Data center ban on the Ohio ballot? Petitioners get approval to start gathering signatures
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Ohio Residents for Responsible Development can start collecting signatures to get a proposed constitutional amendment to prevent new, large data centers in Ohio on the November ballot.
This article was originally published by Ohio Capital Journal.
Ohio Residents for Responsible Development can start collecting signatures to get a proposed constitutional amendment to prevent new, large data centers in Ohio on the November ballot.
The Ohio Ballot Board on Thursday unanimously certified the proposed amendment that would prohibit the construction of data centers with a peak load of more than 25 megawatts per month. This would prevent most modern data centers. The board was tasked with assuring the proposal contains only one amendment before it could proceed.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose is currently deployed with the Ohio Army National Guard, so Kimberly Burns was the acting chairwoman for Thursday’s Ballot Board meeting.
“It’s time to conserve Ohio and not let data centers take away all the natural resources that we are plentiful of so we have life for generations to come,” said Nikki Gerber, an Adams County resident who was part of the group who submitted the proposal.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost certified the petition last week.
“My certification of the title and summary … should not be construed as an affirmation of the enforceability and constitutionality of the proposed amendment,” Yost said in a letter certifying the petition.
Ohio Residents for Responsible Development is a grassroots organization and a group of southwest Ohio residents submitted the proposal.
“All of us came together truly organically,” said Austin Baurichter, one of the committee members. “We’re all doing this because we care. … We’re ready to roll out for signatures.”
Ohio has about 200 data centers, the fifth-highest state in the country. Most of the data centers are in central Ohio. Cincinnati has 26 and Cleveland has 23, according to Data Center Map.
A large data center can use as much electricity as 100,000 homes, according to the Office of Ohio Consumers’ Counsel. Data centers used 4% of all U.S. electricity in 2023 and that is expected to grow to 9% by 2030, according to the counsel.
“It affects 100% of us,” said Andrew Gula, a committee member. “No matter how rich or poor you are, wherever you live in the state, it affects all of us in one way. Your electric rates go up, the farmland is getting bought out. … Everyone is going to see an impact because of this and we need to stop it now while the train is just leaving the station.”
The amendment will need more than 413,000 signatures from at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties — 10% of the total vote cast for governor during the last gubernatorial election — by July 1 in order to get on the ballot. LaRose will then need to verify the signatures.
Despite the tight deadline, Ohio Residents for Responsible Development is confident they will get the needed signatures.
“We’ll get it done one way or another,” Baurichter said.
Ohio Residents for Responsible Development plans on only using volunteers to gather signatures. They have county leaders in 46 counties and plan to gather signatures at upcoming festivals, Gerber said.
“We’ve never done anything like this before, so we’re going to give it everything we got,” she said. “… We got southern Ohio and Appalachian on our side.”
Baurichter said he wasn’t sure if the proposed amendment would apply to data centers under construction.
“I don’t think there’s a hard and fast answer to that,” he said. “What I’ve said before is my understanding of the law generally, is that these things aren’t rear view mirror looking. Even if they try to put as many shovels in the ground before the petition goes into effect, it still is a good thing for Ohio because it stops them after that.”
The Ohio House unanimously passed a bill recently that would create a new data center study commission.
Lawmakers in at least 11 states — Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin — have introduced legislation that would temporarily ban data centers.