Anxiety grows over emerging election issue, but GOP says Washington isn't the answer
Public perception is everything heading into a crucial midterm election fight, and voters across the political spectrum have laid down the gauntlet over their view of data centers this cycle.
Republicans running for power in the Senate are keenly aware that their voters aren’t happy about data centers, according to recent polling. While they believe that the construction of the windowless, hulking behemoths should be slowed or halted, they don’t want the federal government to play an outsized role.
"The data center companies haven't done a very good job of explaining why they should be allowed to develop in communities," Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, told Fox News Digital at the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas.
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"But the bottom line is, that should be a local decision, not a federal decision," he continued. "I don't want the federal government telling you that you must have a data center or that you can't have a data center. That's a local decision. Some people will say yes, some people will no."
A Gallup Poll published in May found that 70% of Americans don’t want new data centers for artificial intelligence (AI) constructed in their towns and cities. Many of their concerns are about the impact that a new data center could have on their bills, be it through spikes in water or electricity costs.
Husted is one of a handful of vulnerable Republicans running in this cycle, and he, like others, is hearing about data centers and their impact routinely on the campaign trail.
He attempted to pass a bill quickly on the Senate floor last week that would have tried to tackle the latter issue of booming electricity costs by preventing AI and tech companies from placing the burden of power grid infrastructure upgrades on taxpayers, but was blocked by Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., despite the bill having passed the House 417 to 3.
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"Rather than voluntary pledges, or suggestions to states, Congress needs to pass real legislation with real teeth," Heinrich said.
Former Rep. Mike Rogers, who is running in one of the most competitive races this cycle in Michigan, told Fox News Digital that he hears "lots and lots of concern about data centers, not just the physical beings, but what happens on the other side of AI."
"What we've said is there should be a moratorium until we get all of voters' decisions and questions answered," Rogers said. "These are big decisions. I don't think there should be a federal ban because if the federal government can ban it, it can also tell you have to have one."
Rogers wants data centers to operate with closed water systems, not to add to voters' electric bills, and for the boom in property taxes that they provide to be returned to taxpayers.
"You don't give it to the government to give out. You don't do any of that," Rogers said. "It goes right back to the very people who have one of these in their neighborhoods. But we've got a lot of those questions to get answered. Take a moratorium, take a pause, get the questions answered."
Republicans who aren’t vying to keep or grasp a seat of power want to take action, too, but like Husted and Rogers, want to keep the federal government’s involvement at arm’s length.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Fox News Digital that he’d prefer less power in Washington, D.C., on the issue and that the "best way to get the soundest decisions with the most input from the American people, [is] the government that's closest to them."
Thune is also taking the same route to regulate AI and has a bill with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., designed to take a "light-touch approach" that’s been percolating in the Senate since 2023.
"I mean, that's the thing, people don't like this hide the ball, operate in this opaque way — It's out there in public," Thune said.
"There's got to be some way of ensuring that there are rules of the road around that, and you know, disclosure about it and in some sort of reporting," he continued. "I'm, again, I'm not talking about a heavy-handed regulatory regime because that's not my way of doing things."