The House Data Center Package, Explained — and Its Fatal Flaw

Eight bills introduced in the Michigan House — HB 6135 through HB 6142 — together form the most comprehensive answer Lansing has offered to unregulated data center development. Here is what each one does, and the structural problem that could sink all of them at once.

What the package does

• HB 6138 — closed-loop cooling or municipal water only, with fines up to $1,000,000 per day, enforceable by the Attorney General. The package’s strongest protection.
• HB 6137 — community benefits agreements, including a Public Service Commission interconnection gate that reaches even projects exempt from local permits.
• HB 6142 — decommissioning plans and restoration of sites to pre-construction condition.
• HB 6139 — acoustic engineering review of operational and construction noise.
• HB 6140 — a ban on nondisclosure agreements in certain data center deals with local governments.
• HB 6141 — labor standards through PSC contract approval.
• HB 6136 — data center siting authority under the Michigan Zoning Enabling Act.
• HB 6135 — a dedicated utility rate class so data centers pay their own way.

The flaw: all or nothing

We read the enacting section of every bill in the package, as introduced, on the Legislature’s own site. Every one of them is tie-barred: each bill declares that it “does not take effect unless” the others are also enacted into law. The seven core bills are tied to each other; HB 6136 is tied to HB 6137, which is in turn tied to everything — including HB 6136. (Several enacting sections allow a Senate companion version to satisfy the requirement.)

The practical meaning is stark: the package rises or falls as one. If a single bill dies in committee — say the NDA bill, or the zoning bill — then the water act with its million-dollar-a-day fines never takes effect either, no matter how many votes it wins. Eight separate committee fights, and losing any one of them loses them all.

You can watch this live on our Legislation page: the House package is tracked as a unit, and its status is computed from its weakest member. Today every bill sits at Introduced. The day any of them fails, the whole package will show as blocked.

What we’re asking for

Three things. Pass the package. Add severability amendments so each protection can stand on its own if the rest stall. And fix the definitions with a megawatt threshold — as SB 1047 and the newly introduced HB 6251 use — so no large facility can dodge these laws by calling itself a research center. It is also worth noting that two newer bills, HB 6251 and HB 6252, carry no tie-bars at all — they can pass and take effect alone, which makes them the most viable near-term protections on the board.

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