{"id":252760,"date":"2026-07-27T08:42:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T08:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/252760\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T08:42:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T08:42:06","slug":"lawmakers-up-transparency-for-data-centers-leave-2b-tax-exemption-untouched-in-pa-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/252760\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers up transparency for data centers, leave $2B tax exemption untouched in Pa. budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for our free newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

HARRISBURG \u2014 Despite a flurry of proposals to regulate data centers in the months leading up to this year\u2019s state budget deadline, Pennsylvania lawmakers passed only one related measure as part of this month\u2019s $50.8 billion deal.<\/p>\n

It mandates data centers using more than 10 MW of electricity annually to disclose their energy and water usage. Environmental advocates said the change, which covers most of the new data centers planned for the state, is positive but not especially meaningful.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers left in place an increasingly unpopular sales tax exemption for data centers that is projected to cost the state $2 billion in tax revenue by mid-2031, and passed no other bills that would regulate the burgeoning industry.<\/p>\n

This is despite the state House and Senate passing a bevy of recent bills seeking to rein in data centers, such as one that would ban developers from accessing a program that gives tax breaks to those who invest in certain \u201copportunity zone\u201d areas, and another to allow local governments to temporarily pause development.<\/p>\n

The measures came after polling this spring showed that 64% of Pennsylvanians saw data centers as a problem, and communities increasingly rallied against them.<\/p>\n

However, none of these pieces of legislation made it to the governor\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n

State House Majority Leader Matt Bradford, D-Montgomery County, placed the blame squarely on his Senate counterpart, saying that he was \u201cdisappointed\u201d that Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Indiana, had \u201cno interest in moving data center regulation legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are willing to have a comprehensive discussion. We desperately need the Senate to come forward and work with us in a bipartisan way to get that accomplished,\u201d Bradford said in an interview with PCN.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro also laid the blame at the feet of Senate Republicans, saying that they \u201cfailed to act\u201d on Shapiro\u2019s plan to incentivize data centers to meet environmental and energy standards.<\/p>\n

Shapiro\u2019s plan would make Pennsylvania\u2019s data center tax credit \u2014 the same one many lawmakers support axing \u2014 contingent on developers being more transparent and reducing environmental impacts, among other things. The spokesperson did not respond to Spotlight PA\u2019s questions about whether the administration hopes to pass that plan and other guardrails this fall.<\/p>\n

Pittman said Senate Republicans \u201care open to further discussions, including considering measures to allow for moratorium decisions to be made at the local level,\u201d but did not specify if his caucus would take up the issue in the fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot surprisingly, Matt has chosen to mischaracterize my position instead of engaging in work to reach a meaningful consensus,\u201d Pittman said in a statement to Spotlight PA. \u201cWe believe transparency is important, which is why we took a step forward on that front as part of the budget passed by the Senate \u2014 which Matt must have either forgotten about or chose to ignore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Environmental advocates told Spotlight PA they hope the legislature will again take up some of the data center regulation bills when they are scheduled to return to the Capitol in September.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is time for them to stop kicking the can down the road and pass comprehensive data center legislation,\u201d Tom Schuster, director of the Sierra Club\u2019s Pennsylvania chapter, said in a statement. \u201cHalf-measures and reporting requirements are not a substitute for real policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Specifically, advocates have pushed lawmakers to pass a bill sponsored by state Rep. Rob Matzie, D-Ambridge, which would create regulations governing how data centers interact with utilities. It would mandate centers pay for the construction of utilities\u2019 distribution infrastructure and establish early termination fees for data centers that pull out of their contracts with utility providers.<\/p>\n

It would also prohibit utilities from passing on costs associated with data centers to ratepayers; mandate that data centers get roughly a third of their energy from clean sources, such as nuclear, hydroelectric, and solar; and direct data centers to pay into state programs that help low-income Pennsylvanians pay for their heating or cooling bills.<\/p>\n

Rob Bair, the president of the Pennsylvania State Building and Construction Trades, said he supports some regulations, like Matzie\u2019s bill and Shapiro\u2019s incentive program, but warned that other proposals, like a moratorium on data center development, could unnecessarily stymie economic growth.<\/p>\n

Bair said such actions could \u201cmake yourself feel good\u201d in the short term, but be detrimental long-term.<\/p>\n

\u201cA talking point and a soundbite is great, but if you do it today, what\u2019s the ramifications next week, next month, next year, five years down the road?\u201d Bair asked.<\/p>\n

Katie Blume, legislative director of Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania, said while she is frustrated the legislature hasn\u2019t passed substantive data center regulations, other proposals like repealing the tax break expected to cost Pennsylvania around $2 billion would be \u201cthe bare minimum.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not looking at things from a tax standpoint. We want to protect the environment. We want clean energy. We want consumers to be protected, and repealing a sales tax does none of that,\u201d Blume told Spotlight PA.<\/p>\n

BEFORE YOU GO \u2026 If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org\/donate. Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-252760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}