Ohio data center policy is taking shape. Tell legislators to protect communities, workers, and public resources.

Ohio’s legislature will likely advance a package of data center provisions next week, after a series of hearings in the Senate Energy Committee next week. The committee is accepting all testimony for two hearings on Tuesday.

The details of the legislation are unclear, but Ohio lawmakers have a wide array of policy options available — and Ohioans have a very limited opportunity to tell them what we want them to do. Call your legislators asap and tell them to create a framework for data center development that mitigates environmental and ratepayer harms and protects the long-term interests of Ohio communities. The following recommendations would help do so:

Eliminate costly, unnecessary taxpayer-funded subsidies for the data center industry.

In 2025, Ohio’s data center sales tax exemption resulted in over $1.5 billion in forgone state revenue – more than 11 times greater than initial estimates disclosed by the Ohio Department of Taxation. Lawmakers should make Governor Dewine’s temporary pause on data center sales tax exemptions a permanent policy.

Ending this unvetted giveaway to some of the wealthiest companies in the world would be a step in the right direction, but it wouldn’t reduce benefits for companies with existing agreements – like Amazon, which is locked in to its agreement with the state until 2055.  To recover soaring costs of these long-term deals, lawmakers could impose a tax on data center equipment – or tangible personal property tax – unless data center operators with existing deals agree to a reduced rate on their exemption. Regardless of the policy mechanism, the General Assembly must take action to rein in exorbitant handouts to the resource intensive data center industry at Ohioans’ (literal) expense.

Improve transparency and accountability measures.

Local democracy
Nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) covering economic development conceal critical information about proposed development from the public, limiting or eliminating opportunities for residents to inform decisions before deals are made. Lawmakers must limit the use of NDAs covering economic development negotiations.

Further decreasing transparency and community engagement, a 2025 law exempted information about local economic development assistance from public information requests and criminalized such disclosures by local officials. The General Assembly should roll back public records exemptions for these deals, which undercut local democracy by excluding residents from critical community engagement opportunities.

Responsible, informed decision-making around data center development hinges on meaningful public engagement and trust, especially when lack of regulation and nondisclosure agreements between local governments and data center companies have enabled these projects to materialize without the necessary transparency and accountability to the surrounding community.

Strong reporting requirements
To improve public understanding of data centers’ operations and impacts, lawmakers must establish comprehensive reporting requirements for data centers’ energy and water consumption, along with wastewater impacts. Transparent reporting is critical for understanding the strain that data centers impose on the grid and on our natural resources, and necessary to inform measured policy and regulatory oversight mechanisms.

Protect Ohio ratepayers, communities, and the environment.

Hyperscale data center facilities are a major contributor to unprecedented growth in electricity demand, far outpacing our power grid’s capacity to meet it, without considerable investment. And without robust ratepayer protections, residential customers – who are already facing climbing energy costs – could be left holding the bag.

Data centers’ reliance on fossil fuel generation sources further warrants consideration of policies to protect communities from harmful air emissions produced by gas-powered generation facilities – particularly in communities hosting a data center with onsite generation. Lawmakers should require data centers to pay the full costs of infrastructure investment needed to meet skyrocketing energy demand.

For the most part, proposed behind-the-meter generation projects are powered by natural gas. But some data center developers have considered building small nuclear reactors using experimental technology. Despite these facilities’ potential impacts on Ohio communities, behind-the-meter projects enjoy accelerated permitting timelines, while existing law limits local authority entirely. To minimize data centers’ climate impacts while accelerating the deployment of new, in-state generation, legislators must reduce restrictions on renewable energy generation (which are currently more stringent than those faced by behind-the-meter projects that rely on far more harmful and dangerous energy sources).

The General Assembly should further require a percentage of data centers’ power to be generated with renewable resources coupled with storage technologies or equivalent investment in new renewable energy capacity on Ohio’s grid.