Missouri lawmakers passed 100 bills during the 2026 session, but none of them was about data centers.
As the topic continues to gain momentum in the state, the issue is likely to reappear next session. That could mean more bills being filed, as well as the first public hearing in months that the House will hold on data centers.
Rep. Tricia Byrnes, R-Wentzville, announced last week that the House Special Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs will hold the hearing.
"Missourians should never take a bad deal. And right now, folks are waiting for Jefferson City to stand up and pay attention, and I hope that this moment enforces and empowers that we need to be here for all of Missouri," Byrnes said.
At that hearing, Byrnes hopes to give the community the ability to talk to lawmakers about data centers. She also wants to continue working on legislation for the centers, including greater oversight and transparency requirements.
"I am looking for legislation that defines things such as what does qualify as one of these hyper data centers. I want to ask for a prohibition on the NDAs (nondisclosure agreements) that block officials from accessing information," Byrnes said.
Prior data center bill falls short
The hearing in September will be the first time since March that House members will have one related to data centers. That hearing was on HB 3362, also known as the "AI Infrastructure Grid Integrity and Water Resources Protection Act." It was the only hearing conducted this session about hyperscale data centers.
The legislation contained a multitude of policies on data centers related to electricity and water usage.
The goal of the legislation was to protect Missouri's grid from water and electrical overconsumption from AI, said one of its sponsors, Rep. Colin Wellenkamp, R-St. Charles.
The legislation, which Wellenkamp and Rep. Mike Costlow, R-Dardenne Prairie, first introduced in February, would have required large-load customers, including data centers, to pay for the costs to provide electricity to those centers. That would include grid infrastructure upgrades.
It also contained a permit requirement from the Department of Natural Resources for large water users.
Wellenkamp has said that the goal of the legislation isn't to be a major deterrent to data centers.
However, the community members he has spoken to feel like they are under siege and uninformed on the issue. He understands why there would be a knee-jerk reaction to want to outright ban data centers.
"This legislation was designed to put them on a much better, more transparent footing, where all of this would be public information, because you would have to disclose how much water, how much energy are you using, and how are you going to achieve that in order to get the permit," Wellenkamp said.
The St. Charles Republican represents a city that has already banned hyperscale data centers. He said he fully supports that decision, but that other communities are evaluating the potential of having a data center in their area.
"It's not really a question of fighting against it, it's a question of controlling it and making sure there are guardrails around it to protect the public interest," Wellenkamp said.
The legislation, according to Wellenkamp and Costlow, builds off Senate Bill 4, a large utility bill that lawmakers passed in 2025.
In a statement, Ameren stated that a provision within Senate Bill 4 would "reasonably ensure large electric load customers pay their fair share of service costs."
"It is designed so that high-usage customers, such as data centers and advanced manufacturing businesses, pay their fair share of grid enhancements and energy costs," the utility said.
Elyse Schaeffer with Missouri Coalition for the Environment doesn't agree that bill provides enough protection for Missourians.
"All it did was create a different rate class for large load users, and the Public Service Commission determined that that level was 75 megawatts or higher. These projects come in all sizes, so right up until 74 megawatts, those protections don't kick in," Schaeffer said.
A hearing in March on the new legislation lasted over an hour. One person after another came up to speak in favor of it.
Sylvia Kueny is a mechanical engineer and part-time farmer on her family's farm in Montgomery County, where Amazon recently announced a multibillion-dollar data center. She said she testified so lawmakers could hear from community members rather than lobbyists.
"I realized that if they don't hear from us, then they don't realize the other side of the story," Kueny said.
Elisabeth Alley-Bennett is one of the over 70 people who submitted online testimony in support of the bill. She is a resident of Franklin County, where the community is pushing back against data center development.
"I was not able to go, but I do feel that words are powerful, and so I wanted to submit something saying, 'Please help us. We are so unprotected and they're pushing this through and there needs to be something,'" Alley-Bennett said.
Schaeffer said there were many parts of the legislation her organization liked, especially a portion that created a kill switch for data centers in times of water and electrical scarcity.
"It would cut off data centers in case of a grid emergency or a drought from, respectively, their energy use or water, depending on the situation, first before those essential other uses," Schaeffer said.
Despite a warm reception in committee, the bill didn't move forward.
"We had tremendous testimony, almost exclusively in support of. I think we had one testimony opposed, and then I polled the committee afterwards, and it had universal support," Wellenkamp said.
The bill never came up for a vote.
Other inaction
Wellenkamp was not the only House member who filed legislation about data centers this past session.
Rep. Marty Joe Murray, D-St. Louis, filed two bills on the topic. One would have temporarily banned the construction of data centers in St. Louis.
Another was the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Environmental Accountability Act. That would have created greater environmental and health reporting requirements for companies.
"Since they're popping up everywhere, them being able to produce some of those reports to say…'How's this impacting the environment? What is it doing to the water in the communities?' For us to have a view into that, we could be a little bit more reactive to it as opposed to just saying, you know, you can't build them here," Murray said.
As far as what his district wants on the issue, he says his constituents don't want hyperscale data centers. However, Murray also said he believes there's a lot of misinformation about them.
"There needs to be large conversations with all stakeholders at the table to just even talk about what this is. The hope is that if we can move forward legislation that can be a part of it, where we're getting out real information to the community," Murray said.
Momentum for and against data centers continues
While state legislative action has stalled until likely next year, community members have not waited to express their thoughts on data centers.
In mid-June roughly 100 Missourians from across the state gathered in Jefferson City to protest the development of data centers.
Holly Ragan, who attended the rally, said she would like to see a ban on data centers or at least restrictions.
"I don't hold my breath that that's going to happen. I mean, they have a quorum without a single Democrat in the room, and they've already proven they're going to do what they decide they want to do, and they don't care what the people think," Ragan said.
For Kueny, Wellenkamp's bill is a good first step, but not all that she thinks should be accomplished.
"It doesn't even come close to some of the regulations that I think need to be put in place," Kueny said.
Those include policies regulating the sound and heat that data centers create.
Unlike others who are pushing back against data centers, Kueny doesn't think it's realistic to outright ban them in Missouri.
"As a person who works in technology, AI is the next technology and we do need to embrace it," Kueny said. "However, they need to be built responsibly, and they need to be built in places where communities actually want it."
The inaction from the legislature this session has been followed by some officials, including Gov. Mike Kehoe, touting the positives to building data centers in Missouri.
Speaking earlier this month during a forum on AI and data centers in Rolla, Kehoe said AI is another opportunity for the state to build and innovate.
"We have a responsibility to make sure Missourians are ready because the future of AI should not just happen in Silicon Valley, it should happen right here in Missouri, with Missouri workers, Missouri businesses, and Missouri communities leading the way," Kehoe said.
When asked at the end of session why the House did not move forward on data center legislation, Speaker Jon Patterson said he believes it was a local issue, rather than one for the state.
"I think people back home are fully capable of getting together and deciding for themselves whether they want data centers or not," Patterson said.
Over a month later, Patterson granted Byrnes' request for a public hearing.
Meanwhile, Laura Holloway, executive director of the Missouri Municipal League, said the organization is focused on educating municipalities on the issue.
"Ultimately they're serving their local citizens. So, for some communities, that data center might be a great fit, and they want that, and they want to be able to talk about it," Holloway said. "For some, it might not be, and they want to be able to work with that."
While Wellenkamp does believe that a lot of those decisions can and should be made at the local level, there are things the state can do.
"General protections, transparency, guardrails and community investment are areas that the state can play in," Wellenkamp said.
Although they didn't get hearings this year, Murray thinks there's a greater chance next session for data center bills to move forward.
"I feel like from the time when bill filing opened, the conversations around data centers weren't as hot as they were, so I think going into next year I'm a little bit more optimistic that maybe they will be a little bit higher in terms of priority," Murray said.
More lawmakers are also speaking out on data centers. The same day Byrnes announced the upcoming public hearing, Rep. Don Mayhew, R-Crocker, announced his push for a special session on data centers.
"Too many times the legislature is five years behind on legislation and we need to get ahead of it this time," Mayhew said in a later Instagram post.
Byrnes said she also asked for a special session but was told that would not happen.
Wellenkamp said his goal this year was to present the bill on the House floor. Even though that didn't happen this session, he's not giving up.
"Missourians want it, they're demanding it. We need to deliver," Wellenkamp said.
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