Republican candidate for governor Zach Lahn has raised concerns about tax breaks for new data centers, but Lahn says local officials should retain the power to regulate the facilities.
“I’m the only candidate that’s called for a moratorium on data centers to allow counties the ability to set the rules of the game and negotiate better because this is happening at breakneck speeds,” Lahn said. “I’ve actually had two of the largest data center companies come to me now and say these words: ‘We don’t want any more incentives.’ What a novel idea. Pay your fair share. That’s progress.”
Lahn might support a state law that would forbid tax breaks for data centers. “Let’s say there’s a bill to bring control over the permitting of data centers to the state level. I wouldn’t support it. That’s best done on the county level,” Lahn said. “Maybe on the state level we would put some minimum requirements: no property tax abatements, pay your fair share. That seems like a pretty good idea to me.”
Lahn made his comments this weekend to a crowd in Osage, after he was asked about the erosion of local control. “Our government in America and in Iowa was set up to the exact opposite of this. It was actually set up to keep power as local as possible,” Lahn said, “so decisions are best made on the local level.”
Lahn said states must challenge federal laws and regulations that should be made at the state level. “Oftentimes you find these regulations and you’re like, ‘Who? What egghead cooked this up?’ I can just tell you they’ve never been on a farm, they’ve never ran a business, they’ve never been on a school board, but somehow it gets in there,” Lahn said. “And when those aren’t passed by congress, we have the ability to sue.”
And Lahn said if he’s elected governor, “I’ll sue the federal government every chance I get,” but Lahn hasn’t yet indicated which federal laws or regulations he’d target.
