As power-hungry data centers proliferate, states are searching for ways to protect utility customers from the steep costs of upgrading the electrical grid, trying instead to shift the cost to AI-driven tech companies. (Dana DiFilippo/New Jersey Monitor)
A new proposal from a pair of legislative Democrats would institute a number of labor, energy and sustainability requirements on tech companies seeking to build data centers in Wisconsin.
The proposal from Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay) and Rep. Angela Stroud (D-Ashland) comes as data centers have continued to pop up across the state — largely in southeast Wisconsin — sparking heated local debates about land use, local jobs and the centers’ heavy use of water and electricity.
There are now 47 data centers in Wisconsin, with more under consideration by local governments. The data centers house computer servers to store information for cloud-based software and, increasingly, to support the expansion of artificial intelligence.
For local governments, the construction of data centers offers an easy opportunity for property tax revenue from a business that won’t require many local government services. But the servers have high energy and water needs, are often sited on land that has long been used for farming and raise concerns associated with AI. Experts and advocates have been looking for the state government to weigh in more forcefully on how to regulate the centers, the Wisconsin Examiner reported last month.
So far, the only mentions of data centers in state law are a provision in the 2023-25 state budget which exempts data center construction costs from the sales tax and a law enacted earlier this year to study the growth of nuclear power in the state.
The proposal from Habush Sinykin and Stroud, announced Thursday, would establish rules beyond current incentives for data center growth.
“The new legislation being proposed today is about making sure that we have clear, statewide guardrails in place that provide people in communities across Wisconsin with the information and transparency they need to engage in the local decision-making process in an informed, effective manner from the start,” Habush Sinykin, whose district includes a controversial data center project in Port Washington, said in a statement.
Under the proposal, electric companies in the state will be required to submit quarterly reports to the Public Service Commission on the amount of energy being used by data centers in the state. Those reports will be required to include information on the source of the energy and be made public. Water utilities in the state will also be required to publicly report when a single customer will account for more than 25% of the total water usage in the district.
The data center companies would be required to pay an annual fee to the Department of Administration, which will put that money towards renewable energy programs. Data center buildings would also be required to obtain sustainability certifications.
The bill would also give data centers an incentive to encourage utility companies to expand clean energy and it would also require the PSC to establish a class of “very large customers” and ensure that normal ratepayers aren’t bearing the increased energy costs caused by the data centers’ growing energy demands.
“It’s mind-blowing that the only regulations we have on the books are to just incentivize data centers with no expectations for them being good environmental partners with the communities they’re going to be located in,” says Jen Giegerich, the government affairs director at Wisconsin Conservation Voters, which was involved in helping draft the proposal.
“It’s really important that what this bill does is actually make sure that the data centers are paying their own way,” Giegerich continues. “We’ve just seen energy costs rising, and the fact that we would continue to put costs for energy development for tech giants who are making unheard-of profits, and then expecting Wisconsin ratepayers to pay for that is really a problem. So this bill rectifies that, and I think it’s sorely needed.”
The proposal also includes labor requirements for data center construction. Under the bill, any workers at construction sites for data centers must be paid the local prevailing wage rate or, if the worker is a member of a union, the wage rate in that worker’s collective bargaining agreement. The data center company will have to pay whichever wage is higher.
To qualify for the sales tax exemptions already available for data centers under current state law, the companies would be required to meet the labor requirements in the bill and source at least 70% of their energy from renewable sources.
Steve Kwaterski, a spokesperson for the Wisconsin Laborers’ District Council, says data center projects have already been a source of consistent, good paying construction jobs for his members and the bill will go towards ensuring that these jobs support families in the state.
“We want to make sure that any project that’s as complex as a data center is being done with the most skilled and trained workforce that’s out there,” he says. “That ensures that it’s being done right on time, on budget, and done safely as well.”
UW-Milwaukee offers its own tuition promise program which covers up to four years of tuition and segregated fees for students from families earning less than $62,000 per year. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
Democratic lawmakers are proposing a package of higher education bills to help address affordability for students by investing in a statewide tuition promise program and to support faculty and staff members by reversing Walker-era collective bargaining and tenure policies.
Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire), the ranking member on the Assembly Colleges and Universities committee, said Democratic lawmakers are looking for ways to ensure Wisconsin’s higher education system is strong and accessible to “anybody who has the talent and the work ethic to want to pursue something.”
“That’s part of our American dream, is that no matter where you start out in life, you’ve got an opportunity to do better and to gain knowledge and training,” Emerson said.
Emerson said Democratic lawmakers hope the bills can kickstart discussions about policy changes that could be made. She noted that Republican lawmakers have often stripped proposals from the budget, saying that policy should be passed through individual bills outside of the budget process.
“We’re putting some of these bills back out now and saying, let’s have the policy discussion,” Emerson said. “If you’re not willing to have that during the budget, let’s have the discussion now.”
Emerson said the first pair of bills that lawmakers unveiled at a press conference last week seek to specifically help with the affordability of higher education.
“A lot of us heard loud and clear last election that pocketbook issues are really what are leading people right now,” Emerson said, adding that it’s part of the reason she supported the recent state budget. “But it wasn’t a perfect budget, and so we thought, how can we make this a little bit better?”
One bill, coauthored by Sen. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) and Rep. Brienne Brown (D-Whitewater), would implement a statewide “tuition promise” program, allowing first-time, in-state students from households with an adjusted gross income of $71,000 or less to have their tuition covered at any UW school, other than UW-Madison. Under the bill, the state would dedicate nearly $40 million towards the program.
The program would function as “last-dollar, gap funding” meaning it would fill in the rest of the tuition costs after all federal and state grants and scholarships are calculated.
UW-Madison already offers “Bucky’s Tuition Promise,” which launched in 2018 and is funded with private gifts and other institutional resources, not state tax dollars. The program guarantees four years of tuition and segregated fees for any incoming freshman from Wisconsin whose family’s annual household adjusted gross income is $65,000 or less.
Recent studies have found the tuition promise program increased enrollment among accepted students at UW-Madison and increased retention rates.
UW-Milwaukee also offers its own program which covers up to four years of tuition and segregated fees for students from families earning less than $62,000 per year.
The UW system also has a version of the program that recently relaunched in 2025 after the system secured private funding. The Wisconsin Tuition Promise first launched in 2023, but was ended in 2024 after Republican lawmakers declined to fund the program.
Another bill by Dassler-Alfheim and Rep. Angela Stroud (D-Ashland) would invest $10 million in the UW system for student retention and talent development efforts.
At the press conference last week, Dassler-Alfheim said the bills are essential for supporting the state’s workforce.
“If our workforce is the engine that runs our economy, then our Universities of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Technical Colleges are the gasoline that power that engine as our baby boomers retire in droves. We have workforce shortages in every category. We have all struggled to schedule a doctor’s appointment, a plumber, an accountant, or even a cleaning at the dentist,” Dassler-Alfheim said. “The purpose of these two bills is to help qualified students access the higher education needed to advance themselves and to fulfill the promise to Wisconsin employers to develop the workforce necessary to maintain and grow Wisconsin’s economy.”
Democratic lawmakers also circulated bill drafts meant to help support staff and faculty at UW system campuses.
One would again allow most UW system employees, faculty and academic staff to collectively bargain over wages, hours, and conditions of employment. UW employees were stripped of that ability under the Walker-era law Act 10.
Another bill would reverse changes made in the 2015 state budget that eliminated language in state statute that protected tenure. Lawmakers said in 2015 that the changes were necessary to give the UW system flexibility to deal with budget cuts, though faculty members said then that the changes were an attack on tenure.
Emerson said it is getting harder to recruit people to work at the universities in the state and that some of the changes could help.
“If we’re making these big changes about how universities are dealt with, staff and faculty need to have a seat at the table for having these conversations and having a seat at the table in meaningful ways where their concerns are addressed too,” Emerson said.
Emerson noted that in recent years Republican lawmakers have pushed through proposals and deals that triggered pushback from faculty members.
The most recent budget deal negotiated between lawmakers and Gov. Tony Evers included new work load requirements for UW faculty, mandating that they teach a minimum of 24 credits per academic year, or four 3-credit courses, starting in Sept. 2026. The requirement has garnered concerned reactions from faculty, some of who have said it could be difficult to balance teaching and research demands.
In 2023, Republican lawmakers negotiated with UW leaders to secure concessions on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in exchange for staff pay raises and money for buildings. The deal garnered a lot of pushback from staff and students at the time.
“You know, the workload requirements that came through the budget, or the DEI deal that happened last session, none of those would have happened if we had collective bargaining in place,” Emerson said. “Those are two things that when you have people who don’t work in an industry trying to put working parameters around that industry, it falls flat.”
Bills likely won’t advance in Republican Legislature
The Democratic proposals will face a difficult road in the Republican-led Legislature. Emerson said the likelihood for a public hearing on the Democratic bills is “slim to none.”
However, Emerson said Democratic lawmakers plan to take the ideas to people in the state other ways. She and some of her Democratic colleagues will be on the UW-Stevens Point campus this week to start a tour of campuses around the state.
Emerson said the purpose is to have as many conversations with staff, faculty and students as possible.
“If we’re not going to have a hearing in Madison on it, we are ready to take this around to other campuses and other parts of the state and have the conversation on the college campuses,” Emerson said. “I want to hear what matters to the students. I want to hear what, you know, the career people need their students to have to get jobs. I want to hear from the business people in these communities.”
Emerson said part of the goal is to also start laying the foundation for if Democrats win more legislative power in 2026.
“It’s always good when you’re making policy about something that you’re talking to the people that this is going to impact, so this is what we’re really hoping to do — work out all the kinks, and dust everything off, and, hopefully, have a little bit more governing power coming up in the next session, and be able to really hit the ground running with some of these bills,” Emerson said.
Emerson said Democratic lawmakers’ approach is focused on figuring out how the state can make higher education available for “anybody no matter their zip code, no matter their income level,” and she expressed skepticism the Republican bills will do that.
“A lot of the bills that I see coming from my Republican colleagues about higher education tend to either be punitive — one person said one thing on one campus, therefore we have to make sure nobody ever says that again and getting into these free speech pieces — or they’re doing things in a way that tells me that they haven’t been on a college campus for a really long time,” Emerson said.
The Senate Universities and Technical Colleges Committee is scheduled to have a public hearing on eight Republican-authored higher education-related bills Wednesday.
One bill, coauthored by Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken) and Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Hortonville), would place caps on annual tuition hikes. It was proposed in reaction to the 5% tuition increase that was approved after the recent state budget was completed. The increase was the third annual hike in a row. UW President Jay Rothman and UW regents had said the tuition increases would be necessary if the system didn’t secure enough funding from the state.
In a memo about the bill, the Republican lawmakers said the Legislature needed to “implement a common sense law placing controls on these types of skyrocketing tuition increases” and that a cap on tuition increases would provide families with “the predictability required to budget for college expenses into the future.” Sen. Julian Bradley (R-New Berlin) has also argued that the bill is about “protecting affordability.”
Under the bill, the UW Board of Regents would be prohibited from increasing undergraduate tuition by more than the consumer price index increase in a given year.
Emerson said she didn’t think the bill would have the intended effect of helping students and families afford school. She noted some of the effects seen during the decade-long tuition freeze implemented under the Walker administration.
UW leaders saidat the time that the freeze was unsustainable as it limited campuses ability to maintain its program and course offerings and wages for staff and faculty.
“Students couldn’t get the classes that they needed… so people would sometimes have to go for an extra year to get all of the classes that they needed to complete their degree. It ended up costing people more because they had to stay in longer to get the one last requirement that they needed for their degree,” Emerson said. “It’s a good messaging point to say we’re gonna not increase [tuition] by a certain amount, but I don’t think that that has the end result that they’re thinking it does.”
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