Bill > SB5989

This bill provides a tax preference for rural and nonrural data centers in Washington state. The key provisions are: - Provides a sales and use tax exemption on eligible server equipment, power infrastructure, and related labor and services installed in eligible computer data centers located in nonrural counties. - Limits the exemption to qualifying businesses and tenants in no more than eight data centers, with specific requirements around minimum electrical capacity, availability of power, and prior experience in serving large data center tenants. - Requires data center projects to be developed under a community workforce agreement or project labor agreement that includes payment of prevailing wages and apprenticeship utilization. - Extends the expiration date of the tax preferences to January 1, 2030 and allows for possible expansion to the entire state if the program meets certain performance metrics. - Makes some technical changes to the existing data center tax incentive program under RCW 82.08.986. The goal of the bill is to improve industry competitiveness and increase family wage jobs in the technology industry by incentivizing investment in data centers, particularly in urban areas that currently lack such incentives.