{"id":814,"date":"2026-09-11T09:39:50","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T09:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frontierhousingreport.com\/?p=814"},"modified":"2026-09-11T09:39:50","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T09:39:50","slug":"data-center-of-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frontierhousingreport.com\/?p=814","title":{"rendered":"Data Center of Attention"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This article appears in the\u00a0October 2026\u00a0issue of<\/em>\u00a0The American Prospect\u00a0magazine.<\/em>\u00a0If you\u2019d like to receive our next issue in your mailbox, please\u00a0subscribe here.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Why OpenAI Hired Chuck Schumer\u2019s Daughter Away From Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re seeing a little bit of a citizens\u2019 revolt on all this,\u201d says Doug Jones, marveling at the crowds turning up to his midsummer town halls in Alabama. In Westover, near Birmingham, Jones spent three hours with his audience, discussing their concerns and taking unscripted questions. In the aerospace and defense hub of Huntsville, 600 people turned up. At Troy University near Montgomery, another couple hundred came out.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s on Alabama voters\u2019 minds this midterm season? Data centers.<\/p>\n

Jones briefly served in Congress after winning a Senate special election nearly a decade ago. He\u2019s now running for governor, and says that data centers are nudging out affordability issues once thought to be the election\u2019s main focus. These giant facilities and the furious pace of AI development worries everyone, from true believers to Luddites. \u201cIt\u2019s truly exploded across the political landscape like nothing I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d Jones tells me in a phone interview.<\/p>\n

Data centers have \u201cmoved to the top of the list of things that people are concerned about, because it is something they can vocalize,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt is something that they believe that they can address directly because it\u2019s coming at them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In November, Jones faces Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the former Auburn University football coach. In his glory days, Tuberville dazzled the state\u2019s passionate fans in a place where the college game is bigger than the NFL. Today, he\u2019s the butt of jokes about living in Florida. The latest case about his residency is now pending with the Alabama Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

More from Gabrielle Gurley<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The two men have tangled before in this ultraconservative state. Coach Tuberville easily knocked Jones out of office when he ran for a full Senate term in 2020. The Cook Political Report rates the governor\u2019s race \u201csolid R\u201d and describes Jones\u2019s chances as a \u201clongshot.\u201d But their election analysis allows that Jones is \u201cquite possibly the only Alabama Democrat with a prayer of competing statewide.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Jones wants to take a closer look at the financial consequences for cities and towns, Tuberville is bullish on data centers as \u201cgold mines.\u201d Alabama voters worry that data centers don\u2019t bring in as much money for state or local services as promised. Several years of construction jobs are a godsend for locals, but the lack of longer-term jobs, utility costs, and environmental consequences seem suspicious to Alabamians, especially rural voters seeing farmlands and wild spaces being obliterated.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the AI tech bros at the MANGOS (an acronym of the leading AI firms: Microsoft, Anthropic, Nvidia, Google, OpenAI, and SpaceX) float above it all, cushioned by their trillions while everyday Americans navigate the second Gilded Age.<\/p>\n

ON SOCIAL MEDIA,<\/strong> President Trump has taken a stab at trying to persuade everyday people to get on board with data centers: \u201cThe only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign \u2026 China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement. Actually, they can\u2019t believe it is happening!\u201d<\/p>\n

There is perhaps no greater example of the White House bubble. While Trump tries to please Big Tech, data centers have gone from a sleeper issue to one of the most hotly contested topics of the 2026 midterms. Just a year ago, public opinion on data centers was split. Today, 75 percent of registered voters surveyed in an August Heatmap Pro\/Embold Research poll oppose them, with 61 percent strongly opposing them. Other recent polls have yielded similar numbers, with Democrats and independents united in opposition\u2014and Republicans right up there with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019ve seen a political backlash about other technologies emerge as rapidly as the one about data centers has developed,\u201d says Darrell M. West, a senior fellow in the Brookings Center for Technology Innovation\/Governance Studies program.<\/p>\n

The nationwide pushback stems from data centers\u2019 major downsides: spiking electricity prices, air and noise pollution, predatory land and water deals, and forgone state and local revenues. Even Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has stark warnings. \u201cAI will either be the greatest equalizer ever invented, or the worst source of injustice,\u201d he writes on his website. \u201cLocal communities are already raising concerns about the energy and water needed for data centers. Without solutions, some groups will push for stopping AI development and deployment altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the undercurrent at work. Data centers have emerged as a stand-in for Americans\u2019 broader discomfort with the AI revolution. Rare are the tech progenitors like Gates who can authoritatively break down the cost-benefit equation of a technology that spits out pink slips, spawns confident-sounding chatbots, and corrodes teacher-and-student learning\u2014advances occurring at such fantastic speeds that the average user can\u2019t absorb one before the next appears.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have sort of a latent sense that something\u2019s wrong here,\u201d says Peter John Loewen, a Cornell University professor of government. \u201cAnd data centers are a very easy way to express opposition to those things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democratic and Republican candidates are competing to come to grips with these gargantuan AI computing facilities. Don\u2019t think so? Just talk to the good people of Festus, Missouri, who voted out four council members who burdened the city with a data center project. Elsewhere, nearly 30 municipalities have held recalls driven by data center issues.<\/p>\n

The data center disruption reconfiguring midterm election debates isn\u2019t a great leap backward. It\u2019s a quality-of-life SOS for people concerned that if they don\u2019t make their voices heard, they\u2019ll find themselves surrounded by mammoth warehouse-like structures that no one wants to see, hear, or live near.<\/p>\n

A COLUMNIST FOR THE NEVADA INDEPENDENT, <\/strong>John L. Smith, broke down the state\u2019s situation this way: \u201cThe days of waiting for the public to cool down on this issue are over.\u201d<\/p>\n

The federal government\u2019s decision to cut Nevada, Arizona, and California\u2019s Colorado River allocations put data centers\u2019 water usage under a microscope. Nevada will lose 17 percent of its Colorado River share for two years; southern Nevada is poised to lose 70 percent. Amid this new reality, the sector\u2019s growing impacts have alarmed Nevada residents living in the driest state in the country.<\/p>\n

Nye County, the state\u2019s largest by land area, isn\u2019t subject to the Colorado River allocations. But with the underground aquifer they rely on seriously stressed, local officials passed a total ban on data centers in August. Concerns about water have also prompted Reno to extend its data center moratorium until 2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number one issue that came up every single stop, unfortunately, was a united fear across demographics: Democrats, Republicans, independents, urban, rural, suburban,\u201d says Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, about his statewide conversations with residents. \u201cThey want to stop their electricity bills from going up, to protect their land and their water, and transparency around what these companies are doing and how it\u2019s going to impact them,\u201d he told the Prospect<\/em>.<\/p>\n

There are about 70 projects in operation or in various stages of development in Nevada. By way of comparison, Virginia and Texas have hundreds. But given the water and energy constraints, it\u2019s hard to understand how the state can sustain the industry.<\/p>\n

Read: Take this data center and shove it<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

One company, Fleet Data Centers, has asked the Nevada power authority, the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada, to approve building natural gas and diesel power plants for its facilities at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center in western Nevada, since the state\u2019s largest utility can\u2019t meet its needs.<\/p>\n

Nevada does have an additional power option that the AI hyperscalers are counting on: heat energy from deep inside the Earth. The state is the second-largest geothermal producer in the country after California. Google recently signed a contract with Ormat, a geothermal producer, for 150 megawatts of power to be delivered between 2028 and 2030.<\/p>\n

Why are data center developers so invested in a place with severe water and energy problems? One reason is tax breaks. Nevada offers a sales and use tax abatement as low as 2 percent for 10 to 20 years on qualified capital equipment purchases, plus generous personal property tax cuts and other incentives.<\/p>\n

The Nevada Independent reported that Nevada has given up $457 million in state tax revenue since the legislature approved the abatement in 2015. Over the past eight years, local governments have forfeited $537 million in sales and use tax revenues. The Governor\u2019s Office of Economic Development only has access to projected abatements, not the actual revenue figures. The limited access raises questions about how companies are navigating the tax abatement regulations.<\/p>\n

In what\u2019s shaping up to be a close contest, Joe Lombardo, the Republican incumbent, has argued that data centers adhering to local regulations and behaving \u201cresponsibly\u201d should be welcome. (Presumably, tax repeals aren\u2019t on the welcome wagon.) His endorsement of continued development came after $2 million in campaign contributions from donors with an interest in the AI build-out.<\/p>\n

As a state senator, Ford was one of the original primary sponsors for the 2015 tax statute. He helped gain bipartisan support for the measure as a job creation vehicle to help Nevada emerge from the Great Recession, long before AI technology and related infrastructure became commercially viable.<\/p>\n

Candidate Ford has embraced a pause on tax cuts; auditing data centers to determine if they are upholding agreements with local governments; and canceling those agreements if they\u2019re found wanting. He has also pledged to fight plans for data centers on federal land\u2014a controversial proposition in the West\u2014and to protect fresh water supplies. His energy-focused specifics include mandates that operators pay for the energy they consume and contribute to grid updates.<\/p>\n

Nevada\u2019s water cuts and their impact on data center development are likely to define the rest of the election season. The Center for Economic and Policy Research suggests that the crisis calls for \u201ca moratorium on the development of new data centers in the basin while research examines current consumption levels. If data centers\u2019 water consumption exceeds a large percentage of the home state\u2019s allocation, new development should be permanently halted, and data centers should be relocated or dismantled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ford filed Nevada\u2019s lawsuit against the Trump administration\u2019s cuts, and a Nevada state legislative committee finally showed its hand, moving a bill that lawmakers will consider in 2027. It would repeal tax breaks and place a moratorium on data center expansions and new construction. After the state filed its lawsuit, the Ford and the Lombardo campaigns did not respond to requests for comment on whether they would support a statewide moratorium.<\/p>\n

\u201cIRRESPONSIBLE, BURDENSOME, RECKLESS.\u201d <\/strong>Gov. Josh Shapiro got the message. In a Facebook video touting his August executive order to decelerate hyperscale data center construction in Pennsylvania, Shapiro admitted that he was prompted by voter comments, texts, phone calls, and in-person meetings. Residents being \u201cbullied\u201d and \u201cbulldozed\u201d by data center real estate developers and lawyers? Not happening anymore on the governor\u2019s watch. Don\u2019t want a data center? Shapiro will say, \u201chell no.\u201d Nondisclosure agreements for state officials are out; community controls are in.<\/p>\n

Read more What You Missed by Not Watching Trump Last Night<\/a><\/p>\n

The new plan is one of the more deliberate and comprehensive data center frameworks in the country. Known projects must be made public. Annual reports on water and energy consumption would be mandatory for existing data centers. The state would evaluate emissions policies for data centers\u2019 backup generators.<\/p>\n

Electricity pricing considerations included interventions with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission to expedite new energy-sector rulemakings that would ensure that PJM, the regional grid operator, levies appropriate costs for data centers\u2019 own energy consumption and protects residential consumers. Clean-energy generation projects would be sited on brownfields and other disused industrial sites to provide additional power.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not often that a governor trying to attract economic development pushes back against an entire business sector. But it\u2019s more surprising for Shapiro, who is making one of the sharpest 180-degree turns known to humankind. Last year, he was ready-set-go to do business with Amazon, whose $20 billion investment in AI and cloud computing data centers on multiple campuses was the state\u2019s largest-ever capital investment deal. Shapiro had slotted Amazon into the state\u2019s fast-track permitting program created late in 2024. Under the executive order, all data centers have been ejected from the program; future projects will not be eligible.<\/p>\n

Up for re-election and reportedly keen on a White House run, the Amazon deal positioned Shapiro, as a business-friendly governor, ready to glide back into Harrisburg next year. The presumptive Republican sacrifice, state Treasurer Stacy Garrity, has been tagging him on the reversal and on taking campaign contributions from individuals and firms with data center and AI ties.<\/p>\n

Shapiro didn\u2019t slap data centers with a moratorium or tax abatement repeals. But tax breaks are now contingent on meeting the state\u2019s Governor\u2019s Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) standards, a roster of energy, environment, and transparency mandates that hinge on local approvals.<\/p>\n

Keeping tax dollars at home may prove even more popular than moratoriums. Tax exemptions have been paused in Arizona and Illinois. But they were contentious in Virginia, a Democratic trifecta state, disrupting budget negotiations and taking the state within days of a government shutdown. Democratic state senators wanted a repeal. Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, and the House of Delegates opposed the move, fearing that it would devastate Virginia\u2019s lucrative data center sector. The quest for repeal failed, but not before state senators obtained a major concession: a two-year energy consumption tax.<\/p>\n

Like New York Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s one-year ban on hyperscale data centers, Shapiro\u2019s move is a reminder that most governors\u2019 public-wrath radar is more fine-tuned for concrete responses than Washington\u2019s\u2014at least during elections, storms, or public-health crises like the pandemic. But Democratic governors aren\u2019t the only ones scrambling. Republican gubernatorial hopefuls trying to sidestep President Trump\u2019s data center \u201cbigger than oil\u201d claims include Florida\u2019s Byron Donalds, Ohio\u2019s Vivek Ramaswamy, and Wisconsin\u2019s Tom Tiffany, who is so desperate to differentiate (despite a fairly modest reform plan) that he calls his Democratic opponent \u201cData Center David Crowley.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott faced similar challenges, and paused 474 gigawatts of new connections to ERCOT, the state\u2019s fragile and increasingly unreliable power grid. The applications constituted five times ERCOT\u2019s record peak electricity demand, nearly all of them from data centers. Abbott ordered ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission of Texas to perform audits to discover how data centers planned to provide their own power, water, and noise abatement strategies. Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate candidate, has also released a plan.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/em> reported that Texas Republicans aren\u2019t impressed. Their \u201cBreak Rank\u201d movement has rejected Abbott\u2019s stances on data centers and shifted support to his Democratic challenger Gina Hinojosa, who wants a moratorium. One of her ads depicts a woman asking a chatbot: \u201cWhy is my electric bill going up?\u201d The answer? \u201cGreg Abbott. Abbott took $20 million in campaign donations from data center executives and companies and he gave them billions in tax breaks.\u201d<\/p>\n

THERE ARE SOME TWO DOZEN<\/strong> data center sites in Alabama, including 12 that are planned or under construction. \u201cHistorically in Alabama and like a lot of other states, if an investor comes in and dangles a $1 bill in front of a politician\u2014they\u2019re like a cat chasing a laser pointer. They\u2019re going after it without really [considering] the long-term consequences,\u201d says Doug Jones.<\/p>\n

In April, state lawmakers in Montgomery took some very modest moves to rachet down voter fury, reducing the time period that data centers could use the state\u2019s tax abatements to 20 years, down from 30, unless they meet higher investment guidelines. They also required data centers larger than 100 megawatts to begin paying the state\u2019s sales and use taxes.<\/p>\n

A separate mandate requires that data centers pay the full cost of energy they use without passing those costs on to other ratepayers. (Alabama Power froze its rates through 2027, though the utility cautions that \u201cbills can still change with usage.\u201d) But an Inside Climate News analysis found that the proposed data centers, once completely built out, would use more energy than \u201call of the homes in Alabama combined.\u201d Alabama\u2019s Public Service Commission must determine how to handle that demand.<\/p>\n

Residents, Jones says, don\u2019t have a high regard for executives at Alabama Power or the Tennessee Valley Authority, the country\u2019s largest public power company, either. \u201cThey don\u2019t trust when officials are telling them, \u2018Oh, they\u2019re going to pay for their own power uses. They\u2019ll pay for their own water,\u2019\u201d he explains. \u201cElectricity rates have gone up in different places, so people are looking to some of these existing monstrosities out there and saying, \u2018Wait a minute, this ain\u2019t working out for those folks the way it was represented.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

If elected, Jones has pledged a yearlong statewide moratorium. He sees holes in the state\u2019s data center regulations and wants to ban local officials from signing nondisclosure agreements (NDAs), create a permitting database, mandate public notices, and require ethics disclosures, among other moves. Tuberville doesn\u2019t think there\u2019s anything for Alabama to worry about. Any concerns are \u201cbullcrap,\u201d he says, courtesy of China.<\/p>\n

Jones counters that Alabama has a serious problem. \u201cThe fear of corruption is an underlying concern that folks just don\u2019t talk about, but we\u2019ve just seen it too many times in this state,\u201d he says. That fear is already on display in Birmingham, where a lawsuit has been filed against the city and Nebius, a Netherlands-based AI infrastructure and cloud company, which are working together on a data center plan in the city\u2019s Oxmoor neighborhood. The suit alleges that the new project is advancing despite a pause to study how data centers fit into the city\u2019s long-term planning.<\/p>\n

SOME CANDIDATES ARE BETTER PLACED<\/strong> to figure out what\u2019s at the root of voter distrust. Running for his second term in the Kentucky General Assembly, state Rep. Adam Moore, a Lexington Democrat, admits his constituents in sections of Fayette and Jessamine Counties are concerned about being left on the hook for any new infrastructure that a data center might need.<\/p>\n

But their issues go beyond electricity prices. \u201c[Residents\u2019] energy costs have been going up enough anyway, so they\u2019re already mad at their utility providers about that, so that\u2019s not a new mad, that\u2019s an existing mad,\u201d he says. \u201cMost people have never talked about NDAs \u2026 Now you hear 20 times a day [about] NDAs that have been signed by planning commission members, or the mayor, or the county judge executive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brookings\u2019 West says NDAs make people assume the worst-case scenarios about data centers. \u201cWe suggest tech companies get rid of the NDAs and be much more open about what the deal is,\u201d he says. So far, this battle has persuaded Microsoft to dispense with local government NDAs and terminate the remaining ones.<\/p>\n

Yet data center construction on brownfields has been a selling point for communities interested in putting industry-scarred parcels to use that would be left vacant. Moore points to eastern Kentucky, where residents have been plagued by high utility bills. \u201cThere is theoretically excess capacity on the grid,\u201d he argues. \u201cSo locating a data center on a brownfield that\u2019s an old coal site actually could take the load off and actually potentially stabilize rates or maybe even drop rates for those regional customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the Industrial Revolution took hold, factories rose in the eastern sections of cities because the western prevailing winds would move the noxious emissions away from city dwellers. Loewen, the Cornell professor, believes data centers face a similar set of less-worse siting decisions that industrial-policy officials and local government leaders will figure out eventually\u2014but not soon enough for candidates vying for votes. \u201cIt\u2019s much harder for governors than it is for a local representative, right?\u201d he says. \u201cIf I\u2019m running in a congressional district, my argument doesn\u2019t have to be \u2018No data centers anywhere.\u2019 It just has to be \u2018No data centers here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

What does Moore expect from Kentucky\u2019s Republican lawmakers confronted by a seething electorate in an election year? \u201cThe majority will feel a need to take action and do something. I imagine it will be focused on ratepayer protection.\u201d Democrats, by contrast, \u201cwill take up more local transparency, and hyperscale data center tax repeals, and environmental protection,\u201d he says. Even Moore\u2019s Republican colleagues in the supermajority Kentucky legislature are coming around to modifying tax abatements, after a Republican Senate leader said that the levy was no longer necessary.<\/p>\n

IN 2025, JEROME TOWNSHIP, OHIO, <\/strong>was strapped. Its fire department and other services couldn\u2019t handle the 84 emergencies that two Amazon data centers racked up since 2021. One fire took about 30 hours to extinguish. Amazon had secured generous local property and state sales tax breaks for the facilities. The Jerome fire chief described data centers as having \u201cno value added to our community,\u201d adding that \u201cthey continue to be a drain on local and regional resources every day.\u201d Local officials decided on a moratorium.<\/p>\n

Outgoing Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, had sought to rectify fiscal problems like Jerome\u2019s in May by pausing new data center tax exemptions. Like Virginia, Ohio has a robust data center presence that was a source of pride until state leaders revealed that Ohio lost out on more than $1 billion in revenues since 2024.<\/p>\n

But these days, state and national Republicans are less concerned about the governor\u2019s pause than they are about a \u201cdead-heat\u201d U.S. Senate race between former Sen. Sherrod Brown and current Sen. Jon Husted. In May, the National Republican Congressional Committee had distributed a : \u201cRepublicans are united, well-funded, and executing a clear strategy to win in November.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then the real story leaked. Brown has called Husted \u201cthe face of data centers\u201d and has laid all of Ohio\u2019s data center origin stories and current frustrations on his doorstep. Data centers were destroying Husted and the party. \u201cIf voters\u2019 perceptions of data centers are not fixed quickly,\u201d the National Republican Senatorial Committee wrote, \u201cthe campaign against them will expand far beyond Ohio.\u201d<\/p>\n

It has. In early September, the US Data Center Moratorium Tracker listed nearly 300 moratoriums enacted across the country in 44 states. \u201cWe do not have the luxury of moving slowly,\u201d Gates says. \u201cThe place to start is with a process for building the right institutions before the disruption forces governments into crisis mode.\u201d Moratoriums have emerged as the tool to jump-start these processes. But is Gates poised to be a Cassandra, with politicians and tech companies guarding their power centers no matter how many civic wounds fester?<\/p>\n

There could have been a healthier chance for responsible AI institution-building if tech companies had been up-front about their hyperscale projects early on, rather than requiring public officials to sign NDAs and insisting on other unholy compromises. They\u2019d be in a stronger position to handle the current backlash\u2014or maybe there wouldn\u2019t be one to begin with.<\/p>\n

Transparency has never been a big business virtue. Instead, the MANGOS, among others, chose subterfuge, and now their collective credibility is shot. Irritated by AI slop, less than impressed by chatbots, and wary of surveillance regimes, Americans are beginning to understand the price of failing to erect guardrails.<\/p>\n

If states are truly the laboratories of democracy, then the test is whether voters keep the pressure on governors and state and local lawmakers for regulations that steer the AI revolution to a more constructive, less threatening destination, instead of dithering en route to a social breakdown precipitated by mass unemployment.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost issues at the end of the day are nonpartisan. Politicians make them partisan to suit political gains and to maintain power,\u201d says Moore, the Kentucky state legislator. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing the Rs, Ds, and independent voters coming together and saying, \u2018We don\u2019t want these in our backyards.\u2019 And if we do want them, we run slower with a more thoughtful process where we have more input and more guarantees in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more How Many Judges Does It Take to Sort Out Missouri?<\/a><\/p>\n

This article appears in Oct 2026 Issue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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