Miami
Florida enters the data center fight with a new law already on the books
Amy Kremer’s tour is stopping in Jacksonville as Florida is already enforcing rules meant to keep data center costs off utility customers and give local governments more control. Several counties have also moved to ban or pause projects.
Humans First, the group chaired by Amy Kremer, is bringing its national bus tour to Jacksonville on Monday with a campaign focused on fears tied to data centers, including power bills, water use, farmland and quality of life, according to Florida Politics.
Florida, however, has already been debating those issues for months and has a state law in place. As reported by Florida Politics, Gov. Ron DeSantis made the issue part of the 2026 legislative session and signed SB 484 in May. The law requires data centers to pay their own utility and infrastructure costs instead of shifting them to ratepayers, gives local governments zoning and planning authority around the facilities, allows the use of reclaimed water for cooling and requires a plan from anyone drawing more than 100,000 gallons a day.
Florida Politics also reported that Florida Power & Light’s latest rate package goes further by requiring developers to fund the infrastructure serving their projects and provide collateral before connecting to the grid.
Local governments have already started using that authority. According to the outlet, Jackson, Wakulla and Walton counties have banned data centers, while at least nine other jurisdictions have imposed moratoriums. A University of North Florida poll also found that 68% of Florida voters do not want a data center near where they live.
On the pro-development side, groups such as American Edge Project argue that the debate should not be framed only as a choice between protecting residents and allowing growth. Their position, as cited by Florida Politics, is that developers should meet tougher local standards and cover their own costs while communities still benefit from jobs, contracts and tax revenue.
The outlet also cited a 2025 PwC analysis for the Data Center Coalition that estimated the industry’s Florida footprint in 2023 at about 335,800 jobs when indirect effects are included, along with $42.3 billion in state GDP and roughly $3.1 billion in state and local taxes.
Among the pending projects, Florida Politics highlighted Sentinel Grove Technology Park in St. Lucie County, a proposed 1,000-megawatt hyperscale campus on about 1,200 acres of agricultural land with $13.5 billion in private investment. In Miami-Dade, Project Apollo is a 75,000-square-foot, 15-megawatt facility carrying $150 million in capital investment. In Fort Meade, the City Commission unanimously approved in April a $2.6 billion hyperscale campus on 1,300 acres of former phosphate mine land; more than 40 residents signed up to speak against it, and the developer lowered projected water use from 150,000 gallons a day to 50,000 through closed-loop cooling.
The issue is also surfacing in the governor’s race. According to Florida Politics, Byron Donalds, identified by the outlet as the Republican nominee, filed the federal Protecting Ratepayers Act in July to push data centers toward covering their own power and water demand.
Sources
About this piece. Written by El Notero with AI assistance, from reporting published by the outlet cited above. El Notero did no original reporting on this story.
