{"id":347631,"date":"2026-06-05T05:47:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T05:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/347631\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T05:47:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T05:47:07","slug":"watchdog-group-busts-myths-about-california-data-centers-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/347631\/","title":{"rendered":"Watchdog group busts myths about California data centers \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

As usual, California is first in the nation\u2026for ridiculous rules. Recently, Monterey Park residents voted overwhelmingly<\/a> to permanently ban data centers. Meanwhile, legislation making its way through the California State Legislature would impose all<\/a> sorts<\/a> of onerous rules on these innovative projects. At the core of these restrictive efforts is a barrage of misinformation charging that data centers are to blame for rivers drying up, electricity bills soaring, and run-away noise pollution. As a recent analysis<\/a> by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) makes clear, these claims are completely unfounded. California can lead a digital renaissance and create thousands of well-paying jobs, but not with heavy-handed bureaucracy buoyed by falsehoods.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Data centers are quickly being built across the country\u2014and California is losing out. As San Francisco Chronicle reporter Emma Stiefel\u00a0notes<\/a>, \u201cCalifornia is currently home to 5% of the U.S.\u2019 total data center capacity, according to a Chronicle analysis of data from energy database company Cleanview. But if all data center plans announced during the current building boom pan out, California\u2019s share will shrink to 1%. Most experts agree that the biggest drag on data center development in California is energy costs and availability.\u201d Given all the proposals to restrict data centers coming down the pike, it\u2019s little wonder that California is lagging.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The California State Senate recently passed Senate Bills\u00a0886<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0887<\/a>\u2014both of which authored by state Senator Steve Padilla. D-San Diego. SB 886 would mandate that the California Public Utilities Commission establish a special charge to \u201cprotect\u201d ratepayers from the transmission costs that supply large data centers. SB 887 would mandate onerous environmental reviews for all data center projects, in addition to a land use review regardless of whether local zoning permits such use by right.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even if California lawmakers kiboshed those bills and municipalities such as Monterey Park dramatically reversed course, the state would likely still struggle to attract investment. That\u2019s largely because California has mandated<\/a> a transition to a\u00a0100 percent zero-carbon electricity supply by 2045, with increasingly aggressive interim targets.\u00a0Power grids require extensive upgrades to manage peak demand and comply with regulations, resulting in some of the highest power rates in the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet, in the bizarre view of lawmakers such as Sen. Padilla, state woes such as rising electricity bills and water problems are the result of data centers, not bureaucracy run amok. In justifying his legislative proposals to restrict data centers, Sen. Padilla has cited<\/a>, \u201csignificant community concern\u00a0about the\u00a0potential impacts\u00a0that the data center could pose on public health, energy costs, and water use.\u201d<\/p>\n

TPA\u2019s findings<\/a> show that many of the claims surrounding data centers\u2019 resource consumption in California are significantly overstated. The data indicate that data centers accounted for just 0.2 percent of all water consumption in California in 2025. In other words, more than 99.8 percent of water use came from other sources, including agriculture, residential consumption, industry, and other commercial activities. TPA\u2019s chart makes clear what irresponsible politicians have not: data center water consumption is virtually imperceptible when compared to overall statewide water usage.<\/p>\n

TPA\u2019s analysis also finds that data centers consumed only a modest share of California\u2019s electricity. In 2025, data centers accounted for 5.1 percent of statewide electricity consumption, meaning nearly 95 percent of power usage came from all other sectors of the economy. While data centers undoubtedly require substantial amounts of electricity to support cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and digital services, the figures demonstrate that they remain a relatively small portion of California\u2019s overall power demand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Taken together, these findings challenge the narrative that data centers are overwhelming California\u2019s water supplies or electrical grid and suggest that policymakers should\u00a0focus on onerous regulations\u2014not economic growth\u2014to tackle scarcities and cost increases.\u00a0<\/p>\n

California can lead the way in digital innovation and create exceptionally well-paying blue- and white-collar jobs in the process. That cannot happen unless state policymakers stop demonizing data centers and start embracing a light-touch pro-growth approach. Data centers are simply not to blame for all the world\u2019s ills.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ross Marchand is the executive director of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As usual, California is first in the nation\u2026for ridiculous rules. Recently, Monterey Park residents voted overwhelmingly to permanently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,964,975],"class_list":["post-347631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-commentary","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}