Ohio Lawmakers Delay Decision On Data Centers

With each passing week the controversy over data centers in Ohio intensifies. Here are this week’s headlines. A tax break negotiated by then Governor John Kasich means companies like Google, Meta and Amazon don’t have pay sales taxes on data centers for up to 40 years. Those deals alone will cost nearly $2 billion . This week state lawmakers tried to pass a bill to eliminate or reduce that tax break and increase regulation on on data centers. But they could not come to an agreement before the recess until after the November election. And there’s a report this week that Ohio is in line for a mega data center. The tech news outlet called The Information reports that Open AI is in talks to lease 10 gigawatt data center would cost a half billion dollars to build. It would be located on leased federal land in southern Ohio. We’ll also discuss how Ohio lawmakers tried to fight fraud in the state's Medicaid system. The measure increases penalties for fraud, expands the use of electronic monitoring to track Medicaid funded home health visits. A new poll that shows Democrat Sherrod Brown with a sizable lead over Republican Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio’s U.S. Senate race. Lastly, we’ll discuss why Ohioans will be asked to vote to require voter photo ID in November when it’s been state law for a decade. This week our panelists are: Andrew Tobias a state government and political reporter with Signal Ohio Statewide Maria Bruno with Ohioans Against Extremism Mike Gonidakis, Republican strategist Support WOSU We can't do this without your support! Help keep WOSU Public Media strong by donating here: https://wosu.pm/WOSU-Support Connect With WOSU News Subscribe to the WOSU News YouTube channel:    / @wosunews   Subscribe to our WOSU News Daily newsletter at https://www.wosu.org/newsletters Follow us on Facebook:   / wosupublicmedia   Follow us on Instagram:   / wosupubmedia   Follow us on Reddit:   / wosupublicmedia   Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/@wosupublicm... Visit our website: https://www.wosu.org/news Chapters 00:00 - Introduction 00:18 - Data Center Debate Grows 08:12 - Medicaid Fraud Prevention 14:09 - Polls Show Democrats’ Strength 20:11 - Photo Voter ID On Ballot 24:10 - Off The Record Comments