On a cold December day on the steps of the Michigan Capitol, Attorney General Dana Nessel held up contracts between DTE Electric and Green Chile Ventures LLC, the entity behind the massive Oracle/OpenAI hyperscale data center now under construction in Saline Township.
But much of what was on those pages couldn’t be read by the state’s top litigator, much less the public.
Thick black redactions obscured key provisions in agreements that had been approved by the Michigan Public Service Commission. Nine months later, Nessel still doesn’t know the terms of the contracts or who signed them — and she is asking the Michigan Court of Appeals to send the case back for a contested hearing that could bring those details out into the open.
In an extensive interview with Michigan Firsthand, a new statewide podcast in partnership with The Livingston Post, Nessel and state Rep. Jennifer Conlin, D-Ann Arbor, discussed the secrecy surrounding the Saline Township agreements, Michigan’s tax incentives for data centers, the potential financial risk to utility customers and taxpayers, local control, and whether the state should follow New York’s lead and temporarily stop approving new projects while stronger protections and transparency rules are put in place.
In the hour-long discussion, they raised the question that remains on the minds of Michiganders everywhere: How did Michigan get here in the first place?
“I’ve talked to many legislators who voted yes on that, and boy, do they have buyer’s remorse now,” Nessel said, referring to legislation enacted in 2024 and signed by Whitmer in January 2025 that expanded Michigan’s sales- and use-tax exemptions for qualifying data centers. “I think they just absolutely did not understand what they were getting themselves into.”
The attorney general went further: “Candidly, I think the governor, who was very much a supporter, and, you know, had contacts with some of these AI companies, I think she sold the Legislature a bill of goods,” Nessel said. “And, you know, she pushed this for this tax incentive.”
At issue are recent laws that allow qualifying enterprise data centers to avoid sales and use taxes on certain data center equipment, while extending Michigan’s existing exemption for qualified data centers through 2050.
“The fact that we are giving tax incentives to literally the wealthiest corporations, not just on planet Earth, but in the history of planet Earth is, you know, mind-boggling to me,” said Nessel, who said lawmakers and the governor failed to do sufficient due diligence when the legislation was drafted. “Why do they need tax incentives? They should be paying every bit of their taxes, and, you know, I wish that would be repealed.”
Rep. Conlin, who acknowledged she was among lawmakers who first voted for the incentives, offered an unusually candid account of how the legislation initially moved through Lansing.
“These bills came up really quickly in the Legislature, and I was one of the people who initially voted yes on them as well,” Conlin said.
Within roughly a day, she said, environmental organizations began raising concerns about potential effects on water and energy. When the bills later returned from the Senate, Conlin changed her vote.
“When they came back a second time, I voted no,” she said. “Now I knew more. I didn’t want to give these taxpayer incentives.”
Michigan needed two bills to create the tax break because it has separate sales and use taxes. House Bill 4906 covered the sales tax on qualifying data-center equipment, while Senate Bill 237 covered the use tax.
Livingston County’s lawmakers split on the package:
• Republican state Rep. Ann Bollin voted against both bills.
• Republican state Rep. Bob Bezotte voted for both.
• Republican state Sen. Lana Theis opposed both when they first reached the Senate but was absent for the final votes.
• Conlin supported HB 4906 in 2023, then opposed it after it was amended in 2024. She was absent for the House vote on SB 237.
Both bills passed and were signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer along with a package of other unrelated bills. At the time, she said, “I made a commitment to stay focused on solving problems so we can keep creating good-paying jobs right here in Michigan.”
Conlin said Michigan is now confronting the consequences of how quickly the industry is expanding.
“It feels like sort of an arms race to get these into the ground and built,” she said, noting that there are roughly 3,000 data centers currently operating across the country, with another 1,500 trying to come online quickly.
“Those 3,000 came in over a long period of time,” she said. “Michigan has had data centers, but not at this scale.”
The rapid expansion has become particularly relevant in Livingston County and neighboring communities.
A proposed data center in Howell Township generated months of controversy before the developer ultimately withdrew the project last fall. In nearby Lyon Township, opposition to the proposed 1.8 million-square-foot Project Flex hyperscale data center prompted an effort to recall all seven members of the township board.
And just this week, the University of Michigan confirmed plans to build a $1.2 billion high-performance computing center developed with Los Alamos National Laboratory on 144 acres along the Huron River in Ypsilanti Township, despite fierce public resistance.
“The minute that we opened it up with the tax exemptions, sort of a pay-to-play, I guess, but in the end, they’ve just been rushing in,” Conlin said of developers, adding that the nine townships she represents have increasingly been talking with one another about ordinances and how to retain local control before projects arrive. “We did open up our state to this, and now these are the consequences of it.”
As new developers come knocking, the Saline Township project remains at the center of Nessel’s concerns.
Her office challenged the process used by the Michigan Public Service Commission to approve the utility agreements, and is asking the Michigan Court of Appeals to send the matter back for a contested proceeding. That approach would allow her office and other intervenors to examine the contracts.
Among the most basic pieces of information Nessel says remain hidden: who actually signed the documents.
“They redacted out not just the names of the people who signed the contract and their signatures, but also the companies that they were affiliated with,” Nessel said. “We don’t even know who signed the contracts.”
She called the situation “farcical,” saying her office doesn’t know who should ultimately be held accountable should something go wrong.
The MPSC has said the agreement contains some of the strongest ratepayer protections in the country, while DTE has said it is expected to provide customers a net benefit of about $300 million.
Nessel remains unconvinced.
“I mean, who knows?” she said when asked about those assurances, pointing again to her inability to review the full terms.
The stakes, she argued, extend far beyond Saline Township and could leave Michiganders footing the bill if the company fails, leaves Michigan, or abandons its facility.
“If they don’t pay, who’s gonna pay for all that additional infrastructure?” Nessel said. “It’s going to be on the backs of the ratepayers who are going to have to pay.
“Or more logically, the state taxpayers will have to bail out DTE because DTE can’t fail, they provide electricity to over 4 million people in this state,” Nessel said. “So we’ll have to bail them out. They’re allowed to make a bad deal on our behalf, and that’s, to me, one of the biggest problems with this.”
Nessel also warned that the financial exposure reaches well beyond Michigan utilities.
With enormous amounts of Wall Street money flowing into artificial intelligence and the infrastructure needed to power it, Nessel questioned what happens if expectations for AI prove wrong.
“I look back as to what happened in 2008 and 2009, and I wonder if that’s going to be child’s play,” she said, warning about the consequences of an AI bust.
Conlin said lawmakers have introduced a package of bills intended to establish new safeguards for ratepayers and local governments. Among other provisions, the legislation would address decommissioning, community benefits, noise, water use and non-disclosure agreements signed by elected officials.
“The minute they’re having these secret transactions, you’ve left the public out,” Conlin said of NDAs, which have deteriorated the public’s trust in their elected officials.
She also made clear that she believes Michigan’s legacy of local control means communities should have the ability to reject projects they do not want.
Another Great Lakes state, New York, recently imposed the nation’s first statewide moratorium on new hyperscale data centers, pausing state environmental permits for up to a year while regulators develop new standards governing energy, water and environmental impacts.
Conlin expressed some hesitation about a blanket moratorium, questioning whether Michigan could lose opportunities by simply shutting the door for a year. But she also said her constituents do not support the way data centers are currently moving into communities.
Nessel was more definitive.
“I don’t think we have the protections in place now at all,” she said.
She called it “reckless” and “irresponsible” to focus on short-term construction jobs without preparing for what happens after the facilities are built.
“I think the moratorium makes sense,” Nessel said, arguing that a pause could create pressure on the Legislature and governor to pass safeguards quickly.
“We don’t have those protections, period,” she said.
Even the Saline Township agreements may not be beyond review.
If Nessel prevails in the Court of Appeals, she said the contracts could be reopened, reviewed, and potentially renegotiated. She said the project is now too far along for her to expect it to disappear, but companies involved could still agree to terms that provide greater protection for utility customers.
Nessel said she hopes the court recognizes the urgency of the case and concludes that the approval process was improper and damaging “not just to the people of Saline Township, but to all DTE customers statewide.”
For Conlin, the standard for future projects is increasingly clear: utility and water protections, local support, and meaningful benefits for the communities asked to host them.
“It does sound like I’m asking for utopia right now,” Conlin said, “because we are so far from that.”
For now, the contracts Nessel held up on the Capitol steps last December remain heavily redacted, the Saline Township project continues to rise and Michigan communities continue wrestling with projects arriving faster than the rules designed to govern them.
You can watch the two-part conversation with Nessel and Conlin on the Michigan Firsthand YouTube channel.
