Florida data center regulation proposal goes back to Senate

Audio By Carbonatix

(The Center Square) – Large data centers in Florida are set to be regulated under a bill clearing the Legislature.

It passed the House of Representatives 92-16 on Wednesday, but only after changes that watered down some of the bill’s main protections. It now goes back to the Senate where legislators there must decide if they agree with the amendments.

Originally, Senate Bill 484 specified state agencies could not sign nondisclosure agreements with companies preventing them from disclosing the potential for a new data center to the public, but the amended version would allow non-disclosure agreements and contracts restricting the disclosure of information to the public.

Another critical revision includes stripping a requirement for the Public Service Commission to develop large load tariff requirements for public electric utilities to ensure large-load customers like large-scale data centers pay the cost for their own service. The protection was meant to prevent higher payments from being passed down to other consumers.

Under the new version passed by the House, the commission is not required to create tariff requirements for large load customers and makes it optional.

The growing prevalence of data centers has been tied to increased monthly bills for other consumers. Utilities requested over $29 billion in rate increases in 2025, according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. Simultaneously, residential electricity prices increased by over 11%, outpacing inflation.

That trend is expected to continue with anticipated increases of up to 40% by 2030.

Large-scale data centers can use up to 5 million gallons of water per day, EESI reported. That’s the equivalent water use of a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people.

There are over 5,400 data centers in the U.S., which together consume approximately 163.7 billion gallons of water annually as of 2021, according to EESI.

Sixty percent of the nation’s data centers are located in just 10 states, with Florida containing at least 107 of them, according to the World Resources Institute.

The presence of data centers has drawn mixed reactions from communities. One argument is that data centers bring the opportunity for more jobs. Larger data centers generally employ up to 150 permanent workers, though some can employ as few as 25, according to the World Resources Institute.

A huge incentive lies in potential increased revenue for local and state governments thanks to property, sales and use taxes. Total government revenues from data centers reached over $162 billion in 2023, the World Resources Institute reported.