The South Dakota state House of Representatives voted 41-21 on Thursday to reject a bill that would have required data centers in South Dakota to obtain an additional permit from a neighboring city or county, if the city or county line is within 1 mile of the facility.

Last month, Sioux Falls rezoned land for a proposed data center. Although the land is near Brandon, residents of Brandon had no official say in the matter. An effort to petition the rezoning to a public vote failed when petitioners failed to gather enough signatures.

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“This is not an anti-data center bill,” said the legislation’s sponsor, Representative John Sjaarda, R-Valley Springs. “It’s a local control bill.”

The legislation would require any “high energy use facility” using at least 20 megawatts of energy to apply for a conditional use permit from any city or county within 1 mile that has zoning ordinances. Large data centers often require more electricity than that to store data for artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and other forms of technology.

Republican Representative David Kull lives in Brandon. He said the bill would take away local control from one entity, “forcing it on another – whether they want it or not.”

The bill is one of many addressing data centers in the current legislative session, which lasts until mid-March. A bill that would have exempted data centers from sales taxes on their software and equipment purchases failed in a committee recently.