HB6251 — Businesses: other; energy infrastructure and thermal management evaluation requirements for certain data…

Creates the Data Center Energy Infrastructure and Thermal Management Evaluation Act. A “large-scale data center” — 25 megawatts or more of critical IT load, or 50 megawatts total electrical demand, including phased buildouts and later expansions, with AI and high-performance computing named explicitly — must submit a professional energy infrastructure and thermal management evaluation to the Public Service Commission at least 120 days before construction begins: anticipated electrical demand, cooling and thermal systems, infrastructure needs, alternatives analyzed, waste-heat reuse, and a public summary. Copies go to local clerks and affected utilities within 30 days, the MPSC publishes the public summary, and construction may not begin until the Commission issues a certificate of completeness (Sec. 5).

Why this reaches this project: the structure is HB 6138’s. It is a freestanding statutory duty — no local permit trigger to be exempt from — enforced by the Attorney General or county prosecutor with civil fines up to $10,000 per day plus injunctive relief (Sec. 11), and the introduced text contains no exemption for governmental entities. This is precisely the architecture we asked for when HB 6139 tied its review to a building permit that this project will never pull. The megawatt thresholds also close the “specialized research hub, not a data center” argument that the House package’s activity-based definitions invited.

The honest limits: the certificate of completeness is an administrative check — the Commission confirms within 45 days that the filing is complete, not that the project is acceptable. This is a forced-disclosure statute, not a veto. And $10,000 per day, while real, is modest against a $1.25 billion project. The act takes effect 90 days after enactment and applies to construction, expansion, or material modification beginning after that — so even if site work starts first, every later phase is covered.

We support it. For the first time, the project’s actual numbers — demand, cooling design, waste heat — would be on the public record with the Commission and local governments 120 days before ground breaks. We would strengthen it with a substantive review standard or an SB 1046-style public hearing requirement, and penalties scaled closer to HB 6138’s.

Three further points from the text.

It is not tie-barred. Unlike HB 6264, which cannot take effect unless all eight of HB 6135 through 6142 are enacted, this act stands alone and takes effect 90 days after enactment. Together with its companion HB 6252, it is the most realistic thing in the current session — it needs no one else to pass first.

The megawatt figure would be public by statute. Section 7(3) lists what a developer may not designate as proprietary: the public summary, the projected total electrical demand, a general description of the cooling systems, the infrastructure categories anticipated to be needed, and the general conclusions. Everything else can be withheld as confidential and is exempt from FOIA — but not those. Given that “how many megawatts” and “what cooling” are the two questions this community has asked for over a year and not had answered, that single subsection may be the most valuable clause in either bill.

The definitions are drafted against evasion. “Common control” reaches affiliates, subsidiaries, special purpose entities, phased development, option agreements, power purchase arrangements, interconnection requests and financing arrangements. Someone anticipated how a project of this kind might be structured to fall below a threshold — and this project is financed in part through a special purpose vehicle. The same definition means two buildings on one site cannot be treated as two smaller projects. The evaluation must also cover anticipated load growth for all phases.