Bob Ferguson on Tuesday is one of Washington’s new governor as a new governor Presidential order Form a team to evaluate the effects of data centers on energy use, state tax revenue, and employment creation.
This order is followed by a Seattle Times and Propo Publica survey last year on the data center industry’s clean energy and economic impact on the data center industry, which disturbs the power of modern Internet backbones. The data center (a structure like a warehouse filled with a computer server) receives the largest corporate tax deduction in Washington. They require a huge amount of electricity. This is a need for growing only as an increase in dependence on artificial intelligence.
“Washington must continue to be a leader of technology and sustainability. These experts help us do it,” Ferguson said. News release。 “This group will help balance industry growth, tax revenue, energy restrictions, and sustainability.”
Ferguson’s orders approve that the work group of state staff and industry stakeholders will study the influence of the data center, and according to the presidential order, the growth of the industry, the need for tax revenues, the restrictions on energy, and sustainability. We recommend that you balance tax revenue, restrictions on energy, and sustainability. According to the Governor’s office, it includes rugged tax incentives for the data center industry.
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State Council encouraged the dramatic growth of the data center industry by providing a tax cut to rural areas under the name of bringing work. Last year, Times and Propublica grows into some of the most environmentally friendly counties in Washington, and the ability to gradually respond to fossil fuels while stepping on steps. He reported that he was threatening.
Then GOV. Jay Insley reported that it has blocked efforts to study the use of data centers in 2022. State parliamentarians include the provisions for measuring the power data used by the data center in a bill that expanded the tax cut in the industry. Inslee signed a law to expand tax deductions, but refused to study.
Insley’s office said last year that the research was duplicated by a regional power planner that created a wide range of predictions on the use of data centers on the northwestern part of the Pacific coast. Nevertheless, there are no institutions or organizations that have not specifically evaluated the increase in energy demand in the industry in Washington, or have not evaluated the impact of the state tax deduction on the power network.
According to the industry tracking website BaxTel, Washington was the home of at least 87 data centers.
Ferguson’s work group is led by a revenue bureau, a state institution that is responsible for determining the qualification of data centers for tax deduction.
The data center industry can affect the wide cross section of Washington’s economy, and may affect employment creation and public interest business decisions among other sectors.
The Ferguson team includes tax incentives, clean -energy goals, restrictions on the environment and public interest businesses, and the stakeholders of the state institution in charge of the labor organization and private representatives of the data center industry.
According to the Governor’s office, the group has been working to create surveys and recommendations by December.
Main tax reduction recipients
Ferguson’s order to investigate the data center is that the state faces at least $ 10 billion in budget deficit. Ferguson says he will look for ways to reduce expenditures before raising new taxes.
Washington’s awards to data center companies in 2023 reported last year last year, including Boeing, The Times, and Propublica. For these incentives, data center companies have saved more than $ 474 million taxes from 2018 to 2023.
More than 65 % of these savings have been sent to Microsoft, and news organizations have reported in 2023 a net profit of $ 72.4 billion. Microsoft said last summer, 417 people at the Washington data center in the news organization.
Washington Congress, Congress, first introduced a tax center tax reduction in 2010, claiming that companies would leave the state and prevent high -paying technical employment waves in rural areas.
Since then, the supporters of tax deductions have pointed out that they have succeeded in the incentive program. He has pointed out the significant increase in property tax revenue in rural areas and continuous employment of thousands of construction workers and electric engineers in the state. Build and maintain these facilities.
“I intend to defend the data center,” said Alex Ibara, a Republican member from Quincy, guessed the predicted presidential order to a video posted on his website last month. He said he was there.
The Ibara district contains Grant County, an agricultural area with abundant clean energy from the two hydropower dams in the Columbia River, which can move more than 1.5 million houses. Grant County has the cheapest power in Japan and is a draw in the growing data center industry.
In 2022, Grant County Data Center accounted for almost 40 % of the total power demand or about 40 % of the 190,000 US houses, according to utility and state data. Since we arrived in the county in the mid -2000s, the data center industry has been consuming more power than other categories, including other industrial customers, residents, and commercial businesses.
As the demand for power in Grant County increases, the public interest business area is increasingly dependent on the “indifferent” energy source from the open energy market, which purchases electricity that can be used from fuel mixture. 。 Experts say the source tends to be a carbon emission fuel like natural gas.
The dependence on the carbon generated power supply is inconsistent with the Washington’s goal of gradually abolishing fossil fuels. In 2019, Congress passed measures to make Washington’s utility into carbon neutral by 2030.
Energy consultant Landor Hardy told The Times and Propublica last year.
An unclear job number
Ferguson’s office stated that work groups will review data on the creation of industry. He stated that this is an important measure to understand the success of Washington’s tax incentive program, which has been protected from transparency and accountability for many years.
According to TIMES and Propublica, state -of -the -art staff is not allowed to say how many high -paid technical employment has been created by individual data centers receiving large -scale tax deductions. As a result, the number of high -paying technical employment created by tax cuts is unknown.
Washington Council has rejected two transparency proposals to open some of the information to the public.
The data center employs relatively small full -time workers than other industries with large energy footprints such as food processing. Since the introduction in 2010, the State Council has finely adjusted, updated, and extended tax reductions. Meanwhile, he loosened the incentive job requirements and refused efforts to demand more employment by companies that want to use incentives.
The members of the Diet have also left the premise of deducting the data center (employment in rural areas) in order to pass a new tax center in urban data centers in 2022.
The State tax monitoring agency, the joint -legal audit, and the examination committee, and the Civil Committee for the performance measurement of the tax center carry out only one review in the data center tax deduction program for almost 15 years. I checked if the incentive was satisfied. The intention around the work.
The single review in 2017 determined that it was too early to convey whether the tax deduction recipient meets employment requirements.
