JEFFERSON CITY — Efforts to regulate large-scale industrial users of water and electricity, such as data centers, received passionate and at times emotional support during a hearing Monday in the House Conservation Committee.
Identical bills, House Bill 3362 and House Bill 3364, sponsored by Reps. Colin Wellenkamp, R-St. Charles, and Mike Costlow, R-Dardenne Prairie, respectively, require utility providers to establish specific pricing plans and contracts for large-scale water and electrical users.
This would ensure that companies pay for the excess strain they place on the water system and prevents those costs from being passed down to residents in the area.
While these regulations apply to any facility that meets the threshold of water and electricity usage set in the bill, much of Monday’s discussion revolved around data centers.
Costlow said that this is not an anti-data center bill or a pro-data center bill.
“This is a pro-consumer protection bill,” Costlow said, “We don’t want to get in the way of industry here in Missouri, but we do want to make sure that our residents are protected and those concerns that they have had about increasing energy cost or costs being passed on to them are valid, they’re concerning.”
“We’ve seen it in other states, and we want to make sure that Missouri gets in front of this and learns the lessons of others and ensures that we are doing it the right way,” he said.
Wellenkamp said that these bills are the result of work done by the Missouri House Future Caucus, a bipartisan group of representatives formed to identify and address emerging and long-term challenges for the state.
They determined that the major risk points of artificial intelligence infrastructure buildout are a drain on the state’s power grid and its continued effectiveness to deliver power to residents and water security, he said.
“This buildout has the potential to have a serious impact on those water resources,” Wellenkamp said. “All the way to the point that it could compromise the ability of a locality, whether that be a city, a township or a county, of supplying water and energy to its own residents.”
The bills would also require companies wanting to use more than 2 million gallons of water from Missouri’s rivers and underground sources per day to obtain a special state license.
Applications for the license would be facilitated by the Department of Natural Resources, which would ensure that the applicant’s requested water usage is available, does not exceed more than 80% of the capacity of the water resource and that it does not interfere with existing usage.
Public water systems and water use for agricultural purposed are excluded from requiring this permit.
The bills also require electric providers to create load-shedding plans with each large-load customer that outlines how they will prioritize homes and critical facilities, such as hospitals, during power shortages. It also includes similar provisions in regards to water providers and droughts.
Twelve witnesses spoke in support of the bills, with several more still waiting when the meeting ended.
Stacy Arnold, founder and watershed planner for Stormwater Solutions LLC, gave emotional testimony in support of the bills. She also said she speaks as a rural cattle rancher and lifelong Missourian.
Arnold expressed concerns about the two proposed data centers in Franklin County. One of would will be built on the banks of the Meramec River, where she and lots of St. Louis County residents get their drinking water, she said.
“We want you to show us small farms and clean streams. We want food and water because everybody has to have that to live. And these data centers are important too,” Arnold said. “We want to advance. We want technology, but choose the right place and choose the right way to do this.”
Dana Ripper, a wildlife ecologist, co-founder of the Missouri River Bird Observatory and board member of the Conservation Federation of Missouri, said that the issue of data centers and resources has become an incredibly prominent issue in her industry across the 50 states and two territories she was worked with.
“Of all the many, many conservation and environmental quality issues that we all work on over the last year, this has absolutely risen to number one priority across all states and in various localities,” she said.
Wellenkamp also highlighted the importance of this issue on not only Missouri, but anyone who relies on the Mississippi River for infrastructure.
“Forty percent of the Mississippi river’s flow rate is made possible by the Missouri River,” he said, “If we populate the Missouri River Basin with lots of over consumptive water activity then it’s not just Missouri that will suffer, it’s the bottom half of the country that would suffer from the drop in flow from the Mississippi.”