Data Centers

A comprehensive plan to protect our energy supply, water, and quality of life, and ensure data centers pay their fair share.

Why are data center developers suddenly knocking on the doors of Michigan townships? Because a handful of AI companies have promised investors more computing power than anyone has ever built, and they need somewhere to put it.

The promises are already shrinking. In November 2025, OpenAI’s chief executive touted roughly $1.4 trillion in infrastructure commitments. Three months later, the company told investors it now targets about $600 billion in computing spend by 2030, less than half the original figure. It made $13.1 billion in revenue last year.¹ A company does not cut its plans by more than half when its projections hold up.

Michigan sits downstream of those projections. OpenAI and Oracle’s planned data center in Saline Township would draw 1.4 gigawatts of power, roughly a quarter of DTE’s current load.² DTE now reports a data center pipeline of more than 8 gigawatts,³ and it has proposed two new natural gas plants costing $6.4 billion.⁴ Recall how utilities earn money: the state guarantees them a return on what they spend. Every new plant and power line built for a data center grows the base the utility profits from. DTE has every reason to take the AI industry’s projections at face value. Michigan families don’t.

If those projections fall short, the AI companies will move on. The power plants, the transmission lines, and the rezoned farmland will stay here. That is why Michigan needs rules in place before the next contract gets signed, not after.

1) Pay Your Own Way

Start with electricity. A data center that draws as much power as a small city should pay for the power it needs, not hand the bill to everyone else. Michigan should require every large data center to fund new generation sufficient to cover all of the electricity demand it creates. Regulators have already shown this can work: the contract they approved this month for Google’s data center in Van Buren Township requires Google to pay for up to 1,600 megawatts of renewable generation and 480 megawatts of battery storage.⁵ What one contract achieved through negotiation, state law should require of all of them.

Then make the utility prove it. When a data center shuts down early or uses less power than promised, someone has to pay off the plants and power lines built to serve it. Those are stranded costs, and they land on existing customers unless the contract says otherwise. In December, regulators approved DTE’s Saline Township contracts on an expedited basis, without the full public review that lets ratepayer advocates test the utility’s claims.⁶ The Attorney General has since appealed, arguing in part that DTE’s own filings admit the deal will raise costs for some customers.⁷ Michigan should end expedited approvals for data center contracts. Every utility seeking to serve a data center should have to prove, in a full public case, that the agreement protects existing customers from stranded costs.

2) Protect Our Water

Data centers generate enormous heat, and many cool their servers by evaporating water. Michigan’s water belongs to Michiganders, not to the companies that want to boil it off.

The state should prohibit data centers from drawing fresh groundwater or municipal drinking water. They should use closed-loop cooling systems, which recirculate the same water instead of consuming it, and recycle water wherever possible. Wastewater should meet strict safeguards before it leaves the site. And every data center should publicly report how much water it uses, so residents don’t have to take a developer’s word for it.

These requirements should also cover noise. The low, constant hum of cooling equipment carries for miles in rural areas. Saline Township secured a 55-decibel limit only by settling a lawsuit.⁸ No community should have to go to court to sleep at night. Every data center should have to install noise mitigation, and local governments should remain free to set stricter limits.

3) Who Saves

Michigan currently exempts large data centers from the state’s 6 percent sales and use tax on construction and equipment purchases, for some projects through 2050 or even 2065. In exchange, a project needs to invest $250 million and create as few as 30 jobs.⁹

We don’t need to pay companies to come here. Developers want Michigan for reasons no other state can match: a cool climate that cuts cooling costs, and access to the largest supply of fresh water in the world. Those advantages give us leverage. When a company wants something only you can offer, you set the terms. You don’t pay it to accept them.

My opponent sees it differently. You may have seen ads claiming only Sarah Pounds has a plan to protect you from data centers. The record shows the opposite is true. Ms. Pounds has publicly stated she supports giving data centers tax incentives.¹⁰ In her view, those incentives would come paired with “local” jobs (I don’t know what a non-local job is), labor standards, and water restrictions. This is a bait and switch: the candidate sold to you as the data center skeptic wants Michigan to pay them to come here. Michigan jobs, labor standards, and water restrictions should be the bare minimum for any data center that wants to build here, not a bargain we buy with a tax break.

Her approach also gets the logic backwards. When conditions come attached to an incentive, they bind only the companies that take the incentive. A developer that skips the tax break skips the standards too. That is how Michigan’s current exemption already works: its job, wage, and water requirements apply only to projects that claim it.¹¹ Michigan taxpayers shouldn’t hand data centers corporate welfare, and no data center should escape these standards just because it isn’t on the state’s dole. Write the standards into law for every data center, and repeal the tax breaks.

4) Let Communities Decide

As data center fights spread, some will argue the state should take more control of where data centers go. I strongly oppose that. Local governments exist for a reason. Michiganders choose their communities because they value their character, whether that means farmland, quiet neighborhoods, or open space. The people who live with a data center’s traffic, noise, and power lines should decide whether it belongs there.

Developers already push past local decisions. In September 2025, the Saline Township board voted 4–1 to deny rezoning farmland for the OpenAI and Oracle project. Two days later, the developer sued the township for “exclusionary zoning.” The township settled within weeks, and the project moved forward.¹² More than 50 Michigan communities have since paused data center approvals so they can write rules before a developer arrives.¹³ Those communities are doing exactly what local government should do. Lansing’s job is to back them up, not overrule them.

CNBC, "OpenAI resets spending expectations, tells investors compute target is around $600 billion by 2030," February 20, 2026. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/20/openai-resets-spend-expectations-targets-around-600-billion-by-2030.html

WKAR, "Michigan data centers could require power equal to six nuclear plants," February 27, 2026. https://www.wkar.org/michigans-data-center-divide/2026-02-27/michigan-data-centers-could-require-power-equal-to-six-nuclear-plants

Data Center Dynamics, "Michigan utility DTE data center pipeline increases to more than 8GW, on the back of deals with Oracle and Google," July 29, 2026. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/michigan-utility-dte-data-center-pipeline-increases-to-more-than-8gw-on-the-back-of-deals-with-oracle-and-google/

Planet Detroit, "DTE plans 2 gigawatts in data center deals by year's end," October 2026 (citing the Detroit News). https://planetdetroit.org/2026/10/dte-energy-natural-gas-data-centers/

Michigan Public, "Michigan regulators OK DTE contracts for Google data center," October 2, 2026. https://www.michiganpublic.org/transportation-infrastructure/2026-10-02/google-data-center-michigan-van-buren-township

Planet Detroit, "DTE Energy's Saline data center contracts win quick state approval, despite uproar," December 2025. https://planetdetroit.org/2025/12/dte-data-center-contracts-approved/

Michigan Department of Attorney General, "AG Nessel Briefs Appeal Over MPSC Approval of DTE's Saline Data Center Contracts," August 7, 2026. https://www.michigan.gov/ag/news/press-releases/2026/08/07/ag-nessel-briefs-appeal-over-mpsc-approval-of-dte-saline-data-center-contracts

Planet Detroit, "Saline Township settles with data center developer: 'Lesser of two evils,'" October 2025. https://planetdetroit.org/2025/10/saline-data-center-settlement/

Michigan Economic Development Corporation, "Enterprise Data Center Sales & Use Tax Exemption"; DMA, "Michigan Enterprise Data Center Sales & Use Tax Exemptions Program." https://www.michiganbusiness.org/services/data-center/ ; https://dmainc.com/news-and-insights/michigan-enterprise-data-center-sales-tax-exemption-program/

Downtown Newsmagazine, "State House / District 54 / Democrat," September 28, 2026. https://www.downtownpublications.com/single-post/state-house---district-54---democrat

Planet Detroit, "Saline Township settles with data center developer: 'Lesser of two evils,'" October 2025. https://planetdetroit.org/2025/10/saline-data-center-settlement/

Michigan Public, "Michigan communities are putting moratoriums on data centers. The clock is ticking," June 29, 2026. https://www.michiganpublic.org/politics-government/2026-06-29/michigan-communities-are-hitting-pause-on-data-centers-the-clock-is-ticking