The Michigan House has approved legislation allowing tax breaks for large data centers.

State Representative Joey Andrews tells us one bill in the two bill package had been held up since September when environmental groups started expressing opposition. However, lawmakers came back after the elections and quickly adjusted the bill to address some of those concerns. Andrews says they included provisions requiring the centers to use municipal water supplies, protecting electric ratepayers from hikes, and putting a sunset on the tax breaks.

Andrews is glad to finally see this legislation get through the House.

“Oh, it’s a huge relief,” Andrews said. “This bill was not supposed to be as big of a fight as it was. The environmental groups turned this into a hill they wanted to die on for a reason that is still impossible for me to get my head around.”

The package exempts large data centers from sales and use taxes so they can purchase the huge amounts of equipment they use. Andrews says with the package now through the House, the state is poised to be an attractive location for these large data centers.

“Locally, we’ve got that proposed project for one of these data centers out in Benton Township. So our hope is that with the passage of these bills, that project will be able to move forward. And as we’ve discussed before, it’s tens of millions of dollars in potential property tax revenue.”

Andrews says the legislation now heads to the Senate for concurrence. He expects the governor will sign it.