Data Centers and Ohio's Next Governor
Vol. IV, No. 76 - The three main candidates on Ohio's ballot lay out their ideas on data centers
Earlier this week, Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy took to the Columbus Dispatch to outline his ideas when it comes to the Buckeye State should deal with data centers. At this point, the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian candidates have all weighed in on the topic and their ideas deserve some degree of analysis.
As a starting point, Ohio’s next governor will inherit the issue of data centers whether they want it or not. With hundreds of facilities already built or proposed statewide, the issue has become a flash point in communities across the state and citizen engagement has forced all three candidates to take positions on the issue. Across Ohio, a number of resident groups are gathering signatures to have local intiatives and referendum issues appear on local ballots throughout the state. In many communities, while the Governor’s race might be at the top of the ticket, it’s going to be local issues on data issues that could drive voter turnout.
Right now, all three major gubernatorial candidates have now staked out positions. Here’s what actually separates them, and how much of it a governor can deliver on their own.
Power and Utilities
Republican Vivek Ramaswamy wants data centers to generate their own electricity and pass the surplus back to nearby residents through a “benefit zone,” crediting or reimbursing households within a defined radius so their bills drop to zero. Democrat Amy Acton sets a harder line: data centers and their investors cover 100 percent of gas, water, and electric costs, with no promise of a rebate, just a guarantee Ohioans don’t subsidize the bill. Libertarian Don Kissick skips a billing mechanism and instead requires developers to procure or generate enough new capacity to meet their own demand before construction starts, halting every project that hasn’t broken ground until the state sets that rule statewide.
Tax Abatements
All three agree the abatement system has gone too far, but stop at different points. Ramaswamy would ban future property tax abatements and redirect the revenue into a homeowner rebate. Acton would rein in long-term incentives and add clawback provisions without proposing an outright ban. Kissick goes furthest procedurally, ending special tax incentives entirely, including the sales tax break Governor DeWine has already paused, and refusing to restart negotiations until statewide standards exist.
Transparency
This is where many Ohio residents will be paying the closest attention, given how many of these projects hide behind the protection of Non-Disclosure Agreements, or NDAs. Acton pledges to end data center NDAs outright, calling the current secrecy a driver of “one-sided negotiations.” Kissick’s plan bans the practice directly for officials. Ramaswamy’s public plan doesn’t address NDAs, focusing instead on cost and environmental commitments.
The Environment
Acton and Kissick both draw a bright line: data centers belong on brownfields, not farmland. Ramaswamy pledges to protect “fertile farmland” without a specific brownfield mandate. On water and air, all three converge on no special exemptions, but Kissick alone names a specific technology requirement: mandatory closed-loop cooling.
Can any of this really happen?
This is the part campaign press releases skip. A governor’s actual authority here is narrower than the rhetoric suggests, and the track record already tells us where the friction points are.
Start with Ramaswamy’s free-electricity plan. PUCO already approved a data center-specific tariff for AEP Ohio requiring large customers to pay for at least 85 percent of their subscribed power for up to 12 years — precisely the opposite design problem, making sure data centers pay enough, not crediting excess power to neighbors. Building a “benefit zone” credit system on top of that would require a full PUCO rate case and likely new legislation, a process that took roughly a year for the AEP tariff alone. Ramaswamy has said he’d push this through the legislature immediately and use a day-one executive order to freeze new project approvals in the meantime, but a blanket construction halt by fiat is legally shakier than what Governor Mike DeWine actually did earlier this year, which was to stop the sales tax exemption on data centers. That’s a narrow lever; a statewide halt on private construction would almost certainly draw a court challenge from developers holding vested permits.
Acton’s plan has the same authority problem in a different spot. Ending NDAs is achievable through legislation alone and is the most immediately executable piece of any candidate’s platform, it doesn’t require new regulatory infrastructure, just a statute change like measures already in front of the Ohio General Assembly. But her mandate for “exclusively union labor” on all data center construction is a heavier lift. Ohio law currently restricts public authorities from mandating project labor agreements even on public improvements, and data centers are private developments built on private capital, meaning a governor has no direct authority to impose that condition without new legislation, and even then it would likely draw a legal challenge.
Kissick’s moratorium is the cleanest policy logic, rules before construction, but the least achievable politically. Third-party candidates for Ohio governor have never approached the vote share needed to win, so the honest analysis is that his plan functions less as governance and more as pressure, forcing the two major-party candidates to answer for the gap between their promises and what they’ll actually deliver.
The practical takeaway for Ohio residents: NDA bans and tax abatement limits are the pieces any governor can realistically deliver through legislation in year one. Free electricity and union-only mandates are the pieces that sound the most satisfying and face the steepest legal and regulatory climb.
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