LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) — Three Democrat Michigan senators introduced legislation on Dec. 18 to regulate water usage by big data centers vying for the state’s resources.

The first bill, introduced by Senator Rosemary Bayer (D-West Bloomfield), requires facilities to consume less than two millions gallons of water per day in order to receive a water withdrawal permit.

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A permit is already required in order to withdraw over 2 million gallons of water per day from the environment, but the new bill limits how much water a facility can consume, or evaporate away, and requires some water to be returned to the environment.

Since data centers evaporate away large amounts of water as they cool their computer centers, the bill would restrict this overall water loss.

Senator Sue Shink’s (D-Northfield Twp.) complementary bill requires the Michigan Public Service commission to publicly report the total water and energy consumption of each data center on a yearly basis.

The third bill, introduced by Senator Erika Geiss (D-Taylor), ensures that residents nearby data centers will not face increased water bills.

The bill mandates that if a water withdrawal permit holders’ water consumption necessitates improved water infrastructure, the permit holder must pay for those improvements rather than pass the costs on to the public, or lose their permit.

“These bills advance our work to protect our state from problems we have seen across the country with these types of data centers, like in Arizona and New Jersey,” Bayer said in a press release. “We will continue to be proactive problem solvers to prevent utility bills from skyrocketing at a time when affordability and household incomes are already stretched thin.”

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This legislation has been referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Environment.