Utah has ‘major gaps’ in regulating noise, temperature from new data centers, agency head says

SALT LAKE CITY — An agency leader said there are “major gaps” in Utah’s regulation of data center development, particularly when it comes to the impacts new projects will have on local temperatures and noise.

Tim Davis, the commissioner of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, told lawmakers Wednesday that the controversial large data center proposed in Box Elder County has yet to begin the process of getting air quality permits, and said projects that might increase pollution along the Wasatch Front will struggle to get approved.

“Along the Wasatch Front … we’re already out of compliance with the Clean Air Act, specifically for ozone,” he told the Economic Development and Workforce Services Interim Committee Wednesday. “It would be difficult, if not impossible, for a major new natural gas source to generate along the Wasatch Front. … If they go off of the Wasatch Front — that’s where we’re really trying to steer these projects that are generating natural gas.”

Davis spoke at one of three separate meetings on Capitol Hill Wednesday to discuss data center development, in light of a broad uproar over the Stratos Project Area in Box Elder County, which contributed to several elected officials being unseated in primary elections earlier this summer.

Jake Garfield, deputy director of the Utah Office of Energy Development, praised Utah’s law passed in 2025 requiring large data centers to find alternative power sources besides connecting to the rest of the power grid.

He called the law an “American-leading piece of data center legislation as it’s protecting ratepayers and ensuring that large loads pay for the cost of that, that they are not putting their costs on ratepayers.”

Related: Residents voice concerns over self-powered data center proposal in Spanish Fork

Utah lawmakers also approved a bill earlier this year regulating water use for new data center developments.

But the state doesn’t currently have regulations in place governing how much noise data centers can produce or how much heat they can emit, according to Davis. Large data centers that rely on natural gas or other fuel sources may dramatically increase temperatures in nearby areas, according to researchers.

Heat and noise are among the “major gaps” in the state’s approach to data center permitting, Davis said, and they’re issues that he plans to examine with help from state universities and other agencies.

“That is one of the other issues, in addition to heat, that I’ve talked about with … universities to address,” he said, when asked about the amount of noise data centers can generate. “We don’t have noise regulatory authority. … Putting things that are compatible next to each other is important. I’ve had multi-million dollar homes sited right next to an existing landfill and you can imagine the people who live in those houses are not happy about the smells of the landfill, even though the landfill was there first.”

Officials said they still don’t have full clarity on the plans for the Stratos Project Area, which is backed by celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary. Davis said that project still has several hurdles to clear and said he has not met with O’Leary’s team, but has extended an invitation.

“I ask any company (that) wants to do anything … come and talk to us early so that we can help figure out how,” he said. “I have invited them to come sit down with us on air quality. They’ve not done it. So we have not even started our process.”

He also stressed that multiple agencies are involved in approving data center projects and no single agency has complete power to approve a new development.

But that presented its own set of concerns from Rep. Doug Fiefia, R-Herriman.

“If no single agency approves a data center, then who’s accountable when something falls through the cracks?” he asked.

“If there’s a million people I have to contact, well, then I never really get to the right person that I have a question or concern to,” he added. “That’s the concern I have from constituents is there’s a lot of hands in the kitchen, and we don’t know who’s responsible for what.”

Davis said the state is looking at ways to coordinate better.

“That’s something we recognize that we can do,” he said. “We haven’t talked about it as much in the back end, but that’s something we can certainly do going forward.”

Wednesday’s hearings on data center policy may not lead to any immediate changes, but will likely shape future policy on development when lawmakers return for their annual general session in January.

Other reading: Data centers could initially lower some Utah property taxes – then create a ‘boomerang effect’

Contributing: Daniella Rivera