The South Dakota state House of Representatives voted 41-21 on Thursday to reject a bill that would have required data centers in South Dakota to obtain an additional permit from a neighboring city or county, if the city or county line is within 1 mile of the facility.
Last month, Sioux Falls rezoned land for a proposed data center. Although the land is near Brandon, residents of Brandon had no official say in the matter. An effort to petition the rezoning to a public vote failed when petitioners failed to gather enough signatures.
“This is not an anti-data center bill,” said the legislation’s sponsor, Representative John Sjaarda, R-Valley Springs. “It’s a local control bill.”
The legislation would require any “high energy use facility” using at least 20 megawatts of energy to apply for a conditional use permit from any city or county within 1 mile that has zoning ordinances. Large data centers often require more electricity than that to store data for artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and other forms of technology…