Nearly 9 in 10 voters approve of a new law Gov. Ron DeSantis signed last week to regulate large-scale data centers coming to the Sunshine State, according to fresh polling from Tallahassee-headquartered Sachs Media.

Support is positive despite party affiliation or age, with 70% of all voters in Florida strongly supporting the new requirements and 19% at least somewhat approving of them.

Asked about the new law (SB 484) that requires data centers to pay their own utility costs, preserves local control over data center development, and requires more environmental standards, just 4% of voters disapprove. Another 7% are neutral on the matter.

The rest are for the changes, with 74% of Republicans, 68% of Democrats and 66% of voters with third-party or no party affiliation strongly approving.

Eighty percent of those 65 and older, 73% of voters 45 to 64 and 58% age 45 or younger also strongly back the added strictures.

For many, it’s a matter of principle, Sachs found.

Before they were told Florida lawmakers had passed the new measure, which cleared the Senate on a 31-6 vote and the House 92-16, 68% of voters agreed that the government should limit how much utility costs can increase because of a data center’s demand.

Another 22% agreed the government should require clear public information about data center costs but should not otherwise intervene.

Five percent maintained that the government should not have a role in informing residents about or limiting data center-related utility costs. An identical share of respondents said they were unsure how they felt.

Support for limiting cost increases is stronger among Democrats (79%) than Republicans (56%), while third- and no-party voters landed in the middle (66%).

Sachs surveyed 1,115 Florida voters May 8-10 through a random sample of the state voter file. The poll had a 3-percentage-point margin of error at the 95% confidence level.

Younger voters also expressed greater support for government-imposed protections against data center-spurred cost increases than older voters, with 79% of those 45 and younger backing the restrictions compared to 62% of those 45 to 64 and 61% of those 65 and older.

SB 484, sponsored by Hialeah Gardens Sen. Bryan Ávila in the Senate with House support from Panama City Rep. Griff Griffitts, a fellow Republican, establishes a new regulatory framework in Florida for data centers, the spending on which has exploded in the last two years.

In March, Reuters reported that Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta alone were projected to spend about $630 billion on data centers and artificial intelligence chips in 2026 as demand for AI infrastructure surges.

SB 484 provides that local governments still have authority over zoning and development decisions involving data centers, requiring utilities to develop a special rate structure so the facilities’ enormous electricity demands are paid by their owners rather than be shifted to residential or small-business customers.

The measure, effective July 1, also imposes new water-use restrictions. Water management districts and the Department of Environmental Protection will have to apply stricter permitting standards for large-scale data centers seeking consumptive-use permits, including requirements tied to conservation and reclaimed water usage when feasible.

Major permit applications and modifications will have to go through public hearings.

Further, the legislation requires a statewide study on the long-term impacts of hyperscale data centers, including their effects on electric grids, water resources, economic development and public safety.

Signing the bill Thursday, DeSantis said it is “just not right for the most wealthy companies in the history of the world to come in and have individual Floridians or Americans subsidize” large-scale data centers.

He described SB 484 as the first law of its kind in the country.

Some lawmakers, like Senate Democratic Leader Lori Berman, said the legislation didn’t go far enough, pointing to situations where local economic development agencies will still be able to conceal plans for major data centers from the public for up to a year.

“I still would like to be able to protect our constituents and let them know when these large data centers are coming into their communities so that they can have the discussion,” she said before the measure passed March 13.

That controversial provision was originally part of a related measure (SB 1118) Ávila carried but failed to pass independently. While SB 484 would help shield local ratepayers from increases to their electric bills, which have skyrocketed by as much as 267% over the past five years in some places due to the proliferation of data centers, SB 1118 would have helped to protect data centers’ proprietary information, similar to what is done for other economic development projects to which local governments give a “confidential project” descriptor.

SB 1118 died after reaching the Senate floor. Griffitts added its language to SB 484, which passed with unanimous support in the Senate before the change. The amendment Griffitts filed also included the study requirement.