The Brief

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California lawmakers started the year signaling they were ready to get tough on data centers, aiming to protect the environment and electricity ratepayers. Nine months later, they have little to show for it.

Of four data center bills in play, two never made it out of the Legislature, including one that would have required data centers to publicize their power use and another that would have provided incentives for them to use more clean energy.

Two others are on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, but in substantially reduced form. One mandates disclosure of water use by data center operators, although now in a way that may elude public access. Another originally aimed to protect energy customers from shouldering infrastructure costs driven by data centers but now merely lets regulators figure out if that is happening.

Data centers have the seemingly mundane job of storing and transmitting the contents of the internet. But the drab, largely windowless facilities are becoming a growing public policy concern. At least one is involved every time you watch a TikTok video or shop on Amazon.

In recent years, demand for artificial intelligence, and especially new general purpose systems like ChatGPT, caused such server farms to multiply. That means more water to cool semiconductors used to train and deploy AI models and more power plants and transmission lines, leaving state regulators increasingly concerned about stress on reservoirs and potentially higher power bills for residential customers.

Those concerns are not confined to California; communities and regulators in several states have made moves toward transparency requirements or efficiency standards. Michigan in 2024 enacted a law to require water use disclosure and the mayor of St. Louis enacted new rules earlier this month.

California is home to one of the largest concentrations of existing data centers in the world, and more projects are on the way. Pacific Gas and Electric, the largest power supplier in the state, reported this spring that it saw a 40 percent jump in data center hookup requests. In July the California Public Utilities Commission voted to streamline data center project applications.

Protecting your electric bill

One of the bills now with the governor, Senate Bill 57, authorizes the state public utility commission to assess whether data center loads shift costs to other customers like renters and homeowners.

Initially that bill from Democratic Sen. Steve Padilla of Chula Vista sought protections like those recently approved in Oregon and Ohio to ensure data center costs aren’t passed on to households.

But amendments by the Assembly Appropriations Committee in late August changed the bill to eliminate a special pay structure for data centers. A requirement that the commission assess how data centers shift costs to ratepayers was also reduced to an authorization, effectively granting the utility commission authority that it already had. Commission officials told CalMatters they’re using that power.

The changes soured at least one early backer on the bill. The Utility Reform Network supported the proposal initially for its protections of small businesses and residential ratepayers. The group still thinks the governor should sign it into law to track the impact of data centers, but “unfortunately lobbyists for data centers successfully gutted the bill,” said TURN director of race, equity, and legislative policy Adria Tinnin. “It doesn't allow us to do anything to actually protect ratepayers from the impacts of data centers.”

PG&E initially opposed the bill, but retracted opposition after changes last month. In August, with support from the California Public Utilities Commission, PG&E adopted a rule that requires new customers for large projects – two-thirds of which are data centers – to cover initial costs of transmission lines instead of passing those costs on to ratepayers.

Big Tech-backed organizations such as the Data Center Coalition and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group continue to oppose the bill. They say the state public utility commission already assesses prospective projects.

Tapping in to water metrics

If signed into law, Assembly Bill 93 will require data center operators to share with their water supplier how much water they estimate they will consume when they apply for or renew a business license or permit. It also directs state agencies to develop water use efficiency guidelines and best practices for data centers, and for businesses to self-certify that they comply with them. It was written by Diane Papan, a Democrat from San Mateo and chair of the assembly committee on water, parks, and wildlife. An environmental group last year sued the Bay Area city of Pittsburg over a data center development, citing water concerns. A community group also raised the issue in relation to a data center near the Salton Sea.

The same Big Tech groups that are fighting the consumer cost bill are also opposed to the water legislation, saying sharing water use data could divulge trade secrets and harm the competitive edge of businesses.

Data center water use is a concern in part because many of the facilities are located in drier areas and can consume hundreds of thousands of gallons of water a day. From Southern California to San Jose in the Bay Area, roughly 17 data center projects planned in California as of May are in areas where water stress is high or extremely high, according to reporting by Bloomberg.

A Stanford University study released in April found that Los Angeles and Northern California rank among some of the most popular locations in the U.S. for future data center projects, alongside drought-stricken areas fighting over the fast-draining Colorado River like Phoenix and Las Vegas.

Water concerns have been a key reason behind recent opposition to data centers in Arizona, Georgia, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia, said University of Virginia assistant professor Lauren Bridges, who tracks local and state data center regulation across the U.S. “Because we don't have any information from the industry about specific site usage, it makes it almost impossible to know what's going on and how it might impact them,” she said.

It’s unclear how much water is consumed by data centers and the AI systems within them, said University of California, Riverside professor Shaolei Ren, a prominent researcher of AI’s impact on the environment and public health. Google and OpenAI have claimed their models use only a few drops of water per query. A study coauthored by Ren, meanwhile, concluded that AI can consume roughly 16 ounces of water in a series of queries by one user in one sitting.

Ren thinks the proposed water regulation will help shed new light on the question while enabling California's tech industry to continue to thrive.

But it’s not that simple, said Masheika Allgood, a Silicon Valley water activist who has spoken out against a data center project in San Jose and created an online tool to calculate data center water consumption.

An amendment to the bill tells data center operators to share their water use data with water suppliers rather than government officials. Allgood has found that data center operators and most tech companies don’t share details about how much water they take from local aquifers and is not sure water suppliers will either. Without such data, it will be harder for people who oppose a data center to spark public discussion or organize their community.

“I can look up the applications, that's public record, but giving it to the water supplier, I have to go to them directly and ask for this information,” she said. “That’s not transparency for people.”

Linda Gordon, an attorney and climate researcher for the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center, said she supports the proposal and legislation that increases transparency of any kind.

In ongoing work Gordon is conducting with Allgood on the environmental impacts of data centers, she’s found gaining access to water use data difficult, and that some water agencies refuse to share that data, citing a court decision decided roughly a decade ago. Since nothing in Papan’s bill specifically addresses whether the data will be available to the public, it’s unclear whether the disclosure in the bill will help inform researchers, journalists and communities concerned about the water consumption of data centers.

She hopes that language in the law that requires the California Department of Water Resources develop efficiency standards will in turn empower local agencies to develop ways to evaluate the water use footprint of a data center and whether they ought to approve or deny a project.

“More disclosure is great but how that information gets used is also important to understand if it will actually make a difference,” she said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

On a tour of Orange County’s voting headquarters on Wednesday, Registrar Bob Page demonstrated the careful, multi-step process through which voters’ ballots are validated and counted.

As the federal government raises the specter of unsubstantiated voter fraud, Page’s message was clear: “ I want voters to know that we're doing everything we can to make sure they can vote safely and securely."

More than 380,000 Orange County ballots have been returned as of Oct. 27, Page said. That’s about 80,000 more ballots than was received around the same time in 2022, the last mid-term elections.

Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page addresses the media and other members of the public in attendance as part of a tour of the voting operations on Wednesday, less than one week before Election Day.

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The journey of a ballot in Orange County

Collecting, and counting, all those ballots takes time. Page explained that two-person teams are dispatched to collect dropped-off ballots every day during election season.

The ballot drop-off boxes in Orange County are made of steel, weigh more than 1,000 pounds and are bolted to the concrete, Page said.

The ballot retrieval duos are required to follow a strict process to ensure the chain of custody remains secure, including taking photos showing they’ve picked up the ballots, properly locked the retrieval door and that the internal fire suppression canister is intact.

The locations of the two-person teams are GPS-tracked by separate teams, which also review the photo evidence before giving the ballot retrieval duos the green light to go to their next stops.

An overhead camera shows the process that occurs after the signatures on a ballot have been verified and the ballot is then ready to be counted.

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Signature verification

Once a ballot reaches the Registrar of Voters’ office, the next step is ensuring the signature on the envelope matches the voter's signatures in their registration file.

“If we do challenge [a signature], we’re required under state law to send a first-class letter notice to that voter,” Page said, adding that state statute affords voters until the day before Thanksgiving this year to correct errant signatures.

Page said three election workers must agree that enough of a discrepancy exists before the decision to challenge a signature is made.

Around 1.9% of the nearly 718,000 vote-by-mail ballots returned in the June primary election in Orange County were rejected, largely due to signature mismatch or because they weren’t received in time, according to the California Secretary of State.

Verified ballots are then separated from their envelopes and sorted before they’re prepared to be scanned and, finally, counted. The equipment used to tally votes isn’t connected to the internet, and access to the room the equipment is housed in is limited, according to Page.

Threats from the federal government

On Wednesday evening, a federal judge denied an emergency request from the Department of Justice to segregate 20,000 ballots across California that the federal government said were sent to “likely” noncitizens.

More than 1,750 of those people identified were in Orange County, according to a letter Bill Essayli, top federal prosecutor for the Central District of California, delivered to the county registrar’s office Monday.

The Department of Justice said it will appeal the ruling from U.S. District Court Judge David Carter, who, in his decision, said the federal government’s attempted move could “wreak havoc and disrupt the election that is already underway.”

California Attorney Gen. Rob Bonta called the ruling an “important victory,” but warned “the fight is not over.”

On Wednesday, before the ruling came down, Bonta released resources about election integrity in the state, including guidance for local election officials if law enforcement attempts to “access election sites where ballots are cast, processed, or counted.”

Page said he’s fielded more questions from the public this year about the potential for law enforcement to interfere in the election. He said he will have open lines of communication with partners with the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and  Orange County Intelligence Assessment Center should the threat arise.

What’s on your ballot?

Our LAist Voter Game Plan is here to help guide you through the Nov. 3 election with guides to races across Los Angeles and Orange counties — and that long list of state propositions — to help you cast a ballot that’s in line with your own personal beliefs and values.

But the one thing we don’t do? We don’t tell you how to vote. That part is left up to you.

You can find it all at LAist.com/Vote.

The U.S. Justice Department has issued subpoenas to California officials in an escalation of its scrutiny of local election administration.

The Associated Press obtained copies of three subpoenas sent Oct. 21 to employees of the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder, ordering them to appear in court on Nov. 4, the day after the election. The documents request any records, documents and communications related to letters sent in July and October by federal officials to state election officials outlining allegations of noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls. The subpoenas also seek information relating to the office’s “methods for screening for unlawful voting by aliens” and anything about efforts to prevent noncitizen votes from being counted.

The subpoenas were being issued by all four U.S. attorneys in California, according to a person familiar with the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Dean Logan, the Los Angeles County registrar, said, “threats and intimidated have no place in elections.”

Subpoenas come amid ongoing court battle

The Trump administration has sued to force California to set aside up to 20,000 ballots it suspects went to noncitizens and not count them until citizenship can be verified. A district court judge on Tuesday rejected that request, then on Thursday appointed a special master to evaluate the administration’s claims.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter did not specify the exact scope of special master Daniel B. Garrie’s responsibilities, but said he would be tasked with “developing the factual record” for the court.

In a Tuesday court hearing, Carter said he wanted to vet the federal government’s list of over 20,000 alleged noncitizen voters since there has been extensive debate over its reliability and both sides have agreed that it includes an unspecified number of citizens.

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Carter also said at the hearing that a special master could investigate California’s claims that it cannot logistically separate the ballots in time for the county election certification deadline on Dec. 3. The federal government has contested that assertion.

It is not clear what would happen if a special master did find a substantial number of noncitizen voters on the federal government’s list or whether it would affect the certification of California’s election results. The 20,000 people on the DOJ’s list constitute only a small fraction of California’s 23 million voters.

Trump administration appeals to higher court

Meanwhile, the Trump administration asked a federal appeals court to quickly weigh in.

The Justice Department said in a late Wednesday filing that it’s essential the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issue a ruling as soon as possible due to “irreversible ballot processing occurring on an ongoing basis.”

Carter’s decision was the latest legal setback for President Donald Trump in his efforts to expand federal control over state-run elections in the midterms that will decide control of Congress for the rest of his term. The Justice Department has made similar demands in other states, including Washington. Noncitizen voting has been a central focus of Trump’s political messaging for years, although available data indicates it is exceedingly rare.

Trump blasted Carter’s ruling against the federal government on Thursday morning before heading to a campaign rally in South Carolina.

“California is very corrupt. The elections are extremely corrupt. The judge should not have done that but we’ll appeal that, of course,” he told reporters. Trump added without evidence that there are “hundreds of thousands” and then amended it to “millions, in my opinion” of “bad ballots” in California.

Carter, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton, argued that the Justice Department’s demands were a clear violation of the National Voter Registration Act, which prohibits changes to voter rolls or election procedure within 90 days of an election.

A number of US citizens were included in the Justice Department’s list of names

Both sides agree that an unspecified number of citizens were inadvertently included. Carter argued that separating the ballots at this point would risk disenfranchising citizens and “wreak havoc” on the election certification process.

Over 500,000 votes have already been processed in Los Angeles County alone, according to court filings. The system also protects voter privacy: Once a vote is processed, it cannot be traced back to the person who cast it.

Carter is to rule on the government’s renewed request for a preliminary injunction, which would bar the state from counting the ballots until the litigation is resolved. He said he will do so after a Nov. 13 evidentiary hearing with input from the special master.

He said that if the federal government suspected noncitizens were voting, it could continue to prosecute those cases criminally. Federal authorities have charged over two dozen foreign nationals in California as part of a statewide sweep targeting people officials allege have illegally registered or voted in U.S. elections.

Appeals panel judges have said they wouldn’t support setting aside ballots this close to midterms

The appeal will be the second time that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will consider the case.

The first time was just last week when the Justice Department argued before an appeals court panel that a fast ruling on its request was needed to stop any counting of the ballots.

Although the panel ruled it was premature for an appeals court to get involved before a lower-court ruling, two of the three judges wrote separate concurrences making it clear they wouldn’t support setting aside ballots at this late date. They questioned the accuracy of the federal government’s list of alleged noncitizen voters and argued that to set aside votes risks disenfranchising citizens.

One judge dissented, arguing that federal law bars noncitizens from voting and requires California to vet the potentially illegal ballots before counting them. The failure to do so, he wrote, would cause irreparable harm to the election.