News

Data Center Community Organizing Tools

Bold was concerned, like communities across the country, that Big Tech was trampling on property rights and polluting water without regard to anyone’s energy bill or clean air in Nebraska. So we, along with allied groups and citizens across the state, encouraged lawmakers to put guardrails and real accountability in place on data centers.

Bold worked with Nebraska State Senators Spivey, McKinney, and Machalea Cavanaugh on a bill that we believe is the first-in-the-nation to require both a decommissioning plan and a Community Benefits Agreement, while also mandating disclosures on key issues that the community has been demanding, like water and electricity usage.

Nebraska Data Center Law:

LB 1111 is a data center bill that was sponsored by Senators McKinney, Spivey and Machaela Cavanaugh, which was also supported by Bold Nebraska. Key guardrail provisions from LB 1111, including disclosure and transparency, and requiring decommissioning plans and a community benefits agreement, were included in another data center bill, LB 1010, which passed the Nebraska Legislature and was signed into law this year. The new law holds data centers accountable and provides for transparency that no other state has been able to pass. Nebraska is already home to more than 30 data center facilities, operated by tech giants including Meta and Google.

Nebraska is believed to be the first state in the nation to pass a law requiring Community Benefits Agreements for data center projects. A Community Benefits Agreement is an actual contract between the developer and impacted local communities that require the developer to ensure local community members benefit directly from the development activity – so these billion-dollar data center projects are obligated to pay back millions of dollars annually to impacted communities.

Nebraska is also now one of the first states to impose a statutory requirement for data centers to implement decommissioning plans, so that rural communities are not left holding the bag when these massive facilities housing huge amounts of hazardous environmental waste go out of business or are no longer of use.

The public disclosures that data centers in Nebraska are now required to provide include:

  • The name of the proposed data center.
  • The names of the developers and owners of the proposed data center.
  • The physical size of the proposed data center in square feet.
  • The location of the proposed data center, including street address and County.
  • The annual electricity demand of the proposed data center.
  • The annual water usage of the proposed data center.
  • The sales and use tax exemptions that the proposed data center utilizes or expects to utilize.
  • Any incentive payments for the proposed data center under the ImagiNE Nebraska Act and the Nebraska Advantage Act.
  • All energy efficiency, load management, and conservation measures implemented by the proposed data center.
  • All commitments by the proposed data center to use renewable energy.
  • The service life of the proposed data center.

Community Organizing Resources:

All of these resources are focused on putting communities first.

Bold Data Center Resources for Communities & Organizers:

Bold Energy Builders Toolkit for Rural Communities

AI Now: A policy-driven resource that has sample laws, ordinances, white papers, and more.

NAACP Stop Dirty Data Centers: A coalition site that many groups, including Bold Alliance, helped provide resources for, including sample Community Benefit Agreements (CBA).

“My community is being polluted every single day by a coal plant that stays open largely to power data centers. This bill finally forces public disclosure of the electricity and water demands we’ve been demanding — and couldn’t get. It puts people in the driver’s seat with legally binding Community Benefits Agreements and decommissioning plans, so we’re not left cleaning up a corporate mess decades later.”
—Nebraska State Senator Terrell McKinney

“Communities deserve to know basic facts about data centers when deciding what’s best for their towns. Nebraska had zero guardrails on data centers before this law, and now developers must, if a community decides this is right for their town, enter into a Community Benefits Agreement and put a decommissioning plan in place. No data center should be able to run roughshod over a community while making billions of dollars. Communities and those who live near these massive projects deserve to generate wealth and be protected from any public health and environmental harms. This law provides guardrails to protect communities and put them first, not big corporations.”
—Jane Kleeb, Bold Alliance Founder and Director

“We are pleased to see that the Legislature passed LB 1010 on a vote of 49 to zero to establish important guardrails on data centers, including requiring data centers to pay the full cost of electricity and ensuring that no costs are passed on to other retail customers. We greatly appreciate the leadership of Senator Machaela Cavanaugh, Senator Terrell McKinney and Senator Ashlei Spivey in introducing the original legislation and making sure that necessary amendments were added to LB 1010. We want to recognize the importance of requiring data centers to bear all decommissioning costs and requiring them to enter into community benefit agreements with communities affected by the data center. This legislation provides a great opportunity for local communities to tailor their community benefit agreements to meet the needs of their community. This could include projects that mitigate the data center’s use of water or other natural resources, or funding for projects the community cannot otherwise afford such as low-income energy efficiency programs, solar and battery powered community resilience hubs or assistance with affordable housing. These agreements should be funded at a meaningful level and funds should be provided throughout the operational life of the facility because the companies behind data centers are some of the richest corporations on the planet.”
—Ken Winston, Chapter Director of the Nebraska Sierra Club