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Meghan Ryan Meghan Ryan

SB 98 Attracts Data Centers with Data Huge Sales Tax Exemption

Kansas passed SB 98 to attract data centers by giving qualifying projects up to 20 years of sales tax exemptions.

Think about that for a minute.

A local family pays sales tax.

A local contractor pays sales tax.

Small businesses pay sales tax.

But a billion dollar data center project could avoid hundreds of millions, possibly billions, of dollars in sales taxes through SB 98….

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Hidden Costs, Health, Water, Energy, Shawnee County, Air Pollution, Noise and Frequencies Meghan Ryan Hidden Costs, Health, Water, Energy, Shawnee County, Air Pollution, Noise and Frequencies Meghan Ryan

Power at VA Data Center Could Result in $53 Million–$99 Million in Annual Health Damages

“Using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s COBRA health impact model, the facility’s permitted emissions are estimated to result in between $53–99 million per year in health-related damages. These damages are driven primarily by an estimated 3.4 to 6.5 additional premature deaths per year across the impacted region, along with hospital admissions, asthma-related outcomes, and lost productivity.”

https://www.pecva.org/wp-content/uploads/Health-Impacts-Vantage-Data-Center-Report-2.pdf

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Meghan Ryan Meghan Ryan

Local Officials Collude with Tech Companies to Bypass Public

Reporting Highlights from ProPublica Article, Inside the Memphis Chamber of Commerce’s Push for Elon Musk’s xAI Data Center

  • Misleading Mailer: Despite locals’ health concerns, the Chamber of Commerce has gone to unusual lengths to promote a data center, including sending a mailer with inaccurate information.

  • “Concierge Service”: The chamber has a five-member operations team dedicated to xAI, one of Musk’s companies, as it tries to transform Memphis into a global hub of technological innovation.

  • Community Health Concerns: Residents of a Memphis neighborhood worried emissions from xAI’s gas turbines would add to the pollution from nearby industrial plants that triggers asthma.

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