The Great Lakes hold nearly 20 percent of the world’s surface freshwater, making them a resource of national and international importance. They power regional economies, support shipping routes vital to global trade, and provide drinking water to 40 million people across the U.S. and Canada. Safeguarding the Great Lakes is not only essential for the communities that rely on them daily, but also for the stability of North America’s environment, economy, and international partnerships.
Fresh is a weekly newsletter from Circle of Blue that unpacks the biggest international, state, and local policy news stories facing the Great Lakes region today. Sign up for Fresh: A Great Lakes Policy Briefing, straight to your inbox, every Wednesday.
— Christian Thorsberg, Fresh Editor
Weekly Watershed
- A bill seeking to overhaul the scope of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management passed out of committee this week on a 5-3 party-line vote.
- Legislation proposed in Wisconsin would require data centers to source 70 percent of their energy from renewable sources in order to qualify for tax breaks.
- A new report on data centers’ economic and energy impacts in the Great Lakes region forecasts they will account for 20 percent of the basin’s total electricity demands by 2040.
Fresh from the Great Lakes News Collaborative
- Ontario to keep forcing municipalities to give Enbridge Gas free access to public land — The Narwhal
- Michigan’s aging water infrastructure works to keep up with demand from data centers — Michigan Public
- Invasive sea lamprey declining as control efforts in the Great Lakes resume — Bridge Michigan
- Boom or burden? Climate migration’s impact on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula — Great Lakes Now
Bridge Michigan, Circle of Blue, Great Lakes Now at Detroit Public Television, Michigan Public and The Narwhal work together to report on the most pressing threats to the Great Lakes region’s water. This independent journalism is supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Find all the work here.
The Lead
Legislation proposed this week in the Indiana Senate would vastly overhaul the scope and structure of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM), appearing to limit its ability to protect waters, land, and air.
Senate Bill 277 seeks to potentially eliminate dozens of environmental reporting mandates, streamline review requirements, and encourage the state to “be no more stringent” or “burdensome” than federal environmental law. These changes would occur via amendments to Title 13 of the Indiana Code, which outlines the operations of IDEM.
“A lot of elements that end up adding a lot of cost, and not a lot of environmental benefit, are the burdens of record-keeping and monitoring requirements,” said IDEM Commissioner Clint Woods at a Senate Environmental Affairs meeting this week, where the bill was introduced.
According to Woods, more than 250 mandates considered “unnecessary” by IDEM would be eliminated, as would nearly 40 “needless” paperwork and reporting requirements. The department would no longer require divisions of air quality, water quality, land quality, legal counsel, and program support.
The bill also makes way for nuclear development. If made law, IDEM would no longer require permits to control atomic radiation, and a mandate against constructing or operating nuclear power generation facilities would be repealed.
In the draft, key language regarding the interpretation of environmental rules was also removed from current code. The statement: “Since the water pollution control laws are necessary for the public health, safety, and welfare, the water pollution control laws shall be liberally construed to effectuate the purposes of the water pollution control laws,” would be deleted from Title 13.
“It is a big rule and there’s a lot of stuff in here,” Sen. Rick Niemeyer (R-6), the committee chair and bill author, said in the meeting.
The 176-page bill caught both committee members and environmental organizations across Indiana by surprise. Senators questioned whether IDEM and Niemeyer had collaborated with any other lawmakers on the committee, and condemned the department for introducing this legislation to them so suddenly. Later in the meeting, Sen. Niemeyer shouldered the blame for keeping his colleagues in the dark.
“I don’t think you want to answer all the questions I have right now,” Sen. Greg Taylor (D-33) told Woods. “I’ll just be honest with you, I’ve got hundreds of them…I feel like I’m in front of a boulder getting rolled down a hill.”
Despite widespread apprehension, the bill passed out of committee on a 5-3 party-line vote, and will now head to the Senate Appropriations committee for another meeting at an unspecified future date.
In the News
Data Center Accountability Act: Senate Bill 729, introduced in the Wisconsin Senate in December, marks Wisconsin’s first proposed legislation to require greater transparency from data centers regarding their water and energy use.
“While we recognize the economic development, workforce, and local tax base impacts of these data centers, Wisconsin also does not have adequate statewide plans, standards, regulations, or guardrails related to the swift proliferation of these data centers in our state,” Sen. Habush Sinykin (D-8), who authored the bill, wrote in a letter asking for a public hearing to be scheduled.
The bill, which has received support from environmental advocates across the state, would require a report to the Public Service Commission if any new or existing user accounts for more than 25 percent of a utility’s total water use. Crucially, for large-scale data centers to receive an exemption from sales and use taxes in Wisconsin, “at least 70 percent of the total annual electric energy used by the data center must be derived from renewable resources.”
The Public Service Commission would be charged with submitting and publishing quarterly reports “including the amount of energy consumed, the fuel type used to generate the energy, [and] the amount of renewable energy generated at the site of the data center.”
Looking Ahead
A new report released this week by the University of Virginia’s Cooper Center for Public Service analyzes the economic and energy impacts of data centers in the eight Great Lakes states.
Per the study, the region is home to 525 operational campuses as of 2024, accounting for 20 percent of the nation’s total. With another 224 facilities planned to come online by 2030, a significant shift in the basin’s energy landscape is inevitable.
By decade’s end, the center estimates that the region’s data centers will consume “energy equivalent to 8 million Great Lakes’ households (approximately 20 million people),” with electricity requirements more than tripling in Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
No state is poised to build more data centers than Ohio, which has 77 campuses planned — primarily in the Columbus area — and whose state EPA is considering fast-tracking water discharge permits to accommodate their construction.
“It has been determined that a lowering of water quality of various waters of the state associated with granting coverage under this permit is necessary to accommodate important social and economic development in the state of Ohio,” the draft permit reads.
Illinois, which is planning to build 67 data centers, is set to experience the greatest increase in energy needs, with campuses accounting for 37 percent of the state’s total electricity demand by 2040.
You can find more stories from the Great Lakes region here.
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