Following seven fact-finding meetings over nine months, Gov. Tina Kotek’s Data Center Advisory Committee is asking the public to weigh in on a report detailing its findings.
The 20-page “preliminary learnings and questions” report that the seven-member, governor-appointed group posted Friday includes more considerations than conclusions, and is a departure from the cost-benefit analysis of data centers in the state it was tasked with providing by mid-September.
That charge changed recently when Kotek instead directed the group to synthesize its findings for the public before providing her with final recommendations by the end of the year — and after the November election.
The public has until Oct. 24 at 5 p.m. to submit comments based on the report.
Although the report does not include distinct policy recommendations, the group seems to have found consensus around a need for more responsible oversight of the data center industry and a more centralized information repository about Oregon data centers’ type, their water and energy use and the tax breaks they receive each year through state incentive programs.
The committee’s findings land as the growth of the data center industry in the state has become a lightning rod in the Oregon governor’s race amid growing public backlash. Kotek and her Republican challenger, state Sen. Christine Drazan of Canby, have tried in recent months to paint themselves as the lone force to stop the industry’s proliferation in the state.
Last week, Kotek shared her support for a statewide data center moratorium at a rally at the Oregon Capitol and unveiled a roughly one-year pause on approvals for any requests to develop data centers on state land or in state buildings. She also insisted that the state lacks the authority to mandate an all-out moratorium.
Findings
The committee has fielded more than 700 written comments, along with nine hours of verbal comments, since it first met in February. Roughly 90% of commenters expressed opposition to data centers.
Utility affordability was the single most frequently listed concern. Most comments came from the Portland metro area, with relatively few from eastern Oregon counties, with substantial ongoing and proposed data center development, according to the report.
“Our state has hosted data centers since the earliest generation of internet infrastructure, and these facilities have contributed to the prosperity of urban and rural communities alike across the state,” members wrote. “At the same time, the current unprecedented scale and speed of data center development has raised serious concerns for many Oregonians.”
Oregon is among the top ten markets for data centers in the U.S., according to Pew Research, and has for more than 20 years attracted massive server facilities due to a lack of sales tax, moderate climate, relatively cheap electricity and generous property tax incentives for industrial development.
But the widespread use of non-disclosure agreements and corporate secrecy around tech companies’ data centers means there is a considerable lack of information about their operations.
An ECOnorthwest analysis found the state now hosts between 123 and 144 facilities, a massive increase from the eight data storage facilities in Oregon 25 years ago. The consulting firm found that almost 1 in every 100 jobs in Oregon is related to data centers.
The committee wrote that the number of data centers is slated to grow significantly in the years ahead, with approximately 9,000 acres proposed for data center development. Much of that land is in rural areas or on the outskirts of cities.
Most data centers in Oregon are small, “non-AI-oriented facilities” used for data storage, payment processing, cloud computing, content streaming, telecommunications and social media, according to the report.
But of the 31 data centers in the process of getting sited in Oregon today, eight are hyperscale data centers meant for companies that do large-scale data storage and AI processing, the group wrote.
Water, energy, tax breaks
Beyond the difficulty of gathering information about the data centers, committee members enumerated what they’d learned about data centers’ growing energy, water and land demands.
Committee members consider water quantity for data centers as a bigger issue than water quality, despite concerns from environmental and community groups that the facilities are pumping out water laced with forever chemicals, among others. The committee members found that seasonal water demands for irrigation in some parts of the state mean data centers are becoming unwelcome competition for resources that are already overallocated.
When it comes to energy use, the members said the central questions are not only how much electricity Oregon data centers are consuming but how the industry can be leveraged to stimulate more investment in clean energy, grid modernization and other energy development in the state.
The state’s lack of accounting for the property, income and other tax breaks data centers are receiving through industrial enterprise zone programs continues to be an issue, according to the report.
Local and statewide tax experts and watchdogs who presented to the committee indicated that Oregon is being overly generous to data centers and the tax breaks are not necessary to keeping the facilities in the state.
For instance, Morrow County’s assessor told the committee that the $7.2 billion estimated value of tax-exempt property owned by data centers in the county in 2025 was $3 billion more than the combined value of the Morrow County property subject to property taxes.
The advisory group did not share any thoughts on whether Oregon’s tax programs should be scaled back for data centers.
Instead, it posed a question that has come up repeatedly in meetings during the past nine months:
“What should Oregon provide to attract data center investment,” the members wrote, “and what should Oregon and its communities receive in return?”
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