Lisa Demuth and Amy Klobuchar have found rare common ground on data centers: let communities decide, insist on transparency and make developers answer the hard questions. Up North, that sort of agreement is important enough for Arlene to write down.
Earl and old man Henderson agreed on something Tuesday morning, and Arlene stopped pouring coffee.
Not for long. She has a business to run. But long enough for Earl’s cup to sit half full while she looked from one man to the other.
“Say that again, would ya?” she said.
The subject was the old sawmill outside town. It has been empty long enough for the brush along the fence to begin claiming squatter’s rights. Now a family wants to reopen it with a modern lumber-drying kiln and planer.
Earl liked the idea immediately. Local loggers could sell closer to home. The town would pick up several year-round jobs. A building currently producing weeds and unpaid taxes would become useful again.
Henderson remembered the old mill differently. He remembered trucks using whichever road the driver found convenient, machinery starting before breakfast and sawdust traveling considerably farther than anyone had authorized.
I expected him to say no. Earl expected him to say no too, which is why he had already leaned forward and put both hands on the table.
Instead, Henderson folded his newspaper.
“I’d let them explain it,” he said.
Earl leaned back.
“So would I.”
That was when Arlene stopped pouring.
They had questions. Henderson wanted to know how loud the planer would be at night. Earl wanted to know whether the mill or the town would pay for the electrical improvements. Both wanted the trucks kept off the residential road. Henderson wanted the fire chief satisfied. Earl wanted something in writing about how many jobs would actually be created.
Nobody had approved the sawmill. They had simply agreed that the owners should show the town their plans, answer the questions and accept reasonable conditions before anybody made up his mind.
That may not sound momentous where you live. Up here, Earl and Henderson can disagree over whether a door is open while standing in the same draft.
A few minutes later, I found something nearly as unusual in the newspaper.
Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth and DFL U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar are running against each other for governor. They have plenty of disagreements and several more months to discover new ones.
But according to the Minnesota Star Tribune, they broadly agree on how Minnesota should handle data centers.
Both support allowing projects that receive local approval. Both emphasize transparency and community involvement. Both say they would sign legislation prohibiting local governments from entering nondisclosure agreements with data-center developers.
I read that part twice.
The agreement is not perfect, which is probably why it is real.
Demuth is generally more supportive of building data centers and argues that some claims about their water and electricity use involve misinformation. She points to bipartisan state legislation intended to protect household energy bills and make data centers pay their own energy costs.
Klobuchar wants stronger environmental review. She has proposed annual public reporting of energy use, water use and jobs created. She also wants developers to disclose anticipated electricity demand, water consumption, generators, noise, grid improvements and requested tax incentives before receiving local approval.
Different instincts. Similar conclusion.
Ask the questions. Show the numbers. Let the community examine the proposal. Then decide.
Minneapolis Council Member Robin Wonsley has chosen a different endpoint. In a constituent newsletter, she wrote that data centers have “no place in Minneapolis” and that she opposes “any zoning to allow any data centers in our city.”
She also acknowledged that an overlay district would create opportunities for community engagement and allow the Council to judge individual proposals on their merits and weaknesses. That qualification matters.
So does the verdict she reached before any proposal could satisfy it.
Data centers create legitimate concerns involving electricity, water, generators, noise, land and infrastructure. Those concerns should not be waved away because somebody promises jobs and tax revenue.
They are also the questions regulations are supposed to answer.
Minneapolis planners are proposing conditional-use permits, public hearings, limits on size and location, use of existing buildings, utility disclosures and noise controls. None of that guarantees approval. It creates a process for distinguishing a proposal that can meet the city’s standards from one that cannot.
Earl and Henderson had not decided the sawmill was a good idea. Demuth and Klobuchar have not decided every data center is a good idea.
They agreed that “it depends” can be a responsible answer.
By lunchtime, Arlene had taped an order slip beside the pie prices.
Earl & his pals know what saw mills do. So they could say, whether or not they were on board with saw mill goals. And saw mill could be zoned for resident safety. Saw mills are regularly inspected, and have business licenses requiring some transparency with city about finances and other business practices. Not the case with the new American data centers. No business regulations exist for them here in MN, & data center would never share with Earl and his pals exactly what it’s doing, at any given moment. So we actually have even less idea if/how to zone for a new American AI data center, than its resource drain and health risks would already present downtown residents. Lisa and Amy, get up to speed, time’s short and we need informed leadership.
Sawmills and data centers are facts of life, and it isn’t that surprising that Dehmuth and Klobuchar would find much common ground on the latter topic. They are both politicians after all. However it’s a little like the new stadium or sports facility, or the mega mall structure that some private entity is interested in building in Minnesota. Or that amazing light rail line going from Minneapolis to Eden Prairie. They tell the public about all the wonderful benefits of the project, and all the messy details get sorted out behind closed doors at the capitol and/or in the boardroom – including how much the taxpayer will be kicking in. Then after it is built people begin to dissect the bills that were written and passed to put everything in place to make it legal. And that’s when all the fine details and “oh by the ways” come pouring out.
The only difference I really see is that sawmill don’t get built in Minneapolis (at least, not anymore), but data centers are often near larger towns or cities. A sawmill has a clear purpose, and as long as there is demand for lumber, and sawmill can operate profitably. Data centers have a clear purpose, but while lumber production and sales is easy to track, data is ghost like to the average citizen voter. How can we be sure that data center is “earning its keep” or “paying its own way”, or whatever phrase you want to use to describe its usefulness to the public?
Fair point, and I think your comparison gets to the heart of the issue. Agreement between Demuth and Klobuchar is encouraging, but agreement among politicians is not the same thing as accountability to the public.
You’re also right that a sawmill is easier to understand. People can see the logs arriving, the lumber leaving and the people working there. Much of what a data center does is invisible to the average resident.
That makes transparency more important, not less. Before elected officials approve a project, the public should know what subsidies are involved, who pays for new utility infrastructure, how much electricity and water it will use, what protections exist for ratepayers, how many permanent jobs it will create and how much tax revenue it is expected to produce. Those promises should be written into enforceable agreements, with public reporting afterward.
That is really what “let communities decide” ought to mean: give the public the facts and a meaningful opportunity to be heard before elected officials make the decision. Then measure whether the project is actually paying its own way after it opens. If the messy details emerge only after construction, the public process failed—and the politicians who approved the project should be held accountable.
Business regulations are needed, like we’ve created for the aviation industry (aviation industry doesn’t get to tell Minnesota how it’ll be run here; Minnesota tells the aviation industry, or at least that’s the appearance). We can look to state aviation regs, and Mpls city business codes for other industries, as models.