Latest news with #HB892
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Legislature makes another effort to study impacts of data centers
There are almost no environmental regulations overseeing data centers in the state, but lawmakers, including those in East Lyme and Waterford, are seeking to change that. Legislators renewed an effort in the current session to require reports on the impact of large data centers on local power grids, following a company's proposal to build a large center next to the Millstone Power Station in Waterford. Rhode Island-based NE Edge proposes to build a pair of data centers totaling 1.2 million square feet on the Millstone property, a location that lets them buy power directly from the nuclear power plant and reducing the center's energy costs. Requiring impact studies, state Rep. Nick Menapace, D-East Lyme, said Monday, is the first step to more effective legislation regulating the amount of energy and water large data centers consume. Menapace introduced the bill along with state Sen. Martha Marx, D-New London, and state Rep. Nick Gauthier, D-Waterford. Last year, a similar bill drafted in response to the Millstone plan failed to gain approval. The state Siting Council rejected the Millstone plan last year, saying it needs more information. Susan Adams, state policy director for Millstone, said Tuesday that there is continued interest in data centers. A second bill in the General Assembly would quantify data center resource consumption. There are about 60 data centers in Connecticut, according to The one proposed for Millstone would be larger than any of the others. There are questions, such as exactly how much energy large centers consume and how much noise they make. 'East Lyme people are concerned they'll be stuck with all negatives and no positives,' Menapace said. 'A lot of people feel that's what happened with Millstone (power station), Waterford got the monetary benefit and East Lyme got stuck with an eyesore.' The current bill, HB 892, is before the legislature's Energy and Technology Committee and isn't likely to advance soon, Menapace said. However, a more detailed bill requiring data center impact studies, SB 1292, has more traction. Its sponsor, state Rep. Mary Mushinsky (D–Wallingford), said the bill attempts to set standards for an industry the state rushed into with virtually no regulations. 'That makes me uncomfortable,' Mushinsky said last week. Mushinsky said while useful and economically stimulating, data centers have a huge energy demand, and legislators want to ensure consistent grid reliability. Data centers, she said, also use diesel generators to help meet their own demands when strain on the grid is highest, like hot summer days. A past unsuccessful attempt to regulate data centers had included regulations overseeing diesel output, Mushinsky said. Diesel generators can produce fumes and noise. The bill would give the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection authority over data centers' energy consumption, Mushinsky said. It would require quarterly reports on the amount of electricity, fuel and other sources used for cooling, the source of any water that is used and agreements between the centers and any electric utilities. The proposed Millstone center is considered a 'behind-the-meter' center, which takes power directly from energy producers rather than the grid. 'The question is if they're the first customer, does everyone else become secondary?' Mushinsky said. Four years ago, state Sen. Norm Needleman (D-Essex) led the effort to attract data centers to Connecticut with tax incentives. Now he seeks to remove the tax incentive for behind-the-meter data centers in a separate proposed bill. 'Anything that's located at a power plant should not have the tax incentives that were offered for projects that were put on the grid,' he said last week, adding centers shouldn't be allowed to 'double-dip,' not just at Millstone but also at other plants. Needleman said when the incentives passed, legislators had not considered 'all of the possible impacts like behind-the-meter centers and what they really could do to the environment.'
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
State agrees not to enforce ‘double registration' law in order to settle federal voting rights suit
Voters wait to register to vote at the MetraPark Expo Center in Billings, Montana on Nov. 5, 2024 (Photo by Darrell Ehrlick of the Daily Montanan). The Montana Secretary of State's Office and the Commissioner of Political Practices have come to an agreement with two groups which successfully challenged a 2023 law that would have made it crime for residents to be registered to vote in two places simultaneously, even if it didn't result in double voting. As federal court judge Brian M. Morris made clear in the stipulated agreement signed late last week, double voting in Montana is already a crime. However, House Bill 892 made it a crime to be registered in one place and voting in another, something that evidence and testimony says happens all the time for a variety of reasons. The agreement will technically leave Montana Code 13-35-210(5) on the books, but make it unenforceable, with both the Secretary of State and COPP agreeing that they'll not enforce it because its likely a violation of the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit was brought by the Montana Public Interest Research Group and the Montana Federation of Public Employees. They were represented by Raph Graybill of the Graybill Law Firm and notable voting rights legal team, the Elias Law Group in Washington, D.C. In litigation that has already had the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals weigh in on it after state attorneys challenged an injunction ordered by Morris, federal courts had determined that HB 892 likely impedes residents efforts to vote, or threatens them in a way so that they will not vote. The courts also found that while double voting — or voting in the same election in two different places — happens, it's exceptionally rare and current state law already makes it a crime. Instead, HB 892 would make it a crime to be registered in two different places and could have required residents to prove they had transferred their registration before being allowed to vote. The testimony and court documents said updating voter rolls or transferring voting eligibility is usually something done by election officials, not residents. The court case also pointed out different scenarios where a resident may be eligible to vote in several locations, for example in the case of college students or retired residents who split their time between two different places. The law allows for such a scenario so long as residents cast only one ballot per election cycle. Morris, in April 2024, had issued a temporary injunction against the law because of its effect on the right to vote and the First Amendment implications, which encompass the idea that speaking about candidates and voting is political speech and should be the most protected from government interference. That meant that the State of Montana had to prove that HB 892 was narrowly crafted and easily understood so that it couldn't be seen as an obstacle to voting. 'Because First Amendment freedoms need breathing space to survive, the government may regulate in the area only with narrow specificity,' Morris said. However, Morris said the vague language of the law leaves too much room for speculation. For example, does the law just apply to new voters in Montana? What about those who previously registered in a different Montana county? 'The court remains concerned that voters lack notice as to what Montana requires of them when registering to vote,' Morris said. He said that the concerns are even more heightened because HB 892 subjected citizens to criminal penalties. The court was also concerned that the law conflated double voting — or casting ballots during the same election in two different places — with being registered in two different places, something that other federal courts have upheld as legal. 'The Seventh Circuit rejected Indiana's reliance on the criminalization of double voting to support its argument that registering to vote in a new jurisdiction implied that the voter no longer wanted to registered in their old jurisdiction. Indiana equated double registration with double voting,' the judge said. 'The Seventh Circuit acknowledged the fundamental distinction between the two circumstances: 'While double voting is surely illegal, having two open voter registrations is a different issue entirely. In the overwhelming majority of states, it is not illegal to be registered to vote in two places.' The court also raised concerns it was treating different classes of voters differently because 'college students, young people and voters who temporarily relocated for job reasons' may all have reasons to have multiple voter registrations. HB 892 imposed criminal penalties of as many as 18 months in prison and as much as a $5,000 fine. 'The only thing that HB 892 accomplished was making it harder and more intimidating for Montanans to register to vote,' said Aria Branch, a partner with the Elias Law Group. 'This victory reinforces that our elections laws should make voting easier, not create unnecessary traps that expose lawful voters to criminal liability.'
