(Picture credit Monolith)
Lancaster County Commissioner Matt Schulte introduced a resolution last week that would put a 12-month moratorium on building new data centers in the county, saying officials needed more time to prepare regulations. On Saturday, he spoke with The Plains Sentinel on what motivated him to bring forward his resolution.
“We do not have anywhere in our planning code anything that would match data centers,” he said. Schulte said that data centers were previously getting approved under special use permits, but that he would rather the county create codes that are specific to data centers.
In his resolution, Schulte notes concerns of the “significant impacts on the natural resources, infrastructure, utilities, and the health and well-being of residents” that data centers have on a community.
“Regulation of data center development must be designed to minimize any negative impact on county resources and residents, while staying consistent with the Lancaster County Comprehensive Plan,” the resolution continues. “A temporary moratorium is deemed necessary to ensure that regulations can be enacted to regulate the establishment of data centers before development occurs without regulations in place that address potential impacts on resources, infrastructure, and the community.”
Schulte said he brought his resolution forward after hearing concerns from constituents. “Things really ramped up with things in Hallam with a hearing around their planning commission; it had 80-some people show up to it, all around the potential of a data center at the Monolith site,” he said. “I started getting a ton of calls from people in Hallam, saying, ‘We don’t need this down here.’”
News broke this month that an Israeli-based company is looking at building a hyperscale data center near Hallam. Schulte said would be the third data center that is looking to be built in his district.
Schulte said he has heard positive feedback from both constituents and the full county board about putting in place a moratorium.
“For the most part there was a lot of openness and a lot of interest in having a conversation about the data centers and possibly a moratorium,” he said. Schulte said the biggest question mark is whether the county board moves forward with the moratorium unilaterally, or if it needs to go through the planning commission to get a recommendation first.
The proposed moratorium comes a month after Governor Jim Pillen signed an executive order banning data centers from accessing tax incentives.
“We need to make sure that we attract givers, not takers,” Pillen said during an announcement of the ban. “Globally, it’s estimated that in the next three and a half years, there will be over $3 trillion invested into this process of artificial intelligence and data centers. I don’t think it’s appropriate that we in the state of Nebraska give them cash credits.”
The governor also announced this month a 17-member data center task force. Pillen said the group will be tasked with “balancing data center development with the continued preservation of our land, electricity and water.”
So far, over a dozen Nebraska counties have voted to put in place moratoriums on building new data centers.
— John Gage is the executive editor of The Plains Sentinel.