{"id":8242,"date":"2026-04-11T00:26:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T00:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/11\/students-staff-debate-wisconsin-data-center-legislation-the-daily-cardinal\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T00:26:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T00:26:05","slug":"students-staff-debate-wisconsin-data-center-legislation-the-daily-cardinal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/11\/students-staff-debate-wisconsin-data-center-legislation-the-daily-cardinal\/","title":{"rendered":"Students, staff debate Wisconsin data center legislation – The Daily Cardinal"},"content":{"rendered":"

QTS data center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa
For Beaver Dam native Ren Nickel, the rise of large scale AI data centers across the country hits close to home.
The University of Wisconsin senior said one of his old grade school teachers lives about a mile from the new data center there, which has taken over her property and impacted local waterways. 
\u201cShe had quite a few acres of land, and it just destroyed it,\u201d Nickel said. \u201cShe had a creek, and it\u2019s completely dried up.\u201d
Those hometown experiences motivated Nickel to get involved in climate organizing. He now serves as president of UW-Madison\u2019s Climate Action Campaign chapter and works with other chapters to coordinate outreach to legislators about data centers \u2014 taking his hometown fight to the state capital. 
\u201cWe want them to know that there’s a group of students on campus that are pushing for these changes,\u201d Nickel said.
Students and staff at UW-Madison have differing opinions about data center legislation and the pace of development as the state continues to attract tech companies building hyperscale data centers.
Data centers have increasingly faced scrutiny, with 70% of Wisconsin voters<\/u><\/a> saying their costs outweigh their benefits, despite the state currently being home to 52 facilities<\/u><\/a> and counting. Residents remain concerned with environmental impacts and a lack of transparency, with at least four communities<\/u><\/a> signing non-disclosure agreements to prevent knowledge of plans prior to their public announcement. 
UW professors express mixed feelings<\/strong>
Mechanical Engineering professor Allison Mahvi said the university has an initiative around data centers aiming to better understand how they impact communities, the environment and energy grid. 
\u201cI think this is something that needs to be answered quickly, as opposed to 10 years later,\u201d Mahvi told The Daily Cardinal. 
Mahvi is part of a research<\/u><\/a> study exploring energy storage for data centers with funding from QTS, a Virginia-based company that planned a data center in DeForest before community opposition led the village board to cancel the project. 
The company announced<\/u><\/a> a $1.5 million partnership with the university in 2025 and remains engaged with Mahvi\u2019s research cohort, which is mainly focused on energy storage reserves and how to optimally use a data center. QTS is also funding projects looking into health impacts of data centers, identifying benefits of data centers for pollinator biodiversity and artificial intelligence\u2019s applications in agriculture.
Engineering professor Mike Wagner, who also works on the study, said he has mixed feelings about the QTS project being cancelled. 
\u201cI fully agree that the local community should have a say in the technologies and the things that are being deployed in their neighborhoods,\u201d Wagner told the Cardinal. \u201cIt would have been nice to have a facility in our backyard that we could play around in and test out our technologies and test out our control techniques.\u201d
Both professors declined to comment on any current legislation regarding data centers.
Students voice concerns about data centers<\/strong>
While some professors are split, many students strongly oppose data centers and support legislation to regulate them.
UW Climate Action Campaign chapter founder Julia Fechner said the national organization is also focused on data center regulation. The group is watching several bills circulating the Legislature, including a Republican-led bill that would ban local governments from entering non-disclosure agreements with tech companies. 
The legislation, which has garnered bipartisan support, was originally brought forward following a report from Wisconsin Watch<\/u><\/a> showing that in at least four communities across the state, details involving a data center were hidden from the public with a nondisclosure agreement, prior to public announcement.
\u201cPeople are not a fan of large corporations trying to cover up their actions through NDAs, and the office I\u2019m in is very much in support of that,\u201d Fechner, an intern for Rep. Lori Paleri, D-Oshkosh, said.
UW-Madison Climate Action Campaign is also looking at a Democrat-backed bill that would require<\/u><\/a> data centers to get 70% of their energy from renewable sources to qualify for state tax breaks, which Fechner said she supports. 
\u201cI think it would be great and it would hold the data centers a lot more accountable for their energy consumption,\u201d he said. 
Fechner said she worries about the \u201cnot in my backyard\u201d scenario, meaning if data centers are not built in Wisconsin, they will still be built, just elsewhere.
\u201cUnfortunately, we find that these developments end up moving to under-resourced communities that don’t maybe have the power to fight back against it,\u201d she said. 
The organization supports a third bill aiming to address rising energy costs for residents. The legislation would prohibit<\/u><\/a> the Public Service Commission, responsible for the regulation of state utilities, from approving rate changes to utility bills for infrastructure that primarily serves a data center.
Notably, the Public Service Commission questioned their ability to ensure no costs would be passed down to ratepayers.
Two bills in the legislature are at a stand still as lawmakers are out of session. Several candidates for Wisconsin governor have expressed concern<\/u><\/a> about the rapid expansion of data centers, including Republican Tom Tiffany and Democrat Francesa Hong. <\/p>\n

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QTS data center in Cedar Rapids, IowaFor Beaver Dam native Ren Nickel, the rise of large scale AI data centers across the country hits close to home.The University of Wisconsin senior said one of his old grade school teachers lives about a mile from the new data center there, which has taken over her property […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}