Parks and City Light Committee 6/3/2026

Good afternoon everybody.

Good to see everybody here.

Today is Wednesday, June 3rd.

This is the meeting of Parks and City Light and the committee will come to order.

It is 2.03 and I'm Deborah Juarez.

Will the clerk please call the roll.

Councilmember Strauss?

Here.

Councilmember Sacca?

Here.

Councilmember Rivera?

Vice Chair Kettle?

Chair Juarez?

Thank you.

For the record, I want to announce that Councilmember Kettle and Rivera are excused from today's meeting.

Moving on to the approval of the agenda.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Not seeing or hearing an objection, it is indeed adopted.

and I'm going to go straight to the Chair's report over what we're going to handle here today and I have a few comments I want to make.

There will be a regular public comment period before items on the agenda.

Comments should be related to the items on today's agenda and within the purview of this committee.

There are two resolutions on the agenda today.

The first item on the agenda is a resolution, Resolution 32204, about data centers.

This resolution comes as a rapid increase of large data centers being built continues due to the boom in AI.

The resolution addresses a need for city departments to look at the long-term effects of data centers on our city in residence.

This is our second time hearing this resolution.

However, there are two new amendments today with technical fixes and some additional language following meetings we've had with experts and of course what we heard at public comment on May 20th.

Over 30 people had public comment regarding the proposed resolution.

We also met with local organizations working on this issue.

This presentation will be presented by Eric McConaughey from Central Staff.

The second item on the agenda is a resolution in Resolution 32206 that approves Seattle City Light's 2026 Integrated Resource Plan, the IRP.

The IRP is a long-term strategy to meet anticipated customer energy needs over the next 20 years.

It is republished every four years.

with progress reports due two years after each full IRP.

Sorry, I had to get that correct.

This IRP is focused on addressing changes in customer needs, existing power supply, and assumptions on new energy resource technologies and costs.

My understanding is that under state law, RCW 19280.050, This action requires public notice in a hearing, which we're doing today, and this information is required from the Department of Commerce, and the deadline for this is September 1, 2026. The last time the IRP was adopted was August 2024, My understanding is today Seattle City Light will be presenting a PowerPoint.

We've had an opportunity to look at a summary and a fiscal note.

And of course, I think there's more to it, but I just looked at the 18-page IRP, not the 300-page one.

I wasn't going to do that.

I'm just going to tell you the truth right now.

So my understanding is that I will just let when the CLC Light folks come up here, they can introduce themselves.

But I know that Eric McConaughey from Central Staff will be here to answer questions as well.

I do expect a vote on the data center resolution.

However, we will not be voting on the Seattle City Light 2026 IRP.

That will be for our next committee hearing.

So with that on our agenda, let's move to public comment.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comment should relate to items on today's agenda and within the purview of this committee.

Mr. Clerk, Paul, Policy Paul, how many speakers we got signed up today in person and remote?

Currently we have 18 in-person speakers signed up and eight remote speakers.

Oh, nine.

What do we have, say it again?

Nine remote speakers, 18 in person, so 27.

Let's do this.

Let's take the first 10 in person, and if you could read the names out three at a time so they can queue up.

I'm gonna let you go ahead with, and everybody will have two minutes, and I'm gonna let you go ahead and read the instructions first.

Wait, what was it again?

18 and nine?

Correct.

Okay, go ahead.

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 60 minutes unless extended at the discretion of the chair.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they are registered.

We'll begin with 10 in-person public speakers, then move to remote speakers and then back to in-person public speakers.

until the public comment period has ended.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open.

For in-person commenters, the first in-person speaker is Jeff Sloan, followed by Gabby and Darius.

How about this one?

Sorry.

All right.

Beginning again.

I'm Jeff Sloan.

I was design manager at McKinstry Company for decades.

I'm now retired.

I want to mention what we could do with a moratorium.

I'm in favor.

It could allow us to advance our climate commitment in some pretty significant ways.

The city's own top natural gas user is a steam plant heating Seattle Center.

Did you know that data centers can make steam, too?

If new data centers will occur in Seattle, why not just outright lure one to Seattle Center and take its waste heat to make steam for less cost than using natural gas?

I thought of a system that uses a data center to heat Amazon's downtown campus.

10 years in, no regrets.

Amazon's gas boilers do stay off.

Climate Pledge Arena was expensive.

Why upgrade each building on the Seattle Center campus?

Why upgrade the campus electrical distribution for heat pumps?

Why not just make your steam using a data center's throwaway heat and get a clean district heat system, a steady tenant, and a remunerative base load for Seattle City Light right away instead of a higher winter campus peak without steam and a slow closing of the steam plant?

Businesses can stay open.

There are also very good opportunities at the ports operation at SeaTac and at the UW campus.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Gabby followed by Darius and Jody.

Hello, council members.

My name is Gabby and I am here speaking today on resolution 32204 about the data centers.

And I really want to emphasize my support for this moratorium.

It's really imperative that we make decisions that will outlive us and support future communities that live in this space.

And one of those ways is by supporting housing.

I read the documentation that was provided online as well as the amendments proposed and one of the things that I really wanted to emphasize was that the definition of a data center based on the paperwork for this resolution is facilities used primarily for the housing operation or co-location of, to summarize the rest of it, technological resources.

The use of the term housing is very interesting, especially as we are currently in an affordability crisis throughout this entire country and especially here in Seattle.

Based on King County's Regional Homelessness Authority in 2024's count, they had approximately 16,868 individuals that were documented as being homeless, a 26% increase since 2024. Median rent in the city is approximately $2,237 with minimum wage being $21 an hour.

Additionally, electricity currently is $134 a month approximately if you use a thousand kilowatts in every single month.

And then on top of all of that, currently gas is 5.75 a gallon on median.

So all of these factors are impacting affordability.

This data center expansion would only further those issues.

And ultimately I'm asking you to prevent the misuse of our land, of our resources and to support your constituents, AKA your neighbors and future Seattleites.

Thank you.

Our next in-person speaker will be Darius, followed by Jody and Neil.

Hi.

My name is Darius Hirani.

I am a software engineer and a member of Amazon Employees for Climate Justice.

I'm proud to live in a city where employees who speak out politically are legally protected against retaliation by their employers.

I became an engineer because building things is my favorite way to solve problems.

but the way tech companies are building data centers right now is creating problems.

AECHA frequently hears from communities impacted by irresponsible data center build-outs about the effects on their local elected leaders.

One community member in Pennsylvania told us, quote, fear and terror has gripped our area.

We don't know where they're going to strike next.

We don't know what supervisors have been talked to, who is under NDA, who has been paid off, et cetera.

This is why we can't rely on these companies to regulate themselves.

Seattle needs to set the terms so the way any new data centers get built here actually moves us closer to the future we want.

Some ideas for the city council require public reporting of water and electricity usage.

Demand big data centers pay for 100% additional renewable energy capacity, transmission, and storage that stabilizes the grid and makes electricity cheaper.

ban NDAs and shell companies that hide who the developers are, district heating, jobs protections, weatherization.

There is so much we can do.

There is a world in which more data centers could bring us closer to a good future, but it will exist only if we dream big and keep the power in the hands of the people.

Thank you.

Our next in-person public speaker is Jody, followed by Neil and Brian.

Hi.

Hi, my name is Jodi Leinman, and I'm a retired schoolteacher.

So I have a lot of concerns about the kids who are graduating from college right now and the inability to get a job because of these data centers and AI.

My daughter is one of them.

She has two college degrees from the University of Washington, not even job interviews coming up.

And her friends, it's the same way.

I fear for the future, and I'm hoping you vote for this moratorium to take the impact on society that these data centers and AI are going to have.

Perhaps the intention right now isn't to use AI, but it could become that, and we'll see more job losses, more kids not able to find a job.

My second concern is the environment.

I have watched video after video of people who've had data centers near their homes.

They turn on their faucets, and brown water comes out.

And there's nothing they can do for that.

My grandmother, who died 15 years ago, surprisingly, one of the last things she said to me is, never forget what a miracle it is that a glass of water.

She goes, what a miracle it is that you can have a glass of water.

And I was thinking about that, and I thought, you know what?

We have forgotten.

We have forgotten because we're using so much water to run AI.

We don't need AI, but we do need water.

We need food, which obviously we need to use.

water for.

Finally, I looked into some, I researched some other countries, and many countries are putting regulations on the expansion or building of data centers and AI.

Thank you.

Our next in-person speaker is Neil, followed by Brian and Audrey.

Hi, my name is Neil Anderson.

and if you'd asked me a year ago if I supported a data center moratorium, I would have said no.

At that time, the tech companies were telling us they were planning to power them with a massive build-out of renewables, with utility-scale battery storage, and with demand response capability that would help stabilize the grid.

They said they'd use closed-loop cooling systems that limited water use and that would provide free heating to nearby buildings.

But is that what they did?

No.

Instead, the majority of the power for data centers built in the past year has come from fossil fuels.

And rather than building state-of-the-art cooling systems, they're wastefully evaporating hundreds of millions of gallons of clean water every single day.

And they've extensively used NDAs to prevent the public from knowing how much resources are being consumed.

This is a climate and ecological disaster and it's happening because they're in such a rush to build these data centers that they're not stopping to have conversations about how they can be integrated into the grid responsibly.

I ask that you declare an emergency one-year moratorium on new data centers so that we can start having these conversations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next in-person speaker is Brian followed by Audrey and Paul.

Hi, my name is Brian Dung.

I'm a displaced tech worker and a lifelong artist.

I'm here to support resolution 32204, and this morning I commented my support for the moratorium on data center construction in Seattle.

When I hear that there may be plans for hyperscale AI data centers that would guzzle up more megawatts of power, I take that to mean I will be the victim of more power outages In 2026 alone, I already had a power outage on February 9th and one on March 13th, and I've had multiple outages each year before that with Seattle City Light.

We don't need more strain on the grid for technology that made Washington high schoolers victims of deep fake and nudify apps.

We don't need data centers for AI to deny and delay Medicare to Washington seniors.

These are real things that happened.

AI technology does not need more megawatts.

It needs more mega regulation.

I am urging the city council to support resolution 32204. Thank you.

Thank you, Brian.

Hey, Brian, can I ask you a quick question?

Is that the new Samsung Fold phone?

Oh, because it looked like it.

I really want one, so thank you.

The next in-person speaker is Audrey, followed by Paul, followed by Navee.

Hi.

Hello, council members.

My name is Audrey Wanguslan.

I'm an electrical engineer specializing in power and renewable energy, and I live in District 2.

I've been here four times already.

I saw you last time, yeah.

Yes, I support the moratorium on new data centers, and we've heard innumerable problems that the hyperscale AI data centers have.

Right now, I want to pull your attention to Amendment 1 that we'll be talking about today, you'll be voting on today, which is to allow existing data centers within Seattle to expand their capacity by up to approximately 20 megawatts and I want Council to consider potentially amending it further and to be very careful that we're not creating loopholes for big tech companies.

Just a back of the napkin calculation, we have about 30 to 50 data centers here in Seattle.

If each of them did expand an additional 20 megawatts, that would be 600 megawatts, which Maybe it doesn't mean anything, but that's actually over half of the entire city of Seattle's current power usage.

So that would be a significant increase if each data center were to use that capability, and tech companies could in fact rent that capacity from them.

So I want to caution the council about making sure we're not creating loopholes to get around the moratorium in this amendment.

Additionally, I wanted to also share with you that I've been posting a lot online lately about this moratorium, and the videos that I've been making have been getting a lot of attention.

Tens of thousands of people around the country, and comments that they've shared with me that have really stood out is a lot of people are really amazed that this city council is doing so much that you have responded to the nearly 100,000 letters that were sent and listening to all of us for hours.

So yes to the moratorium, but more importantly, please keep supporting the democratic process.

So thank you.

Yes, we will.

Thank you.

Our next in-person speaker is Paul, followed by Nivi and Anup.

Oh, that's annoying.

So that's the sound of a data center.

How loud?

93 decibels outside of Ashburg, Virginia.

These kind of things can be audible up to two miles away.

And this kind of constant noise, according to the CDC, can create stress, anxiety, and heart disease.

And that's not all of it.

Infrasound hum, so something you don't hear, but you feel it.

It's like a buzz.

It can be felt up to five miles away.

And this kind of infrasound hum is not covered by zoning rules, because it's not sound.

It's the type of reason why we need a moratorium to tackle these kind of new issues.

There's the issue of heat.

In average, an increase of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit locally due to data centers, sometimes up to a 16-degree increase.

And these kind of effects can stretch as far as six miles away.

So you already know, moratorium, very important.

Another bad news is this will only be the beginning of the fight because there are alternatives.

NVIDIA has been proposing XFRA, what they called distributed data centers.

Basically, they will put mini data centers on the side of homes and pay the homeowners for that.

So instead of having data centers, something you would regulate, we have mini data centers that create the same issue but diluted throughout the city.

So there's more work after this moratorium to be done, because they are finding ways to, first, they're trying to outpace the laws.

We know it.

They are also finding ways to go around any regulation that is currently set.

And on the topic, I will be sending you an email about the XFRE, so you can see their project.

Thank you.

Our next in-person speaker will be Navi, followed by Anup.

And then we'll be going to remote public speakers.

Hey Paul, when you announced the speakers, can you wait till people are done clapping?

Because I can't hear.

Okay, thanks.

Go ahead.

I didn't get your name.

Okay, all of you better clap for me or else I'm going to be really upset.

My name is Nivia Chanta.

I am the founder of an organization called Soapbox Project where people gather every single week to make our city better because we love living here and we love living in spaces with parks and libraries and Okay, Transit.

And I want to express my support for a data center moratorium.

To me, first of all, yes to everyone's comments that they made so far.

I think that thing about housing was very apt and how it really reflects that this conversation is not just, to me, about data centers, it's also about the leadership that we have to exhibit in the city of Seattle.

Because the type of world we are creating now because of the many turning points we're in, technologically, ecologically.

The decisions we make at this point in time with this council, these are going to affect generations to come in a way that has not been the case in almost any other time in history.

So these decisions, moratoriums and otherwise, make a huge difference.

The other thing that I wanted to talk about is the potential loophole that could be introduced by the amendment.

I'm sure everyone's familiar with this, if you give a mouse a cookie, childhood story.

And we all know that tech companies are really creative at getting around loopholes, getting around amendments, taking advantage, exploiting, and honestly being really creative.

So I think this moratorium, the opportunity over this one year needs to be beyond just fighting the data centers, but continuing to engage with the public.

on how we can build a stronger court to decide the type of city that we want to live in.

Because we cannot be bullied, we should not be bullied.

We have elected council so that we can have a body that stands up for us and the things that we want as a city.

So I support the moratorium and I hope we can move carefully as we think about any proposed amendments.

Thank you.

Our next in-person public speaker will be Anup, followed by remote public speakers Lucy and Nathan.

Hi, I'm Anup Gangiretti.

I'm a DJ, music producer, biomedical engineer, industrial designer, all sorts of things.

And what I really want to think of myself as is someone who wants to see this world become a better place.

I visited Seattle 10 years ago.

I fell in love with the city then.

It always struck me as a place that could be a shining beacon for the rest of this country on what we can do when we work together.

It's no secret that big tech is all in on these data centers, on expanding them in the ways that they want to, namely short-term profits over everything else.

I strongly support this moratorium so that we as a city can decide what kind of future we want to build together.

When I look at a data center, I see so much wasted potential.

There's plenty of opportunity for things to be incorporated if we want to dream big, things like agroponics with all of the excess water that is being used, actual renewable energy being enforced, and not just sidestep through the use of natural gas or whatever other fossil fuels these companies want.

In short, I think that with this time to actually take a breath, pause, and examine well-designed data centers.

If these are to be the future of what our country, what the economy will be going forward on, then we should make sure that that future serves Seattle and the people in it, not just big tech companies.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll now move on to remote speakers and then come back to in person.

The first remote speaker is going to be Lucy Johnson.

If you could please press star six when you hear the prompt that you've been unmuted.

Hello, my name is Lucy and I am testifying in favor of resolution 32204, a moratorium on data centers.

I'm a recent graduate who, like many of my peers in my generation, is concerned about affordability, especially the price of utilities such as electricity and water, which have been documented to increase in price because of data centers in the neighborhoods around them.

As a young person, I'm afraid of being priced out of the city that I love and that I grew up in.

Additionally, as a five-year volunteer for Seattle area parks, I believe that there are better uses for our limited land, such as public spaces and more parks.

I love this city.

and I hope to be able to spend my adult years in here without being priced out.

I hope that you can support young people like me by passing this moratorium.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next remote speaker will be Nathan followed by Hannah and Pat.

Please press star six when you hear the prompt that you've been unmuted.

Is Nathan there?

Nathan, press star six if you can.

Hi, my name is Nathan.

Can you hear me?

Yep.

Great.

I'm a volunteer with Soapbox Project 350 Seattle and with Citizens Climate Lobby, and I'm asking the committee to pass Resolution 32204 relating to data centers.

As you're thinking about these amendments, I have a couple of thoughts.

People in Seattle have a right to fairly priced electricity, but artificial intelligence is a luxury.

We were doing just fine without it.

And I say this as someone who works on AI at an AI startup company.

I don't think it's going to help us that much.

Data centers don't benefit people.

They benefit corporations.

I should say unregulated data centers because there's a chance that with the proper legal framework, data centers could help the city.

I want to underline what I heard from Darius and Neil before, things like banning NDAs requiring new clean energy to support the amount of energy that the data center uses, monitoring water usage and so forth.

There's a way for it to help the city, but it's going to be complicated.

So thank you for your work trying to figure this out.

And that's all I got.

Thank you, Nathan.

Our next remote speaker will be Hannah, followed by Pat and Chris.

Did you say Hannah or Anna?

Hannah.

Hannah, I don't see your tile.

Here you are.

Hey, Hannah.

Hi, my name is Hannah Poxus and I support resolution 32204. I'm a small business owner who's loved living, working, studying, volunteering, and being a part of groups like Soapbox in the Seattle area.

I'm very concerned about any proposals to build large data centers in our city, and I strongly support a moratorium on data centers.

We've already seen how they've harmed other communities, such as in Oregon and Georgia, and I truly worry about how these centers will affect our region's power and water resources, particularly given the drought conditions our state has been facing the last few years, not to mention they're likely to lead to higher utility costs in a city that's already extremely expensive to live in, which really just negatively impacts all of us residents.

I'm really proud that Seattle is a city that seeks to be a leader in sustainability, but the construction of these mega denisiters really undermines those efforts.

A moratorium would give us more time to implement necessary safeguards and regulations and ensure transparency to protect our communities, both in the present and for the future.

Thank you.

Our next remote speaker will be Pat, followed by Chris and David.

Pat, if you can press star six.

Pat?

Yeah, I'm Pat Corwood, a lifelong Washingtonian and geek from district one.

And so just reading over the amendments and looking at some, getting a little nitpicky with the language, I hope that it's not there to make data center lobbyists feel better about the potential impacts.

But overall, I think that the amendment also like it.

I understand the allowing some expansion of existing ones, but also worry about loopholes.

But I really like the addition of recognizing the cumulative impacts beyond any individual project.

That's obviously really important because the system can only so much and so keeping that broad view is really important.

I was also happy to see the line at the end unspecifying Seattle and because indeed any data centers that are already here or future projects are going to be impacting our neighboring cities and all across Washington.

They're very much in support of the moratorium too.

I probably should have led with that.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to speak.

Our next remote speaker will be Chris, followed by David and Alberto.

Chris, if you can press star six.

Hi, I'm Chris Harnois.

I live in West Seattle, and I'm a long-term Seattle resident.

I'm a climate justice advocate and energy nerd, and I'm here with Stokebox Project and 350 Seattle.

I support 32204, Resolution 32204 moratorium and data centers.

You know, tech really likes to build fast and break things, which is fine with software.

In contrast, data centers threaten to break our public infrastructure.

Seattle City Light doesn't have access to enough hydropower to support public needs in the coming decades.

never mind the needs of large-scale data centers.

Droughts are reducing water flows, which reduces our power output, and the Bonneville Power Administration is out of spare capacity for city-like to call on in high-demand situations such as cold snaps or heat waves.

Ultimately, data centers consume public resources without producing public benefits.

They don't provide employment, they don't provide housing, they don't provide any economic opportunities or resources at all for the city itself to use.

Additionally, you know, looking out the year ahead, we could see this AI bubble potentially burst.

And then we'll be left with what?

Data centers that are underutilized that were built and now are someone else's problem.

So there's so many factors to consider.

And I know there's been so many facts already shared.

But yeah, you know, really think about the fact that they consume resources without producing benefits.

And thank you.

Let's keep my time.

Thank you, Chris.

Our next remote speaker will be David followed by Alberto and Elon.

Elon.

Okay.

Last name is not Musk.

That's what I was gonna say.

Hey Elon, why are you an asshole?

Go ahead, sorry, I should've said that.

David, are you there?

Hi, thank you.

Hey, Councilmember Juarez, you know how there's a failure with the police chief to help solve the crisis at the parks, and he's decided that he's just going to shut down the parks and ruin it for everybody, then start enforcing ticketing on the law-abiding community who wants to exercise their freedom and liberty to go for a walk late at night, checking out the stars, but yet The police chief refuses to deal with all the evil predators that keep trafficking and pushing and riding around in stolen vehicles.

We need new leadership with the police chief.

And separately, I think you all need to address the transfer lines, the transmission lines, you know, all those high wires that look like modern third world Venezuela hanging outside people's apartment complexes in Seattle, like with a consumption malfunction that waste a lot of energy.

you know there's a transfer station in Fremont right near the Fremont brewery like one or two blocks away and every once in a while it explodes with an over pressurized need to share more energy with more housing but yet all those roads have never been blocked off so people can't drive through but it just seems that like when you have a consumption malfunction coming from far away to create electricity and it gets to some rundown slum piece of real estate It's consuming and wasting more energy than the people living in the building is allowed to use.

Because Seattle has all this antiquated, outdated, dilapidated real estate.

But you know, when you have the train driving through the parks, Golden Garden Park, Myrtle Edwards Park, the whole community, There needs to be an addressing of the toxic environment that the waterfront gets choked off from that you all keep ignoring.

You all are just copycatting whatever other people are pushing in the national media and just distracting from local issues that also need to be addressed, like the consumption malfunction of the coal train.

We got a congestion price tax, the coal cars passing through the waterfront in Seattle.

Our next speaker will be Alberto, followed by Elon.

Alberto, if you can press star six.

I don't see.

Alberto, is he up?

Alberto?

I'm here.

Oh, there you are.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Why allow existing data centers to expand during the moratorium?

Data centers are a bad deal for our city.

using up more power compared to what several thousand homes would typically use.

Increasing utility bills would hurt families and working people on shrinking budgets.

They won't provide enough long-term jobs to build our communities.

Our taxes will subsidize their construction and expansion, draining our local water supply.

and spewing hot exhaust that'll harm our air quality.

These data centers are high-tech mining operations where billionaires and AI companies get all the profit while we pay with our resources, tax subsidies, utility costs, health, environment, and more.

No matter the promises they make, we will end up losing.

No to data centers today or ever.

Thank you all and have a good day.

Thank you.

Our next remote speaker will be Elon Robinson followed by Lauren Redfield.

Elon.

Hi, my name is Ilan Robinson.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

It's Ilan.

Someone told me earlier I should rebrand to the good Ilan.

My name is Ilan.

I am here to speak in favor of the data center moratorium.

I am a graphic designer and a recent graduate from Seattle Central College.

My classmates and I and my graduating class are experiencing a lot of job insecurity and especially a lack of junior positions in our field, partially at least because our work is being automated by products that were trained without consent on our creative work and that of our predecessors in our field.

And just as the AI products like this that are extracting value from our work and our skills, data centers that are built for AI are pillaging resources that should be for the people.

And this is amidst a historical housing crisis here in Seattle, an affordability crisis, and not to mention the environmental crisis that's ongoing.

And it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, all of this to benefit companies who are selling these products that automate away jobs, degrade our privacy, and allow for things like algorithms to discriminate against people trying to apply for needed medical procedures.

So in Seattle we have with this moratorium an opportunity to hit pause and really weigh the cost of data center buildup against the harms.

And I'm proud that we're considering this.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our next remote speaker is Lauren Redfield.

She's not currently called in.

Do you want to move to in-person?

Yeah.

Lauren, if you could call back in.

Back to in-person speakers, we have Sariah followed by Patrick and Sera.

What's the first name?

Sariah.

Sariah.

Sariah.

Did we get that right?

Sorry.

Sariah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Shreya.

I am an aerospace engineer, a resident of District 7, and I would like to vocalize support of Resolution 32204 on the basis of taking time to research these centers and their long-term impacts on public health and safety.

As an engineer, I understand wanting to pursue progress, but as an engineer, I took an oath during a ceremony my senior year of college, and I pledged to, quote, serve humanity by making the best use of the Earth's precious wealth, unquote.

And I think that matters more than progress for the sake of progress.

I would like to tell you a short story.

I am from Memphis, Tennessee.

My family has resided in Memphis for just about 10 years.

And two years ago, Elon Musk and his ex-AI company brought the construction of his AI data center called Colossus online in July of 2024. In 2025, after the center had been operational for one year, researchers at my alma mater, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, found that nitrogen dioxide concentrations in the surrounding areas increased by 79%, and that's just year one.

So without even reflecting on these findings, the company simply just decided to start constructing a second data center in another neighborhood of Memphis.

And I think one point of note is that both the current data center and the newly announced data centers are both in two of the poorest neighborhoods in Memphis, right next to communities of color, and those are the ones who are going to be exposed beyond measure to chronic illnesses and diseases via water pollution and air pollution.

And they take years to manifest once the damage is already irrevocable.

So in conclusion, I urge this council to weigh the extremely heavy public and safety costs by passing this resolution and reevaluating the impacts it will have on local communities.

Thank you.

Our next in-person speaker is Patrick, followed by Siraj and Bradley.

Yeah, hi, council members.

My name is Patrick McKee, and I live in West Seattle.

I'm a retired filmmaker, and I worry about the AI threat to that industry, to my fellow workers, and to the creative process.

And I'm here to support the passage of Resolution 32204 for all the reasons folks in this room and 100,000 additional commenters have laid out over these past few weeks.

but I'm concerned.

The council needs to be really careful about attaching any amendments aimed at permitting additional capacity for specific existing users.

Isn't the purpose of the proposed moratorium to basically hit pause and really explore long-term impacts of data center expansion?

And if the resolution is already loaded with loopholes and carve-outs and exemptions and all the associated legal and definitional wrangling that'll go along with those, it can't help but undercut and delay that intention.

so thank you.

Thank you.

Our next in-person speaker is Siraj followed by Bradley and Jace.

Members of the City Council, good afternoon.

I'm Raj Machiner, learning engineer, AI scientist, and small business founder.

I'm here asking you to support a strict moratorium on data centers.

Here are the facts.

I moved here in 2021. If my electric bill was $100, then it would be $138.10 today, citing the CleanCon MIT dataset, despite the last two SCL IRPs submitting seemingly reasonable 5% yearly increases.

That's how compounding works.

If it's hard to afford heat in the winter, it hits harder because these increases are in large part due to costs incurred by big tech to pay for their upgraded transmission lines and equipment.

Costs that end up subsidized by everyday folks via our power bills and taxes.

Do not vote to worsen the affordability crisis.

Every large land plot permitted for a data center and not housing could mean up to 1,000 to 3,000 future residents of Seattle going unhoused.

with reference to Amendment 1 to allow expansion of existing data centers, I will submit on record that is roughly equivalent to the usage of 15,000 to 20,000 households worth of power per permitted increase.

In other words, one would vote to approve additional load of 80% the usage of the city of Shoreline for every permitted increase.

I would urge you to at least adopt stricter expansion caps that prevent combined cumulative overages worse than the initial proposals.

If there's to be any permitting of increases at all, moratorium means pause, no buts.

Here is a thought.

If we instead mandate existing data centers to hit delete on their storage and contracts with ICE and Flock surveillance, the city could get critical computing resources back for its public usage.

No expansion needed.

Thank you.

Solidarity.

Our next in-person public speaker is Bradley, followed by Jace and Samantha.

Hello, council.

My name is Bradley.

I live in District 3. I'm a Seattle Seelight rate payer.

And I also urge you to vote yes on the data center moratorium.

Our grid cannot handle more data centers.

Our grid is already overstrained by very high demand.

What we the people want to see instead to manage this demands are clean energy deployment, solar energy, battery energy storage, heat pumps that will actually benefit us and not continue to strain the grid.

I also second previous comments about the resolutions and amendments.

And that's all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next in-person public speaker is Jace, followed by Samantha and Jim.

Hello, my name is Jace Murphy.

As of the 17th of this month, I will have lived here for one year.

The first thing that I noticed when I got here is that I could actually breathe, living for 23 years in the South, where industry is greatly unregulated and causes major environmental devastation going back generations, is that it's simply something that you can't escape once it has happened.

So something I haven't heard a lot of people talk about is what that actual generational devastation looks like when things go unchecked and you do not hold the industries responsible for it accountable.

So where I'm from is Baton Rouge, Louisiana, about an hour and a half from New Orleans, which you've probably heard of, but also within an hour and a half of a place called Cancer Alley, It is an industrialized corridor where people essentially live and work in factories.

People live their whole lives there.

That's their community.

But they have increased rates of cancer that essentially wipes them out at a very early age, as well as infrastructure concerns regarding pollution, where infrastructure cannot be updated because it is simply too toxic to disturb, and the companies responsible for it aren't being like made to clean up after themselves.

So in asking you to put this moratorium in place, I'm asking you to make it as strict as you possibly can and to not let anything slide.

Every inch you give them, they will take a mile.

Any time you are not looking at what they are doing, they are going to be doing something that they want to do that is not in the best interest of the city or the land surrounding it or the people who live here.

aside from the concerns that it's a danger to our safety, health, and happiness that we are owed.

Thank you.

Our next in-person public speaker, Samantha, followed by Jim and Kendra.

Hi, my name is Samantha Yap and I'm a member of Soapbox Seattle as well as a recently laid off tech worker that was working with AI and a designer.

So I wanted to speak today not only in support of the moratorium 32204 but also to talk a bit about AI and my perspective on it and the effects that these data centers would have.

So a lot of the people here have brought up really good points about the utility and water costs to the community.

I also want to bring my perspective on AI, where I believe that these companies, all these big tech companies, are being extremely parasitic.

They're essentially turning these resources that are to be used for our health and safety, water, electricity, utilities, into capital, and that creates a lot of problems because they're trying to create solutions to problems that don't exist yet.

So I think as the previous speaker mentioned, the situation of we haven't needed AI before, and this is a luxury good, right?

So we're trying to create a need for something that doesn't need to happen, right?

and yes, so for the impact to the community as well as feeding these parasitic entities, I believe that we should be very strict about not expanding these data centers or allowing them to be expanded.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jim followed by Kendra and then Lauren Redfield on our remote speakers.

Welcome Jim.

Hello, council members.

My name is Jim Baines.

I'm a candidate member of the American Party of Labor.

You've heard beautifully articulated, well-cited and researched arguments against the construction of data centers in Seattle.

In light of that, I'm demanding that all of you pass and expand the moratorium on data centers to be permanent and tax any data center expansions at a thousand percent of the current property tax rate.

we must either ban these facilities outright or tax them into oblivion to pay for the environmental health and human externalities that Seattleites will face.

AI and tech companies target communities of workers who cannot afford to lobby against data center constructions.

In Memphis, Elon Musk's XAI owned by SpaceX, who Seattle is currently contracting with for Starlink use with SPD through the World Cup and five months after, so we're already supporting Elon Musk.

and those projects, they were constructed in Southwest and Boxtown communities in Memphis.

These communities, in the very short time that data centers have existed, have experienced significant rise in rates of asthma, respiratory disease, and cancer.

After a year, if we allow the construction of new data centers, where can we expect that to happen?

It won't happen in Wallingford, Lowellhurst, Broadmoor.

It will happen in working class communities and communities of color who already face disproportionate rates of chronic disease, respiratory illness and cancer rates.

These data centers will target our communities in South Seattle and will target our communities down in Georgetown.

They will go and impact already existing and already vulnerable communities here.

This is all without considering the material impacts of the power grid that Seattleites will face.

A power outage in the peak of summer puts my elderly neighbors at risk of heat stroke.

An outage during the depths of winter could cause families to freeze in their homes.

There are real lives at stake here, not just revenue, not just Seattle becoming an AI hub like Mayor Wilson wants to pursue.

These are people's lives.

Thank you, Jim.

Our next in-person public speaker is Kendra, followed by remote speaker, Lauren Redfield.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, council.

My name is Ken.

I'm a candidate member of the American Party of Labor, and I urge you not only to pass this resolution, but to make it inclusive of any expansions and further to make it permanent.

Data centers have had nothing but horrible impacts on the communities that they are built near around the country.

We're getting reports of rare cancers through air and water pollution.

We're getting reports of them affecting power grids.

And they disproportionately affect marginalized communities, specifically people of color and unhoused people.

We're already dealing with global warming and increasing droughts here in the Pacific Northwest.

And data centers can increase ground and air temperature by four degrees.

Now I'm going to read from the resolution.

It says, new data centers require great amounts of electricity for operation, resulting in significant increases in demand for electricity and requiring investment in new infrastructure to meet demand.

Councilmember Rorres, I live in your district, and I have experienced increasing power blackouts over the last year.

And every time that happens, my neighbors and I, we can't use water either.

the amount of power that these data centers demand would not only make the already existing strain on our power grid worse, excuse me, it would also increase the cost of our electric bills.

And these corporations dump those costs onto us.

The moratorium not only needs to be passed, we need to ensure that existing centers are not allowed to expand.

This moratorium needs to be made permanent and complete.

Thank you.

Kendra, let me ask you a quick question.

Did you read from the moratorium or a resolution?

The resolution and the moratorium.

Was that our section in there?

That she read the first part?

Okay.

I want to distinguish that.

It was from the Legisar website.

Okay.

That was on this agenda.

But you quoted the resolution and the moratorium.

Yes.

Okay.

That's what I thought.

It was on this agenda for this meeting.

Yes, ma'am.

I just want to make sure.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Our final public commenter will be Lauren Redfield, remote.

When you're allowed to talk, please press star six.

Lauren?

Did you say, Lauren?

Hi, can you hear me?

Yep, we can, Lauren.

Go ahead.

Great.

I'm an energy project manager, a resident of District 6, and a member of the Washington AI Resistance.

I support the data center moratorium.

I am grateful for the resolution's amendments acknowledging the cumulative impacts of data centers, conditions of service for new customer loads, large load class, and affirming the rights of Native communities to exercise their treaty rights.

Thank you for taking into consideration some of the feedback provided by the community.

I am not, however, in favor of an amendment to the moratorium ordinance that was introduced at this morning's land use committee that would allow existing data centers to add up to 20 megabolt amperors of additional capacity regardless of their current size.

The largest data center in Seattle is 30 megabolt amperors and under the sleep call it would allow that data center to expand to 50, not considering all of the other data centers that would be allowed to expand.

Notably, this amendment was not available online before the hearing and remains unavailable for public review online.

I was only able to see it because a comrade sent me photos he took of a hard copy packet from this morning's hearing on his phone.

I am cautious of both backdoor deals as well as efforts to appease industry.

I'm letting you know, I know this is the City Light Committee, but I'm letting you know because you will be reviewing this over the next few days.

I urge the Council to reject loophole that would allow significant expansion during the moratorium period.

The vast majority of data center moratoriums around our country adopted elsewhere do not include this exception.

Collectively, these expansions could substantially increase electricity demand, increase the price of power on wholesale markets in our state and region, and contribute to upward pressure on utility rates for all of us, even while we have a moratorium in place.

Seattle should be cautious about approving largely loads without fully understanding their implications for the city's climate commitments and our long-term clean energy goals, and a moratorium without loopholes would allow that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lauren.

Mr. Clerk, are we have any more folks?

Okay.

All right.

So that was our last speaker and at this point I am now going to close public comment and we're going to move on to items of business.

I was going to say Madam Clerk again.

Mr. Clerk, Paul, can you please read item one and two, the record.

Agenda item one, resolution 32204, a resolution relating to data centers recognizing the potential of long-term impacts of data centers on electrical grid capacity and reliability, water usage, utility rates, land use and development, jobs and the economy and public health and requesting engagement and cooperation from the executive in the development of data center policies and potential legislation and anticipates related legislative action.

There will be a briefing discussion and possible vote.

Oh, they're going to be a vote.

So I move to recommend adoption of Resolution 32204. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Council Member Sokka.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend the adoption, but we have a couple amendments, so I'm going to go ahead and introduce the resolution.

This resolution is a culmination of months of work which my team and Councilmember Lin and Councilmember Salka's team started last October of 2025. We spent the first part of the year tracking state bills that were seeking to create protections and legislation around data centers and AI.

However, only one of the ten passed.

We've also attended and followed the Washington State AI Task Force and their recommendations and other efforts across the country by both tribes and local communities that are grappling with the boom in mega data centers.

Our work has led to this resolution in tandem with the moratorium that was passed this morning, Council Bill 121214 in Council Member Lynn's committee, finding that there's a lack of understanding and research around the potential impacts these mega data centers will have upon our communities.

As a tech city, it is vital we understand the potential effects and create safeguards before allowing the unchecked boom of building in our city.

Again, I would like to thank Council Member Lynn and his staff, Stephanie Thaddeus and Garrett for partnering in this work.

Our legislative and legal counsel, Lauren Henry and Eric McConaughey of central staff for their hard work on this resolution.

Council President Hollingsworth and her staff, and all the public commenters who came out to give input, including 350 Seattle and, did you say Troublemakers?

Was that actually a group?

The Troublemakers?

Yeah, there they are, okay.

With the pink pen, now I remember.

And then I don't see, what was that one guy with a T-shirt?

What was his name?

What?

No, what was this t-shirt?

Pearl Jam.

Pearl Jam guy.

I hate to tell you this, but I do not know any Pearl Jam songs.

And I'm from here.

Yes, you do.

So my understanding is we got Eric McConaughey up here.

He's going to walk.

He's from Central Staff.

He's our analyst.

He will take us through his PowerPoint, which is seven pages.

And are you ready to go, Eric?

Yep, sure am.

Okay, so you should have, and it was posted, the data center policy development resolution.

The floor is yours.

Eric, go ahead.

Yeah, Eric McConaughey, Council of Central Staff.

So yeah, this, as all the folks in this room know, this resolution is by data centers.

These are facilities that are mainly used, and forgive me, for the folks that are here, maybe folks that tune in, that are new to the subject, so some of this material is gonna seem redundant, but it's good just to get it on the record for now and for posterity.

so I'll move efficiently through these slides.

Data centers are facilities primarily used for housing, operation, co-location of computer and communication equipment and they have all the facilities with them to keep them cool and back them up.

The data centers that are the subject of the conversation today in this resolution largely come with the growth of artificial intelligence and that has accelerated the demand for new data centers.

Impact's data centers can include electrical grid capacity and reliability, water usage, utility rates, land use and development, jobs in the economy, and public health, such as noise, light, water, and air pollution.

This resolution calls for the Council of the Executive to work together toward these policy goals to reduce or mitigate any deleterious effects of data centers, to hold data center investors and operators accountable, and to harvest and maximize any benefits of data centers.

This would be done through developing policy guidelines that would lead legislation, budget appropriations, and departmental actions.

There is, of course, related legislation.

There's the data center moratorium that was addressed this morning in the Land Use Committee.

The next step of the moratorium will be to full council and upon its passage after final action would put a pause on moratorium development for a year to allow for study.

Also, the city council will take up a city light rates ordinance later this summer that does include a new customer class for data centers.

Speaking of the coordinated action, the notion is to have citywide interdepartmental study of the impacts and benefits of data centers.

One of the first things that we would see as a result of the passage of the adoption of this resolution and the passage of the ordinance would be the actions taken up under the work plan.

This would include consulting with external groups and stakeholders, included those listed here.

It would be to develop updates to zoning and development regulations, also develop updates to rate structures for City Light and Seattle Public Utilities, and to explore voluntary data center community benefits.

This brings us to Amendment 1. To this resolution, the sponsor of this amendment is Constable Juarez.

It would update the title, and that update to the title would go along with some changes to the verb that's used in Section 1. It would add a recital regarding cumulative impacts, and it will also clarify Section 4 about the upcoming data center customer class in the City Light Ordinance.

I'll pause there to allow for any questions or, of course, to talk about this amendment.

Well, actually, I didn't really have anything more to add besides what you put in there, and I was just going to open it up after you finish to my colleagues about to question either amendment.

Would you like me to continue to describe Amendment 2, and then we can do that.

Let's do that, and then I was just going to loop back and ask my colleagues if they had questions on Amendment 1 and 2, and then I had some comments on Amendment 2, but go ahead.

And Amendment 2 would add an item to Section 1 regarding the potential impacts, and it's quoted here.

It would call out the rights of federally recognized tribes, urban Indians, and Native communities to exercise any express or implied treaty rights to access and fish in all the usual and custom places as has occurred since time immemorial.

The sponsor of this amendment is Councilmember Strauss.

All right.

You want to keep going?

That rounds out the items that I prepared to speak to from the slides.

Happy to answer any questions and support the conversation.

All right, so I'm understanding that.

Are there any questions regarding the two amendments before we actually go into amending and addressing the actual amendments?

Correct?

Yeah?

Okay.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Eric, for this overview.

Excuse me.

First, a brief note.

I have...

Previously reached out to Seattle Ethics and Election Commission Director Wayne Barnett seeking guidance because my wife, spouse, works for Microsoft.

She, in her role capacity at the company, works with data centers and more specifically compliance with global data center regulations.

globally.

So I reached out seeking guidance on a potential conflict of interest and Director Barnett advised that given the global scale of Microsoft's efforts and my wife's specific role in that, as opposed to broken out by region or geography or specific locations, global nature, a recusal is not required.

And my wife, just for what it's worth, also does not participate in the commercial decisions to expand or not expand in any event.

Just want to make that disclosure, get in on the record.

Now, question about the amendment.

So...

I'm just seeing this and curious about that Section 4 provision.

I can see what the text on the paper says, but what does that mean exactly, Eric?

And then maybe from you, Madam Chair, would love to hear your perspective on the on what the intent is with this specific element of the amendment.

Well, I'm gonna allow, I don't have the actual in front of me.

Well, I do, but I'm gonna go ahead and allow.

Go ahead, Eric.

Would you want to talk about the customer class, clarify section four about that?

Yeah, so I'll start from the technical and then maybe move to the content.

So that technically, the change in the amendment tunes up the language to more closely follow along the way in which we expect City Light to propose a new customer class.

So there's some words here that make it more accurate to reflect the legislation that actually has been transmitted from City Light.

a little more content.

So every two years, on a regular basis, as established by resolution, City Light and the mayor propose a new rates ordinance that sets up the rates for the next following two years.

Council takes it up, has a full discussion.

It grows out of things like the integrated resource plan and the strategic plan for City Light.

Later on the agenda today, we'll hear about the IRP.

And so that's a regular, sort of punctuated moment.

Every two years, new rates are discussed.

One new thing for this rates ordinance that will be coming to you all this summer will be to discuss a new rate class, a new kind of customer that would be enacted through that legislation for data centers.

And so this is just to say, here in this resolution, that while calling for coordinated action across the city to develop policy.

It also says, by the way, in Section 3, there's a moratorium that's the subject of the ordinance that was talked about earlier today.

And in the Section 4 to say, in yet another ordinance, the city's gonna take up a potential change to the CityLite code, the code that governs CityLite, to add this customer class.

So hopefully that kind of rounds that out.

That's maybe more words than you needed, but that's...

This is basically just to acknowledge the work that's underway in this aspect of the city's work, yeah.

So there's parallel efforts already underway by the department that contemplate essentially a new customer class, and so this just aligns with that?

Yeah, that's right.

A customer class, residents are a customer class.

Certain size businesses that use power at a certain amount are customer classes.

This would be a customer class for data centers as a particular kind of new large load customer.

Yeah.

Got it.

If I can add, Councillor Saka, having been on Seattle City Light since 2016 for eight years and then back, when we look at rates, we have two classes, residential and business, and we track them.

And of course, business pays more because they use more.

and we wanted to kind of pull out data centers to be more tailor-made for rates and looking at them and just shining a light on it because we know that, and we don't want this customer class data centers, we want them to pay for themselves at some point when the work group gets together.

so it doesn't hurt the residential and the business side.

And I think spotlighting a customer class that's a data center is good business and good governance because then we can track at Seattle City like and pull out customer class from business and residential and say, this is the data we're looking at and this is how much energy and this is how much pressure is being put on the grid and this is what we need to be paying attention to.

And the moratorium, when I remember we have a moratorium for one year where the working group will address all of these type of more techie issues, but we wanted to put that placeholder in now in the resolution that that's what we're looking at.

And I should say, we didn't think this up on our own.

We got this through research and I'll talk about it later.

meeting with and talking with not just environmental groups but tribes and other lawyers and groups that have opposed and supported data centers and having a customer class.

So this is new, this isn't new in the industry, but it would be new to Seattle.

Is that fair to say, Eric?

Yeah, I think that's accurate.

And maybe just to stitch in a little bit more, the customer classes in the code are set up so that each kind of customer, the cost that they incur to the utility are paid for by that kind of customer.

that's a principle that has to be sort of adhered to by the utility.

So in this case, the data centers aren't special, it's just that they're new as a kind of customer and we don't have yet in our code something to address those kind of special concerns, right?

Right.

So I'm sort of reflecting back what you said in slightly different terms, yeah.

Well, and residents are the shareholders because we own Seattle City Light.

And we are the...

It is a municipal utility, that's right.

We are the number one economic engine and the number two employer, if I understand that correctly.

And we don't want those costs passed on to our residents.

We want data centers to pay for themselves.

And we can't do that until we actually see what it costs and what that does.

Thank you.

I had to get a copy of my own resolution.

I had handwritten what I wrote, so I actually did that.

Is there anything else, Councillor Sacco?

That's a good question, actually.

Thank you.

No, thank you, Madam Chair.

All right.

Let me put these two down here.

All right.

So are there any other questions before we move on and I do the First Amendment?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Eric.

Oh, you're going to go on with your PowerPoint.

I'm just pointing to Council Member Strauss.

I see him up there, so, yeah.

Man, I cannot pay attention to the screen.

Sorry, Council Member Strauss.

Go ahead.

No, you're fine, Chair.

Do you want me to address the content of my amendment number two now or when we move it?

No, not till we move it.

Sounds good.

I'll wait.

And then I will speak after you speak.

After we move it, you can speak, and then I'll speak, and then we'll vote.

Okay?

All right.

Good.

All right, so with that, I move to amend Resolution 32204 as presented on Amendment 1. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

It is moved and seconded to amend the resolution as presented as Amendment 1. And again, as I shared, this amendment makes two technical fixes, updates the title to match those fixes, clarifies the language in Section 4 from consultation with City Light, and adds a recital regarding cumulative impacts.

I'm guessing there's, I don't see any other questions.

All right, with that, if there are no further comments with the clerk, please call the roll on the adoption of amendment one.

Council member Strauss.

Aye.

Council member Sacca.

Aye.

Chair Juarez.

Aye.

Chair, there are three votes in favor and zero post.

Thank you.

The motion carries and amendment one is adopted.

We're now gonna move on to amendment two.

Council member Strauss, would you like to move your amendment?

Thank you, chair.

I move amendment two version one to resolution 32204.

Second.

It has now been moved and seconded to amend resolution as presented on amendment number two.

Council Member Strauss, would you like to speak to your amendment?

And then when you're done, I will speak and then I'll see if Council Member Saka has anything to add.

Floor is yours, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair Juarez.

I'll speak to the amendment and then give some general comments about what I've seen today in both this meeting and earlier.

This amendment specifically really discusses and focuses on the fact that data centers are using our water without proper management.

They're heating our air unnecessarily and our climate.

They're using electricity at a very high rate, which then also has impacts on river flows or however that electricity is being generated.

That also has the impacts on rates, everything.

And just a shout out to all of the public commenters today.

Nivea, I remember meeting with you in office hours as you were getting Soapbox Projects started up.

I'll give you a shout out, Chair Juarez.

I do office hours because of watching your leadership of you having office hours and a district office in D5.

And so just, you know, the lead to leave situation here where you gave me that North Star priority for me to have office hours.

Nivea, you're out here after meeting with me so many years ago advocating for the very things that we need because if we are not careful with data centers, even just the use of electricity hold all of the other externalities constant just without strong regulation about how they're using electricity the implications cascade everywhere and so that that is the crux of this amendment because When we are talking about all these downstream impacts, all these externalities that are not born by the data centers, but born by everyone else, the ones who suffer the most are federally recognized, are urban Native Americans, and our Native communities are because of our laws around usual and custom areas and their implied treaty rights to access fishing, gathering, and all of the practices that they have enjoyed since time immemorial except for the last 200 years.

And so this is, this amendment does two things.

It not only brings into clear and constant focus that it's not just Seattleites, it's not just Washingtonians, but it is the very communities that have stewarded this land since time immemorial and have been disrupted in the last 200 years.

Data centers cannot be a continuation of that disruption of the ability to hunt, fish and gather in the usual and accustomed areas.

That's the biggest thing that this amendment does.

The second thing and importantly, is it continues our work to engage federally recognized tribes, urban Native Americans and Native communities in our work.

As Chair Juarez regularly mentions, our city's named after a Native American chief, yet from the Coast Salish people, but we use a picture of a Plains Native American as our symbol.

This is very inappropriate at best, and when we do this work like we're doing today without including federally recognized tribes, urban Native Americans and Native communities, then we are continuing the disrespectful nature of how government can work.

So this amendment does two things.

One, it really calls out the downstream impacts that are required to be mitigated based on treaty rights, explicit and implicit.

And then secondly, it continues our work as the city to do better and to get better and to truly have meaningful government to government relations with our federally recognized tribes and our native communities.

Council President, that's what I've got today.

I will say, I believe that you are the only one of the boomer generation on City Council, and you are the most experienced of all of us in regulating AI and data centers.

I've just been grateful and impressed with how you have been tracking, staying focused on AI and educating me quite a bit.

I might be younger than you, but I might be a little bit more of a Luddite.

And I just really wanted to appreciate that and call that out that you've been a real leader on our council in the AI regulation space.

And lastly, just want to call out the fact that we've had conversations today about mega VARs, mega amps, and I really appreciated the public comment about mega regulations.

This is truly geek level talk.

Can't thank you all enough.

I might have to steal one of that one.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Eric, I apologize.

I kind of jumped the gun on you.

I know you wanted to talk about, usually we read the PowerPoint before I hand it off to a Council Member.

We didn't actually go through Amendment 2 and read the rights of, right?

Through the whole thing?

Okay.

I'm sorry, I was busy writing.

I just wanted to make sure I didn't skip you.

We're good?

Yep.

Okay, great.

We're all set, yeah.

I haven't answered any questions, but I think it's been described, and it's also present on the slide, yeah.

Now, I have some comments, but I wanted to see if there's anything else from any of my other colleagues.

Okay.

I'm not seeing that I do- Amendment or the bill?

On this amendment.

At the end, we can do comments on the bill.

Do you have anything on amendment two?

Okay.

I am going to read this into the record because, and I want to thank Council Member Strauss for adding the amendment, including the rights of federally recognized tribes, which are treaty based, of course.

and our discussions about that.

And we should add that tribal governments and indigenous led communities are in Council Member Strauss' committee along with the Indigenous Advisory Council.

So that's where all these discussions have come from.

And anyway, these are the points that I want to make sure that we get on the record.

There are 29 federally recognized Indian tribes and substantial populations of urban Indians and native communities in Washington State.

Treaties between the U.S. federal government and sovereign tribal nations establish the rights and responsibilities of the federal government to tribal nations.

In Washington State, these treaties include the Treaty of Point Elliott, the Treaty of 1855, the Treaty of Medicine Creek, Treaty of Point No Point, among others.

Many treaties establish the rights of tribes, their members, and other Native Americans to access waterways and fish in usual custom places and areas.

These treaty rights are actively utilized by tribes today for food, cultural traditions, economic development, and resource stewardship.

The 1989 Centennial Accord established the government-to-government relationship between sovereign federally recognized tribes and Washington State.

The formalized relationship and regular gathering allows for discussion between sovereigns on areas of mutual interest like waterways, health, access and resources.

The vast majority of tribes in Washington State are adjacent to waterways and tributaries, relying on access to water resources affected by conflicting uses.

As we just saw a couple weeks ago, this committee and our Seattle City Council approved the Skagit Hydro Settlement and did consultation with the Upper Skagit, the Swinomish, and Soxawaddle Tribe on dams that has been pending since the late 90s.

So with that being said, we're right into the record.

Are there any other further comments?

All right, not seeing any.

Will the clerk please call the roll of adoption of amendment number two?

Council member Strauss?

Aye.

Council member Sacca?

Aye.

Council member Juarez?

Aye.

Chair, there are three votes in favor and zero opposed.

Thank you, the motion carries and amendment two is adopted.

That being said, let's, before we close here, are there any other comments on the resolution as amended?

Council Member Saka, this would be, if there's a chance, if there are any other closing comments before we go to the, before I make some final comments, correct?

Anything you want to add?

Sure, yeah.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First off, Chair, would love to say thank you.

Thank you, Chair, for your leadership on this important issue.

Thank you for your vision.

Thank you for all the hard work that you and your office have put into and creating this legislation before us and also partnering closely with Councilmember Lin's office on the parallel bill running through his Land Use Committee.

This is important work.

This is the work we're doing here today could potentially help shape the future of our environment, of our economy, and of the relationship that we have with technology for decades to come.

So again, thank you, Madam Chair, for all you've done on this.

And I especially want to thank the public commenters who've taken the time to come out and testify, many of which have stayed over at multiple meetings.

I hope you were able to grab some lunch in between the morning and this afternoon.

but I just want to let you know that your perspective matters.

We're all listening to you.

I'm listening to you.

My offices personally receive thousands of comms about this one specific topic, various emails, phone calls, et cetera.

I love being a local elected official because we have what's called grocery store accountability.

So we're not off in D.C.

or Olympia.

We literally live in the communities that we serve and represent.

So I've had people pull me aside at the grocery store telling me, no data centers.

I've had fellow parents on the sidelines of baseball games whisper in my ear, hey, no data centers, Rob, all right?

People are understandably concerned about data centers and their impact on our communities locally.

And these concerns are not just from a vocal few.

When most Seattleites flip on a light switch, they aren't thinking about data centers.

They're thinking about whether they can afford their utility bill, keep the heat on, or keep their small business running and profitable.

Meanwhile, some of the largest and most profitable companies in the world are increasingly competing for that same electricity to power these data centers and the underlying AI infrastructure.

Significant climate impacts are being felt because of this.

There's substantial strains on the grid that's already stretched pretty thin.

All this increases risks of price hikes for consumers and That's why, again, among other reasons, people are understandably concerned about data center expansion.

Now, I support innovation and technology advancement.

Seattle should continue to be a place where innovation thrives and tech companies come to establish themselves and grow.

But I also believe everyone deserves access to reliable, affordable, and increasingly clean power sources.

Growth should pay its own way.

If companies want to build large-scale data centers and draw significant amounts of electricity from our grid, they should therefore be helping to strengthen that grid, modernize it, invest in it, make it cleaner.

Seattle residents should not face higher utility bills, reduced reliability, or environmental impacts while the benefits of these centers flow elsewhere.

That's why I support taking a thoughtful and deliberate approach, and I think that's exactly what this is.

Before allowing significant expansion, we need a clear understanding of the impacts on grid reliability, utility rates, water use, public health, and our climate goals.

We also need to ensure Seattle residents see meaningful public benefits, not simply increase demand on our critical infrastructure that's already strained when we're talking about our electric grid.

Any future data center development should protect rate payers, safeguard reliability, advance clean energy goals, and require major energy users to contribute to infrastructure investments necessary to support their growth.

Finally, I wanna note that words from elected officials like myself matter.

Words, actions, and rhetoric from elected officials matter.

And it impacts commercial decisions of others.

And what is also true is that words from tech executives matter as well.

We're speaking to people, decision makers and private organizations are listening.

when tech executives are speaking to people, whether at an internal company all hands meeting, town hall, whatever they're called, they're not just speaking to their employees, not just speaking to their business partners, they're not just speaking to their industry associates at a conference, they're not just speaking to their investors or their shareholders.

We're all listening too.

So words matter, and that relationship is fully mutual, fully reciprocal.

And I say that because when I hear bold, predictive statements from tech leaders, such as, AI will replace all humans, result in the significant cutting of all kinds of jobs, As a lawmaker and as a regulator, locally, I get nervous.

I get heartburn about that.

And when you layer on the known detrimental environmental impacts, the impacts on our climate, the impacts on affordability, the potential impacts on straining our grid, passing those costs off potentially to consumers, that helps me know maybe this industry is ripe for greater regulation.

And so words matter.

As an aside, I was also pleased when one of the CEOs, Sam Altman of OpenAI last week, basically walked his statements back, oh, it wasn't as bad as we thought, I guess.

Okay.

Organizations are always gonna make interests, decisions in their best interests, and that's totally understandable.

I intend to do as much of it with them as possible, or at least being informed by the decision.

We're making decisions informed by our policy choices, past, present, and future, and the demands that we're hearing from our constituents.

At its core, I think this is about fairness.

To close up, at its core, this is about fairness.

If companies want to tap into Seattle's power grid, they should help pay to strengthen it.

That's a reasonable expectation.

Can't just open up centers here and export the profits and benefits across Lake Washington, the Silicon Valley, wherever.

We need a better, more fair allocation of the benefits and burdens.

of these data centers.

So again, reasonable expectation.

That's why I support this resolution.

And Madam Chair, I ask to be listed as a co-sponsor.

Absolutely.

Mr. Clerk, and can we please add Council Member Sacca as a co-sponsor to this resolution?

All right, it is officially added for the record.

And with that, and thank you, Council Member Saka, and thank you for agreeing to be, thank you for agreeing to be the co-sponsor, I appreciate that.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the recommendation to adopt the resolution as amended?

Council Member Strauss?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Chair Juarez?

Aye.

Chair, there are three votes in favor and zero post.

Great, the motion carries.

Resolution 32204 will be sent to the June 9th full city council meeting.

And I am, before we move on to item two, I have a prepared statement that I would like to read into the record regarding this resolution and the moratorium that was passed this morning.

And I believe hopefully is a road map to where we're headed on AI and data centers.

Mega data centers and AI are new technologies that bring both innovations and unknown risks.

Seattle is a tech city.

This pause to study is intended to protect our residents and resources from unintended consequences of large data centers.

The passing of this resolution and the moratorium from Council Member Lynn's Land Use Committee earlier this morning are the first steps in ensuring protections are in place.

We are setting up a framework for much more work to be done.

We are learning more every week about mega data centers and AI, building our knowledge.

We have attended events hosted by GeekWire and the National History Museum.

We tracked nine data center AI bills during the state legislative session.

Only one bill, Senate Bill 5984 regarding AI chatbots was passed.

Our Policy Director Paul has been attending the Washington Attorney General's AI Task Force, which was created by Governor Ferguson in March of 2024. Recently at Public Comment and at our last committee meeting on May 20th, we learned from groups like 350 Seattle, the Troublemakers and Pearl Jam Guy, Since that meeting two weeks ago, on May 27th in our office, Thaddeus Gregory from Council Member Lynn's office, Eric from Central Staff also met with us when we had a meeting with Media Justice.

That was with Vivek Bahartham, the Data Center Fellow, Sanita Gonzalez, Head of Programs, and Jai Delany, Senior Research Specialist.

These are the folks at Media Justice.

If you get a chance, Google them.

Media Justice shared their work that they are doing across the country in this area.

They are also very informative resources that will be vital tools for the workgroup that is to be stood up by the moratorium in today's resolution.

On May 25th, and yes, I'm going to quote the Pope.

Where's Kelly?

My chief of staff wanted to make sure I read this into the record.

On May 25th, Pope Leo XIV released his encyclical stating, AI must serve humanity and not concentrate power.

He put forth that humanity should, quote, require that the use of goods of creation and the new possibilities offered by technology be regulated in such a way as to respect the environment, avoid waste and prevent new forms of exploitation.

In our meeting with Media Justice, they shared AI Now Policies Institute's North Star Data Center Toolkit, which will be a valuable guide for the work that we have laid out for the city while incorporating Seattle sensibilities.

The toolkit recommends any mega data center project includes, but not limited to the following.

An approved water usage plan to protect water resources An approved energy usage plan An approved noise mitigation plan A commitment to abide by zoning regulations A binding commitment to continued post-approval transparency requirements A binding commitment to abide by job quality standards and local targeted hiring for construction and data center jobs.

A displacement and holistic environmental impact report centering environmental justice considerations such as those emerging from redlined and fence line communities that establishes the data centers will not exasperate the displacement of residents and local businesses.

and in conclusion it called for by frontline communities a binding commitment to enforce community benefit agreements.

While we cannot look to the federal government for leadership, we can look to tribal governments.

The Seminole Nation was one of the first tribal councils to pass a moratorium on a hyperscale data setters in March of 2026. The Sotsuadal St. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians and many others have followed suit.

Tribes understand the excavation mentality and environmental degradation, and we know that it is not new to Indian country.

Misuke Band representative Glen Chabon Cornell said, this is the threshold.

There's no turning back.

Once we've used up and contaminated all of our water resources, this is it.

Today we follow the example that tribal nations have set.

We start on the path to ensure that we protect land and water usage, which are finite resources, the load on the electricity, on the electricity, can I say that word right?

Electrical, electrical grid.

residential utility rates, economic development, both land and use, and jobs, and public health impacts such as noise, light, water, and air pollution, and the rights of federally recognized tribes, urban Indians, and native communities to exercise any and all express or implied treaty rights to access and fish on all usual and accustomed places as has occurred since time immemorial.

Our office and the City Council is committed to continuing the work.

This Friday, June 3rd, staff members will be attending the 9th Annual Innovation and Technology Law Conference, Indigenous Perspectives on AI, Appropriation Regulation and Innovation, a virtual conference hosted by Seattle University School of Law.

I want to shout out to a dear friend of mine and former mentee, Miss Brooke Pinkham, member of the Nez Perce Nation, Ni Ni Ni Pu, director of the Northwest Center for Indigenous Law at Seattle U for convening this important event.

And I think it is the first of its kind in the Northwest.

We've certainly seen them across the country.

We are a city of technology.

This resolution is focused on responsible exploration of this new field for this and future generations.

It is vital we more completely understand the impact of data centers and hold data center developers accountable for their costs and impacts.

We must ensure data centers and companies do not pass the costs and long-term effects onto our residents, our health, our resources, our rivers, our watersheds.

With that, I want to thank my committee members, my vice chair, Councilmember Kettle, Councilmember Rivera, Councilmember Saka, and Councilmember Strauss.

In addition, I would like to thank my great staff, my chief of staff, Kelly Brown, who's out there in the audience, our policy guy, Paul Menefue, who's acting as our clerk today, Sophia Soares, who is still getting her graduate degree at University of Washington, what school is that again?

Evans School, who started working on this project in the fall of 2025. And of course, the City Council staff, Council Member Lynn and his staff, Thaddeus Gregory, and of course, who has been working shoulder to shoulder with us, Council President Joy Hollingsworth and her staff.

We have not only done the research and attended webinars and local tech events.

Like I shared before, we went to the GeekWire event hosted by Amazon.

We were meeting with the lawyers, tribal lawyers, analysts, environmental groups, the media justice folks.

We have reviewed court filings and pleadings.

We attended statewide stakeholder groups.

Basically, we've done as much research as we can.

And why we did this is because we care.

We know that these critical issues go beyond our job, their job, beyond our front door, beyond our city, beyond our state, beyond our country, and as you are witnessing now globally.

When we move forward with technology, we know it takes some time for society to catch up.

And with that, we aim to build high societal trust as we move forward in this new era of data centers and AI.

Thank you.

All right.

With that, Mr. Clerk, will you please read item number two and to the record?

Resolution 32206, a resolution related to the City Light Department acknowledging and approving the 2026 integrated resource plan.

There will be briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

So with that, we'd like to invite the City Light presenters to join us at the table.

Let me see what I have here.

I will let you guys, I should note that we haven't, which has been posted, the Integrated Resource Plan, the Summary and Fiscal Note, and the Integrated Resource Plan.

And with that, I'm going to let you understand that we, We are not taking a vote on this today, but we'll let you do your presentation.

All right, go ahead.

Good afternoon, Chair Juarez and committee members.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to present the City Light 2026 Integrated Resource Plan, or IRP.

My name is Siobhan Doherty, and I serve as Seattle City Light's Power Supply Officer.

I am joined today by members of our resource planning team, including Katie Ewing, Manager of Resource Planning and Analytics, and Vereen Martin and Rebecca Klein, Data Scientist in Resource Planning.

The integrated resource plan is City Light's long-term planning document looking ahead 20 years to ensure we can meet future electricity needs reliably, affordably, and sustainably.

The 2026 IRP is a full update and reflects continued load growth and evolving customer demand.

The plan was informed by engagement with external stakeholders and the community and is aligned with the city's climate and equity goals.

In closing, the IRP outlines City Light's approach to long-term planning and reliable service.

With that, I will turn it over to Katie Ewing to walk through the plan.

Thank you.

Thanks, Siobhan.

Can you guys hear me?

Yeah, great.

Okay, so Siobhan introduced the team, so I will skip that part, but the rest of our team is in the audience, and so we're excited to be here today.

Our agenda.

We are going to start with background and key takeaways, as well as the community outreach we did for the 2026 IRP.

We'll move then into model inputs and then our results and our call to action.

I'm driving two screens, so forgive me.

So integrated resource plan requirements.

The integrated resource plan provides a 20-year outlook considering many plausible futures and sets reliability standards to help guide City Light's resource acquisition to ensure reliable load service.

Every two years, City Light produces a 20-year plan that is approved by City Council and filed with Washington State Department of Commerce by September 1st.

It is an evaluation of customer power needs or load and power supply resource needs.

For this evaluation study, we used 900 weather variations to simulate hourly values for the 20-year study period.

The 20 years of future simulated hourly loads are compared to the 20 years of future simulated hourly generation.

from City Light's resource portfolio to check whether City Light's resource portfolio can produce power greater than or equal to the power needed by City Light customers.

The resource plan is a requirement from Washington state law, which requires all electric utilities with more than 25,000 customers to develop a comprehensive resource plans every two years that identify strategies to meet customers' electricity needs in the short and the long term.

Every IRP across all utilities is approved by their governing board and filed with the Department of Commerce by September 1st.

So while this is a regulatory requirement, we would do it anyways as a part of good business practice and planning to ensure the service we provide.

So what is the process to build an IRP?

It starts off as an opportunity for customers and stakeholders to share their vision of our future power supply in order to plan a reliable future.

It's a study of options for meeting electricity needs of customers to find solutions that balance priorities.

The goal of the analysis is to make sure we have enough resources to meet future customer electricity needs reliably, at the lowest cost possible, and in compliance with renewable energy and carbon reduction targets.

We analyze the future under a variety of scenarios.

The amount of electricity we use day-to-day can vary depending on temperatures, so when it's cold outside, we might use more power than when we are experiencing milder temperatures like today.

We currently rely on hydropower as the majority of our generation, so when we have more precipitation, we can generate more power, but when we experience drought conditions, we generate less power.

With climate change, we are experiencing more volatile and extreme conditions.

We also don't know exactly how customers will use electricity or the cost of acquiring new resources, so this is not a perfect forecast.

We are reacting to a changing landscape of load growth, increased electrification, and new and evolving resources.

So when we do our analysis, we look at a variety of different futures.

As I said, we run 900 variations of temperature and precipitation to find a portfolio of resources that ensures we can reliably meet customers' needs.

This 20-year forecast gives us a menu of potential futures.

It is not an acquisition plan.

This is a long-term outlook to inform our internal playbook for resource and transmission acquisition.

Finally, and very importantly, the timeline for completing these steps is long, and we are in a particular volatile operating environment.

For this analysis, we set the assumptions at the end of 2024. and we have seen dramatic changes in the energy industry over the past year.

The current presidential administration repealed tax credits for many renewable energy resources, which will increase the cost to acquire these resources.

The current administration also repealed tax credits for electric vehicles, affecting demand for EVs.

The picture of market availability in the Northwest has radically shifted with multiple studies identifying the possibility of resource shortages across the region during severe weather.

And there has been further and accelerated development of clean, firm resources such as enhanced geothermal.

This is one of the reasons we refresh our analysis every two years, and we'll be doing a deep dive in the next IRP to capture the changes as well as increasing volatility we are seeing across the industry.

Okay, I'm gonna now do a preview of our biggest IRP takeaways.

In recent years, we've seen increased electrification from both building and transportation.

This will further increase load growth, and that sustained load growth with winter peaks has increased weather volatility.

requiring increased resources, including transmission, to bring power from where it is generated to Seattle.

The resources that are non-emitting and readily available are intermittent resources such as wind and solar.

These types of resources are weather dependent, so they rely on the sun shining and the wind blowing.

which has made us increasingly interested in clean, firm technology energy solutions like enhanced geothermal that would be critical as part of City Light's future resource portfolio.

We will be doing a deeper dive on these resources in the next IRP.

So as I said before, an integrated resource plan is an opportunity for customer and stakeholders to share their vision for our future of power supply.

Part of the way we achieve this is by engaging with an advisory panel for that insight.

The IRP advisory panel is a group of 12 advisors that provide feedback on the development of our integrated resource plan.

The panel is composed of individuals representing customers, environmental organizations, regional energy-related governmental organizations, and academics.

There were five meetings with this advisory panel for this IRP.

Another way we collect information on a shared vision is dedicated and direct community outreach.

The Clean Energy Transformation Act, or CETA, has clear language that as we transition to 100% renewable non-emitting energy resources, we must ensure that we are not disproportionately burdening communities who have been historically harmed.

Beyond this requirement, we wanted to ensure we meaningfully engage our customers to have their input to inform our plans and priorities and work towards long-lasting relationships with our customers.

We approached this work very intentionally through an integrated approach where we coordinated across several utility-wide plans to avoid overtaxing the same communities whose burdens we were trying to reduce.

As such, we combined our outreach with other planning efforts, especially since much of the type of outreach was aligned.

Outreach began by first evaluating existing community engagement reports and then initiating outreach through 12 community events, 24 community conversations, we connected with 17 language communities and collected over 575 responses.

Reliability came through as customers' top priority, with affordability and environment also being very important.

Now I'm going to hand it to Rebecca, who will begin talking about our study inputs.

There we go, all right.

So the primary goal of the IRP is to identify a portfolio of resources that will allow City Light to continue reliably serving our load from now out to 20 years in the future at the most cost-effective price possible.

Before we can identify what new resources are needed, we first have to consider what is already in City Light's power supply portfolio.

This graphic is a map of the Northwest and highlights our existing resource portfolio.

Our owned hydropower resources are marked by the blue dots.

In particular, the three Skagit hydro plants are up on the western side of the North Cascades, and Boundary Dam is up in the northeast corner of Washington State.

The orange dot shows our treaty rights from British Columbia.

The black dots indicate our long-term hydro contracts, and the yellow dots demarc our other long-term contracts, in particular Condon Wind in the Gorge area of Northern Oregon.

City Light's power mix is typically around 80 to 85 percent hydropower, and about half of that is supplied by our Skagit and Boundary hydro projects.

Most of the remaining hydropower is purchased from the Bonneville Power Administration, a non-profit federal power marketing agency.

In addition to hydropower, about 8% of City Light's power mix is wind, and around 5% comes from purchases in the West's wholesale energy market.

Next slide.

Since around 40 to 45% of City Lights power supply is provided through a long-term contract with the Bonneville Power Administration or BPA, we want to talk about that a little bit more.

This map shows BPA service territory and the 31 dam federal hydropower network.

Layered on top are Seattle City Lights resources from the previous slide with our own hydro plants in navy blue.

BPA's service territory includes 30,000 square miles consisting of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, western Montana, and small portions of California, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming.

The dams are owned and operated by the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S.

Borough of Reclamation.

Additionally, BPA sells the output of the Nuclear Columbia Generating Station, which it buys from Energy Northwest, a joint operating agency formed by the public utilities that own it, which includes Seattle City Light.

Of note, BPA owns 75% of Pacific Northwest transmission, including 90% of the transmission City Light uses to meet load.

The statutes that created BPA mandate that it sell power at cost, which is a much lower cost power source than alternatives.

Seattle City Light buys power from BPA through a long-term contract, and it is an important component to serving load.

Speaking of load, one of the most important inputs into the IRP is the load forecast, which is how much electricity we expect our customers to use in the future.

The load forecast helps tell us how much new resource generation will need and when in order to continue reliably serving our customers' loads.

As a note, when we refer to megawatts, that is a unit of power.

One megawatt can power 1,100 single-family homes in Seattle.

On the graph, the horizontal axis shows time and years, and the vertical axis is load in average megawatts or peak load in megawatts.

The solid lines on the left are historical actual loads, and the dotted lines to the right are the forecasted load used in the 2026 IRP.

On the bottom is annual average load in average megawatts.

Our historic load was relatively flat due to aggressive energy efficiency efforts, even with underlying load growth in our area.

The upper line shows the peak load in megawatts.

Peak load is the megawatt from the single hour with the highest load for that entire year.

We have started to see peak load increasing as we've experienced more volatile weather.

In December of 2022, we reached the highest peak load we had seen in at least 30 years, and then we beat that peak in January 2024 by over 100 megawatts.

Our forecasted loads show a steady increase with peaks increasing faster than average load.

The arrows on the right side of the graph indicate some of the main drivers affecting our load.

Economic growth and electrification are driving the increases in electricity use, while energy efficiency and rooftop solar can help offset some of those increases.

In the appendix of this presentation, we have two slides comparing the load forecasts used in this 2026 IRP to previous load forecasts for your additional information if you would like it.

With these growing average loads and even faster growing peak loads, we will certainly need new resources to help us meet our loads in the coming years.

Due to this growing load, the IRP results indicate a need for new generating resources.

Our key modeled study years are on the horizontal axis, and along the vertical axis is the annual average generation in average megawatts of the portfolio created by our IRP model, shown as the stacked bars.

On top of that is our forecasted annual average load in average megawatts shown as the solid black line, and our forecasted peak load in megawatts shown as the dashed black line.

The bars representing the annual generation break out the energy contributions from different resource types.

On the bottom in green is the generation we get from our contract with the Bonneville Power Administration, or BPA.

Above that in dark blue is generation from City Light's owned hydropower, and the light blue is our other existing resources, like some small biogas contracts we have within the county.

The remaining four colors represent the new resources we will need to reliably meet load.

The brown shows the customer side resources, such as rooftop solar and demand response.

The orange shows new wind generation, and the yellow shows generation from new solar and short duration batteries.

At the top is the new firm energy resources in red, which I'll get back to in a minute.

You can see that the annual average generation is far greater than the average annual load, but below our projected peak load.

This is because the generation resources need to be able to reliably meet peak load on an hourly basis, even during extreme events.

That means that during non-extreme weather, which is most of the time, there is extra generation after we've met our own load.

That extra generation is usually sold in the wholesale energy market.

This portfolio can meet peaks through flexing our on-demand resources, such as our own hydro plants and demand response programs, as well as some limited access to the market.

Our need for new resources, especially firm energy, is heavily driven by sustained peaks, mostly in the winter.

For the primary IRP analysis, we limited supply resources to wind, solar, and short duration batteries.

These types of resources are rather dependent, and there's a risk of these resources not being available when we need them and impacting our ability to reliably meet customer needs.

Generic firm energy was layered on top to make sure our portfolio can reliably meet loads.

In the real world, firm energy as modeled in this IRP can represent things such as baseload resources like small modular nuclear reactors and enhanced geothermal, peakers like green hydrogen peaker plants, forward purchases like our power marketers already procure, and short-term contracts with firm energy provisions that can be negotiated by our power contracts team.

In a separate analysis, we evaluated other firm clean resources, such as enhanced geothermal and small modular reactor technology more in depth, as well as on-demand resources, specifically long duration storage and renewable peakers.

These resources showed significant value and will help meet future long duration events that are becoming more frequent.

We have seen significant changes in the operating environment over the past two years, including in policy, availability and development of firm resources, load growth, and regional energy needs.

Due to timing, these changes were not incorporated into this analysis.

This is part of the reason why we refresh the IRP every two years.

For the 2028 IRP, we will do a deeper analysis on firm resources and the critical role they will play in our portfolio in the future.

For now, I'll hand it off to Vereen to talk about how we will get this generation to Seattle.

Thanks, Rebecca.

In addition to new generation resources, the IRP also shows a critical need for additional transmission capacity to bring new and existing generation back to Seattle to serve our load.

Transmission is a system of high voltage wires that moves electricity around the region from generation resources to electric loads.

Similar to a few slides back, this slide shows a map of the Pacific Northwest and shows BPA's service area as the green region filling most of the map.

BPA's dams are shown as black half circles, and BPA's transmission network is shown as dark green lines.

The purple dotted lines are non-BPA transmission lines.

BPA operates 15,000 miles of high-voltage electric transmission, and as Rebecca noted earlier, that represents 75% of the total transmission in the Pacific Northwest and includes 90% of the transmission Seattle City Light uses to meet our load.

counting the transmission needed to move power generation at Boundary, one of City Light's owned large hydro projects.

So BPA's transmission system is critical for delivery of electricity from generation resources to serve our electric loads.

Seattle's own transmission lines and long-term transmission contracts are currently sufficient to serve our load, but as demand grows, our IRP results also identified the need for new transmission capacity in order to deliver generation from both new and existing resources to reliably serve our customers' electric load.

However, transmission is very difficult to build, and transmission projects take a very long time to complete.

In the Pacific Northwest, we've seen transmission projects take 15 to 20 years to build from start to finish.

To account for this, the IRP model did not allow transmission additions to Seattle City Light System until 2035. But starting in 2035, as soon as it was allowed, the model identified needed transmission additions along three different paths, which are represented by the blue arrows overlaid on this map.

The width of the arrows roughly corresponds to the relative magnitude of the needed transmission additions.

First, transmission from Montana to Central Washington is the smallest amount of transmission need we identified at an average of 56 megawatts of additional transmission capacity from 2035 to 2045. This is shown by the thinnest blue arrow going from east to west at the top of the map.

The next largest need the IRPA identified was for an average of 91 megawatts of new transmission capacity connecting Oregon to Seattle, which is represented by the medium blue arrow going from south to north.

And the largest need for additional transmission we found was along a path connecting Idaho to Oregon, represented by the thickest blue arrow going from east to west near the bottom of the map.

The IRP showed we need an average of 230 megawatts of additional transmission capacity from Idaho to Oregon.

And as you'll notice from the map, there is currently no transmission on BPA's system connecting Idaho directly to Oregon.

Now I want to zoom out a little bit to provide some larger context around these results.

The additional transmission needs we're talking about here are just what Seattle needs to get generated electricity back to our customers.

Other utilities are vying for that same transmission capacity.

as they're seeing their loads grow like we are.

For example, east to west transmission from Idaho to Oregon, the path of our largest need, is going to be particularly valuable to Portland as well.

Competing needs from others in the region adds further strain to our regional transmission system, making it even more urgent for Seattle to procure the transmission that we need to reliably serve our load.

This slide summarizes the new supply-side resource additions identified by the IRP that Seattle City Light would require in order to continue to meet our load reliably from now out through the next 20 years if we were to rely on only new wind, solar PV, and short-duration battery resources.

The totals are split up with the resource needs within the first 10 years of the IRP study in the left column, and additional resource needs in the second 10 years of the IRP study in the second or middle column, and finally the GRIN totals for each resource type are in the column on the right.

The bottom line in the table shows the total supply side generation resources needed for each period.

So you can see at the bottom of the table in the first column, the total new supply side resources needed just within the next 10 years comes to 1,711 megawatts.

These numbers indicate the need to add many times more new wind farms, solar PV projects, and short duration batteries to our portfolio in a shorter amount of time than we've ever achieved in the past.

A smaller quantity of advanced technology resources would be able to offset a large portion of the megawatts we need because they offer firm, non-weather dependent energy.

For that reason, they'll be critical to add to our portfolio as soon as possible.

On this slide, we've got two more tables with the same timeframes in each column as in the table on the previous slide.

The top table here shows City Light's new customer side resource additions that were identified in our previous modeling work.

Customer side resources are things that help the utility meet load with our customers' direct participation, such as conservation resources that help customers use energy more efficiently, demand response resources, and customer solar, also commonly referred to as rooftop solar.

Our model identified the need for 107 megawatts of new customer-side resources in the first 10 years of the same 20-year period as the IRP and 48 additional megawatts of customer-side resources needed in the second 10 years for a total of 155 megawatts over the next 20 years.

The bottom table shows our total resource need combining both new supply-side resources from the previous slide and customer-side resources from the table above.

The grand total resource need for the next 10 years is 1,818 megawatts and then in the following 10 years we're showing a total resource need of 1,920 megawatts more.

Over the next 20 years that means we're showing a grand total need of 3,738 megawatts.

The bottom line on the bottom table also shows our total transmission need over the same periods in order to get both existing resource generation back home as well as getting all of the generation from these new resources back to Seattle to meet our load.

In the first 10 years, we show a total need of 302 megawatts of new transmission.

And in the second 10 years, we show a need for 203 megawatts of additional transmission.

This means our total transmission need over the next 20 years is 505 megawatts.

And now I'll hand it back to Katie to wrap this up.

So I just wanted to give a recap of our main takeaways in this slide.

So increased electrification from building and transportation has led us to sustained load growth with winter peaks, including weather volatility, requiring increased resource need that have weather-driven intermittency, which has made us increasingly interested in advanced technology energy solutions and will be doing a deeper dive in future IRPs.

So now our call to action.

As I said, the requirement for utilities to create integrated resource plan also requires approval by the utilities governing body.

In Seattle City Lights case, that's City Council.

We request approval for the proposed resolution that approves the 2026 integrated resource plan.

The IRP report is included in the legislative packet as attachment went to the resolution.

And that is what we have to talk to you about today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You know what?

I didn't want you to think that I was bored.

I went through this stuff before, so I know that you're trying to get through it.

It's important.

First, let me ask if there's any questions.

Councilman Arsaka is listening.

He had to leave.

He had a hard stop at 4, but he's on the phone, so he can hear us.

Okay, great.

So, Councilman Arsaka, Councilman Strauss, are there any questions that you have of our guests before I ask a question?

I'll just say interest of time, I'll hold my questions for next meeting because I had a great conversation with the City Light team ahead of this meeting today.

A great amount of information, very dense information here and I just appreciate everyone's work.

I'll follow up at our next meeting in the interest of time.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

I just have one quick question.

You know, when we were looking at, we were talking amongst ourselves and we're talking with staff, you don't have to go back to it, but on slide 14, and then you end on slide, well, actually slide four, but I'm looking at 14 now, So, on the increased electrification, you have that on both of those.

Is that because the Feds, when they passed the Green New Deal in 2019, and then we passed it in August of 2019, is the direct result of that, the increased electrification?

I know that we moved all of our suites to all of our fleets I'm sorry to electricity and then we passed the Green New Deal as you know in 2019 I think it was customer O'Brien at the time we were following the Green New Deal AOC 2019 and then we did it in August 2019 so is that why we have all this increase in the increased electrification

I think the electrification is driven by a number of different things.

So we are seeing general growth in passenger vehicles that are being electrified.

I think Washington in particular has a great industry for electric vehicles because our power costs are so low and our gas prices tend to be high.

It makes economic sense for our customers.

also includes electrification related to fleets, related to public transit, related to the port, as well as the building emissions performance standard for Seattle.

So a number of different things are contributing to the increased electrification.

Okay.

And then I had one, and you're going to probably think this is a dumb question, but It was driving me crazy.

And I actually like maps.

On page eight, when you listed out all the BPA service area and where the federal dams were, first of all, I didn't see 31, so I had to count them on my own.

And then I realized, oh, shoot, they wrote it in there, 31 federal dams.

When you talked about Seattle City Light Resource, are you including dams and what else?

Because I'm looking like, what is Lucky Peak?

Is that wind, water, solar?

So what does that mean?

Yeah, so this includes both our owned resources and resources that we have a power purchase agreement with.

So we have a contract to get wind.

So Lucky Peak, for example, is a hydro dam.

So we have a contract with them.

And then we also have, I think on the previous slide, on slide seven, it's color coded to show what type of resource all of our own contracts are.

Oh, I see.

Lucky Peak's on there too.

Yes.

But it's not our dam.

No, it's not ours, it's owned by Idaho, but we have a contract for their generation.

Okay, so we have the dams that we own and then we have the dams that we contract with.

Exactly.

Those are the resources.

Yeah, because I was like, where the hell is Lucky Peak?

Okay, that was bugging me.

I know, it was a nerdy thing.

Okay, so is there anything else you guys want to add before we wrap up here?

No, I think so.

Do you think you got it all?

We will be, what does my note say?

Paul, when are we backing committee on this?

June 17th?

So are you going to have the same PowerPoint on June 17th?

Sure.

Well, you don't have to.

I'm just saying if you think you need to, I'm just asking.

I don't think we need to go back through the PowerPoint again.

We'll bring it so that if there are questions related to the PowerPoint, we can refer to the slides, but I don't think we need to present.

We don't have any additional information to present.

And one last question.

Why are you reporting back to Department of Commerce?

I know under state law that you have to do this.

Why DOC?

Do you know why?

If you don't know the answer, that's okay.

No, I don't know the history of that.

Yeah, because we don't have an energy, state energy.

We have Department of Ecology, but we don't have, and I think they tucked this type of stuff under DOC.

I know that when we were working on wind projects, and all of us were confused, like why is that there?

I didn't know if that was the bastion of expertise or not.

They do have a big energy group within the Department of Commerce and for the different regulatory requirements we have, some of them do go to the Department of Ecology and some of them go to the Department of Commerce.

The legislative history of why that is, I'm not sure.

Okay.

Do you know who's the head of DOC now?

There's an interim director, Sarah Clifthorn.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you guys.

Thank you so much.

And thank you for the PowerPoint, the summary fiscal note, What else, the resolution, the other big packet?

I believe some council members may be submitting written questions that we'll be forwarding to you.

Okay, so this will be back in committee.

On the 17th.

On the 17th, on June 17th, and then from there it'll go to full council in July, correct?

Okay, all right, thank you very much.

All right, so with that, since Councilor Strauss and Councilor Saka, is there anything good of the order here before we can wrap up today's agenda?

You good?

You had a great speech earlier.

Oh, thank you.

I have to leave it up to my staff.

Did you go on my end?

Thank you, Councilor Aversaka.

You know, I have a great staff and I've been on them and they never were paying attention to AI until I did.

And then every day I send them, did you read this?

Did you read this?

Did you see this article?

Did you go to this webinar?

Did you hear this podcast?

So they're annoyed with me.

But anyway, it was a culmination of all of that.

Alright, so we are going to move to adjourn.

We reached the end of today's agenda.

There are no more comments from my committee members.

And with that, we are adjourned.

And it is 4-18.

Thank you.

And thank you guests for coming.