California signs a law requiring water and workforce disclosures before data-center approvals

October 5, 2026 · Sat Singh

Subjects: california · data-centers · water-use

What changed

The governor signed Assembly Bill 2469 on September 21 (Chapter 436), adding Government Code section 65964.7. A city or county may not approve a permit or other entitlement to build a data center, or to expand one so that its maximum peak water use rises, until the applicant has provided a water supply assessment, projected water use and efficiency measures, and workforce disclosures: composition, job classifications, employment duration, wage ranges and benefits, and the shares of workers living in the county and state. From January 1, 2028 applicants must also file a water scarcity plan with measures for each drought level, abnormally dry to exceptional. The applicant must pay the full cost of any water conveyance, treatment, storage or distribution upgrades the water supplier says the project needs. Meeting the conditions does not oblige approval. The law applies to charter cities.

Why it matters here

The law applies to every California city and county, charter cities included, so a valley city or county asked to approve a data center would need these disclosures filed first. The bill itself names no local project.

Sources

AB-2469 Data centers: water use disclosures (Chapter 436, chaptered version of 09/21/26) — California Legislative Information (2026-09-21)
California Constitution, Article IV, Section 8 (when a statute takes effect) — California Legislative Information

Not confirmed by us

The bill prints no general effective date. Under the Constitution's rule for a statute enacted at a regular session (a January 1 after a 90-day period), it would take effect January 1, 2027. That date is our reading of that rule, not a date in the bill; only the January 1, 2028 water scarcity plan date is stated in the bill.
The bill text does not define 'data center' or set a size threshold, so the text alone does not say which facilities are covered.
We read the chaptered bill and the constitutional rule, not the Water Code provisions the bill cites for the water supply assessment, and we have not checked how any city or county will apply the law.

How this was made: researched and written at the desk with AI; every figure checked against its source by Claude Haiku (subagent), with a planted-error test the check caught; published by Sat Singh on October 5, 2026.