Rep. Mickelsen looks to set guardrails on data centers and energy costs, clear up transportation laws

IDAHO FALLS — As the Artificial Intelligence industry continues to grow and data centers multiply, a local lawmaker is stepping up to shield residents from soaring electricity bills.

At the moment, according to datacentermap.com, Idaho has only 17 data centers, with one planned in Idaho Falls.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the Idaho National Laboratory is one of the locations the department has selected for U.S. Companies to build and power AI data centers on federal land.

Over on the west side of the Gem State, Meta is looking to build a data center in Kuna, according to the Idaho Statesman.

This new facility will be a 1 million-square-foot server farm and joins three smaller data centers built in Boise.

RELATED | Meta, formerly Facebook, plans to build a big data center in Idaho. What we know

Part of what makes Idaho unique is its energy costs for these types of data centers, which is a concern for a local legislator.

Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, R-Idaho Falls, told EastIdahoNews.com that she plans to introduce legislation on investor-owned utilities and data centers.

According to the Governor’s Office of Energy and Mineral Resources, there are five investor-owned utilities.

“What’s happening where you have all this demand that’s coming for all these AI data centers, they’re going around the country (and) they’re shopping different states where the rates are the cheapest,” Mickelsen said. “Idaho has some of the cheapest power rates across the whole western part of the United States.”

Her concern is that these utilities may raise rates for current residents to accommodate the energy loads of the new data centers.

She said that the typical rate increase for utilities is between one and two percent, but those increases may double due to the rate of growth.

According to the Idaho Capital Sun, Idaho Power — one of the five investor-owned utilities — expects the number of customers to rise from 648.000 to 867,000 by 2045. Along with major projects like Meta’s planned data center in Kuna, Idaho Power customers are expected to see rates increase.

“We want to make sure that growth is paying for growth, not existing Idaho citizens paying for growth from data centers where they might make billions of dollars, and leave Idahoans with the bill,” Mickelsen said.

Driver’s Licenses, vehicles and fines

Another piece of legislation Mickelsen is aiming to help address is a loophole in driver’s license and traffic ticket laws.

She said that years ago, when the Legislature was working on ways to address fines and a resident’s ability to get a driver’s license, a piece of legislation did not outline a way for a county to enforce its ability to collect those fines.

“They pulled out the part that if you didn’t pay your traffic tickets, your license would be suspended. So we have $23 million worth of money that’s owed to counties right now that they can’t collect on because they have no mechanism by which to have people force people to pay their fines and tickets,” Mickelsen said.

Asked about how this may have occurred, Mickelsen said that it was an issue that wasn’t communicated to the Legislature until recently.

Another aspect is ensuring that current and future residents who move to Idaho register their vehicles in Idaho.

“135,000 vehicles a year are not getting registered in the state of Idaho. So we’re going to add a $75 penalty if they don’t register it within 30 days of coming into the state,” Mickelsen said.

The issue here is that folks are looking for the cheapest state nearby to register their vehicles, but use them here in Idaho.

“Even though you might get something on the gas tax, they’re still not participating, because part of the money that’s raised with your registration also funds our state police,” Mickelsen said.

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