Reporting by Isidoro Roriguez for Granite City Daily News:
On June 5, the Illinois legislature shot down House Bill 5513, better known as the POWER Act, a first-of-its-kind, comprehensive bill of necessary regulations on the data centers that have been flooding into the state over the past decade, promising more jobs and increased revenue for local and state governments through property, sales and use taxes.
The Illinois Department of Commerce reports that, as of 2024, the data center industry produced an estimated 4,000 to 8,000 construction-related jobs and added 534 full-time operations jobs at 27 facilities. This suggests Illinois’ 244 data centers employ around 4,900 people in total. In 2023, data centers generated $1.85 billion in state and local tax revenues, an 11% year-over-year increase.
Union, city and county leaders in places like Dekalb and Aurora, and most recently Sangamon County, have all expressed their support for data centers and their faith in the benefits they can bring to communities. Despite this support, concerns about regulation persist.
Today, with roughly 239 operating data centers in the state, Illinois is the fourth-largest data center market in the country.
Hannah Flath, Director of Communications & Campaigns for the Illinois Environmental Council, says the legislature’s decision was a big mistake.
“Lawmakers may have adjourned this spring without taking action on the POWER Act, but this problem isn’t going away, and the consequences of inaction are great,” said Flath, in an email.
She is part of an ever-growing group of environmental experts, advocates, and legislative leaders who continue to warn that, if steps aren’t taken now to rein in and regulate these data centers, they could cause irreparable harm to people’s health and the environment, dramatically raise utility bills, and exhaust resources. All while the companies that run them avoid transparency and accountability.