06/11/2026
I am disappointed that the committee chose not to address issues like air quality testing and the critical role of local public health and safety authorities, including township fire departments, in the permitting process for fuel cells and data centers. And instead, couldn't even come to consensus on NDAs and tax incentives related to the data centers.
The following is an article from Gongwer, a news service that covers the Ohio Statehouse.
Vote on data center package fizzles — for now
BY
PATRICK KECK
OH
Jun 10, 2026
KEY POINTS
Ohio data center legislation stalled due to tax break disagreement
Vote on measure could occur during June 24 session
Business groups opposed to altering tax exemption
Both chambers failed to coalesce behind high profile data center legislation on Wednesday, as caucus disagreement over a controversial tax break proved to be too much to overcome.
The fast-tracked legislation (HB 646), which was still being tweaked earlier in the day, would broadly drop the maximum data center sales and use tax exemption offered to 50%, establish new water use standards, and order electric distribution utilities to submit a data center tariff with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
The Senate Energy Committee adopted its third substitute and teed it up for a floor vote earlier on Wednesday. But by nearly 10 p.m., as the House was standing by ready for a planned concurrence vote, the Senate instead re-referred the bill back to the Energy Committee.
House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, blamed the delay on the fact that members of his caucus remained divided over the data center tax break, with some thinking it should be outright eliminated while others thought reducing it to 50% would be sufficient.
Now, by having members return on June 24 to potentially take up the measure, he hopes some consensus can be found.
“I think the 50% with incentives, that incentivizes good behavior, if you will. That's a good thing to do,” he said. “Now some of our members need to get to the point where that they accept that.”
Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, said he did not know what the holdup was in the House and added that he did not want to make any comments on the legislation until a decision was made in the lower chamber.
The tax exemption is currently paused via a directive from Gov. Mike DeWine after projections of revenue foregone by the tax exemption far exceeded earlier projections.
Chair Sen. Brian Chavez, R-Marietta, told reporters that the plan was likely not perfect, but he was “not going to let perfect be the enemy of good.”
He also said the reason the panel agreed to lower the sales and use tax exemption to 50%, down from the 100% and 75% threshold set by an earlier sub bill, was to account for concerns from some caucus members.
“So that sends a signal to the generators, ‘Hey, we are committed, we're going to be here,’ and so we feel like that helps increase generation on the system,” he said. “If you're above 250 megawatts, no matter if you get tax exemptions or not, you have to offset your power.”
Sen. Kent Smith, D-Euclid, footed the blame on the majority party for not following through with the legislation, which was formed following feedback provided to the Select Committee on Data Centers over the last few weeks.
“John Kasich gave away millions of Ohio taxpayer dollars ten years ago,” he said in a statement, referring to decades-long deals signed with Google, Meta and Amazon during the Kasich Administration.
“Those millions turned into billions under Mike DeWine. Tonight, Statehouse Republicans could have ended this tax giveaway, but they chose not to do so. This is the latest example of the GOP supermajority looking out for billion-dollar corporations and not everyday Ohioans.”
Another issue driving debate among members was language surrounding nondisclosure agreements.
Chavez said the bill clarifies that NDAs cannot supersede public records, but Huffman said it is important that public officials cannot enter into those agreements.
“If two private parties want to make an agreement between each other, the government shouldn't stand in and say you can't make that agreement,” the speaker said.
“And on the other hand, a data center who wants to have an agreement with township trustees, that's a public official, that's different, and we need to treat that differently than private.”
In acknowledging the legislation’s quick advancement through committee, McColley said there has been “an awful lot of detailed conversations about it.”
“It's something that we need to get the policy right for the state of Ohio,” he said, adding that the primary concerns involve the amount power and water data centers use.
"Making sure that they're paying for their own power, that they're in some ways not impacting the grid or ratepayers,” McColley said. “There were a lot of things in this bill that had to do with rate payer protections and protections of Ohio's resources, whether it be electricity or water or otherwise.”
Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio said Democrats have been paying attention to the data centers and have wanted to put in safeguards “from the very beginning.”
“My understanding is there's a conversation about that happening over there, so we'll see whether it moves from a conversation to actually bringing a bill over,” the Lakewood Democrat said, referring to sale and use tax percentages.
“Obviously, there is not agreement over in the House, because otherwise we would see it coming.”
