Proposed EPA rule would not require public input before construction of new pollution-causing facilities, most of which are in rural places

A newly proposed federal Environmental Protection Agency plan would eliminate the requirement that states seek public comment before issuing new air pollution permits for AI data centers and other industrial facilities, Matthew Daly reports for The Associated Press. 

If approved, this change would mean the public would have less say in construction of new data centers, which would impact rural areas more than most since the "nation’s largest data centers are being planned in marginalized and vulnerable rural communities," according to Sarah Alexander Melotte of The Daily Yonder. Pew Research found in April 2026 that 67% of planned data centers were in rural areas, with most of those being built in the South and Midwest.

"Critics say the move could thwart local residents from learning about proposed data centers or making their voices heard before projects are approved and construction begins," Daly reports. A former deputy director of EPA’s air quality office told him that "the plan could create 'an unlevel playing field where citizens in one state are kept completely in the dark about new data centers and heavy industrial emissions in their backyards, while neighboring states maintain oversight.'"

The plan could mean that the EPA could fast-track permits without requiring facilities to inform the public about where new facilities are being located. "'Data centers and other industrial sources should not be able to get their air pollution permits in secret,'" Keri Powell, a senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, told Daly. SELC represents almost 200 "environmental, health and community groups that filed comments with the EPA opposing the plan."

Data centers threaten Texas' farmland, echoing similar battles across U.S. rural areas

Texas agriculture is facing off against an increasingly heard-about foe: data centers. Construction of the facilities requires large swaths of cheap, open, flat land, and rural Texas has it in spades. Nearly 250 data centers are slated to be built in the state, reports Jayme Lozano Carver for The Texas Tribune.

The story connects with dozens of others from around the country's rural areas, where communities are facing similar pressure from data center developers. Carver writes that a recent Pew Research Center study  found that 67% of data centers nationwide are in rural areas. The tax revenue promised to local governments by such development is increasingly difficult to pass up for many that are struggling to keep essential services going with a declining tax base.

"Texas agriculture has been an illustrious behemoth for decades, generating more than $963 billion in total economic output and driving nearly $15 billion in exports annually. Texas also has more farmland than any other state — 126 million acres as of 2021," Carver writes. Data center development is adding stress to other issues Texas farmers have faced in recent years, such as rising costs of growing crops, drought, and loss of croplands. 

“They’re building them on our most valuable, most fertile farmland,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller told Carver. “Once our farmland is gone and paved over, we’ll never farm it again.”

Kentucky mother and daughter stand firm against data center; decline $26 million offer for 500 acres of family land

   

The artificial intelligence boom has introduced the potential
for data centers into communities across America, pitting
technology against humanity and neighbor against neighbor.
(Photo by Igor Omilaev via Sunsplash)

The news about controversies surrounding data centers in one state has become so frequent that one outlet has started publishing a regular story updating the proposals in big cities and small. The Kentucky Lantern announced the new feature this week. It not only ticks off the list of recent activity but provides an interactive map of proposals statewide.

The conflict is no more evident than in rural Mason County, near Maysville, where a mother and daughter are fighting off an attempt to buy their land for more than $26 million. In a Wall Street Journal report by Erich Schwartzel, a community became divided when Delsa Bare, 54, and “nearly blind” from diabetes, and her mother Ida Huddleston, 83, were offered the fortune by a company that remains unidentified but is believed to be Meta. 

At first they agreed to the deal but when they learned that their land would be used to build a massive data center, in support of artificial intelligence, they changed their minds. “I believe artificial intelligence will be the destruction of the human race,” Bare told Schwartzel. They were further insulted by the request that they sign a non-disclosure agreement to seal the deal. The loss of the more than 500 acres owned by Bare and Huddleston has thwarted plans for the 2,000-acre project, affecting the futures of people on both sides of the issue.

Schwartzel observes, “Town meetings still start with the Pledge of Allegiance but often end in insults. Sisters have found themselves on opposite sides of the issue. And local officials who normally update constituents on the sideline of a football game now say they are legally barred from sharing what they know.”

Neighbors have filed lawsuits against neighbors, resulting in the company “holding back checks worth tens of millions of dollars to Maysville farmers who’d expected a windfall,” Schwartzel reported. The owner of a bar frequented by less fortunate residents says many in the community need the 400 jobs the data center would bring, not to mention those needed to build it, and Maysville needs the taxes, which could be tripled. One local official says the company has promised an additional $15 million for local emergency services and $80 million to upgrade the water system.

Meanwhile, Bare gets pats on the back from local data center opponents and letters of encouragement from strangers. Despite her eyesight, she was able to guide the reporter around the farm just by the feel of the ground. Schwartzel reported that Bare knows the data center may still be built, perhaps nearby, but she stands by her decision.

“On the Judgment Day, I’m only called to account for what I was supposed to be responsible for,” she told Schwartzel. “That’s the only way it can go on Judgment Day. What were you responsible for?”

Nuclear reactors, abandoned industrial sites seen as part of the solution to accommodate data centers in rural America

    

An experimental nuclear reactor in rural Kansas will be
placed one mile underground, avoiding hulking facilities
like the one above. (Unsplash photo by Lucas Lahotsky)

The race to build data centers for artificial intelligence has caused a stir in rural communities across the nation. Companies hoping to build these massive facilities are facing debates in local government bodies about tax revenue and job creation, along with pushback from residents concerned with the potential for rising electric rates, water availability and noise pollution.

Now the debate has expanded to the use of nuclear power. The Wall Street Journal reports plans for a nuclear reactor to be installed a mile underground in the granite near tiny Parsons, Kansas, population 9,600. 

Deep Fission, a company founded by father and daughter entrepreneurs in California, created the experimental process and raised $150 million to make it happen. 

The project is one of many encouraged by the Trump administration to create more nuclear energy to satisfy the country’s “soaring electricity demand, much of it driven by data centers.” The innovation in the Parsons project is that the reactor is deep underground and can become operational fairly quickly.

According to the WSJ report, “The key to the plan is avoiding the need for hulking containment buildings. Instead, the mile-deep hole will provide the necessary pressure, cooling and containment.” A single reactor will serve about 12,000 homes, but the inventors are planning “100 or more,” producing enough power for a data center.

Developers of data centers are facing resistance from rural communities where hundreds of acres of pristine farmland are being proposed as sites. That has the industry looking for alternatives, like abandoned factories. And in Western Kentucky, a former nuclear power plant is being considered for a hyperscale data center.

The Kentucky Lantern reports that the Department of Energy plans to transform a portion of the site near Paducah into a “1.8 gigawatt data center” that is “part of a larger strategy by the Trump administration to turn former Cold-War era federal sites into hubs for data centers and energy production.”

The story by Liam Niemeyer also listed dormant industrial sites across the state being considered for data centers. The list includes a former aluminum smelter, an abandoned steel mill, an electrical transmission infrastructure from inactive coal mines, and industrial parks that have power built in but have not been able to recruit industry to use it.

The director of the Hancock County Industrial Foundation explained the situation there. “Manufacturing is what we’re hoping for (to replace the smelter),” said Mike Baker. He said in 2022, when the smelter closed and 600 jobs were lost, data centers were not on anyone’s radar. “I don’t think anybody even knew what a data center was.” But now, a former industrial site that still has power makes it an attractive possibility for the growing AI industry.

Indiana creates nation’s first utility to provide electricity only to data centers; reaction is mixed among stakeholders

   

Power grids across rural America are facing the challenge
of serving data centers. (Andrew Metelev via Unsplash)

Rural Northwest Indiana has given the nod to what some think may be a solution to the power generation problem associated with data centers — a dedicated utility provider. Circle of Blue reports via RuralNewsNetwork.org that the idea is to “simultaneously protect ratepayers while continuing to embrace the industry’s growth.”

Christian Thorsberg writes about the boom of data centers in the region, “where nearly a dozen hyperscale data centers are planned, under construction or already operating.” Reaction to the first-of-its-kind utility has been mixed.

The region’s largest power producer, and the one with the highest rates, announced two years ago that because of inquiries from data center projects its power load was likely to quadruple over the next decade. That led to the company’s idea of creating a subsidiary to serve only data centers. Thorsberg explains that the proposal “was drawn up to shield regular ratepayers from extra costs of adding mega-users … to [the] network.” The subsidiary “would generate and sell electricity” wholesale to the parent company, “its only customer,” which would then sell it to data centers. “The buffer for resident’s rates would come from the mathematical accounting of these transactions, which in theory would remain separate from household bills.”

The plan received unanimous regulatory commission approval last fall, and it included exemptions for the subsidiary that speeds up the process. For example, the regulatory commission “does not need to approve all aspects of financing for projects,” and the subsidiary can “pick and choose” its customers.

The region appears to be bracing itself for the impact of this plan. Critics and experts are expressing concern about the effect on the environment, the grid’s efficiency, and whether the network can support the volume of electricity expected. “I’m not against the business model,” Jaoa Ferreira, acting director of the Center for Economic and Policy Studies at the University of Virginia, told Thorsberg. “One important thing for me is that this actually results in adding production to the grid, and not just splitting electricity from everyone else to just satisfy data centers.”

 

Developers of data centers target rural America but face widespread opposition, pushback among local residents

Massive high-impact data centers are threatening to invade rural America and 

developers are facing growing opposition from residents. (Geoffrey Moffett, Unsplash)

BURGIN, Ky. — Residents of this small Mercer County town are up in arms over their city council’s refusal to accept public comments against a proposed data center. Two Lexington television stations and social media posts from those in attendance report that the council ignored a raucous overflow crowd at the local school and approved the first reading of an ordinance annexing enough land to double the size of the city to accommodate the center. A second reading was scheduled to push through the annexation. Burgin has no planning and zoning laws, and the council can respond to annexation requests from property owners.

The Burgin controversy is among the most recent in rural America’s battles over the construction of data centers, the workhorses of the expanding digital age. Brookings reports that increased demand for the energy to operate artificial intelligence (AI) has rural communities “weighing promised economic gains against short-and long-term costs related to land-use change, water demand, electrical grids, and public services.”

In the Kansas Reflector, columnist Max McCoy shared the story of a late June public hearing in Emporia that also was heavily attended by opponents of a proposed center there. Activists petitioned the city to “adopt an ordinance banning high-impact data centers or to put the measure to a public vote.” The headline to his column urges politicians to “take heed” of a growing national coalition against the centers.

And in Triple Pundit Tina Casey says the issue is pitting the ultra-rich against ordinary Americans and is quickly becoming a midterm election issue. She cites a June Ipsos poll that claims only 14 percent of Americans would welcome a data center to their community.

Opinion: The battle over data centers -- what they take, where the profits go and how some states show a better path

Data center developers have zoned in on rural America as
the best place to build. (Photo by R. Starnes Sr., Unsplash)

It was sold to Americans as the "cloud." Fluffy, white -- and most importantly, floating harmlessly in the heavens -- never to touch or interfere with life on Earth. But for all its promise, some say it is a lie. 

Lurking behind the cloud are data storage and computation machines that will eat up an inexhaustible amount of energy and water wherever they are built, writes Lawrence Winnerman for Blue Amp Media.

Stepping back, as cloud and AI developments began to take off, data center developers ran into a problem: Where could they find the land and resources to build their mega-scale, profit-generating AI machines? It didn't take them long to find the answer. They pinpointed the rich land and water resources in rural America as the ideal location, writes Jim Branscome in his opinion on Substack. 

Rural Americans, particularly those in Appalachia, who think data center developers are targeting their wide, open land and deep aquifers for their profits, are right. "The Pew Research Center, drawing on Data Center Map figures in early 2026, found that for the first time most planned data centers in the country are being built in rural areas rather than metropolitan ones; the South alone counted some 754 planned facilities against 1,209 existing, a 62% increase," Branscome explains. So far, the coalfields of Northern Virginia have the most planned or in-progress data centers. 

Pew Research graph

From public reporting, Branscome provides a list of Appalachian data center developments: 

• In West Virginia, the Monarch campus in Mason County, the Fundamental Data complex in Tucker County, the TransGas project in Mingo County, a $4 billion campus in Berkeley County, and a multibillion-dollar Google campus in Putnam County 
• In Southwest Virginia, proposals in Wise, Wythe, Pulaski and Montgomery counties, and a Google project in Botetourt
• In Pennsylvania, the four-gigawatt Homer City complex rising on a dead coal plant’s bones in Indiana County

“Every extraction in this region’s history has followed it — timber, then coal, then the dam-and-power complex, and now the machine," Branscome explains. "Each arrived speaking of jobs and progress. Each was welcomed by men who held office. Each took something that could not be replaced and left a bill that the people are still paying. The data center is not a break from that history. It is the latest chapter of it. . ."

And while Appalachia is "being asked to supply the land, the electricity, the natural gas, the water, and the tax forgiveness," the profits will not belong to those communities, Branscome writes. Instead, those riches will "belong to corporations headquartered far from [the] mountains."

As some rural communities have pushed back against data center build-outs, they have sought the support and protective advocacy of their lawmakers. Branscome adds, "Lay the states side by side and the moral is unmistakable. Where lawmakers chose to protect their citizens, they could. Where they chose to protect the industry, that too was a choice."

West Virginia’s leaders, and to a "growing degree Kentucky’s, have decided that the way to compete is to promise the fewest protections and ask the fewest questions. . . . It is precisely the logic that governed the coalfields for a hundred years," Brascome writes. In the name of economic development, elected officials are "signing over the people’s signed objections. This is not a new story. It is the oldest story we have, told in silicon.“

How the battle ends is yet to be decided. Branscome writes, "Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio have shown, each in its imperfect way, that a state can make the industry pay its own way, protect the ratepayer, demand transparency, and leave the decision with the people who live there. The technology is not the enemy; the terms are.

"A data center built on a reclaimed mine, paying its full freight for power and water, bound by an enforceable agreement, leaving real money in the county, and sited only where the community has agreed to have it — that would be something genuinely new in the history of these mountains."

Texas lawmakers juggle angry voters, data center developers, Trump's AI push and a tech-first governor

65% of Americans don't want a data center built
in their community. (Photo by G. Moffet, Unsplash)

With its sprawling land and business-friendly politics, data center developers decided Texas was an ideal place to build AI infrastructure. They began having their proposals quietly approved, and construction started, with little input from communities near their builds.

Fast forward to today. As data center projects proliferate throughout the state, many Texas communities are pushing back on AI and calling on their political representatives to put up guardrails, reports Liz Carey for The Daily Yonder. But when it comes to putting limits on AI development, Texas lawmakers face competing interests.

"Data center construction is unpopular among locals, and a majority of the facilities are being proposed in red, rural counties," Carey explains. Republican state lawmakers now find themselves "caught between a zealous president, a governor bent on Texas becoming the next global data center hub, and outraged constituents."

According to a Texas Tribune analysis, at least "82 data centers, or nearly 60% of those that are either planned or under construction, are in state House districts that voted for President Donald Trump and elected a Republican state representative in 2024," Carey reports. "A March Quinnipiac poll found that 65% of Americans oppose the building of an AI data center in their community."

Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who leads the Texas Senate, have made data center development a priority. The Yonder reports, "Both directed their chambers to balance the economic development benefits of the facilities with their potential impact on Texas communities and their water and power infrastructure."

Meanwhile, Texas county officials, who have no power over where AI centers end up, spend their days trying to manage angry, frustrated residents. Republican county executive Matt Sebesta told Carey, "When folks look at me and say, ‘We don’t want this,’ I point them to our state reps and say, ‘Go talk to your state rep. Go talk to your senator,’ because they don’t trust us to make those decisions."

State legislators have even started to divide along rural-urban lines, with "rural lawmakers tending to raise more concerns about data centers while those from urban areas have generally been more supportive — or at least quieter," Carey adds.

In response, AI companies have begun running ad campaigns across the Lone Star State that "tout the benefits of the facilities," Carey explains. "Meanwhile, the tech industry is already lavishing donations across the capitol."

Why can't states simply share energy to avoid blackouts? Bolstering U.S. grids requires multi-faceted plans.

As power grids across the U.S. face more challenges, including dramatic increases in national energy needs, such as electricity-sapping data centers and extreme weather fluctuations across entire regions, some Americans may be wondering why a regional grid under strain can't just borrow from a neighboring state's grid that has plenty.

There are few links between the U.S. Eastern, Western and ERCOT interconnections. (ERCOT map)

The answer is to that question is simple and complex, energy experts Sufan Jiang and Fangxing Fran Li write for The Conversation. "The U.S. bulk power system is not one seamless national grid, but three major grid regions known as interconnections — the Eastern, Western and ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) systems. There are very few transmission lines between them, so if one has too little power, the others may not be able to help much."

In February 2021, Texas was clobbered by a series of brutal winter storms that dumped snow and ice across the state while simultaneously keeping temperatures below zero for days. Because Texas owns its own grid and shares few transmission lines with other states, ERCOT was "forced into the largest deliberate electricity shutoff in U.S. history. Operators cut power to millions of customers to avoid a total grid collapse," Jiang and Li explain. ERCOT's blackout left more than 4.5 million homes and businesses without power.

The Southern Spirit Transmission line will connect Texas to 
the Southeastern grids for power sharing. (Pattern Energy map)

In an effort to give ERCOT more options during another energy crisis, the "Southern Spirit Transmission project was announced by the Department of Energy in 2024," Jiang and Li explain. That addition "would include a 320-mile transmission line connecting Texas with Louisiana and Mississippi."

In its simplest form, a transmission line connects energy providers so they can share power. But when it comes to natural disasters and extreme weather, power lines have to withstand the storm or event. Jiang and Li write, "The answer to bolstering power grids is not just to build more high-voltage transmission lines. It is also important to harden the transmission corridors that already exist so they can withstand extreme weather and be restored more quickly after a disaster."

The federal government also regulates the sharing of grid energy between operators. "Federal standards require transmission providers to have enough electricity available in reserve to serve their own local homes and businesses safely," Jiang and Li explain. "Only excess electricity above that safety threshold can realistically be treated as power available to help neighboring grids during an outage."

Opinion: Rural America needs Congress to require data center developers and the federal government to disclose plans

Nondisclosure agreements leave community members in the dark.
(Photo by Daniel Bernard, Unsplash)

When urban and suburban Americans don't want to live near an institution or business designed to address a larger societal problem, they send it to rural America. Prisons, power plants and landfills are a few examples, writes Rotimi Adeoye in his opinion for The New York Times. "These days, two more intrusions have been added to the list: immigrant detention centers and data centers. … Congress should address this problem."

While it may seem logical to assume the federal government would be required to share information with smaller townships before purchasing large buildings or tracts of land in town, that isn't the case.

In Tremont, Pa., a tiny town with roughly 300 people, the federal government purchased "a 1.3-million-square-foot warehouse that had been a Big Lots distribution center" to repurpose into an immigration center designed to hold 7,500 detainees, Adeoye writes. By the time the township's supervisor learned of the sale, the deed had already been signed.

In other instances, small-town residents learn that a hyperscale data center is being planned in their community only when rezoning paperwork is filed. Nondisclosure agreements between data center developers, landowners and town officials enable companies to keep area residents in the dark.

In both cases, transactions are "intended to be finished long before the people who would have to live with the consequences could ask questions about what was being planned," Adeyoe adds.

To help rural Americans know and have some agency in deciding what gets built in their communities, Adeyoe suggests that Congress "require companies planning large-scale facilities to publicly disclose who they are and what they intend to build before they seek to change how the land is used, and to notify local governments before acquiring property in their communities. … The same principle applies to federal agencies."

Requiring public disclosure does not mean that a detention or data center facility won't eventually be constructed in a rural community, but it "would stop it from being built in secret," Adeyoe adds. "Rural communities are often fighting both kinds of facilities simultaneously, often without knowing who they are fighting or why, because neither the federal government nor private developers are currently required to tell them anything before the decisions are made."

A small town in Wisconsin pushes out a planned data center project

Organizers participated in a day of action in Menomonie
 in December. (Photo by K. Gregerson via Next City)

Three thousand years ago, it was David the shepherd boy vs. Goliath the Philistine giant. A 21st-century version of the proverbial battle goes something like this: Menomonie, Wisconsin. pop. 16,843 vs. Balloonist, LLC and its undisclosed tech-giant backer. Spoiler: Menomonie wins.

When Menomonie residents discovered their city council had already entered into closed-door talks with Balloonist last July, they had to hustle to get organized. Marianne Dhenin of Next City reports, "It was only weeks before the city council voted to annex and rezone the land to move the project forward. Organizers were fighting an uphill battle."

In the course of their fight to keep the $1.6 billion data center from spreading across 320 acres of farmland near the edge of town, Menomonie residents tapped into "grassroots community organizing and support from a growing statewide coalition," Dhenin writes. As they learned how to push Balloonist out of their town, residents created a toolkit for other small towns facing unwanted hyperscale data center proposals.

Menomonie residents who opposed the project "took to social media and the streets to raise the alarm about the data center proposal and organize community members," Dhenin explains. "They met to share information, staged demonstrations, and began attending city council meetings in growing numbers. . . . By September 2025, there were over 10,000 Menomonie residents and allies in a Stop the Menomonie Data Center Facebook group."

The town's resistance was so intense that Mayor Randy Knaack "announced at a Sept. 22 city council meeting that he had notified Balloonist that the city would not be moving forward with a development agreement," Dhenin reports. In January, the Menomonie City Council "voted unanimously to place additional regulations on data center projects."

Data center developers often target tribal lands for rich resources and less oversight

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation's Mound building, which houses the National 
Council. (Photo by Amanda Rutland, Muscogee Nation, ZUMA)

Tech companies seeking sprawling lands for hyperscale data centers often zero in on tribal lands. "Companies attempting to construct data centers on Indigenous lands likely see it as an opportunity not just to access large plots of land, but also to use tribal sovereignty to bypass cumbersome state regulations that tribes don’t have to follow," reports Cheyenne McNeill for Mother Jones.

Some generative AI developers may see Native Americans as easy targets to ply with promises of good-paying jobs and improved economics. "Activists say those benefits rarely materialize," McNeill explains. "Instead, data centers bring a threat of land loss and displacement that feels all too familiar for Indigenous people."

According to Honor the Earth, a national organization that "has been leading the fight against data centers, there are currently at least 106 proposed data center projects near or on Native lands," McNeill writes. "In western New York, a proposed $19.46 billion data center project would sit adjacent to the Tonawanda Seneca Nation’s territory, threatening an old forest that tribal citizens use for hunting, fishing, and gathering traditional medicine."

Because many tribes don’t have the "legal codes or regulatory bodies in place yet to regulate utilities," data center operators would have far less oversight during all stages of a build and then after, McNeill explains. "Tribal nations also need to consider whether they will be able to hold companies responsible for harm or depleted resources on their lands and whether they’ll have oversight of data centers."

Money comes into play as well. Data center developers and owners have plenty of it, and tribes often don't, which can make it hard for tribal nations to pursue litigation if developers and owners don't keep their promises.

Activists and tribal leaders want their members to remember that what happens on their land should reflect their tribe's values. McNeill writes, "One of those calls came from James Floyd, the Muscogee Nation’s former Principal Chief, who said every aspect of [his tribe's] data center proposal seemed in opposition to traditional Muscogee values."

Maine's bill to pause larger data center projects awaits governor's approval; ban would be the first of its kind in U.S.

Maine's data center bill would pause planned projects in two rural
towns for 18-months. (Photo by Troy Mortier, Unsplash)

If Maine's new data center bill becomes law, the state will become the first in the country to push pause on large data center construction. 

"The Maine Senate took a final vote on April 14 to enact first-of-its-kind legislation banning large data centers in the state until November 2027," reports Julia Tilton of The Daily Yonder. The bill would halt data centers that require 20 megawatts or more of power, including two already planned in the rural towns of Jay and Limestone.

The Maine legislation "would also establish a study group to examine the impact of such facilities and recommend legislative guardrails," reports Jenna Russell of The New York Times. Maine lawmakers have already made data centers "ineligible for certain business tax exemptions." 

Maine Gov. Janet Mills has yet to sign the bill into law, and it's unclear whether she will, given that it would mean halting data center plans already in the works. "On April 10, the governor said that a data center proposed at a retired paper mill in Jay, Maine, must be exempt from the ban while speaking to the press at an event in Bangor, Maine," Tilton explains. "An amendment with that carve-out failed to pass the legislature." The current bill doesn't include any exemptions. 

Like many New England residents, Mainers already deal with a fragile grid and pay some of the highest electricity rates in the country. Advocates of the ban say the moratorium is needed to prevent further increases in electricity costs and to protect communities from environmental hazards associated with AI data centers, such as noise and excessive water use, Tilton reports. Advocates also point to the relatively few jobs data centers produce, even as they gobble up vast resources.

Mills, who is facing a heated Democratic primary race for the U.S. Senate, has "ten days to veto the legislation, sign it into law or allow it to become law without her signature," Russell reports. "President Donald Trump has threatened to sue states and withhold funding if they pass laws restricting the AI growth."

AI giants ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok all 'pilfer' stories from Canadian news outlets, a new audit finds

AI companies chose not to attribute their source materials.
(Photo by Markus Winkler, Unsplash)

ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok all hijack Canadian news stories to use in their databases without adding legal attributions to stories pilfered from authors or arranging for copyright payment to publishers, according to an AI audit by Canadian researchers at McGill University, reports Brier Dudley, Free Press editor for The Seattle Times.

Professors Taylor Owen and Aengus Bridgman at McGill "tested four major AI models to see how much they knew about current news stories in Canada and how much credit they give to outlets that originally reported the stories," Dudley explains. The audit proved that tested AI models were "quite knowledgeable about current news stories. But in queries involving web searches, they provided no source attribution in 82% of the responses."

Owen and Bridgman write, "They have [taken and used content] without compensation, without attribution, and without any obligation to sustain the infrastructure they are drawing from. The result is a system that accelerates the economic decline of the journalism it relies on.”

The lack of attribution by AI companies is intentional. "When asked about a story from a specific outlet, the responses named the source 74% to 97% of the time," Dudley adds. "That indicates the companies are technically capable of naming sources but are making a 'design choice' not to, the audit states."

AI's pilfered stories let people get news without visiting the publisher's site or paying for a subscription. Dudley writes, "AI companies get the subscription and advertising revenue, instead of news sites that paid to report, edit and publish the stories."

Through the Online News Act, Canada now requires tech behemoths like Google and Meta that profit from using news sources to compensate publishers. With the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, the U.S. tried to pass protections similar to those adopted in Canada, but the bill faded in Congress in 2023. 

Dudley writes, "It’s past time for a new version of the JCPA, addressing how AI companies are changing the way people get information and preventing them from suffocating the local news industry. . . . To help get the ball rolling, I encourage academics in the U.S. to connect with Owen and Bridgman, who are willing to share their models, and produce similar audits here."

Open land, big skies, lots of grass — no data center. Some residents of rural New York area oppose big development.

Alabama's website contains has a link to STAMP information, but the page contains
surprisingly little information.  

Rural New Yorkers are voicing opposition to a proposed data center in Alabama, New York, a mostly agricultural community in Genesee County with roughly 1,600 residents, reports Mark Sommer of The New York Times. Area residents "fear the sprawling center’s droning supercomputers will disturb Indigenous communities and animal life, strain the power grid and raise utility rates."

The $19.4 billion complex -- dubbed the Science, Technology and Advanced Manufacturing Park — or STAMP — would cover 2.2 million square feet, and "be constructed roughly a mile from the territorial home of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation," Sommer writes. The massive data campus would also sit near the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge and several smaller wildlife sanctuaries. 

Location of Genesee County in New
York (Wikipedia map)

As the Genesee County Economic Development Center moves the project forward, more residents are raising objections. Sommer reports, "The center’s opponents are also considering a lawsuit, which could delay it or stop it entirely."

Arthur Barnes, a resident of Shelby, a town just north of Alabama, told the Times, "I can’t think of one good reason for it. . . . Of all the places to put something like this, did they have to put it right next to a sovereign nation and a national wildlife refuge?"

If STAMP is built, area residents worry that their electricity rates will soar. Sommer explains, "The three states with the nation’s highest concentration of such data centers — Illinois, Virginia and Ohio — saw their electricity bills increase twice as much or more than the national average in August 2025 as compared with the ​​​​same month in 2024."

Area residents who support STAMP say the fees and taxes it will pay will make the inconveniences it causes worth it. The Genesee County Economic Development Center can "expect $145 million in fees," Sommer reports. "Genesee County, Alabama and the local school district would also receive a combined $285 million over the course of STAMP’s 30-year contract."

U.S. farmers skew Republican, but many are drawing the line at land and energy hogging data centers

Some U.S. farmers in red states are vocally opposing 
data center project proposals. (Adobe Stock photo)

Land-hungry data center developers and AI supporters, such as President Donald Trump, have run into a roadblock that may be hard to circumvent: American farmers in deep-red states are actively opposing data center projects in their communities.

"The tech industry’s relentless push for data centers is colliding with farmers who see the projects as a threat to their way of life, fueling unrest in Republican primaries and vocal criticism from conservative candidates," reports Rachel Shin of Politico.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who is running for reelection, doesn't see any benefit to farmers from unregulated data center builds. He told Shin, “There’s no guardrails of any kind. . . .So they can pop up wherever they want to, as often as they want to, and take up as much land as they want to.”

"Miller recently proposed creating 'agriculture freedom zones' that would use federal or state tax incentives to push data center development away from agricultural land," Shin explains.

Even as Trump insists his "AI dominance" agenda will benefit rural communities, most Americans, including rural residents, don't want to live near a data center project. Shin reports, "A recent poll from Politico and Public First found [data center project] support  falls to roughly 36% if the data center is being built in their local area, within 3 miles of where they live."

Other politicians are searching for a way to limit data center projects while maintaining the president's support. Shin reports, "Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who has expressed support for data center projects, and Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis both floated placing guardrails on Trump’s AI initiative."

Karen Dalton, who is "one of three Republicans primarying Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), told Shin, "We’re taking farmland that could be used to grow food, and we’re making it available to data centers. I think that’s short-sighted. We should be more focused on our farmers that are already hurting because of the tariffs.”

Maine lawmakers consider a moratorium on data center developments as more towns reject proposals

Maine lawmakers are considering a moratorium 
on data center builds. (Photo by I. Quick, Unsplash)

As data center developers target parts of rural New England for their sprawling compounds, advocates for Maine want answers to questions "about electricity prices, grid reliability, and impact on water resources," reports Julia Tilton of The Daily Yonder. Several Maine communities rejected data center proposals, in part, because Mainers already pay some of the highest electrical rates in the country.

As lawmakers examine the pros and cons of data centers, "one idea floating around Maine’s statehouse is to impose a moratorium on data center development," Tilton explains. "How Maine navigates these challenges could be a model for the rest of New England, which shares an aging electric grid and faces a similar set of circumstances."

Currently, Maine lawmakers are "considering LD 307, a resolution bill that would establish a data center coordination council to provide input and evaluate policy options for data center development in the state," Tilton reports. Passing a state moratorium would prevent larger data center projects from obtaining permits or building until the moratorium ends.

Not all Maine lawmakers agree that a moratorium is the best option. Matt Harrington, a Republican of York, Maine, voiced concerns "that a moratorium 'would harm' a data center development in his district, which includes several towns in the state’s more urban southern region," Tilton writes. Lawmakers suggested they could grant the data center in Harrington's district an exemption.

Questions about the state's grid and its capacity to "feed" data centers without raising residents' utility bills remain a concern. Seth Berry, executive director of Our Power, a Maine-based nonprofit organization advocating for energy democracy, favors the moratorium. He told Tilton, "There are just so many unknowns. We really have to slow this down and step back and look at this massive new development, preferably as a region.”

An interactive session about rural communities and AI data centers is scheduled for March 4

While many rural residents may know that a large AI data center can bring potential gains and losses to their communities, many details remain unclear. To address potential knowledge gaps and help rural residents stay informed, the Rural Assembly is offering a 90-minute interactive session, “What Rural Communities Need to Know about AI Data Centers,” that clarifies disputed issues about data mega builds and their potential impact on smaller communities.

Date & time: March 4, 2 p.m. EST
Register here.

The session will cover:

• Who pays for all the electricity a data center will need during construction and once the build is completed?
• What community agreements can and cannot secure.
• How federal and state politics and legislation on data center development are evolving.
• Tools communities can use to maintain local decision-making power, including zoning and permitting strategies, rate class separation, and transparency demands. 
• This online Zoom event will begin with hearing from attendees about what their community has already heard or experienced.

The session will wrap up with a small group discussion about concrete next steps. Whether you’re facing a proposal now or want to prepare before developers arrive, attendees will gain a clearer picture of how the AI boom can impact their neighborhoods and learn the leverage points available to rural communities.

Wisconsin utility regulators review plans for how to pay for data center energy needs

Microsoft’s new AI data center campus in Mount Pleasant, Wis.
(Microsoft graphic via Canary Media)

Utility regulators in Wisconsin are scrutinizing the state's first energy plan to power AI campuses. Meanwhile, consumer and environmental groups dispute the need and consumer benefits for supporting data center developments.

The biggest debate right now is how much of their energy infrastructure costs data centers will be required to pay. Kari Lydersen of Canary Media reports, "Wisconsin’s largest utility, We Energies, has offered its first major proposal before state regulators on the issue."

The proposal, which is open for public comment, contains two options for data centers to choose from, both of which outline that "data centers would pay most or all of the price to construct new power plants or renewables needed to serve them," Lydersen explains. The first option, defined as "full benenfits" requires data centers to fund 100% of their needs. The second option, called "capacity only," requires data centers to pay 75% of their costs. "Other customers would pick up the tab for the remaining 25%."

The We Energies decision is also likely to set a precedent for other Wisconsin utilities managing data center energy plans. Bryan Rogers, the environmental justice director for the Milwaukee community organization Walnut Way Conservation Corp, told Lyderson, "As goes We Energies, so goes the rest of the state.”

Consumer and environmental groups are speaking out against the capacity-only option, arguing that "it is unfair to make regular customers pay a quarter of the price for building new generation that might not have been necessary without data centers in the picture," Lyderson writes.

We Energies says "everyone will benefit from building more power sources," Lyderson reports. Jeffry Pollock, a Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group trade adviser, told regulators that "the utility’s own modeling of the capacity-only approach showed scenarios in which the costs borne by customers outweigh the benefits to them."

Although Wisconsin has seven big data centers under construction, the state "has no laws governing how the computing facilities get their power," Lyderson writes. Wisconsin lawmakers are debating two bills that define data center energy division, but "until a measure is passed, individual decisions by the state Public Service Commission will determine how utilities supply energy to data centers."

As residential electricity costs climb, big users pay less

Between 2022 and 2024 residential electricity costs 
increased by 10%. (Photo by J. Maculan, Unsplash)

After years of wallet-draining food inflation, many Americans must now contend with soaring home electric bills. "Since February 2020, electricity prices have increased by an average of 40% across the country," reports Shannon Osaka of The Washington Post. Overall, the brunt of the increased costs is being paid by residential customers even when they aren't the biggest users.

Many utilities have increased rates to fund needed infrastructure builds, but residential customers are paying more than commercial users. Osaka writes, "Residential electricity costs rose by 10% between 2022 and 2024. Commercial users, spanning everything from small corner stores to giant, energy-sucking data centers, have seen rates increase just 3%."

Building and repairing the poles, wires and transformers required for residential electricity delivery is costly and isn't generally needed by large commercial users, which is one reason many residential customers pay higher rates. Oska notes, "The average electricity price at the end of 2024 was 16 cents per kilowatt-hour for homes and apartments, and just 13 cents for commercial customers."

While infrastructure costs explain some of the difference in electrical prices, a complex system of lobbying goes on behind the scenes to determine how much a business will pay for electricity. Osaka reports. "In theory, each group is supposed to pay an amount that aligns with the cost to bring them power — but in practice, different groups can lobby for lower prices."

Charles Hua, executive director of PowerLines, a group that works to lower electricity costs for consumers across the country, told Osaka, "Residential consumers feel like they don’t have a voice in our utility regulatory system." Osaka adds, "Utilities often sign special contracts with data center customers that place them outside standard pricing agreements."

Some states are working to prevent data centers from shifting their expansion costs onto residential customers. Osaka reports, "Virginia recently established a new class for data centers and other huge users of electricity, with agreements in place to make sure the data centers pay for more of the grid upgrades required."