Governor Gavin Newsom signed seven bills Monday aimed at regulating California’s growing data-center industry.
Assembly Bill 1577 directs the California Energy Commission to establish a registry process for data center operators. Assembly Bill 2383 and Senate Bills 886 and 1168 address how the costs of serving large data centers are allocated through the electric grid. The laws are intended to keep infrastructure and power costs associated with data centers from being shifted onto other ratepayers.
Two other measures — Assembly Bills 2469 and 2619 — require more disclosure about water use. AB 2469 requires developers to provide information about projected water demand, water supply, and efficiency measures as a condition of local project approval.
Senate Bill 887 changes how data centers are treated under the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA. The law creates a statewide definition of a data center and makes most private data-center projects ineligible for CEQA’s “categorical exemptions” — exemptions for projects that are ordinarily presumed not to have a significant environmental effect.
The same law also creates a path for some projects to receive expedited judicial review if they meet additional requirements. That includes paying their grid-interconnection costs, using recycled water, and water-efficient technology or waterless cooling, and meeting clean-energy requirements.
The new statewide rules arrive as cities around the Bay Area are considering their own approaches to data-center development. Richmond recently adopted a temporary moratorium while officials develop local rules, and Oakland is considering a moratorium of its own.
Newsom’s office said the seven laws are intended to give local governments and communities more information about the electricity, water and land-use impacts of proposed data centers as development accelerates across the state.
