Rep. Massie: Just Like Solar Panels, Quit Putting Data Centers in Our Pastures, Put Them Where Nobody Else Wants to Build

EXCERPT:

MASSIE: "The only thing less popular than Congress right now, I think, is data centers. It's because I think they've been insensitive to where they are placing these data centers. We don’t want them in our cow pastures, we don't want them at our cul-de-sacs. But there are a lot of old factory sites, they're called brown sites, where the ground is already polluted and, by the way, there's already a grid hookup there where the old steel mill or whatever, the old injection moulding factory went out of business. Put them there and let the local communities decide these things. The problem I've seen here in Washington D.C. is you have these data center lobbyists who try to get special legislation here at the federal level so that they can override local zoning decisions, and that is bad. So I don’t think you should let data reign without any kind of regulation at the local level. You definitely need to let local people decide these things. And one of the problems is, these local elected officials sign nondisclosure agreements, the people don’t know these data centers are coming until there's one night all of a sudden at the town hall meeting where they take a vote and boom, it is done. I think people — like you said, the companies need to be more sensitive, they need to make their case, just like solar panels. Quit putting them in our pastures come, put them where nobody else wants to build."