Data Center Backlash Reshapes U.S. Politics, Community by Community

NPR News reported that the debate has become a fault line in communities across the country, cutting across political parties, splitting constituencies and forging unexpected alliances. In city halls and county commission chambers, residents are squaring off against local representatives.

Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told NPR that data centers have “upended politics as we know it.” He said the issue is more than not-in-my-backyard opposition and reflects existential fears that artificial intelligence will take jobs or eliminate humanity entirely. “People just feel like they no longer have control over the technology, [and] that worries them,” West said. “This is a real grassroots movement. It’s ordinary people all across the country, both Republicans and Democrats.”

NPR said it traveled to data center hot spots and spoke to dozens of activists, politicians, developers and everyday Americans. The picture is complicated: data centers have been an economic boon for some communities, helping lower land taxes and providing jobs. At the same time, the proliferation of secretive deals that often involve elected officials signing nondisclosure agreements has exacerbated suspicions.

Chris Borick, a political science professor at Lehigh University, told NPR that a rare mix of concerns has fueled opposition. “It’s aligning interests in ways that aren’t traditional,” he said. “If you’re in power right now and you are dealing with this issue, you have a target on your back.” Borick said elected officials have had to scramble to recalibrate because “the ground shifted under their feet and they were not ready for that to happen.”

In Loudoun County, Va., data centers are driving a wedge between fellow Democrats. Juli Briskman, a member of the county Board of Supervisors, has led efforts to slow further data center development. Phyllis Randall, also a Democrat and the board’s chair, has argued in favor of data centers for the tax revenue they bring, while acknowledging they are “a double-edged sword” for nearby residents. Briskman is running to unseat Randall in next year’s primary. She said her opposition dates to 2020, when the board saw land-use cases seeking to convert residential and flex-industrial properties into data centers. “I feel like I have been singing this song for a while, and now all of a sudden everyone’s grabbing my music and singing along with me,” Briskman said. Randall did not respond to NPR’s request for comment.

Kasey Hatch lives near Loudoun County’s Vantage VA2 data center, which is powered by eight natural-gas-fired turbines. Residents say the turbines produce a constant low-pitched rumble along with a high-frequency whine that has become a major source of noise complaints in surrounding neighborhoods. Hatch, an IT infrastructure engineer for a bank who uses AI in her job, told NPR she and her staunchly Republican cousin “never saw eye to eye on politics.” But the last time they met, she said, they were “on the same page about everything” when it came to data centers.

Nusheen Farahani, who also lives near VA2, is part of a group of women organized against the facility who regularly show up at public hearings. “I’m a liberal and I’m a Democrat, and the people that are in our little team … not all of them are liberals or Democrats,” she said. NPR reported similar organizing in Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Indiana, where local groups are uniting against data centers and elected officials.

According to the Data Center Opposition Report, which tracks grassroots nonprofits on the issue, some 640,000 people are active in the anti-data center movement, and 220 new groups sprang up in the three months from June through August. Ben Green, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Information, told NPR that people are driven by a feeling that government is part of the problem. “If the policymakers, if my city council or zoning board or township board and governor, if they’re on the side of the companies, who’s standing up for me?” Green said.

Editor’s Summary: NPR News reports that opposition to data centers has become a bipartisan local political force, with about two-thirds of Americans opposed to new projects in their communities. The conflict has divided Democrats in Virginia, united unusual allies, and drawn at least 640,000 activists into groups opposing the facilities. It is forcing local officials to recalibrate as data centers remain an economic and tax revenue source for some communities.