Bill to stop MN cities and counties from signing non-disclosure agreements stalls in House committee

ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - A bipartisan attempt to stop Minnesota cities and counties from signing non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) stalled in a House committee today. 

READ MORE: Minnesota data centers: Bill proposes ban on officials entering nondisclosure agreements

Anti-NDA bill stalls in Minnesota House committee

Every Republican on the judiciary committee voted against the ban on NDAs, so the bill will not go to a vote of the full House, at least not yet.

A pair of Republicans joined a pair of Democrats in writing the bill, but that wasn’t enough to get support in committee.

The idea is to keep local governments from reaching agreements in secret, which has often been the case with data center development.

What they're saying:

"We want to make sure that there's transparency across the board and that the residents of their communities know that their local municipalities are working for them," said Rep. Drew Roach (R-Farmington). 

Sen. Erin Maye Quade (DFL-Apple Valley) said, "I want you to imagine a world in which we have Senate File 1, a bill for an act related to ‘redacted,’ appropriating $50 million for purposes of ‘redacted.’ That is what's happening in city councils right now."

Judiciary Republicans said the bill is essentially a ban on data centers, and a lot of the agreements are already subject to public records requests.

The bill still has a good chance of passing in the Senate, but its fate in the House is now very murky.

NDA backlash

Push to ban local MN governments from signing NDA

There is a push at the Minnesota State Capitol to ban local governments from being able to sign non-disclosure agreements. FOX 9's Mike Manzoni has more. 

The backstory:

Activists began urging lawmakers to ban non-disclosure agreements between local governments and tech companies, a practice that is sometimes used to shield the public from information when data centers are in development.

READ MORE: 'It was really a breach of trust': Commissioner regrets signing NDA for data center, supports ban

Aaron Klemz, the strategy officer at the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, a nonprofit which has sued cities and towns over data centers, explained that NDAs can obscure the details of proposed projects and their ownership.

"Sometimes they conceal the nature – first of all, the nature of what’s being proposed, who’s proposing it, and who would own it," he said. "You hear from developers that they need these non-disclosure agreements for early-stage conversations to kind of make sure that they don’t have properties snapped up...."

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, which plans to open a data center in Rosemount, said, in part: "Maintaining confidentiality during project development increases efficiency and speed by enabling all stakeholders to remain focused on the needs of the project."