Data Centers Policy Platform

State and local legislators are responsible for making policy to ensure data center development benefits Ohio’s workforce and does not come at the expense of Ohio families, our grid stability, public resources, or environmental health. They are responsible for regulating data center development across the state, mitigating harms, and ensuring Ohioans have the power to determine what the data center landscape looks in their communities.

Ohio legislators should:

• Protect state and local revenue by eliminating or limiting taxpayer subsidies for data center operators. Beyond the jobs created during the construction phase, data center projects offer negligible social and economic benefits to the surrounding community, while straining our grid and our natural resources. At the same time, the resource-intensive data center industry is heavily subsidized: In 2025, Ohio’s sales tax exemption for data centers cost state and local governments $2 billion. Long-term agreements with the biggest companies mean they will continue to receive the exemption decades into the future. Ohio should prohibit new exemptions and make up for lost revenue from the big operators by approving separate taxes on them, such as a property tax on their equipment. Local governments also forfeit additional local tax revenue through long-term property tax abatements to incentivize investment from data center companies. Such tax incentives should be eliminated, but if they are used, they should be contingent on commitments to strong labor standards and community benefits.
• Increase use of community benefits agreements (CBAs) for large-scale data center projects. CBAs are legally binding tools designed to address local residents’ concerns about all the potential harms produced by irresponsible data center development. CBAs are negotiated between developers and community coalitions representing residents, labor, and environmental advocates. CBAs can be tailored to local communities’ unique needs, establishing protections for residents and companies’ commitments to making meaningful investments in the surrounding community.
• Establish strong labor standards for data center construction jobs through project labor agreements (PLAs). PLAs can guarantee that data center construction projects create good union jobs with family-sustaining wages and benefits, and safe working conditions. PLAs should also require data center companies to expand pathways into these jobs by supporting pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship training programs.
• Enhance democracy and transparency around proposed data centers and establish community oversight mechanisms for existing data centers. Prohibit nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) between local governments and data center companies and strengthen reporting requirements for data centers’ water and energy use disclosures. Municipalities can address residents’ myriad concerns and hold data centers accountable by passing zoning laws and ordinances. Meaningful public engagement is paramount to the success and effectiveness of these laws.
• Strengthen protections for Ohio’s ratepayers, communities, and natural resources and mitigate economic and environmental harm generated by the rapid expansion of resource-intensive data centers. Establish strong guardrails for residential electricity ratepayers by requiring data center operators to cover the full costs of transmission and distribution upgrades and generation investments necessary for serving large-load customers. State legislators should mitigate data centers’ environmental impacts by rolling back restrictions on utility-scale renewable energy resources or increasing environmental permitting standards. Local governments can use CBAs to, for example, require a data center company to use closed-loop water cooling systems or emission control equipment on backup diesel generators, while also investing in local transit systems, or residential weatherization measures to bring down households’ utility costs.