Lombardo order forces data center developers to fund Nevada schools and protect water and grid resources

Switch information halfway facilities are illuminated astatine nighttime April 1, 2026, successful Las Vegas. Gov. Joe Lombardo signed an enforcement bid Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026, establishing caller requirements for information halfway developers successful Nevada, including mandating afloat outgo of the Local School Support Tax and protections for h2o and vigor resources. Switch laminitis and CEO Rob Roy's wife, Jessica Roy, donated $1 cardinal to a Lombardo-aligned governmental enactment committee. Photo by: Ty O'Neil / Associated Press

Gov. Joe Lombardo signed an enforcement bid imposing caller requirements connected information halfway developers successful Nevada, mandating they wage the state’s Local School Support Tax successful full, screen their ain project-related costs and support section h2o and electrical grid resources.

The order, dated Wednesday and announced by his bureau Friday, establishes what the governor’s bureau calls the “Nevada Standard for Responsible Data Center Development.”

It sets guardrails connected taxation abatement authorities the Nevada Legislature passed successful 2015, which required the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) to assistance taxation abatements to information centers gathering employment, wage and concern thresholds. That instrumentality contained nary protections for vigor oregon h2o usage and gave the GOED Board nary flexibility to contradict abatements.

In 2025, lawmakers expanded the board’s authorization to contradict applications, o.k. them for lesser amounts oregon connect conditions.

Under the order, information halfway applications seeking a partial taxation abatement cannot spell earlier the GOED committee unless the developer agrees to wage the schoolhouse enactment taxation successful afloat and signs a binding “Community Support Commitment.”

Developers indispensable besides conscionable section h2o standards, screen the outgo of serving their installation without passing those costs to ratepayers and debar straining the electrical grid during emergencies. GOED’s enforcement manager volition make the committedness model successful consultation with the authorities engineer, the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada, authorities agencies, section governments and schoolhouse districts, Lombardo’s bureau said. The bid directs GOED’s enforcement manager to people the modular signifier of the committedness connected oregon earlier Nov. 6.

The bid besides directs the authorities to nutrient a “Responsible Speed to Power Plan” identifying facilities needed to service anticipated large-load request done 2036, portion pledging that costs volition not beryllium passed connected to ratepayers. Language successful the order’s preamble states it is successful Nevada’s involvement to support its water, grid reliability, schoolhouse funding, section land-use authorization and taxpayers.

“They indispensable wage their share, support our h2o resources, support costs from being passed connected to ratepayers, and support the communities that big them,” Lombardo said successful a statement.

The politician said the bid would besides reconstruct backing to nationalist schools, putting “money backmost into our schools that different would person been mislaid nether outdated authorities law.”

The bid arrives amid a bruising reelection run successful which data centers person emerged arsenic 1 of the defining issues. Lombardo, a Republican, faces Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford successful the Nov. 3 election.

Lombardo has formed the facilities arsenic cardinal to Nevada’s economical future, telling the Latin Chamber of Commerce that information centers correspond a “new golden rush.” Ford has staked retired a much combative position, saying helium would intermission taxation abatements for caller information halfway operation if elected and necessitate developers to bring their ain h2o and wage for their ain energy — proposals that overlap with elements of Lombardo’s caller order.

The quality has besides reached the Legislature.

The Joint Interim Standing Committee connected Revenue voted Aug. 26 to draught a measure that would extremity the state’s information halfway taxation breaks and intermission caller operation statewide. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Dina Neal, D-North Las Vegas, would amend a programme that allows qualifying developers a 75% abatement connected idiosyncratic spot taxes, including concern instrumentality for 10 to 20 years.

Neal, who chairs the gross committee, said Nevada had 66 operating information centers arsenic of August, with 22 much nether declaration oregon nether construction.

Ford has accused Lombardo of being beholden to the industry, pointing to $240 cardinal successful income and usage taxation breaks awarded to information centers successful fiscal years 2023 and 2024 nether Lombardo. Ford’s run has besides pointed to a $1 cardinal donation made May 21 to the Lombardo-aligned Better Nevada PAC from Jessica Roy, woman of Rob Roy, laminitis and CEO of Switch, a Las Vegas-based information halfway and exertion infrastructure company.

Lombardo’s run has countered that Ford, arsenic Senate number person successful 2015, co-sponsored the archetypal abatement legislation, which had bipartisan enactment and was passed astatine a clip erstwhile information centers were not viewed arsenic posing risks to h2o oregon vigor supplies.

A January 2026 survey from the Desert Research Institute recovered that the h2o needed annually to chill 12 information centers nether a “medium ratio scenario” would adjacent the drinking h2o usage of much than 24,117,000 U.S. adults, oregon much than 27,600 U.S. households.

Data centers already relationship for astir 22% of Nevada’s energy consumption, the DRI survey said.