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One of two incentive bills Nebraska lawmakers introduced hurriedly to lure a US$1.2bn data center construction project by an unnamed company took a swift leap ahead Thursday, after the state’s unicameral (one house) legislature voted unanimously to advance it, Omaha World-Herald reported.

The bill – whose language was for the first time debated by the full legislature  Thursday – would extend to large (US$300m-plus) data centers the state’s standing law that allows projects of certain size to get sales- and use-tax refunds, be exempt from property tax and get state refunds on local property taxes on IT hardware and software.

The World-Herald quoted senator Abbie Cornett as saying there was now a second company evaluating Nebraska as a potential location for another large data center.

“I believe this bill is absolutely essential to building Nebraska and providing good-paying, high-tech jobs for the state,” Cornett said.

Company planning to build the $1.2bn facility – a project so far referred to only by the codename “Project Edge” – is also evaluating sites in the neighboring Iowa, putting the two states in competition for what is expected to be a major economic boost to whichever area ends up being selected.

Now that it has passed the first full-legislature debate, the bill has to go through more reviews and two more legislative votes, after which the state’s governor has to decide whether to sign it into law.

Initial investment in Project Edge is expected to be $500m. The first phase alone is expected to be three times bigger than an existing large data center in Nebraska. Yahoo! has a 180,000 sq ft data center in La Vista, an Omaha suburb.

Nebraska legislators have introduced another bill to make their state more attractive for Project Edge.

The second bill would enable public power districts in the state to use whatever excess electricity they generate to negotiate lower energy rates for their data center customers or other new projects. Once negotiated, the lower rates – applicable only to high-load customers – would last for five years.