Data centers for all, except Minnesota

From CBS News:

Amazon to spend $20B on Pennsylvania data centers, including one next to a nuclear power plant.

The abbreviation “$20B” in the headline above stands for $20 billion. CBS adds:

At a news conference in Berwick in the shadow of the [nuclear] power plant, Gov. Josh Shapiro called it the largest private sector investment in Pennsylvania’s history. He said Monday’s announcement is “just the beginning” because his administration is working with Amazon on additional data center projects in the state.

Just last week, Amazon announced a $10 billion data center investment in North Carolina. Doing the math, that adds up to $30 billion in data centers announced by Amazon in less than a week. It should be noted that both North Carolina and Pennsylvania have Democratic governors.

The timing of these Amazon announcements isn’t coincidental. Last month, Amazon abandoned a plan to build a giant data center facility adjacent to the massive Sherco power plant complex in Becker, Minnesota.

But the state’s heavy-handed regulatory approach and the revoking of an otherwise automatic tax treatment chased the company out of Minnesota.

This past Monday, the legislature convened in a one-day special session to finish the state budget for the next two years. Mary Lahammer, local TPT-PBS reporter, covered the session and posted this photo:

I had the exact same question on Monday: Whatever happened to big tech’s “big beautiful” data center bill? It was nowhere to be found on Monday.

Instead, we got HF 16, a self-proclaimed “data center regulatory bill.” Rather than addressing Amazon’s concerns, it adds new bureaucracy, imposing a brand-new requirement for a water use permit and a new multi-million-dollar annual tax.

Democratic Gov. Tim Walz chased away an 11-figure private investment that Democratic governors in North Carolina and Pennsylvania were eager to accept.

Yes, there are drawbacks to these massive projects and their impacts on host communities and the environment. But one must assume that the Democratic governors in these other states are aware of the downsides and will negotiate appropriate agreements with Amazon.

But Minnesota will never have the chance.

[Update: Walter Orenstein of the Minnesota Star Tribune has published a story on the fallout from HF 16.]