest data center to come to Wisconsin.

The Maryland-based Stonebridge real estate development company isn’t saying why it stopped exploring a site in Pacific, a town of about 2,800 people. 

But town chair Steven Pate told Wisconsin Watch there was no follow-up after he told Stonebridge executive Douglas Firstenberg that the proposal would have to be aired publicly.

“You’re going to talk to me, you’re going to talk to all five (town board members) and it’s going to be a public meeting,” Pate said he recalled telling Firstenberg in what he said was their only conversation.

The first mention of the possible data center came last November in a local news report about a solar farm. Columbia County planning director Kurt Calkins said in the article that a developer was exploring a $10 billion data center in Pacific with 400 permanent jobs and an opening in 2027.

Nothing more ever became public.

Here’s the rest of the story.

Madison real estate attorney Kevin Ramakrishna made the first contact with Columbia County last August, according to emails Wisconsin Watch obtained from the county under the state public records law. 

Ramakrishna, who represented Stonebridge, wrote that he and Firstenberg first met with county officials in October. 

The next month, according to Ramakrishna, Firstenberg met with Pate.

The Pacific town clerk said she had no emails related to any data center.

Stonebridge has since accelerated its involvement with data centers in other parts of the country.

The company is promoting its plans for a $15 billion, 569-acre complex on the site of a former dynamite factory northwest of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. And it has won initial approval for a $2.6 billion, 1,300-acre data center in Fort Meade, near Tampa, Florida.

Firstenberg and Ramakrishna didn’t reply to requests for comment. 

Calkins said the county hasn’t heard from Stonebridge in months.

Although Stonebridge’s interest appears dead, Columbia County is bracing for more data center proposals.

Columbia County Board Supervisor Denise Brusveen introduced a policy change, adopted by the board in July, that prohibits supervisors from signing nondisclosure agreements regarding data centers.

The use of data center NDAs by local communities was revealed by Wisconsin Watch in January.

“I wanted to be very clear to the public that they should be able to trust us,” Brusveen said.

A $10 billion data center proposal vanished after a local official told the developer the process would have to unfold in public is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Earlier this year, the Madison suburb of DeForest abruptly rejected a $12 billion, 1,600-acre data center amid mounting public opposition.

In doing so, the village of 12,000 also turned down wide-ranging public benefits that some experts say could be a model for what communities can demand from hyperscale data center projects.

Wisconsin Watch reported in January that DeForest and other communities around the state had, for months, secretly worked on proposals for billion-dollar data centers before informing the public.

The day after the report, DeForest officials announced the project was “no longer viable.”

The retreat was a response to a swell of opposition fueled by outright objections to data centers, misinformation about their impact and anger over the proposal being kept quiet. 

Amid the controversy, little attention was paid to an agreement the village had negotiated with Virginia-based QTS Data Centers.

Here’s some of what the community could have received if the data center had come to fruition:

• A guaranteed amount of taxable property value for the data center of $1.2 billion, which would be worth an estimated $12 million annually in property tax payments to the village, schools and other taxing bodies.

• Tens of millions of dollars in payments toward the village’s signature natural feature, the Yahara River, as well as for affordable housing and other needs.

• Protections for nearby property owners and electricity ratepayers.

“You’re not seeing these in other development agreements,” said Tyler Byrnes, a researcher at the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum.

Local governments throughout Wisconsin, even where data centers have not been proposed, are adopting data center moratoriums. At the same time, data center development proposals are being considered in communities such as Kenosha, Menomonie, Wisconsin Rapids and Rock County.

Even though no data center was built in DeForest, the village’s agreement could offer guidance for future data center deals in Wisconsin.

‘Best package’

QTS’ proposal drew opposition because data centers have become inherently controversial, but also because DeForest would have had to annex 1,600 acres from the neighboring town of Vienna. Moreover, there was backlash to the news that DeForest staff were meeting with QTS representatives and Alliant Energy as early as March 2025 — seven months before announcing the proposal.

Three weeks before dropping the project, DeForest announced it had reached a pre-annexation agreement with QTS that put more than a dozen requirements on the developer.

“It’s our job to provide the best package that we can get from our development, to benefit the population and the village,” village Administrator Bill Chang recently told Wisconsin Watch.

The provisions are wide-ranging. Here’s an overview:

Guaranteed assessed value of at least $1.2 billion for 15 years 

QTS would have had to pay property taxes based on at least that amount, even if the actual valuation were lower. The village estimated that QTS would pay $12 million annually to local jurisdictions by 2031 and that over 15 years, a home with an assessed value of $400,000 would save $1,772 per year in property taxes.

“The tax benefits are big,” said professor Ross Milton, a local government tax expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

Milton said the guarantee means that even if the data center’s property valuation didn’t reach $1.2 billion, the village would still receive the amount of property tax revenue as if it did, though other local taxing bodies would not.

Pay $50 million for community infrastructure

That funding would have included $100,000 annually for 15 years for preservation, restoration and other improvements for the Yahara River; paying $1.5 million toward a planned $15 million interstate interchange; contributing $200,000 annually for five years to the village’s affordable housing program; and creating a community solar energy project to help homeowners. 

Pay for public infrastructure

QTS would have paid for all public infrastructure improvements serving the data center, including water, sewer lines and roads.

The deal included on top of that a $1 million payment for a sewer main extension, completed in 2024, that would have served the data center.

Another provision would have paid for any police, fire and EMS vehicles and equipment necessary to address needs caused by the development. The developer also offered to provide emergency services, including an ambulance, to the development site for five years after signing of the agreement so as not to draw away from existing community services.

Also covered were planning and design of a public transit connection from DeForest to Madison and operation of the transit line during construction, as well as an alternative snowmobile trail through the property.

The developer also would have had to reimburse the village for water, sewer and stormwater expenses that would otherwise cause general rate increases. And QTS would have paid to install a wastewater monitoring station to measure effluent discharged from the data center. 

“QTS wanted to work with us,” Chang said. “They were willing to play ball, per se, to get into a position where it would make sense for the village to approve an annexation.”

Pay for power infrastructure

QTS would have paid for all improvements to electric power infrastructure needed to serve the data center without — subject to state regulation — affecting existing ratepayers.

The agreement included a commitment that the data center would draw 45% of its energy from solar, wind or other renewable resources. The agreement noted the developer had bought 750 megawatts of renewable energy credits for the project.

Protecting neighbors

The agreement would have committed the developer to repairing or replacing private wells, or connecting a home to municipal water, within a quarter-mile of the data center if the data center construction or operation contaminated the wells.

QTS also would have committed to buying residential properties within a quarter-mile of the data center if the property “is materially adversely affected by noise, vibration, private water supply contamination or other negative impacts” from the data center.

The purchase price would have been no less than 110% of the property’s assessed value.

Democratic candidates for governor have called for gaining benefits in data center deals. One of them, state Sen. Kelda Roys of Madison, supports creating a state team of experts to help communities negotiate with data center developers.

Reclaiming the site

If the DeForest center had been built but later stopped operating, the deal would have allowed the village to reclaim the site. Then the village would have been able to sell or lease the property or demolish the buildings on it.

QTS “did communicate that they are long-term-involved in their facilities and that they have, as one of their priorities, to be a good community partner,” said village Community Development Director Alex Allon.

One of the proposal’s opponents, former Vienna town board member Shawn Haney, said he had urged village staff to be more precise on some requirements of QTS, but that the staff “were definitely doing their homework and they had some good ideas in there. The concept behind it was good.”

No tax incremental financing

The agreement doesn’t include a tax incremental district, a common tax break that commits future property taxes from a land parcel’s anticipated increase in value to finance a proposed development. 

That “makes the proposal abundantly better” for residents, said Prescott Balch, who is sought out as an expert by data center opponents around Wisconsin.

The difference is that while a property is in a TID, it isn’t counted in the total value of the village’s property for tax purposes and therefore doesn’t lower taxes on other property owners until the TID is closed, Byrnes said.

Nevertheless, the sheer opposition to the data center far overshadowed what was in the pre-annexation agreement. The village never took a vote on annexation, which would have required support from a supermajority of the board.

“The politics got too loud too fast,” Chang said.

Looking ahead

In contrast, the local government agreements covering the three data centers under construction in Wisconsin, in Beaver Dam, Mount Pleasant and Port Washington, use tax incremental districts. 

None of them includes the wide-ranging community investments and protections that DeForest negotiated. 

Other communities around the U.S. are negotiating deals similar to DeForest’s. In Pennsylvania, for example, a developer seeking local approval of a data center has offered $165 million, including $10,000 payments to homeowners.

UW-Madison professor Anna Haensch, who researches data center policy, said DeForest’s agreement contains some elements in what are typically contained in more formal “community benefit agreements” — provisions that local governments seek as part of the process of approving a data center. 

She and UW colleagues are working on a framework that local governments could use for negotiations.

“Community benefit agreements are not yet the norm, but I think they should be and I think they will be,” Haensch said.

“When you’re in a tough position in life, knowing what you can ask for is half the battle.”

Guaranteed tax revenue, river funding, affordable housing: What DeForest negotiated before a data center deal collapsed  is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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We Energies reassured shareholders on Wednesday that Oracle’s ongoing dispute with state regulators over new credit rating requirements for data center operators poses no threat to the planned hyperscale data center in Port Washington. 

WEC Energy Group CEO Scott Lauber, head of We Energies’ parent company, told investors during a quarterly earnings call that the Port Washington facility remains on track to come online as soon as late 2027. In a “worst-case scenario” in which Oracle backs out of the project, “there are a lot of opportunities for that site,” Lauber said, “but at this point, I have no indication that’s the case.”

Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission (PSC) in April approved a rate structure for We Energies’ “very large customers” that requires operators like Oracle to pay for the construction of new power plants needed to meet data center energy needs. But constructing a new plant can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and any unpaid debts tied to the plants could fall on We Energies’ other customers if a data center operator becomes insolvent.

To shield ratepayers from a potential cost shift, the PSC set a AAA- credit rating threshold for data center operators seeking electric service from We Energies. Companies below the threshold must post steep collateral, either in cash or lines of credit, as a backstop.

That requirement could cost Oracle, the co-developer of the Port Washington data center campus alongside OpenAI and Vantage, over $100 million per year in financial security payments. The company held a BBB credit rating when the PSC approved the credit rating standards, largely because of its aggressive borrowing to finance artificial intelligence ventures and risky business relationship with OpenAI. S&P Global Ratings, one of the “Big Three” credit rating agencies responsible for assessing creditworthiness of government and corporate debt, lowered Oracle’s rating to a BBB- on July 9 — the bottom edge of the agency’s “investment-grade” tier. If the company’s credit rating falls further, Lauber said, “we already have all the collateral we need.”

We Energies asked the PSC to reconsider the rule last month, arguing that the added cost could dissuade other companies from operating in Wisconsin. “If the Commission does not reopen its decision on this issue, the implications for Wisconsin would be significant and limit the ability of numerous investment-grade companies to invest in Wisconsin,” the utility’s attorneys wrote in their request. The PSC declined We Energies’ request earlier this month.

Lauber sounded more optimistic about the credit rating requirements on Wednesday. “I don’t think the collateral will be an issue long term,” he said, noting that ratings agencies reacted positively to the credit rating threshold. 

We Energies is currently in talks with at least two other data center operators interested in setting up Wisconsin operations, albeit at far smaller scales than Oracle or Microsoft, which operates a new data center campus in Mount Pleasant. Lauber told shareholders that the credit rating requirements pose no obstacle to those prospective customers. 

Oracle, however, sued the PSC in Ozaukee County Circuit Court last month, asking a judge to “set aside, reverse and remand” the credit rating requirements. The tech giant argues the commission acted outside of its authority in approving the rule and that the AAA- bar isn’t “needed to prevent harm” to We Energies’ other customers.

We Energies is an interested party in that lawsuit, but it did not join Oracle as a plaintiff.

We Energies says Oracle dispute won’t derail Port Washington data center is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Democratic candidates for governor largely avoided direct attacks on one another during their only televised primary debate Tuesday night, with two weeks remaining before the Aug. 11 primary, instead laying out differences on issues including school vouchers and data centers.

This year’s election is the first open race for governor in Wisconsin since 2010, and the five candidates left in a field that used to include seven are former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, Joel Brennan, former state Department of Administration chief, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, state Rep. Francesca Hong and state Sen. Kelda Roys.

More than 40% of Wisconsin voters have not made up their minds about which candidate to support. 

Recent polls show Hong leading the race. 

The debate was hosted by WISN 12 on the Marquette University campus and moderated by Gerron Jordan and Matt Smith, WISN 12 journalists and hosts of “Upfront,” on the first day of in-person early voting. The candidates were told at the beginning that they were allowed to speak to one another at the start of the debate, but direct back and forth and criticism was minimal throughout the hour-long debate. 

The winner of the primary will likely face U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the presumptive Republican nominee in November.

Addressing criticisms 

The debate started with each candidate addressing a critique of their candidacy. 

Crowley, who recently reentered the race for governor with the endorsement of Gov. Tony Evers, was asked about his decision to drop out and then restart his campaign and whether he is a “prop” of the Democratic establishment.

“I was never born into the establishment. I was actually born into struggle… I’m not here to protect the establishment. I’m here to deliver real results for Wisconsinites all over our state,” Crowley said, adding that the “stakes are too high and that’s why I got back into this race.”

Barnes, who served as lieutenant governor in Evers’ first term, was asked about entering the race after losing his 2022 U.S. Senate race against Sen. Ron Johnson, his failure to garner Evers’ endorsement, and why voters should trust him to win in November when he previously lost. 

Barnes said that his narrow loss to Johnson taught him about the influence of money on elections as well as “how low Republicans can go.” He said that he thinks his campaign will have the resources and support to win, and he appeared to take a poke at Crowley.

“I have zero interest in upholding the status quo. I have zero interest in being the establishment candidate,” Barnes said. “That is the difference right here on the stage because I am pushing the envelope to make sure that we are as bold as we can possibly be in the Donald Trump era, because that’s what people have been calling for Democrats to be all along.” 

Hong, who identifies as a democratic socialist, was asked whether she supports the full platform of the Democratic Socialists of America, which includes abolishing the U.S. Senate. Tiffany has been criticizing her for a tweet from 2021, in which she said “Abolish the Senate.” She said no. 

“I do not support the full platform of the national DSA and I am not endorsed by DSA National,” Hong said. She then focused on defining democratic socialism, saying it is a “form of government that puts working class people first.” 

Brennan and Roys, who are both polling in the single digits, were asked about whether voters were “wasting” their vote by voting for them.

“The challenge that I have had from day one is not that anybody thinks I’m unqualified for the office,” Brennan said, noting his experience as a cabinet member under Evers. “The challenge I have had is that people don’t know me as well as they know some other candidates around the state.” 

Brennan said the recent upheaval in the race  — as well as the perception of insiders “putting their thumb on the scale” — has gotten people more engaged and that will help his candidacy. 

Roys responded to the same question by saying, “If you want the best public schools in the nation for your children, if you want to open up the state’s healthcare plan so that everyone can buy in and we can lower costs for all Wisconsinites, if you want a candidate who is going to stand up and fight Donald Trump and bring an end to this authoritarian regime, then you should vote for me.” 

Public safety funding

Each candidate said he or she would not sign a budget that cut funding to law enforcement and all said that they would sign a bill requiring police across the state of Wisconsin to wear body cameras. 

Candidates were asked about the killing of Corey Ruiz, a Black man, by Madison police. Hong was asked about her public speech on the site of the killing in which she called it an example of state-sanctioned violence and an “execution.” Hong said during the debate that she would not have made the comments before an investigation as governor, since the office has “the largest microphone in the state” and there is “deep responsibility” with that.

“It was clearly the type of violence where no one’s life should have been taken,” Hong said. 

Asked about previous comments she made supporting defunding the police, Hong said she would not cut funding for public safety, but wants to invest in local governments and communities to help reduce crime including by investing in schools, addressing the opioid epidemic and ensuring people coming out of incarceration have proper resources.

“The governor cannot defund police, and I am not here to govern by slogan,” Hong said. “I am here to make sure I am the governor that’s most serious about public safety.”

Barnes faced criticism during his 2022 Senate campaign over comments supporting reducing police funding. He said during the debate he would not sign a budget that decreased police  funding in part because he said police departments must be able to afford body cameras, which Madison police do not have. 

Roys said that she wouldn’t cut police funding and added that the state also needs to invest in local governments, so they can invest in evidence-based programs that reduce and prevent crime. 

“We have to invest in proven strategies that actually do that, unlike what Republicans like Tom Tiffany have done, which is cut funding to local governments and take away local control,” Roys said. 

“We cannot defund the police. We should be investing in public safety,” Crowley said, adding that that includes investing in wraparound services.

Brennan said there needs to be robust funding for local governments, and that the state should look to Minnesota as a model for how to reduce crime, spend less and reduce the prison population while investing in early childhood and K-12 education.

Voucher program

When it comes to the state’s school voucher system, candidates took different positions. 

Barnes said he would reduce the voucher programs in the state, including in Milwaukee where nearly half of students in the city use publicly funded private school vouchers. 

Roys laid out her three-step plan to sunset the voucher programs including implementing transparency and accountability measures to close schools that don’t adhere to higher standards, end the statewide program in the first state budget and wind down the programs while allowing current participating students and their siblings to continue attending private schools with vouchers.

Hong said she would not put a “firm” number on when the voucher programs would need to end, but she supports strengthening public schools and would wind down the voucher program through a “responsible program and process where we work directly with the families and the different schools.” 

Crowley said he would not sign a bill reducing the programs, though he added that he doesn’t want to see them expand either. 

“I don’t think the question is whether or not we should have vouchers,” Crowley said. “The question should be, how do we continue to invest in our public schools to make sure that they’re the school of choice.”

Brennan offered the strongest argument for not signing a bill to reduce or close the programs. He said he wants to cap enrollment and disclose costs of private voucher schools on taxpayers’ property tax bills, but he said reducing the program is not politically feasible. 

“There is not going to be a bill passed in the Legislature that is put on the governor’s desk right now to end vouchers in Milwaukee. There are representatives in Milwaukee… for whom more than half the people who live there are sending their kids to private schools. We have to live in the real world. This is dividing Democrats,” Brennan said. “I wouldn’t put legislators in a position where they’re going to have to tell parents that they can’t send their kids to their schools of their choice.” 

Brennan added that he wants to make Wisconsin’s public schools better than any private school.

Data centers 

Data center construction has become a key issue in the race for governor with polling suggesting that 76% of Wisconsinites say they believe the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits. Candidates provided different solutions for regulating data centers. 

Hong touted the fact that she is the only candidate to call for a moratorium on data centers and said she would call a special session on the issue to have lawmakers take action on a bill that would impose regulations on data center construction in the state. 

“This moratorium is necessary so that we can responsibly put in enforcement mechanisms to protect communities,” Hong said, noting that some local governments have already imposed  moratoriums. “We also want to make sure that there are the guard rails, the legal resources, and that if data centers are going to come here in our state that they pay their own way and actually pay up front.” 

Crowley said that he did not think a moratorium would address the long-term concerns, and said he would rather focus on ensuring that data centers have to pay for their energy use, grid upgrades and use clean energy.

Brennan said he has not called for a moratorium, but would put a 100-day pause on construction. He said he would also ensure that Wisconsinites are not paying for the construction, ensure there are regulations with “teeth” and that companies are using renewable energy, ensure that union workers are employed on the projects and ban non-disclosure agreements between companies and local governments.

“If we can do that in the first 100 days, it’s not going to make everybody happy, but it’s going to set the bar and take away that uncertainty and take away another reason why people distrust government and why they’re so angry,” Brennan said. 

Barnes said that he wanted no new data center construction without guardrails being put in place to ensure the state’s natural resources and air quality are protected and that residents’ energy bills are not climbing. 

“If a community rejects a data center proposal, then there should be no new data center constructed,” Barnes said. 

Roys said she doubted a moratorium bill could pass, but a bill focused on strong regulations could be successful. 

“I will not stop there,” Roys said. “I will also establish a public negotiating team so that any community that decides it would like to engage with a data center has the opportunity to have expert negotiators. I will increase shared revenue so that communities don’t feel desperate … I will also end the subsidies for data centers because they should be paying us and not the other way around.”

In 30-second closing statements, as each candidate made a pitch for voters’ support, Barnes made some of the most pointed remarks of the night taking shots at Crowley and Hong.

“I want you to know that the establishment is trying to rig this election. They want you to choose between their preferred candidate and also Republican billionaires are lining up to the tune of three and a half million dollars to choose a democratic nominee in this race,” Barnes said, referring to the money the Republican party has invested in ads widely seen as aimed at boosting Hong. “I’m here to say, that’s BS. I’ve been a progressive fighter who’s taken on the tough fights.”

Brennan suggested he is the only one who could win the general election, Roys and Crowley each emphasized their experience and Hong said she was already beating Tiffany by garnering statewide support and would be a fighter for working class voters.

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Technology companies are pursuing projects that would launch data centers into space — efforts called Starcloud at Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Project Suncatcher at Google.

According to reporting from the Wall Street Journal, the idea is that, instead of consuming land, power and water on Earth, the orbiting data centers would harness the sun’s energy for unlimited power.

The projects are in the early stages of development, according to reporting from National Public Radio, and viability remains in question over the cost of launching servers into space, where the heat from the servers will go, and the logistics of maintaining and upgrading the technology.

While data centers in space are unlikely to happen in the next few years, studies, including one from Southern New Hampshire University, conclude space-based data centers could be a reality in the next decade.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Aldrich K. Wooden Sr.: Space-Based Data Centers: First Principles Deconstruction and Market Ecosystem Analysis Through 2035
• Wall Street Journal: Data centers in space: A pipe dream, or AI’s next big thing?
• National Public Radio: Big tech’s next move is to put data centers in space. Can it work?

Are tech companies working in 2026 to launch data centers into space? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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For six months now, Wisconsin Watch has made a concerted effort to report on data centers. We’re publishing major stories at WisconsinWatch.org and, each Monday, we provide data center news nuggets in our Forward newsletter (subscribe here).

Here’s a month-by-month summary of what we’ve reported.

January: Wisconsin Watch revealed that officials in at least four Wisconsin communities (the number has since grown) signed nondisclosure agreements that hid details of billion-dollar data center proposals from the public.

February: We detailed how a $1 billion data center is being proposed for Grant County in the Driftless Area of southwest Wisconsin.

March: In a sign of the impact of artificial intelligence data centers, we reported that just three Wisconsin companies have done more than $1 billion in business supplying the facilities. We also disclosed more NDAs and other ways local governments have tried to keep data center details secret.

April: We were the first to report on an official estimate that state government will forgo $2 billion in revenue because of a sales tax exemption for data centers that was adopted in 2023.

June: We spent months gathering behind-the-scenes details on what happened to the Driftless Area proposal.

July: We detailed how land sales for the data center under construction in Port Washington turned homeowners and farmers into millionaires and, in some cases, created generation-changing wealth.

More stories are in the works. 

If you have suggestions for future data center coverage, please let me know: tkertscher@wisconsinwatch.org.

The public demanded data center news, and Wisconsin Watch is delivering is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Wisconsin state government is not spending $2 billion on data centers.

The campaign website of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong stated that Wisconsin is “spending over $2 billion in public money” on data centers “this year.”  

The statement linked to a Wisconsin Watch news article, which is based on a Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo.

The article made clear that the $2 billion is forgone revenue, not an expenditure. The LFB estimated the state will forgo $2 billion in revenue over a period of years because data centers are exempt from paying state sales tax.

It’s unclear whether the three artificial intelligence data centers under construction in Wisconsin would have been built without the tax incentive, which most states offer.

Some states are rolling back the exemptions or imposing requirements for receiving them.

Texas’ Republican governor has called for elimination; Ohio’s GOP governor and Arizona’s 2027 budget paused exemptions.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• FrancescaHong.com: Data Centers and AI
• Wisconsin Watch: Wisconsin data center tax break to cost state more than $2 billion
• Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau: Sales Tax Exemption for WEDC Certified Data Centers
• Wisconsin Department of Revenue: Qualified Data Center Exemption
• Texas Tribune: Abbott recommends sweeping data center regulation, including eliminating sales tax exemption
• Ohio Governor's Office: Governor DeWine Announces Pause of Data Center Tax Exemption
• Bloomberg Tax: Arizona Data Center Tax Incentive Pause Signed by Governor Hobbs

Is Wisconsin state government spending $2 billion on data centers? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

In a recent guest column, I argued that Wisconsin’s clean energy future is about affordability, jobs, manufacturing and economic competitiveness.

The next question is equally important:

How should we build that future?

Not one regulatory docket at a time.

Wisconsin stands at one of the most consequential energy crossroads in its history. Artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and electrification are driving electricity demand faster than anyone anticipated. The Public Service Commission’s draft Strategic Energy Assessment projects peak demand could increase by more than 40 percent by 2032, with more than 70 percent of that growth tied to just three proposed hyperscale data centers.

Those investments present tremendous economic opportunities. They also require smarter planning.

Today, the PSC is evaluating the Foundry Ridge and Red Oak Ridge methane gas plants alongside transmission projects, data center tariffs, utility investments, and other major infrastructure. Each proceeding examines a single project. None asks the broader question:

Taken together, are these investments the lowest-cost, lowest-risk path to Wisconsin’s energy future?

Without comprehensive resource planning, regulators have little opportunity to compare alternatives before committing customers to decades of infrastructure costs.

Affordable electricity is economic development.

The decisions made today will determine what Wisconsin families, businesses, manufacturers, and farmers pay for electricity for decades. They will also affect water resources, public health, and our state’s long-term competitiveness.

This is not an argument against growth. Wisconsin will continue to attract investment in advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and data centers. The question is not whether growth occurs, but whether it is planned responsibly so that large energy users pay the costs they create rather than shifting risks onto everyone else.

Planning should begin by comparing complete portfolios of resources instead of evaluating projects in isolation.

Before approving new methane gas plants, regulators should determine whether expanded battery storage, demand response, distributed energy resources, energy efficiency, and additional wind and solar generation can provide the same reliability at lower long-term cost and lower financial risk.

The cleanest megawatt is often the one that never has to be generated.

Demand response is infrastructure. Every megawatt shifted away from peak demand reduces pressure on the grid and can delay or eliminate the need for costly new power plants. Large customers, including data centers, have enormous opportunities to shift demand through operational flexibility and advanced controls.

Battery storage also deserves greater attention. Increasingly, it competes directly with natural gas by providing reliability during periods of peak demand while avoiding decades of fuel costs and emissions.

Water belongs in this conversation as well.

Both data centers and methane gas plants can require substantial water for cooling. The proposed Red Oak Ridge facility alone could consume hundreds of thousands of gallons each day. In rural Wisconsin, where farms, private wells, trout streams, wetlands, and local economies depend on reliable water supplies, those impacts deserve careful scrutiny before permits are approved.

Natural gas will likely remain part of Wisconsin’s energy mix during the transition. But every new gas plant also commits customers to decades of fuel-price risk driven by commodity markets, pipeline constraints, extreme weather, LNG exports, and geopolitical uncertainty. Clean energy resources, by contrast, have no fuel costs and are often the lowest-cost, fastest-to-deploy options available.

Reliability and clean energy are not competing goals.

Modern planning can deliver both.

Wisconsin should also modernize its regulatory framework by evaluating the cumulative impacts of related infrastructure investments. Generation, transmission, data centers, water use, and utility planning are interconnected. They should be planned together, not approved one docket at a time.

Wisconsin has everything it needs to lead: world-class manufacturers, innovative businesses, skilled workers, abundant renewable resources, productive farmland, and a clean energy economy that already employs more than 75,000 people.

Wisconsin does not have an electricity shortage.

It has a planning challenge.

Planning reduces costs. It improves reliability. It protects water resources. It strengthens economic competitiveness.

Most importantly, it allows Wisconsin to build an energy system designed for 2050, rather than one modeled in 1990.

Instead of approving Wisconsin’s energy future one docket at a time, let’s build it through one comprehensive plan.