The Real Story – A Column – Take Our Poll Below

Another week and another hearing on Senate Bill 1586, the Oregon Jobs Act. The sponsors of this Bill just keep twisting the language and pounding the drum… “No Stand-Alone Data Centers.”  But let’s be clear, that is just a move to direct us all away from what is happening.  Yes, 1586 has some aspiration and functional elements that, to the general public, appear to be designed to create more jobs.  And yes, the sponsors pulled out the language expanding the Enterprise Zones from 5 years to 10 years… but that’s just an empty promise, as those same sponsors are promoting Governor Tina Kotek’s Bill 4078, which guarantees those 10-year deals that will fleece our schools of hundreds of millions in needed tax revenues.  All of that is but a misdirection designed by Senator Janeen Sollman to get her donor’s land into the Urban Growth Boundary. And the good Senator made an early Monday morning change to a key definition of 1586 – the definition of Advanced Manufacturing.

The Table Is Set In Hillsboro For A Corporate Energy Takeover – Sollman Is Licking Her Chops

No matter what you hear in News soundbites, specifically fed to our news media, more concerned with scrollers and likes, do not believe them.  The Herald has covered over 100 stories on our Valley and the Hillsboro Industrial and Data Center build-out.  We have proven and established that:

• Hillsboro has 500 acres of industrial land ready for development if any companies want to come to Oregon and bring jobs. They are not here.
• Hillsboro is not tracking or being open about how many Data Centers are here – The Herald has established and mapped out over 30, and land acquisitions for 10-15 more.
• Hillsboro has known about the Data Centers and their aggressive land options and purchases for years, and has actually aided them in taking the land we had from the 2014 Grand Bargain.  Despite calls to stop them, City leaders and planners did little.  Since its inclusion into the UGB, the 500 acres have been subject to a condition limiting Data Centers to no more than 21 acres, and that is one of the only reasons it remains unsold and undeveloped. Oregon is not missing out on any major employers- Hillsboro is ready for them to come here NOW!
• Senator Janeen Sollman, Hillsboro Mayor Beach Pace, METRO Juan Carlos Gonsalez, and County Commissioner Pam Treece have all received campaign monies from landowners of the 1,700 acres and/or their lobbyists.  None has disclosed these conflicts.
• We have shown that the Big Three – BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street (Private Equity Firms) now hold controlling interests in:
  • PGE
  • NW Natural Gas
  • Pacific Power
  • And several of the Data Centers and Massive BESS Battery Arrays in Washington County
  • Nothing happens in the associated energy, Data, or land. construction businesses that they do not get paid for.
• The need for more land is not proven Statewide for advanced manufacturing or jobs. Many communities have the land, the utilities, and the desire to have jobs, yet the money interests are pushing the Hillsboro Agenda.
• Hillsboro has established itself as one ofthe three most important Internet Fiber Rings in the world by combining 8 trans-Pacific submarine fiber cables running through the town with massive power and infrastructure.  Not only has the Enterprise Zone been established to give every single Data Center player at least 5 years of free property taxes.
• Hillsboro has the fastest connection to the Far East, the entire Pacific Rim, and especially the People’s Republic of China.  80% of all Internet traffic from the US to China runs through Hillsboro’s Ultra High-Speed connections and data centers.  This is a world-leading spot
• Every single Oregon Senator or Representative who is sponsoring 1586 has received money from energy sectors that stand to gain huge if this Bill passes.

TESTIMONY FROM AN AMAZON EXEC- SB 1586 Hearing-

“I spent my career building the exact type of infrastructure this bill contemplates. As an executive at Amazon Web Services (AWS), my teams helped enable Moderna to use cloud computing to develop its COVID vaccine. Before that, at Cray, I helped build, sell, and deliver the largest supercomputers on this planet for organizations like GE and the Department of Energy.

I’m here because my experience tells me that SB 1586 has serious structural problems.

1. The Definition Loophole is Real. The bill references ‘advanced manufacturing,’ but as of July 2025, the industry definition was updated to include AI-related data centers as advanced manufacturing. This is not hypothetical; this is how the industry already thinks and talks about this work. Under SB 1586, an AI data center qualifies as both the ‘manufacturing anchor’ and the ‘data center’ itself. The restriction effectively cancels itself out.

2. The Footprint Argument is Obsolete. Data center technology is shrinking rapidly. Power density per rack has increased 50-fold in the last five years. Facilities being built today are already being outpaced by next-generation designs. Converting 1,700 acres of prime farmland for infrastructure that may be obsolete within a decade is what we call a ‘one-way door’ decision.

3. The Threat of ‘Data Center Ghost Towns’ What is Oregon’s plan for data center ghost towns in 10, 20, or 30 years? Even campuses like Intel’s are already at risk for shrinkage. We should be planning and transitioning existing facilities, not building new ones.

The Core Question: If this land is truly for ‘advanced manufacturing,’ those facilities fit comfortably in thousands of underutilized industrial acres elsewhere. But if it is for data centers, then the bill is being falsely advertised. Therefore, I ask you to vote ‘No’ on this bill.”

Barry Bolding – Former Amazon Executive

Definitions Matter – Sollman Sets Up AI Computing Across This Expansion

Now consider all of that – hmmmm.   Oregon has land everywhere for Industry.   All the politicians working on this Bill are lined up with big energy and the data centers.   The most critical players (Sollman, Pace, Gonsalez, Treece) have mingled with the landowners enough to take funds from them.  The landowners stand to go from protected farmland to full-blown industrial, which in Hillsboro means $1,000,000 per acre based on active sales.  Maybe more.  That’s 1.7 billion in gains.   Money- Power- Land.  When will the lies end, and someone just admit what is really happening? Here is it-

The only place the Big Three want to be right now is in Hillsboro. With 1,700 acres of new land, the new Willamette Water Pipe now connected to Hillsboro, and new PGE/BPA power grid upgrades are coming; this is where they want to expand.  They have established a massive Data and Energy hub here and completed dozens of projects, contractors on the ground, and all the money in the world.   So now all that is needed is a pliable or gullible set of politicians and hungry landowners, and they can run the table.  AI is exploding, and the gold rush is now.  Nowhere can they move faster with this level of connectivity and tax breaks. This Bill and this expansion are NOT ABOUT JOBS – it is a Trojan Horse for the Big Three.  And they are buying this decision.  If this passes, it will be these influences and not the merits of the falsely named Oregon Jobs Act.

Given all of this, the most telling proof of the statements and facts I have posted, which confirm what Senator Sollman is really doing, can be found in the changes she made to the definition of Advanced Manufacturing.  In the wee hours of the night on Sunday, she posted an amendment to Senate Bill 1586 to alter the definition of Advanced Manufacturing, the words she uses to define what jobs are coming to the 1,700 acres.  

Here is what Sollman did: in what is now called the “Dash-Four” ammendment:

According to the current legislative draft, the amendment defines Advanced Manufacturing as follows:

“Advanced manufacturing” means:

1. The production of semiconductors or other high-technology products;

2. The use of innovative technologies to improve products or processes; or

3. Any activity that supports the supply chain or ecosystem of the semiconductor or high-technology industry.

By including “any activity that supports the ecosystem,” the bill effectively opens the door for:

• Data Centers: Which “support the ecosystem” by providing the computing power/storage for high-tech firms.

• Warehouses: Which “support the supply chain.”

• Infrastructure/Utilities: Substations and massive cooling facilities.

On July 23, 2025, the Federal government issued Executive Order 14318, which officially reclassified large-scale AI data centers as ‘Industrial Infrastructure’. Senator Sollman’s -4 amendment mirrors this federal pivot perfectly. Section 2(1)(a)(A)(i) now defines ‘Advanced Manufacturing’ as activities that depend on the ‘coordination of information, computation, software, and networking’.

That is the statutory definition of a Data Center. By adopting this language, Sollman and her sponsors aren’t protecting Hillsboro from server farms; they are giving them a legal fast-track to our rural reserves. Under the new definitions of Advanced Manufacturing, it will be automatic for the same companies already using these July 2025 federal definitions to build data centers:

Three major Hillsboro players, Aligned Data Centers (BlackRock), Digital Realty (Vanguard), and STACK Infrastructure, have already filed for federal permits under the new ‘Industrial Infrastructure’ standard. They aren’t building factories for people; they are building power-hungry hubs for machines and doing so by calling it manufacturing.  These facts guarantee the people of Hillsboro that the “No stand-alone data centers” language has no effect and is null and void. 

If this Bill passes, we will see the biggest data centers we have ever seen, and Hillsboro will permit them as “Advanced Manufacturing”.  Sollman knows this, as do any of the intelligent minds in the room, as well as all of the “experts” giving supporting testimony, which are very few and far between.

Definitions matter. When ‘Advanced Manufacturing’ is rewritten to mean ‘Data Centers,’ the law becomes a lie. Senator Sollman’s -4 amendment is the smoking gun that proves SB 1586 was never about jobs—it was about a 1,700-acre payday for private equity and a handful of wealthy landowners. We’ve mapped the centers, we’ve tracked the donors, and now we see the loophole. The question is: Will the rest of the Legislature see it too, or will they let the ‘Trojan Horse’ of the Oregon Jobs Act trample the Grand Bargain? The clock is ticking on the Tualatin Valley. It’s time to call this what it is: a corporate energy takeover, written in the ‘wee hours’ to ensure you never saw it coming.

By mirroring the federal shift to ‘Industrial Infrastructure,’ this amendment ensures that even if a project is 100% machines and 0% workers, it still qualifies for the tax breaks and land your ancestors spent a century protecting.

A Message to Senator Sollman, Mayor Pace, and others:

Many people like me want good jobs- I am sure you do too.  We do NOT WANT ANY MORE DATA CENTERS.  If you want to show us that you are interested in Job for Oregonians and this land is needed for those jobs, REAL JOBS, then amend SB 1586 to BAN ALL DATA CENTERS on the land you’re so desperate to bring in.  Failure to do so proves your true intentions and allegiance to the Big Three, not your constituents… Do you remember us?  I am waiting for your responses. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

TESTIMONY SO FAR:  738 Written Pieces of Testimony – 95% Are In Opposition – read them all here. 

What Do Your Think?

NEXT UP – One Last Hearing And a Possible Work Session

Senate Committee On Finance and Revenue

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Meeting Details 02/23/2026 8:00 AM, HR A

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SB 1586