After weeks of intense negotiation, state lawmakers on Friday reached a compromise on legislation to regulate energy use by California’s growing data center industry, action triggered by community anger over the facilities and fears of high utility bills in some communities. The goal, according to legislators and advocates, is to protect consumers from growing electricity costs driven upward by the sprawling facilities and to track the centers’ immense energy and water consumption. … Separate bills that would require the centers to disclose their energy and water use were recently approved by state lawmakers.

Other data center water use and regulation news:

• SJV Water (Bakersfield, Calif.): AI data center experts advise farmers, residents and officials to dig for water details
• The Business Journal (Fresno, Calif.): Costa touts bill to study AI data centers’ energy, water impacts
• The Sacramento Bee (Calif.): Are new data centers included in Prop 45? That’s debatable
• CalMatters (Sacramento, Calif.): A year after their promise, lawmakers again reform environmental planning. Now Newsom will weigh in
• CNN: Data center leak costs residents more than 3 million gallons of water