DATA CENTER BUILDERS DROP $1 MILLION ON PROP 45 IN FINAL WEEK, NO ON 45 RELEASES LEG. COUNSEL LETTER

Data Center and Utility Giving to the Measure Tops $11 Million

SACRAMENTO – Data centers feature prominently on both sides of the Proposition 45 campaign in the final stretch. The Yes on Prop 45 campaign received nearly $1 million in new contributions from data center developers in the campaign’s final week. Meanwhile, the No on Prop 45 campaign today released a new opinion from the state’s nonpartisan Office of Legislative Counsel on the issue of data centers and broadband internet law.

“In a nutshell, the Oct. 23 Leg Counsel letter confirms exactly what we said about the first Leg Counsel letter publicized by the Yes campaign: you can’t copy-paste precedent on net neutrality law and apply it to Prop 45’s rules for construction and environmental review,” said No on Prop 45 Spokesperson Woody Little. “Leg Counsel did not weigh in on whether Prop 45’s rules apply to data centers in either letter, because it’s not their job to do so for a pending initiative that’s never been before the legislature.”

Meanwhile, additional academic experts stated last week that data centers could be covered by Prop 45.

Including the $960,000 in new contributions, data center developers and corporate utilities have given more than a whopping $11 million to the Yes on Prop 45 campaign.

“It’s easy to connect the dots between these contributions and support for Prop 45,” Little said. “There’s one clear reason to donate to the Yes campaign for these corporations: Prop 45 will fast track data center approval.”

Contributions to Yes on Prop 45 From Data Center Developers (Week of 10/25)

PG&E: $500,000, 10/25/2026, filing linked here
Bloom Energy: $250,000, 10/25/2026, filing linked here
AT&T: $100,000, 10/28/2026, filing linked here
Intersect: $100,000, 10/31/2026, filing linked here
Jacobs Engineering Group: $10,000, 10/31/2026, filing linked here
TOTAL: $960,000

The donors’ deep data center connections:

PG&E is collaborating with Canadian mega-developer Westbank on at least three unusual mixed-use developments in San Jose that incorporate data centers.
Bloom Energy provides fuel cells and on-site power systems to data centers.
AT&T operates 465 data centers globally, including five in California.
Intersect, a Google subsidiary, builds "colocation" projects that combine data center facilities with power components.
Jacobs Engineering Group provides engineering, design, and permitting services for colocation data centers, among other clients, and claims its data center business is booming.

The cities of San Diego, Pittsburg, and Whittier all passed data center moratoriums last week.

A Fox News poll in July found 70% of voters oppose building data centers for the purpose of supporting AI in their area. In November, voters in at least three dozen cities, counties and townships nationwide–including Alhambra, CA–will consider ballot measures to ban or limit data centers, while Prop 45 would go in the opposite direction statewide.

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