Data Centers. Cool. What Do We Get?

File legislation creating a statewide zoning classification for data centers with minimum standards for community engagement, environmental review, and conditional permitting. No more counties making this up as they go... shoehorning data centers into heavy manufacturing because nothing else fits, then accidentally opening a dozen other sites to by-right development with no public process.

Statewide minimum requirements for benefit sharing, clawback provisions, and public reporting that apply to every deal. Same rules everywhere. No more race to the bottom between counties trying to outbid each other with your money.

Require a percentage of tax savings to flow into a locally controlled Community Betterment Fund. Not a corporate donation. Not a PR gesture. A fund the community controls and decides how to spend. Broadband. Schools. Infrastructure. Whatever the community actually needs.

Create a dedicated electricity rate class for large data center facilities so they pay their own way on the grid. No more shifting infrastructure costs onto residential customers. If you're consuming a small city's worth of electricity, you should be paying for the infrastructure to deliver it.

And repeal the worst provisions of SB 266, the "Power Bill Reduction Act." Two problems with this bill. First, it's shifting at least $24.8 million in fuel costs from industrial customers onto families. Second, it eliminated the interim carbon reduction target from the NC Carbon Plan, which pushes Duke Energy toward 40% more natural gas generation through 2050. NC State researchers found that if gas prices rise, that decision alone could cost ratepayers up to $23 billion in added fuel expenses. And data center expansion is one of the things driving gas prices up.

On top of all that, the bill lets Duke Energy charge customers for power plants before they're even built. If the project goes over budget or never gets finished, ratepayers are still on the hook. South Carolina learned that the hard way... stuck paying $9 billion for a nuclear plant that was never completed.

Here's the math nobody talks about. A Food & Water Watch analysis of Virginia's economic development data found that creating one permanent data center job requires nearly 100 times more investment than a non-data-center job. These projects create temporary construction work, a handful of HVAC and security positions, and then a skeleton crew with management flown in from somewhere else.

If a facility is consuming a small city's worth of electricity, tax benefits should be tied to a minimum ratio of permanent local jobs to energy consumption. Fall below it, benefits phase out. And require actual workforce development... apprenticeship programs, internship pipelines, partnerships with local community colleges. Not "we'll try to hire locally." Real commitments with real numbers.