MinnPost posts a letter to the editor from Dan McConnell, president of the Minnesota State Building and Construction Trades Council. He starts by talking about 2025 MN Legislation related to data centers…

While other states scramble to protect families from the cost of the data center boom, Minnesota saw it coming and set the standard first.

In 2025, the Legislature passed one of the strongest data center laws in the country, and Gov. Tim Walz signed it. The law puts the largest electricity users in a class of their own and makes them pay the full cost of the power and infrastructure built to serve them. If one of these companies shrinks or walks away, the bill for that stranded equipment stays off your monthly statement.

Every kilowatt these facilities draw has to meet the state’s carbon-free standard, and each large campus pays millions a year into weatherization for families who need the help. Minnesota built a fence around the ratepayer before a single server arrived.

And then turns his attention to the proposed data center in Pine Island…

That is why the Pine Island proposal deserves a fair hearing rather than a slow death by delay. Google would anchor a data center campus in Goodhue County, tied to an Xcel Energy plan to add 1,900 megawatts of new generation. Under the rules Minnesota wrote, Google pays for the power and the infrastructure its campus needs, and the families nearby pay nothing for the privilege of hosting it. This is the law working as designed, on the first real test of its kind.