WEBVTT
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Rohome Productions.
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You are listening to The Hum, a new podcast where we're sharing stories from people across the U.S.
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who are fighting the incursion of AI and data centers into every aspect of our lives.
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I'm Stall Levin, your host.
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Last week, I spoke with former U.S.
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Trade Representative Catherine Tyde and former USTR senior advisor Beth Baltsen.
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Catherine and Beth share crucial insights on how trade, supply chains, and tariffs impact AI data centers and how they think about competition with China, corporate greed, and the broader dangers of AI.
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I definitely recommend tuning into that conversation.
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This week, we did our first live-recorded episode of The Hum in Brooklyn at New York Climate Week.
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I talked to three elected officials deep in the work of regulating AI data centers.
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Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Devonta Lewis, Georgia Public Service Commissioner Peter Hubbard, and New York State Rep Emily Gallagher.
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We talked about the challenges of finding information about proposed projects, the pressures elected officials face from industry, and what they see coming next in their communities.
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Devontae and I were chatting before we started about a story you may not know, but the representative in the state of Louisiana, Jay Morris in northern Louisiana, was not only the key person in pushing through legislation to try and eliminate majority black congressional districts in the state of Louisiana, he's the same person who pushed through legislation to allow AI data centers like the 3,600-acre Hyperion data center to be built in Louisiana.
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But before he pushed that legislation through, he bought all of the land in the area and then flipped it and sold it to the company as part of his legislative strategy.
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So to start off our conversation today, first of all, thank you so much for being here with us all the way from Louisiana.
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Can you tell us a little bit about how corruption and sort of a lack of basic government roles is playing into this fight and go out of AI data centers in the state of Louisiana?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Well, first it's great to be with all of you tonight.
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And Louisiana is a place not known for corruption, but currently it's it's going even further.
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So our governor has made everybody, from elected officials to his own interns, sign non-disclosure agreements.
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So when you talk about Senator Morris selling his property, he already knew about the proposed data center, was under a non-disclosure agreement, then bought property and then sold it, and then lobbied my colleague to vote in favor of the data center while all being under an NDA.
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And so what we're seeing here is just this massive level of corruption and engagement at all levels.
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So the metadata center got to Louisiana because the utility, the utility CEO, went to the governor and said, Hey, I have a data center here, but I need you to move fast.
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I need you to basically get rid of property tax and sales and use tax, I need you to clear the land.
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And so they took a bill that had nothing to do with data centers, rewrote it, had all the legislators sign NDAs, pass the law, and then formally announced uh that Meta was coming.
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And so it has been a constant churn just trying to keep up.
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And normally by the time it gets to the commission level, the taxes are already wiped off, the zoning and permitting is done, the land is acquired, uh, and so it makes it very hard for us to even get community engaged because anything where a community would have their voice be heard is already done.
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Thank you.
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Unfortunately, this is a pattern.
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Uh in Georgia, I believe some people who work on the public service commissioner and public office have jumped straight to industry the second they leave.
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Peter, can you tell us about what's going on with that whole situation?
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Yeah, thank you, Saul.
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This is Peter Hubbard, so you know my voice.
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Um, we sit here in the year of our Lord 2026, the month of September, and earlier this month, one of our public service commissioners uh stepped down from that role and showed up four days later at data center development company DC Blocks.
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It only took Trisha Pride More four days to go through that revolving door.
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And uh, you know, and this is this is a pattern.
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We're seeing this as well.
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Um, you know, she was instrumental in shepherding through one of the largest data center projects we've seen in Georgia, three times the uh the power requirements of Atlanta.
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It's 3,200 megawatts, just enormous.
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And this was all done under cloak and dagger NDAs.
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So it's a pattern that we're seeing, whether Louisiana or Georgia, folks trying to make a buck, a quick buck off data centers.
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Thank you for sharing that.
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Um, first of all, Emily showed up for the tremendous swag of biking here from jail.
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Thank you.
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Awesome.
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It's like the only thing missing is if you like skateboarded over here.
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That's really good.
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Um you worked tirelessly to pass a statewide moratorium in in New York.
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Um, congratulations on that work.
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Also, I think you and a lot of others felt like the legislation that passed could have gone further.
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Can you tell us about how industry is showing up in these moments and trying to weaken legislation that is moving forward?
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Well, sure.
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Yeah.
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So thank you very much for having me.
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Um, I want to say that the data center moratorium bill that we passed in the assembly was really a co like it was a it was like a Frankenstein version of a lot of different bills that people had worked on and put together.
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And we have a really great coalition of environmental leaders in the assembly.
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Of course, it's not enough.
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It's not enough to stand up to what the governor wants.
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Um, and unfortunately, in our state, the governor really has outsized power in all legislation and in vetoing, but also in um doing executive orders and and doing other kinds of moves that allow her to kind of dominate um what actually happens.
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So we passed a pretty amazing bill, but um the the industry has really kind of seduced, I think, our governor into wanting um New York's new business.
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You know, New York is a is a city with a lot of rust belt kind of um communities that had really strong industry presence and now they're searching for something new.
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And I think um she has been seduced into thinking about um tech and AI really being the new um the new bread and butter for the state.
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And we what hearing you both speak about NDAs, you know, the same thing happened in our state with Green Ridge, um, up in around Seneca Lake, um, where they they bought an oil or a gas company that had been shut down, turned it into a crypto mine.
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My colleague Anna Kellis fought tirelessly to close that crypto mine.
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And then now they're transitioning to AI, they signed an NDA, they like bought the town of fire department, they're they're fueling all this, um, they're just dumping money into the local municipality.
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And then what we see is all of a sudden, you know, there's there's these loopholes in things that allow them to do what they want to do.
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So I think, you know, we see a lot of this is like the most wealthy industry that we have right now.
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Uh, and the the money, the wealth, and the lack of regulation that exists in tech is really like a triple threat because we're we're rushing to try to educate ourselves uh and to pass legislation and to put guardrails up before these polluting industries really take over.
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Um but we we just can't do it as fast as the money is flowing into these municipalities and into um you know regulators and and um higher-up elected positions.
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Thank you so much.
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So this money's flowing in as they're trying to build these massive projects.
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Um when I drove by the Hyperion Data Center in Louisiana, it took five minutes going 40 miles per hour to pass one side.
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Oh have a really boring video if you want to see just five minutes long of just concrete.
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Um we the estimates that we've been told is that that project alone is gonna use 30% of the power in the state of Louisiana.
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That's a large percentage of your job.
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Can you tell us a little bit about the scale of what's coming to Louisiana and how that's affecting your role as a public service commissioner and what you guys have to do every day?
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Yeah, to put it in context.
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This data center uh is in North Louisiana, in one of our poorest parishes um in the state, uh, and it's being built the size of Manhattan, um, is its physical structure.
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Uh, it will use 10 gigawatts worth of power.
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So when you want to put that in context, you could put 10 city of New Orleans in this data center, and that's how much electricity it's gonna use in one single day.
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Uh, and so when we are thinking about building this infrastructure, part of the problem is, well, who's going to pay for it?
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So you hear all these things where the data center says, Oh, I'm gonna pay for it, I'm gonna pay for it, I'm paying my fair share, and they're somewhat telling the truth.
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They are paying their fair share for the contract.
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But a data center contract is around 15 to 20 years.
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A natural gas power plant's lifespan is somewhere between 25 to 40 years.
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So who's gonna pick up the tab if those data centers walk away?
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And right now the risk is being borne solely on Louisiana ratepayers.
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The shareholders have no skin in the game, Meta has no skin in the game, puts their signed contract.
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And so now it's like, oh yeah, we're gonna build this giant thing.
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Who knows if it's gonna survive?
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And then if we walk away after we paid our 15 years, yeah, the people of Louisiana, you can pay the remaining 15 years.
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And so it's making the job really hard because they are giving uh in this poor parish, they gave every teacher a$50,000 bonus this summer.
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They are building and donating to just everything.
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So it's really starting to say, oh wait, they're great for our local economy.
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Uh and because rates haven't really changed yet, they're like, oh, see, we're building here and we're nothing's gone wrong.
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But the real challenge is what's gonna happen in year 15, year 20, year 25.
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Uh, and that's where the bulk of these assets are going to be really now costly, and Meta just gets to say, okay, we're done, and now the people of Louisiana have to suffer.
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So it's making the job really hard because I'm having to combat what's happening today to have people think about what's really going to happen tomorrow.
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It's brutal, and I want people to understand something.
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That$50,000 bonus that teachers got in this part of Louisiana was already mandated by law.
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There was a law in the books that said that it like 1% of extra tax revenue has to go towards teacher bonuses.
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And so every teacher, because of local Louisiana politicians who had tried to protect teachers, got a$50,000 bonus.
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But some of y'all have probably heard of this because Meta went on tour saying that they gave$50,000 to all these teachers, even though the local authorities had forced that money to go in that direction.
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Uh, there's not a single other case like that in the country, by the way, Meta or any other tech company that's done that.
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So uh just want to make sure folks have that context.
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Um Peter, can you talk about uh what Devante was sharing a little bit?
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I mean, who's responsible?
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There's so much power coming in in these AI data centers.
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You all sit on the Public Service Commission, but we talked to some Georgians uh ahead of this conversation and said, you know, what should we ask Peter?
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And they said, well, some of the folks on the commission say that AI data centers and some of this technology is out of scope.
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Um, so can you talk about like what is a public service commission like the one in Georgia actually doing?
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Why do you see that differently?
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Sure.
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Let me give you some context on why data centers are coming to Georgia and why we've just inherited the mantles, the fastest growing state for data centers from Virginia.
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And it's really two reasons.
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Uh we've rolled out the red carpet as a state for data centers in two ways.
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It's um tax abatements, they pay no sales and use tax, so nothing's going into the state coffers.
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And then many times the property taxes they will be evaluated or praised at maybe 10% of what the value of that data center is, and then even that's abated away.
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So they might be paying only 5% of the actual value of the data center.
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So very little coming in in terms of taxes.
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And the other reason is the cheap power.
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They're getting a sweetheart deal on the power, and that's squarely in the camp of the Public Service Commission.
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We are the ones who set the rates for data centers and for residential ratepayers.
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Now, uh the context though is that I just joined the commission in January of 2026.
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Last year, for political reasons, we paused the rate case, and that's the chance for us to do a deep dive as a commission into what people should be paying on their bills and importantly what data centers should be paying on their bills.
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But again, we didn't have that deep dive last year.
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We haven't done that since 2022 before data centers really started to come.
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We won't have a real chance to do it until 2028, the next rate case.
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So we are squarely responsible for how much data centers are paying on their contracts and where that energy is coming from.
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But as I mentioned, there's two reasons, and there's even more than that.
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And so, although we are responsible for those contracts for electric service and approving them, reviewing them, deciding if there's enough guardrails, there's a bigger picture too.
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And that's why I've been saying we need a whole of government approach when it comes to the tax abatements, um, the actual local ordinances and the tax abatements at the local level, the water issues, noise issues.
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These are all things that are a bit beyond what the Public Service Commission oversees.
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But the 900-pound gorilla is the electric contract, and it is squarely in our camp.
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And I have been frustrated by the process, frustrated by the process of having staff review it, and then only if they decide that it merits our attention does it rise to the level of commissioners.
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I saw an opportunity to step in and say, I think there need to be more consumer protections on this large contract.
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I'm still not satisfied with it.
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I still think there's a lot of risk and cost being shifted.
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In particular, we're building fossil fuel resources for these data centers.
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So just right from the get-go, there's some cost shifting going on.
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But uh we have that responsibility as a public service commission, and we're two commissioners that are focused on that, but um we haven't been able to convince our other colleagues that this rises to their level of attention.
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And just last thing, I think that each commissioner, we should take an affirmative or negative decision on these large contracts.
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We have a law that says that you're a large customer if you're 900 kilowatts or larger, but when we've now we've seen one that's 3,200 megawatts, that's 3,500 times larger than that threshold.
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We should be taking an active decision and whether they are coming and whether they're paying their fair share on their contract for electric service.
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So that's squarely our responsibility at the PSC.
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Um, as I understand it, one of the biggest oil spills in US history happened in Greenpoint, which I believe is in your district.
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Um, could you tell us about the way that the harms of the fossil fuel industry are being perpetuated by the go-dot of AI data centers and what the toxic legacy of racist pollution is, is how that's coming up in this moment related to this new infrastructure?
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Yeah.
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Well, thank you for asking about that.
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One of my favorite topics.
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Yes.
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Um, Greenpoint has a waterway in it known as Newtown Creek, which used to be called the Little Mississippi of the North.
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And it's where a lot of the oil refining practices were developed in the 1800s, and they also did some other great things like bone boiling, sulfuric acid manufacturing, all that kind of stuff.
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And they would, you know, in the past, just before the Clean Water Act, just dump the waste into the waterway.
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And this waterway is an estuary, which means that instead of water flowing back and forth, it rises up and down.
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So all that pollution settled to the bottom.
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And um Exxon, well, what is today Exxon, uh, Chevron, and some other stakeholders, um they they would just allow oil.
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I'm looking around at these barrels in this bar that we're in, and I'm thinking about them being oil barrels and said, they would just let these oil drums kind of leak into the ground.
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And so it wasn't a big dramatic uh event like when we think of like Exxon Valdez, it was a slow pollution, and I think that's really what we're seeing with this data center kind of situation.
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We we have fought so hard in Greenpoint to hold these oil and gas companies accountable, and they are still not fully accountable.
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The constituents of my district um spent about 10 years suing Exxon.
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They got a record settlement of a few million dollars, but that we know is not enough to actually pay for all of the health costs, all of the land costs, the wildlife costs, the just general um livability of the land has been destroyed.
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And um, you know, when we think about moving away from oil and gas and holding these companies accountable, they have always had the money and the resources to find every loophole that they possibly can to move around the, you know, sell their company, go bankrupt, flip the property.
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I have a feeling that's what you're looking at in Louisiana, you know, that's it reminds me of some of the places here in New York.
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Um, there's just a lot of work that can be done through a skilled um bullshit artist um in a corporate environment where there's actually no um accountability to the people who are doing the harm.
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And I think that's what we're seeing with this data center thing is we're seeing all of these shell companies, we're seeing uh non-disclosure agreements, we're seeing um people reopening fossil fuel plants that we've already had enormous social justice movements to say we don't want this here, and they're reopening them secretly to do this again.
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And it's because we've given industry so much power and autonomy to act with impunity without any kind of actual um any actual accountability.
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So, you know, I've introduced legislation called risk and catastrophe, which is um it would make causing a risk to a community or a catastrophe in a community that is environmental or health related or infrastructure related, it would make it a criminal charge instead of a cost of doing business charge.
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And we're trying to get this passed because until CEOs and company presidents actually have their own skin, their own family, their own legacy on the line, they are always going to be able to write off whatever they do and pass the buck.
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We are still, still trying to get Chevron to show up to clean up some of the pollution they caused in my district.
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And we have spent millions of city dollars on trying to clean this up ourselves.
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We've got federal, state, and local, you know, super fund designations, and we cannot get these people to like come to the table.
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And it's really disgusting.
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So we really need some changes in the ways that we allow corporations to act.
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And I think that, you know, I am I'm in general someone who is, you know, a critic of the criminal justice system, but I think we have no criminal justice system for the wealthy and the corporations, and that is where we need to be developing that.
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Tough on white collar crime.
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That's right.
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Um okay.
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We actually have a lot of elected officials who listen to the podcast because they're They're dealing with yeah, all really far right now.
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Because people are trying to figure out what to do about this.
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And so we talked to people, we're like, Why are you listening?
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Because I don't know what the hell is going on, but suddenly all anyone in my district wants to talk about is AI data centers and AI sloth and uh DC blocks and Google and all these different things.
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I wanted to just pass it down and ask each of you to speak a little bit about um the pressures that you're facing as elected officials.
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I know you could go through that revolving door any day and walk out and get high, but someone who's as smart as you knows as much about what's going on as you do, they're dying to have someone like you.
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And so you're dealing with a lot of pressures from companies and stuff.
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So if we could pass it down and have each of you talk about the pressures you're facing from industry, from constituents on this issue, and also how you're dealing with that.
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Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing that people kind of put on is this economic value.
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Are you really going to look at the poorest place in Louisiana and deny a revolution for their economic future?
00:23:09.440 --> 00:23:16.480
Uh, and it's so it's really challenging, which my my background was economic justice policy, but then I have to look and I say, well, here we go.
00:23:16.559 --> 00:23:21.759
There's this 41-year-old black woman who had three children who lived in Richland Parish.
00:23:21.920 --> 00:23:25.519
She was paying$250 for rent for where her trailer was.
00:23:25.680 --> 00:23:31.279
Her landlord sees the data center coming in the temporary construction, she moves her rent to$14.50.
00:23:31.519 --> 00:23:32.079
Oh my god.
00:23:32.319 --> 00:23:32.960
She can't pay it.
00:23:33.039 --> 00:23:34.960
She gives her a month to be evicted.
00:23:35.119 --> 00:23:37.359
She doesn't have disposable income to move her trailer.
00:23:37.519 --> 00:23:40.000
So the trailer that she's owned for 10 years is now crushed.
00:23:40.079 --> 00:23:45.039
And now her and her three children live in her car for three weeks until she can get back on her feet.
00:23:45.200 --> 00:23:48.720
Uh, and so when I hear the economic arguments, I think about her.
00:23:48.960 --> 00:23:50.480
I said, well, okay, great.
00:23:50.559 --> 00:23:52.880
You said it was gonna be better for her, and now she's pushed out.
00:23:53.039 --> 00:24:01.759
Are the families that live in West Monroe that want to visit their family and now have gone from a hotel night stay of$65 to now$400 in Monroe?
00:24:01.839 --> 00:24:08.480
And no disrespect to my city and my and the state in my state, but Monroe's not a place that you're gonna spend$400 for a room.
00:24:08.960 --> 00:24:15.279
Um, and so it's it's this kind of pressure that you're seeing, but then there's the the opposite pressure.
00:24:15.519 --> 00:24:22.400
The people who feel like they don't have a voice uh and that they need someone to at least ask the tough questions and to speak up with them.
00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:32.240
And so that's the pressure that I don't mind having is getting those emails and saying, like, you know what, Devontae, yes, you are the lone no, you are the single voice on this commission.
00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:39.519
Uh, but when I get the 400 emails, I don't see it as an annoyance, I see it as validation, I see it as a movement.
00:24:39.599 --> 00:24:42.880
Uh, and it gives me kind of that extra that like juice.
00:24:42.960 --> 00:24:45.759
I think of like Space Jam when they like all drink like the juice.
00:24:45.839 --> 00:24:48.000
Like, that's what those emails in calls feel like to me.
00:24:48.240 --> 00:24:53.440
It's like, yeah, I'm going out there and I'm gonna play against these big monsters and uh I'm gonna make the basketball shot.
00:24:53.599 --> 00:25:04.640
Uh and so like I think you can flip the pressure in a way that actually is giving you the courage to continue to speak up and standing out instead of I think what typically happens is you feel like hey, your career's over.
00:25:04.720 --> 00:25:09.920
And the last thing I'll say about it is I I believe, like, look, I I can only do this job a day at a time.
00:25:10.079 --> 00:25:11.680
I can only do this job a term at a time.
00:25:11.759 --> 00:25:15.599
So I cannot think about the next term, the next election, the next vote.
00:25:15.759 --> 00:25:20.559
It's like if if if this vote that is right ends my career, then so be it.
00:25:20.640 --> 00:25:21.680
I did what I was here to do.
00:25:21.759 --> 00:25:23.759
And so that's how I think about that pressure.
00:25:29.039 --> 00:25:41.119
Well, so from my perspective in Georgia, I mean, one thing is that I freed myself from the prof uh any pressure of uh influence from the utility by not accepting any money from the utility companies.
00:25:41.200 --> 00:25:44.400
And that just should be standard.
00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:49.279
Um that's not what the colleagues on the commission have been doing, though, before me.
00:25:49.440 --> 00:26:05.119
But I would say the biggest hurdle and challenge that I've seen in my role now in month eight or so is just that there is a political machine called Georgia Power Company, which is a fourth branch of government, and I'm fighting kind of an information war with them.
00:26:05.359 --> 00:26:13.279
They're saying that, you know, when you hear the data centers are increasing your bills, not in Georgia, well, um that's not necessarily true.
00:26:13.440 --> 00:26:17.119
Um, again, we're building the wrong resources right from the get-go.
00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:32.799
We're locking ourselves into that subscription model, that Netflix having to buy the fuel over and over and over again for fossil fuel power plants rather than embracing clean energy that doesn't have to transit the Strait of Hormoes, that doesn't subject us to these volatile commodity markets.
00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:35.279
So there are costs and risks being shifted.
00:26:35.440 --> 00:26:53.279
And trying to convey that to the public with this incredibly well-resourced power company that can easily cut a check for half a million to send every one of their 2.4 million residential customers agit props saying that we've lowered uh your bills, I mean, that's hard to combat.
00:26:53.519 --> 00:27:11.359
So that's what been one of my biggest challenges is saying that um there are real risks and real costs that we are taking on that are being borne by regular ratepayers, and we're giving away these uh these benefits to the richest companies in the world.
00:27:11.440 --> 00:27:18.160
So, and if they are paying their fair share, then show us, don't redact these contracts, show us the receipts.
00:27:18.400 --> 00:27:36.640
So it's just this information war that I feel like I'm battling and uh does make me feel like I'm taking crazy pills sometimes, but um, but we do have to um get the message out there, and that's why I keep going to these data center town halls, is because people are frustrated by the lack of information.
00:27:36.799 --> 00:27:44.400
And when you human nature, when you completely redact something, then the psychology of human nature is you're gonna assume the worst.
00:27:44.480 --> 00:27:53.519
And and I I don't think people are wrong to assume that the richest and most powerful companies and people are taking advantage of the situation that we're in now.
00:27:53.839 --> 00:27:55.200
Yeah, yeah.
00:27:55.519 --> 00:28:11.680
I really relate to everything you both just said, and I guess the the third um the third pressure that I really am feeling is is time because we are in the midst of a climate collapse.
00:28:12.079 --> 00:28:32.160
We we've been working so hard to try to get renewables up and running, to try to find creative ways to expand renewable energy, cut down on peaker plants, especially in New York City, where peaker plants are some of the most polluting um uh infrastructure that we have.
00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:41.759
Most of the renewable energy in New York exists in the upstate area, and that's where the cheaper energy is because the renewable energy is cheaper.
00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:46.000
So that's where a lot of these data centers are setting up, right?
00:28:46.079 --> 00:29:23.759
And because it's done so secretly, because it's done with like buckets of misinformation being dumped all over the town, because people are saying we need this economic opportunity, there's so much time pressure created, and we are, you know, we're looking around us at everything, the poly crisis that we're in, and we want to be moving towards just getting our energy grid settled, getting our renewable energy systems put in place, actually decommissioning these picker plants.
00:29:23.920 --> 00:29:29.920
And now we've got somebody out of left field coming in and saying, actually, we want your dirty gas.
00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:37.440
Actually, we want to take all of your renewable energy and put it into something that doesn't help any single person in the state.
00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:55.359
And actually, we're doing all this for our own profit because this is actually about this really sick division that's happened now with the the techno-billiers and the rest of us.
00:29:55.519 --> 00:30:36.880
And so it's it's really, you know, I'm I'm a big fan of Yanis Varifakis and techno-feudalism and and his philosophy that he's written about um that, and it's really just uh an exacerbation of that, where um we are all actually just serfs to these, you know, places like Meta, places like um, you know, Elon Musk companies, um, because we are the product, our attention is the product, and we are being basically farmed to create um the things that they're profiting off of at the expense of the earth and all of our money.
00:30:37.119 --> 00:31:00.559
And and then to add insult to injury, you know, there was a recent article out that um the the oil and gas companies are making private deals with the governor to give them discounts on um you know, on the energy where the ratepayers are are are still paying like ever increasing amounts of money.
00:31:00.880 --> 00:31:05.119
So, you know, I just really feel this crushing pressure of time.
00:31:05.279 --> 00:31:11.200
Like we don't have time to solve all of this, but we have to solve it all at once.
00:31:11.440 --> 00:31:14.240
And I think that can be really overwhelming.
00:31:14.480 --> 00:31:27.039
But I think the solution is that in New York, the things that have gone really well, like coming to a fracking ban, things like that, it was done at the municipal level through community organizing.
00:31:27.200 --> 00:31:45.279
And I think we have some really great examples in our history of how we can organize ourselves to go at the smallest level of government first, pass bans, and then up, up, up until we can really just ban the whole practice or create reasonable guardrails when we have the information to do so.
00:31:45.599 --> 00:31:47.119
That was extremely informative.
00:31:47.279 --> 00:31:47.920
Thank you all.
00:31:48.079 --> 00:31:54.720
Um, Peter, you mentioned something that I'm I'm fascinated by, which is the information flow.
00:31:55.599 --> 00:32:03.680
One question that a lot of people in DC and New York perhaps are wondering is what does an ideal data center look like?
00:32:03.920 --> 00:32:07.680
We're gonna have data centers, our community is gonna accept anything.
00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:14.240
And when that question gets posed to the communities that we organize with, they're like, Are you serious?
00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:17.599
The only information we have is a pamphlet from Google.
00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:22.160
Let's say people we hear that again and again and again.
00:32:22.319 --> 00:32:34.079
How are you, you know, the analogy we use, I'm a basketball fan, you know, the analogy is like if if Peter and I were gonna had two basketball teams and they said, I have two players, I'll trade them for three of yours.
00:32:34.240 --> 00:32:35.119
What do you think?
00:32:35.759 --> 00:32:37.440
Uh well, it depends on the players.
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:43.359
So what's the point, right?
00:32:43.519 --> 00:32:45.119
It's like, are they injured?
00:32:45.279 --> 00:32:46.559
Do they have good statistics?
00:32:46.720 --> 00:32:47.440
Are they even alive?
00:32:47.599 --> 00:32:48.880
Are they even on my team?
00:32:49.039 --> 00:32:50.400
I mean, we don't know.
00:32:51.039 --> 00:32:58.400
This is the place that communities find themselves in when you know people are saying, oh, you guys just need to negotiate a community benefits agreement.
00:32:58.559 --> 00:33:07.599
Okay, I'll take uh, you know, my stepsister and the single mom who lives next door, and they'll negotiate against a hall of meta lawyers.
00:33:07.759 --> 00:33:09.039
I mean, it's ridiculous, right?
00:33:09.200 --> 00:33:16.799
So I'd like to pass it down the line and on that score, but communities are fighting to even know what the hell these companies are doing.
00:33:16.960 --> 00:33:34.640
And then you could start to you know say, well, these are the regulations we want, these data centers, if they really had to be built, which is a false premise, but if they were going to be built, they should be this X, Y, and Z distance from schools and churches and uh metro stations, they should be, uh, which by the way is passed in Virginia recently.
00:33:34.720 --> 00:33:35.759
It's pretty cool.
00:33:35.920 --> 00:33:43.599
Um, they should be, you know, using renewable energy and and you know, not putting the water and stuff so transparent, etc.
00:33:43.839 --> 00:33:48.799
But could you all talk about, as elected officials, how you're finding information?
00:33:48.960 --> 00:33:53.039
And what are you having to do to figure out what these companies are doing?
00:33:53.119 --> 00:33:58.559
Uh, and and what is the information flow like to those folks who are representing the people?
00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:03.200
Yeah, I mean, I think the information is is wild.
00:34:03.279 --> 00:34:09.519
So when Meta decided to come to Louisiana, we had all these rumors of uh a large data center.
00:34:09.679 --> 00:34:15.840
Then the utility filed an application that said a large customer in North Louisiana.
00:34:16.079 --> 00:34:22.079
So I'm starting to review a data center application for a rate, and I have no clue who the customer is.
00:34:22.239 --> 00:34:30.079
And the only way I found out before the public announcement was when the utility executives came to my office to kind of brag about all the community benefits.
00:34:30.159 --> 00:34:33.119
They flipped the page too fast and then I saw Meta's logo.
00:34:34.480 --> 00:34:41.199
So that's that's how I found out it was Meta, was simply by them like, look at all the great things they're gonna do for the community.
00:34:41.280 --> 00:34:47.280
Uh and they just forgot to put their thumb back in the same spot it had been holding uh the PowerPoint presentation.
00:34:47.599 --> 00:34:55.360
Um and so it's it's it's really hard to then talk to people because, like I said, when the commissions, we're really the last stop.
00:34:55.599 --> 00:35:10.800
Uh, and and what I think a lot of people don't realize is we're not even really regulating data centers, we're regulating that energy service agreement, the agreement for their power between the utility that has an obligation to serve them and what uh the customer wants to pay.
00:35:10.960 --> 00:35:19.360
But oftentimes, because of the NDAs, because of the secrecy, the only time community ever hears about a project is really when it gets to the commission level.
00:35:19.519 --> 00:35:26.079
Um, and so it makes it very hard because now you're having to navigate well, where did the permit come from?
00:35:26.159 --> 00:35:27.599
Or what's their water usage?
00:35:27.679 --> 00:35:41.199
All these questions that would have probably been answered at the local level, in a community meeting, that now is technically not part of my job, but I also feel an obligation to ask these questions because community never had the chance to do so.
00:35:41.280 --> 00:35:48.639
And so I'm gonna have to hold the line on something that's really not in my authority just to give people an opportunity to make their voice heard.
00:35:48.800 --> 00:36:00.800
Uh, and so I think that's the real challenge with these uh projects is that they want to claim they're doing great for the community, but they don't want the community to know who they are.
00:36:01.119 --> 00:36:15.280
Uh our governor got on the news the other day and said, Oh, yeah, when he announced Elon Musk coming to SpaceX and on the on an island in the bayou of Louisiana off the Gulf of Mexico, we're gonna shoot rockets, which makes a lot of sense.
00:36:15.440 --> 00:36:19.440
Um he literally told the community, he said, Oh, just trust me.
00:36:20.159 --> 00:36:21.360
Just trust me.
00:36:21.599 --> 00:36:30.000
Uh and so it's this like weird dynamic that right now where a lot of the elites just feel like they know what's best for a community.
00:36:30.239 --> 00:36:34.239
And they like they're gonna save all these communities, and it's like, no, you should engage them.
00:36:34.400 --> 00:36:36.400
You it you shouldn't be afraid.
00:36:36.480 --> 00:36:42.639
If your product, as Peter said, is so good, then go stand on the front line and take the hits or answer the questions.
00:36:42.719 --> 00:36:43.599
That's what we do.
00:36:43.840 --> 00:36:49.840
But we face questions from the utilities all the time about why we don't want to do what they want to do, so why can't you face uh the people?
00:36:49.920 --> 00:37:04.079
And I will never forget in the hearing that we had uh yesterday uh last month when we were voting on whether or not to subpoena Meta, there was a conservative gentleman who like picked up his phone and says, Meta knows everything about me.
00:37:04.239 --> 00:37:06.320
Why can't I know anything about Meta?
00:37:07.440 --> 00:37:10.559
And I was like, that is that's really the moment we're in right now.
00:37:10.639 --> 00:37:14.239
It's like communities just want to know what you already know about us.
00:37:15.920 --> 00:37:35.920
Yeah, so on the question of uh information and and and the lack of information, even as a state-level uh constitutional office uh officer with access to some of these data center contracts, I really only concede the large load contracts, the ones that are a hundred megawatts or larger.
00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:43.360
And I think there's been a little over half a dozen just from Georgia Power, but then they have several dozen more that I haven't seen.
00:37:43.519 --> 00:37:54.320
There's also the nonprofit co-ops that are cutting their own deals with data centers, and we don't have visibility on that in Georgia because we only regulate the for-profit utility companies.
00:37:54.559 --> 00:38:01.679
So even uh someone like me in my position, I don't have all of the information to be able to understand what the implications are.
00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:03.440
But you know, I'm not alone.
00:38:03.519 --> 00:38:06.880
Uh Devante serves on the Louisiana Public Service Commission.
00:38:06.960 --> 00:38:11.360
There's 49 other states besides Georgia that are all grappling with these questions.
00:38:11.440 --> 00:38:16.159
And so I very much look to my peers to see what they're doing, what they're up against.
00:38:16.239 --> 00:38:21.599
And that's very helpful to have that network so that we're not kind of going at this alone.
00:38:21.840 --> 00:38:24.400
But just to the question of, you know, what could they do better?
00:38:24.480 --> 00:38:42.880
I mean, I don't know that there is an ideal data center, but certainly the very first thing you do, and I learned this way back as a Peace Corps volunteer, is when you go into a village in a new location, you sit down with them and ask them what they need in their community, you find out what is needed, and then you can kind of enshrine that in um in a document.
00:38:42.960 --> 00:38:51.039
And I know there's uh there's not, you know, it's community benefits agreements are just depends on what it looks like.
00:38:51.199 --> 00:38:54.239
I really think they should not just be a one-time investment, but a dividend.
00:38:54.320 --> 00:38:57.199
If they're gonna do it, then it should be a long-term investment.
00:38:57.519 --> 00:39:02.000
They should not be um, you know, doing it under cloak and dagger with NDAs.
00:39:02.159 --> 00:39:08.960
There should be more um transparency around citing the electric transmission lines to plug into these data centers.
00:39:09.119 --> 00:39:13.599
Right now we just kind of run roughshod over people, take their land for eminent domain.
00:39:13.760 --> 00:39:19.039
There's just a lot of things that we're doing incorrectly, or that the data centers are doing incorrectly.
00:39:19.280 --> 00:39:22.239
And uh it's just leaving a bad flavor in people's mouths.
00:39:22.320 --> 00:39:26.320
And again, you know, just to reiterate it a third time, if they are so good, show us.
00:39:26.559 --> 00:39:32.800
Um but it's just uh that even I um have a don't have the full picture.
00:39:32.960 --> 00:39:43.920
And so I think that's why smart politicians are saying, let's hit pause, let's figure out um uh if it is even possible to do data centers correctly, and that's a big open question.
00:39:44.079 --> 00:39:50.960
Um and it just feels like we're stumbling around in the dark sometimes without all the information to make a good informed evidence-based policy.
00:39:51.280 --> 00:39:52.239
Thank you so much.
00:39:52.559 --> 00:40:02.880
I don't know about y'all, but I find it quite troubling that our elected officials are relying on uh lobbyists being disorganized to find out what company is coming into their state.
00:40:03.599 --> 00:40:23.199
Um the fact that Devontae uh happened to see the Meadow logo on the back of a PowerPoint, and that's the only way the public service commissioner elected to the state of Louisiana knew that Meadow was coming to build a 3,650-acre data center, is uh mildly troubling to say the reason.
00:40:23.440 --> 00:40:34.079
Um I want to ask you all, uh, we only have a few minutes left, and I want to ask you all to go down the line and tell us something that you found surprising in this work.
00:40:34.159 --> 00:40:40.400
Um, we have a lot of experts, organizers, researchers in this room, and who listen to the show.
00:40:40.719 --> 00:40:46.960
We have a lot of really brilliant people in the locally community who are working on AI data centers all over the country.
00:40:47.039 --> 00:40:59.280
So I'd love for you to uh just think for a minute about what is something in your fight that's been surprising, or you think that people in this room maybe wouldn't know about the fight against AI data centers in your community.
00:40:59.599 --> 00:41:15.519
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people coming from the deep south of Louisiana assume like we're just wildly crazy conservative, which there is a tint of conservatism at the national level, but at the state level, people really do care about the issues.
00:41:15.599 --> 00:41:29.440
And it's it's it's it's it's amazing to watch how a coalition in Louisiana is developing uh around around carbon capture, around data centers, around SpaceX, with unlikely allies.
00:41:29.599 --> 00:41:44.480
I I got I'm sitting at a meeting with with the president of the New Orleans Democratic Socialists of America uh and uh Chris Alexander, who's a MAGA podcaster in Louisiana, who's like, Leah, we need to fight these.
00:41:44.559 --> 00:41:57.679
And so it's a moment that's really showcasing that it is probably the closest we've ever had to trying to build the multi-racial, multi-social economic coalition that we've all talked about that we want.
00:41:57.840 --> 00:42:16.400
Uh, and if we do it right in this fight, and we we don't really exile people for some of the other issues that we, of course, disagree on and have strong opinions on, but see this moment, say like we can start to showcase that it's never been that the poor wanted too much, it was just that the rich couldn't get enough.
00:42:16.559 --> 00:42:16.960
Yes.
00:42:17.280 --> 00:42:28.800
And that's where you're seeing that there is a real movement of just people, whether they are deeply conservative or deeply liberal, saying, wait a minute, like when when does it stop?
00:42:28.960 --> 00:42:31.599
When do you stop getting everything that you want?
00:42:31.760 --> 00:42:46.400
Uh, and so you're you're seeing this coalition bubble up in Louisiana, which is not a place you you would, but as much as we care about the environment, that that fisherman cares about having access to to get his oysters, and that's his living.
00:42:46.559 --> 00:42:56.800
We we got the we we're seeing the loggers and the campers saying, well, wait a minute, if you cut all the trees to build this Manhattan data center, how's my my lumber and timber business going to stay in?
00:42:56.960 --> 00:43:03.840
Uh, and so while we may be coming from it from a different side and a different angle, we're finding a common cause and a common fight.
00:43:04.079 --> 00:43:18.719
And I think that's really what's surprising me and motivating me to keep to keep going and building this now unlikely coalition that is fighting the most powerful players we've seen and building a strong opposition to it.
00:43:20.079 --> 00:43:23.280
I'm gonna pick up on that as well with the Strange Bedfells.
00:43:23.440 --> 00:43:40.239
It's been remarkable to see how all different political stripes are coming together because of the fast and furious nature of data centers just coming in, just barreling down and this mentality of move fast and break things that the tech billionaires like to throw out there.
00:43:40.719 --> 00:43:50.800
But um, you know, they we keep hearing this refrain of you know, we must win this AI race with uh China, we um, but I never hear the follow up question of why.
00:43:50.960 --> 00:43:55.840
Like what is what is the reason something faster, I guess.
00:43:56.159 --> 00:44:00.719
Um but you know, there's just fundamental questions that aren't being Asked.
00:44:00.880 --> 00:44:04.639
And you know, I just see this as yet another extractive industry.
00:44:04.719 --> 00:44:11.599
We've had oil and gas where they just rape the earth and take what they can, and I see this as just another extension of it.
00:44:11.760 --> 00:44:21.679
So that's been really interesting to see how people are coming together to just, you know, we're worried about our jobs, we're worried about our natural resources.
00:44:21.920 --> 00:44:30.960
I've also just been in the fight, really surprised to see how we also, another refrain I hear is, well, this is the way that we've always done things.
00:44:31.119 --> 00:44:32.880
And so we're just going to keep doing it that way.
00:44:32.960 --> 00:44:40.239
And that the commission, I don't like this process, but we rely very heavily on staff to do the initial analysis.
00:44:40.320 --> 00:44:47.760
And I think that we should be more proactive and step up to the plate as commissioners and just put a proactive vision out there.
00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:53.360
But the a lot of the commissioners just don't want to take on that workload.
00:44:53.440 --> 00:44:56.159
They don't want to have to answer the hard questions.
00:44:56.239 --> 00:45:02.480
And that's been something else in the fight is you know, having people actually step up and and um take initiative here.
00:45:02.639 --> 00:45:04.320
So there's a range of issues.
00:45:04.400 --> 00:45:17.599
Um I don't know that I have all the answers, but um this is just happening so quickly that I think we're all just trying to grapple with this, and uh none of us have the answers, and I think that's why it's good to have you know folks in the room like this to talk about it.
00:45:18.719 --> 00:45:32.320
Yeah, I am you know thinking of something that I could tell all of you that you wouldn't know about this seems like really difficult given that I feel like I know almost nothing about this, and you probably know a lot more than me.
00:45:32.559 --> 00:45:52.000
Um but I think, yeah, like what I've noticed about it is that it really kind of follows along on this lack of transparency that's actually existing in almost every single problem that we're facing as a society, right?
00:45:52.239 --> 00:45:56.320
And this one, though, is going to be plopped in our backyard.
00:45:56.559 --> 00:46:00.079
So it's like all of a sudden we care a little bit more.
00:46:00.159 --> 00:46:06.960
But you know, I think about the work that we do around um, you know, criminal justice reform.
00:46:07.119 --> 00:46:14.400
A lot of people have no idea about how prison actually works, how um, you know, the judicial system actually works.
00:46:14.559 --> 00:46:17.440
People don't know how most things work.
00:46:17.760 --> 00:46:30.480
And uh the reality is that we need to have the same kind of curiosity and interrogation of all of the systems that kind of facilitate our society that we are having about data centers.
00:46:30.559 --> 00:46:39.360
So I would say like data centers, like let's allow that to crack open our um our complacency about the society that we live in.
00:46:39.519 --> 00:46:43.840
I think most of us aren't happy with the way that our society is functioning.
00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:54.400
It doesn't work, it's really expensive, and it's it's punishing people who don't deserve punishment and letting people who do deserve punishment off the hook, right?
00:46:54.559 --> 00:47:00.400
We live in a very unjust society and we are destroying a lot with it.
00:47:00.639 --> 00:47:14.000
And if we actually use this same kind of passion, interrogation, and interest in everything that we look into, um everything that surrounds us, we can actually create the society that we want.
00:47:14.159 --> 00:47:27.679
I think that's actually within our reach, never more than it is now, because I think we've woken up to so many geopolitical issues, local to national to global.
00:47:28.079 --> 00:47:32.320
And we need to take this energy and not rest with it.
00:47:32.480 --> 00:47:42.000
I was I remember after Trump won, um, the first time people were like really upset, and then people got kind of used to it, like it's the lobster in the pot, right?
00:47:42.079 --> 00:47:46.159
Like, oh, this is fine, um, the dog and the hat and the room on fire.
00:47:46.320 --> 00:47:50.719
Um but as time goes on, people adjust and they stop interrogating things.
00:47:50.800 --> 00:47:59.280
I think what we need to say is this is a symptom of a really broken society, this whole data center thing.
00:47:59.519 --> 00:48:06.320
And we need to use that energy to push forward to totally change what we're doing.
00:48:11.840 --> 00:48:13.119
I'm inspired.
00:48:13.280 --> 00:48:14.960
Um thank you all so much.
00:48:15.119 --> 00:48:20.079
So I see a few people sneaking out to get drinks already.
00:48:20.719 --> 00:48:22.480
It's probably my friend's house.
00:48:22.960 --> 00:48:33.440
Um that was my conversation with elected officials Devante Lewis, Peter Hubbard, and Emily Gallagher that we co-hosted with Lead Locally.
00:48:33.679 --> 00:48:36.960
You can find more about their work in the show notes.
00:48:37.280 --> 00:48:39.199
You've been listening to The Hung.
00:48:39.440 --> 00:48:45.119
We're publishing new episodes weekly, so if you absolutely loved what you heard, make sure to tell your cousins.
00:48:45.440 --> 00:48:51.440
Message us on Instagram at the HumPod to get connected to organizers in your state or country.
00:48:51.679 --> 00:48:54.960
The Hum is produced in partnership with Rohome Productions.
00:48:55.119 --> 00:48:58.000
Rohome's creative director is Alex Lewis.
00:48:58.159 --> 00:49:00.719
Their executive producer is John Myers.
00:49:00.880 --> 00:49:03.280
Our producer is Emily Rizzo.
00:49:03.519 --> 00:49:09.519
The Hum's video producer is Adultrehan, and we partner with the Center for Nonviolent Conflict Research.
00:49:09.760 --> 00:49:12.800
I'm Saul Levin, your host and banjo journeyman.
00:49:12.960 --> 00:49:15.920
Thanks for listening and see you next Tuesday.
00:00:01.120 --> 00:00:02.959
Rohome Productions.
00:00:06.959 --> 00:00:12.880
You are listening to The Hum, a new podcast where we're sharing stories from people across the U.S.
00:00:12.960 --> 00:00:17.600
who are fighting the incursion of AI and data centers into every aspect of our lives.
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I'm Stall Levin, your host.
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Last week, I spoke with former U.S.
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Trade Representative Catherine Tyde and former USTR senior advisor Beth Baltsen.
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Catherine and Beth share crucial insights on how trade, supply chains, and tariffs impact AI data centers and how they think about competition with China, corporate greed, and the broader dangers of AI.
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I definitely recommend tuning into that conversation.
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This week, we did our first live-recorded episode of The Hum in Brooklyn at New York Climate Week.
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I talked to three elected officials deep in the work of regulating AI data centers.
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Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Devonta Lewis, Georgia Public Service Commissioner Peter Hubbard, and New York State Rep Emily Gallagher.
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We talked about the challenges of finding information about proposed projects, the pressures elected officials face from industry, and what they see coming next in their communities.
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Devontae and I were chatting before we started about a story you may not know, but the representative in the state of Louisiana, Jay Morris in northern Louisiana, was not only the key person in pushing through legislation to try and eliminate majority black congressional districts in the state of Louisiana, he's the same person who pushed through legislation to allow AI data centers like the 3,600-acre Hyperion data center to be built in Louisiana.
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But before he pushed that legislation through, he bought all of the land in the area and then flipped it and sold it to the company as part of his legislative strategy.
00:02:34.719 --> 00:02:40.319
So to start off our conversation today, first of all, thank you so much for being here with us all the way from Louisiana.
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Can you tell us a little bit about how corruption and sort of a lack of basic government roles is playing into this fight and go out of AI data centers in the state of Louisiana?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Well, first it's great to be with all of you tonight.
00:02:55.840 --> 00:03:01.759
And Louisiana is a place not known for corruption, but currently it's it's going even further.
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So our governor has made everybody, from elected officials to his own interns, sign non-disclosure agreements.
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So when you talk about Senator Morris selling his property, he already knew about the proposed data center, was under a non-disclosure agreement, then bought property and then sold it, and then lobbied my colleague to vote in favor of the data center while all being under an NDA.
00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:34.240
And so what we're seeing here is just this massive level of corruption and engagement at all levels.
00:03:34.400 --> 00:03:44.800
So the metadata center got to Louisiana because the utility, the utility CEO, went to the governor and said, Hey, I have a data center here, but I need you to move fast.
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I need you to basically get rid of property tax and sales and use tax, I need you to clear the land.
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And so they took a bill that had nothing to do with data centers, rewrote it, had all the legislators sign NDAs, pass the law, and then formally announced uh that Meta was coming.
00:04:03.199 --> 00:04:06.560
And so it has been a constant churn just trying to keep up.
00:04:06.639 --> 00:04:22.720
And normally by the time it gets to the commission level, the taxes are already wiped off, the zoning and permitting is done, the land is acquired, uh, and so it makes it very hard for us to even get community engaged because anything where a community would have their voice be heard is already done.
00:04:23.120 --> 00:04:23.680
Thank you.
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Unfortunately, this is a pattern.
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Uh in Georgia, I believe some people who work on the public service commissioner and public office have jumped straight to industry the second they leave.
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Peter, can you tell us about what's going on with that whole situation?
00:04:41.199 --> 00:04:42.160
Yeah, thank you, Saul.
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This is Peter Hubbard, so you know my voice.
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Um, we sit here in the year of our Lord 2026, the month of September, and earlier this month, one of our public service commissioners uh stepped down from that role and showed up four days later at data center development company DC Blocks.
00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:04.800
It only took Trisha Pride More four days to go through that revolving door.
00:05:05.519 --> 00:05:08.399
And uh, you know, and this is this is a pattern.
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We're seeing this as well.
00:05:10.079 --> 00:05:19.040
Um, you know, she was instrumental in shepherding through one of the largest data center projects we've seen in Georgia, three times the uh the power requirements of Atlanta.
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It's 3,200 megawatts, just enormous.
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And this was all done under cloak and dagger NDAs.
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So it's a pattern that we're seeing, whether Louisiana or Georgia, folks trying to make a buck, a quick buck off data centers.
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Thank you for sharing that.
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Um, first of all, Emily showed up for the tremendous swag of biking here from jail.
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Thank you.
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Awesome.
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It's like the only thing missing is if you like skateboarded over here.
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That's really good.
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Um you worked tirelessly to pass a statewide moratorium in in New York.
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Um, congratulations on that work.
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Also, I think you and a lot of others felt like the legislation that passed could have gone further.
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Can you tell us about how industry is showing up in these moments and trying to weaken legislation that is moving forward?
00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:16.959
Well, sure.
00:06:17.120 --> 00:06:17.439
Yeah.
00:06:17.600 --> 00:06:19.920
So thank you very much for having me.
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Um, I want to say that the data center moratorium bill that we passed in the assembly was really a co like it was a it was like a Frankenstein version of a lot of different bills that people had worked on and put together.
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And we have a really great coalition of environmental leaders in the assembly.
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Of course, it's not enough.
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It's not enough to stand up to what the governor wants.
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Um, and unfortunately, in our state, the governor really has outsized power in all legislation and in vetoing, but also in um doing executive orders and and doing other kinds of moves that allow her to kind of dominate um what actually happens.
00:07:02.319 --> 00:07:15.360
So we passed a pretty amazing bill, but um the the industry has really kind of seduced, I think, our governor into wanting um New York's new business.
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You know, New York is a is a city with a lot of rust belt kind of um communities that had really strong industry presence and now they're searching for something new.
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And I think um she has been seduced into thinking about um tech and AI really being the new um the new bread and butter for the state.
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And we what hearing you both speak about NDAs, you know, the same thing happened in our state with Green Ridge, um, up in around Seneca Lake, um, where they they bought an oil or a gas company that had been shut down, turned it into a crypto mine.
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My colleague Anna Kellis fought tirelessly to close that crypto mine.
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And then now they're transitioning to AI, they signed an NDA, they like bought the town of fire department, they're they're fueling all this, um, they're just dumping money into the local municipality.
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And then what we see is all of a sudden, you know, there's there's these loopholes in things that allow them to do what they want to do.
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So I think, you know, we see a lot of this is like the most wealthy industry that we have right now.
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Uh, and the the money, the wealth, and the lack of regulation that exists in tech is really like a triple threat because we're we're rushing to try to educate ourselves uh and to pass legislation and to put guardrails up before these polluting industries really take over.
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Um but we we just can't do it as fast as the money is flowing into these municipalities and into um you know regulators and and um higher-up elected positions.
00:09:01.759 --> 00:09:02.639
Thank you so much.
00:09:02.879 --> 00:09:07.440
So this money's flowing in as they're trying to build these massive projects.
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Um when I drove by the Hyperion Data Center in Louisiana, it took five minutes going 40 miles per hour to pass one side.
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Oh have a really boring video if you want to see just five minutes long of just concrete.
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Um we the estimates that we've been told is that that project alone is gonna use 30% of the power in the state of Louisiana.
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That's a large percentage of your job.
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Can you tell us a little bit about the scale of what's coming to Louisiana and how that's affecting your role as a public service commissioner and what you guys have to do every day?
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Yeah, to put it in context.
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This data center uh is in North Louisiana, in one of our poorest parishes um in the state, uh, and it's being built the size of Manhattan, um, is its physical structure.
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Uh, it will use 10 gigawatts worth of power.
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So when you want to put that in context, you could put 10 city of New Orleans in this data center, and that's how much electricity it's gonna use in one single day.
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Uh, and so when we are thinking about building this infrastructure, part of the problem is, well, who's going to pay for it?
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So you hear all these things where the data center says, Oh, I'm gonna pay for it, I'm gonna pay for it, I'm paying my fair share, and they're somewhat telling the truth.
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They are paying their fair share for the contract.
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But a data center contract is around 15 to 20 years.
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A natural gas power plant's lifespan is somewhere between 25 to 40 years.
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So who's gonna pick up the tab if those data centers walk away?
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And right now the risk is being borne solely on Louisiana ratepayers.
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The shareholders have no skin in the game, Meta has no skin in the game, puts their signed contract.
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And so now it's like, oh yeah, we're gonna build this giant thing.
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Who knows if it's gonna survive?
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And then if we walk away after we paid our 15 years, yeah, the people of Louisiana, you can pay the remaining 15 years.
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And so it's making the job really hard because they are giving uh in this poor parish, they gave every teacher a$50,000 bonus this summer.
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They are building and donating to just everything.
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So it's really starting to say, oh wait, they're great for our local economy.
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Uh and because rates haven't really changed yet, they're like, oh, see, we're building here and we're nothing's gone wrong.
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But the real challenge is what's gonna happen in year 15, year 20, year 25.
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Uh, and that's where the bulk of these assets are going to be really now costly, and Meta just gets to say, okay, we're done, and now the people of Louisiana have to suffer.
00:11:43.679 --> 00:11:50.559
So it's making the job really hard because I'm having to combat what's happening today to have people think about what's really going to happen tomorrow.
00:11:50.799 --> 00:11:53.200
It's brutal, and I want people to understand something.
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That$50,000 bonus that teachers got in this part of Louisiana was already mandated by law.
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There was a law in the books that said that it like 1% of extra tax revenue has to go towards teacher bonuses.
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And so every teacher, because of local Louisiana politicians who had tried to protect teachers, got a$50,000 bonus.
00:12:14.799 --> 00:12:26.080
But some of y'all have probably heard of this because Meta went on tour saying that they gave$50,000 to all these teachers, even though the local authorities had forced that money to go in that direction.
00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:31.919
Uh, there's not a single other case like that in the country, by the way, Meta or any other tech company that's done that.
00:12:32.080 --> 00:12:35.120
So uh just want to make sure folks have that context.
00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:40.639
Um Peter, can you talk about uh what Devante was sharing a little bit?
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I mean, who's responsible?
00:12:42.879 --> 00:12:46.080
There's so much power coming in in these AI data centers.
00:12:46.240 --> 00:12:55.759
You all sit on the Public Service Commission, but we talked to some Georgians uh ahead of this conversation and said, you know, what should we ask Peter?
00:12:55.919 --> 00:13:03.200
And they said, well, some of the folks on the commission say that AI data centers and some of this technology is out of scope.
00:13:03.360 --> 00:13:08.000
Um, so can you talk about like what is a public service commission like the one in Georgia actually doing?
00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:10.000
Why do you see that differently?
00:13:10.960 --> 00:13:11.279
Sure.
00:13:11.360 --> 00:13:20.799
Let me give you some context on why data centers are coming to Georgia and why we've just inherited the mantles, the fastest growing state for data centers from Virginia.
00:13:21.039 --> 00:13:23.039
And it's really two reasons.
00:13:23.200 --> 00:13:28.480
Uh we've rolled out the red carpet as a state for data centers in two ways.
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It's um tax abatements, they pay no sales and use tax, so nothing's going into the state coffers.
00:13:34.480 --> 00:13:44.320
And then many times the property taxes they will be evaluated or praised at maybe 10% of what the value of that data center is, and then even that's abated away.
00:13:44.480 --> 00:13:48.639
So they might be paying only 5% of the actual value of the data center.
00:13:48.720 --> 00:13:51.039
So very little coming in in terms of taxes.
00:13:51.120 --> 00:13:53.600
And the other reason is the cheap power.
00:13:53.919 --> 00:13:59.840
They're getting a sweetheart deal on the power, and that's squarely in the camp of the Public Service Commission.
00:13:59.919 --> 00:14:05.360
We are the ones who set the rates for data centers and for residential ratepayers.
00:14:05.679 --> 00:14:11.840
Now, uh the context though is that I just joined the commission in January of 2026.
00:14:12.480 --> 00:14:25.039
Last year, for political reasons, we paused the rate case, and that's the chance for us to do a deep dive as a commission into what people should be paying on their bills and importantly what data centers should be paying on their bills.
00:14:25.200 --> 00:14:27.440
But again, we didn't have that deep dive last year.
00:14:27.519 --> 00:14:31.759
We haven't done that since 2022 before data centers really started to come.
00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:36.240
We won't have a real chance to do it until 2028, the next rate case.
00:14:36.559 --> 00:14:44.320
So we are squarely responsible for how much data centers are paying on their contracts and where that energy is coming from.
00:14:44.480 --> 00:14:47.360
But as I mentioned, there's two reasons, and there's even more than that.
00:14:47.519 --> 00:14:57.600
And so, although we are responsible for those contracts for electric service and approving them, reviewing them, deciding if there's enough guardrails, there's a bigger picture too.
00:14:57.759 --> 00:15:08.720
And that's why I've been saying we need a whole of government approach when it comes to the tax abatements, um, the actual local ordinances and the tax abatements at the local level, the water issues, noise issues.
00:15:09.039 --> 00:15:14.559
These are all things that are a bit beyond what the Public Service Commission oversees.
00:15:14.720 --> 00:15:19.679
But the 900-pound gorilla is the electric contract, and it is squarely in our camp.
00:15:19.840 --> 00:15:29.360
And I have been frustrated by the process, frustrated by the process of having staff review it, and then only if they decide that it merits our attention does it rise to the level of commissioners.
00:15:29.519 --> 00:15:36.879
I saw an opportunity to step in and say, I think there need to be more consumer protections on this large contract.
00:15:37.039 --> 00:15:38.639
I'm still not satisfied with it.
00:15:38.720 --> 00:15:41.360
I still think there's a lot of risk and cost being shifted.
00:15:41.519 --> 00:15:45.360
In particular, we're building fossil fuel resources for these data centers.
00:15:45.440 --> 00:15:49.360
So just right from the get-go, there's some cost shifting going on.
00:15:49.759 --> 00:16:03.279
But uh we have that responsibility as a public service commission, and we're two commissioners that are focused on that, but um we haven't been able to convince our other colleagues that this rises to their level of attention.
00:16:03.440 --> 00:16:10.240
And just last thing, I think that each commissioner, we should take an affirmative or negative decision on these large contracts.
00:16:10.720 --> 00:16:24.000
We have a law that says that you're a large customer if you're 900 kilowatts or larger, but when we've now we've seen one that's 3,200 megawatts, that's 3,500 times larger than that threshold.
00:16:24.320 --> 00:16:31.600
We should be taking an active decision and whether they are coming and whether they're paying their fair share on their contract for electric service.
00:16:31.679 --> 00:16:34.639
So that's squarely our responsibility at the PSC.
00:16:37.600 --> 00:16:46.399
Um, as I understand it, one of the biggest oil spills in US history happened in Greenpoint, which I believe is in your district.
00:16:46.960 --> 00:17:03.679
Um, could you tell us about the way that the harms of the fossil fuel industry are being perpetuated by the go-dot of AI data centers and what the toxic legacy of racist pollution is, is how that's coming up in this moment related to this new infrastructure?
00:17:03.919 --> 00:17:04.559
Yeah.
00:17:05.200 --> 00:17:07.039
Well, thank you for asking about that.
00:17:07.119 --> 00:17:08.559
One of my favorite topics.
00:17:08.720 --> 00:17:09.200
Yes.
00:17:09.440 --> 00:17:17.839
Um, Greenpoint has a waterway in it known as Newtown Creek, which used to be called the Little Mississippi of the North.
00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:31.359
And it's where a lot of the oil refining practices were developed in the 1800s, and they also did some other great things like bone boiling, sulfuric acid manufacturing, all that kind of stuff.
00:17:31.519 --> 00:17:39.440
And they would, you know, in the past, just before the Clean Water Act, just dump the waste into the waterway.
00:17:39.759 --> 00:17:46.799
And this waterway is an estuary, which means that instead of water flowing back and forth, it rises up and down.
00:17:46.960 --> 00:17:49.599
So all that pollution settled to the bottom.
00:17:49.839 --> 00:18:02.079
And um Exxon, well, what is today Exxon, uh, Chevron, and some other stakeholders, um they they would just allow oil.
00:18:02.319 --> 00:18:10.799
I'm looking around at these barrels in this bar that we're in, and I'm thinking about them being oil barrels and said, they would just let these oil drums kind of leak into the ground.
00:18:10.880 --> 00:18:25.039
And so it wasn't a big dramatic uh event like when we think of like Exxon Valdez, it was a slow pollution, and I think that's really what we're seeing with this data center kind of situation.
00:18:25.279 --> 00:18:35.759
We we have fought so hard in Greenpoint to hold these oil and gas companies accountable, and they are still not fully accountable.
00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:42.240
The constituents of my district um spent about 10 years suing Exxon.
00:18:42.480 --> 00:19:03.599
They got a record settlement of a few million dollars, but that we know is not enough to actually pay for all of the health costs, all of the land costs, the wildlife costs, the just general um livability of the land has been destroyed.
00:19:03.839 --> 00:19:24.720
And um, you know, when we think about moving away from oil and gas and holding these companies accountable, they have always had the money and the resources to find every loophole that they possibly can to move around the, you know, sell their company, go bankrupt, flip the property.
00:19:24.880 --> 00:19:32.880
I have a feeling that's what you're looking at in Louisiana, you know, that's it reminds me of some of the places here in New York.
00:19:33.200 --> 00:19:49.599
Um, there's just a lot of work that can be done through a skilled um bullshit artist um in a corporate environment where there's actually no um accountability to the people who are doing the harm.
00:19:49.759 --> 00:20:13.920
And I think that's what we're seeing with this data center thing is we're seeing all of these shell companies, we're seeing uh non-disclosure agreements, we're seeing um people reopening fossil fuel plants that we've already had enormous social justice movements to say we don't want this here, and they're reopening them secretly to do this again.
00:20:14.079 --> 00:20:26.799
And it's because we've given industry so much power and autonomy to act with impunity without any kind of actual um any actual accountability.
00:20:26.960 --> 00:20:47.119
So, you know, I've introduced legislation called risk and catastrophe, which is um it would make causing a risk to a community or a catastrophe in a community that is environmental or health related or infrastructure related, it would make it a criminal charge instead of a cost of doing business charge.
00:20:47.200 --> 00:21:03.279
And we're trying to get this passed because until CEOs and company presidents actually have their own skin, their own family, their own legacy on the line, they are always going to be able to write off whatever they do and pass the buck.
00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:09.759
We are still, still trying to get Chevron to show up to clean up some of the pollution they caused in my district.
00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.960
And we have spent millions of city dollars on trying to clean this up ourselves.
00:21:15.119 --> 00:21:24.319
We've got federal, state, and local, you know, super fund designations, and we cannot get these people to like come to the table.
00:21:24.480 --> 00:21:26.480
And it's really disgusting.
00:21:26.640 --> 00:21:31.839
So we really need some changes in the ways that we allow corporations to act.
00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:46.480
And I think that, you know, I am I'm in general someone who is, you know, a critic of the criminal justice system, but I think we have no criminal justice system for the wealthy and the corporations, and that is where we need to be developing that.
00:21:50.640 --> 00:21:52.079
Tough on white collar crime.
00:21:52.319 --> 00:21:52.799
That's right.
00:21:53.039 --> 00:21:54.559
Um okay.
00:21:55.200 --> 00:22:04.079
We actually have a lot of elected officials who listen to the podcast because they're They're dealing with yeah, all really far right now.
00:22:06.880 --> 00:22:09.279
Because people are trying to figure out what to do about this.
00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:12.160
And so we talked to people, we're like, Why are you listening?
00:22:12.319 --> 00:22:23.440
Because I don't know what the hell is going on, but suddenly all anyone in my district wants to talk about is AI data centers and AI sloth and uh DC blocks and Google and all these different things.
00:22:23.759 --> 00:22:32.079
I wanted to just pass it down and ask each of you to speak a little bit about um the pressures that you're facing as elected officials.
00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:42.640
I know you could go through that revolving door any day and walk out and get high, but someone who's as smart as you knows as much about what's going on as you do, they're dying to have someone like you.
00:22:42.720 --> 00:22:45.759
And so you're dealing with a lot of pressures from companies and stuff.
00:22:45.920 --> 00:22:54.880
So if we could pass it down and have each of you talk about the pressures you're facing from industry, from constituents on this issue, and also how you're dealing with that.
00:22:55.920 --> 00:23:01.519
Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing that people kind of put on is this economic value.
00:23:01.759 --> 00:23:09.279
Are you really going to look at the poorest place in Louisiana and deny a revolution for their economic future?
00:23:09.440 --> 00:23:16.480
Uh, and it's so it's really challenging, which my my background was economic justice policy, but then I have to look and I say, well, here we go.
00:23:16.559 --> 00:23:21.759
There's this 41-year-old black woman who had three children who lived in Richland Parish.
00:23:21.920 --> 00:23:25.519
She was paying$250 for rent for where her trailer was.
00:23:25.680 --> 00:23:31.279
Her landlord sees the data center coming in the temporary construction, she moves her rent to$14.50.
00:23:31.519 --> 00:23:32.079
Oh my god.
00:23:32.319 --> 00:23:32.960
She can't pay it.
00:23:33.039 --> 00:23:34.960
She gives her a month to be evicted.
00:23:35.119 --> 00:23:37.359
She doesn't have disposable income to move her trailer.
00:23:37.519 --> 00:23:40.000
So the trailer that she's owned for 10 years is now crushed.
00:23:40.079 --> 00:23:45.039
And now her and her three children live in her car for three weeks until she can get back on her feet.
00:23:45.200 --> 00:23:48.720
Uh, and so when I hear the economic arguments, I think about her.
00:23:48.960 --> 00:23:50.480
I said, well, okay, great.
00:23:50.559 --> 00:23:52.880
You said it was gonna be better for her, and now she's pushed out.
00:23:53.039 --> 00:24:01.759
Are the families that live in West Monroe that want to visit their family and now have gone from a hotel night stay of$65 to now$400 in Monroe?
00:24:01.839 --> 00:24:08.480
And no disrespect to my city and my and the state in my state, but Monroe's not a place that you're gonna spend$400 for a room.
00:24:08.960 --> 00:24:15.279
Um, and so it's it's this kind of pressure that you're seeing, but then there's the the opposite pressure.
00:24:15.519 --> 00:24:22.400
The people who feel like they don't have a voice uh and that they need someone to at least ask the tough questions and to speak up with them.
00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:32.240
And so that's the pressure that I don't mind having is getting those emails and saying, like, you know what, Devontae, yes, you are the lone no, you are the single voice on this commission.
00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:39.519
Uh, but when I get the 400 emails, I don't see it as an annoyance, I see it as validation, I see it as a movement.
00:24:39.599 --> 00:24:42.880
Uh, and it gives me kind of that extra that like juice.
00:24:42.960 --> 00:24:45.759
I think of like Space Jam when they like all drink like the juice.
00:24:45.839 --> 00:24:48.000
Like, that's what those emails in calls feel like to me.
00:24:48.240 --> 00:24:53.440
It's like, yeah, I'm going out there and I'm gonna play against these big monsters and uh I'm gonna make the basketball shot.
00:24:53.599 --> 00:25:04.640
Uh and so like I think you can flip the pressure in a way that actually is giving you the courage to continue to speak up and standing out instead of I think what typically happens is you feel like hey, your career's over.
00:25:04.720 --> 00:25:09.920
And the last thing I'll say about it is I I believe, like, look, I I can only do this job a day at a time.
00:25:10.079 --> 00:25:11.680
I can only do this job a term at a time.
00:25:11.759 --> 00:25:15.599
So I cannot think about the next term, the next election, the next vote.
00:25:15.759 --> 00:25:20.559
It's like if if if this vote that is right ends my career, then so be it.
00:25:20.640 --> 00:25:21.680
I did what I was here to do.
00:25:21.759 --> 00:25:23.759
And so that's how I think about that pressure.
00:25:29.039 --> 00:25:41.119
Well, so from my perspective in Georgia, I mean, one thing is that I freed myself from the prof uh any pressure of uh influence from the utility by not accepting any money from the utility companies.
00:25:41.200 --> 00:25:44.400
And that just should be standard.
00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:49.279
Um that's not what the colleagues on the commission have been doing, though, before me.
00:25:49.440 --> 00:26:05.119
But I would say the biggest hurdle and challenge that I've seen in my role now in month eight or so is just that there is a political machine called Georgia Power Company, which is a fourth branch of government, and I'm fighting kind of an information war with them.
00:26:05.359 --> 00:26:13.279
They're saying that, you know, when you hear the data centers are increasing your bills, not in Georgia, well, um that's not necessarily true.
00:26:13.440 --> 00:26:17.119
Um, again, we're building the wrong resources right from the get-go.
00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:32.799
We're locking ourselves into that subscription model, that Netflix having to buy the fuel over and over and over again for fossil fuel power plants rather than embracing clean energy that doesn't have to transit the Strait of Hormoes, that doesn't subject us to these volatile commodity markets.
00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:35.279
So there are costs and risks being shifted.
00:26:35.440 --> 00:26:53.279
And trying to convey that to the public with this incredibly well-resourced power company that can easily cut a check for half a million to send every one of their 2.4 million residential customers agit props saying that we've lowered uh your bills, I mean, that's hard to combat.
00:26:53.519 --> 00:27:11.359
So that's what been one of my biggest challenges is saying that um there are real risks and real costs that we are taking on that are being borne by regular ratepayers, and we're giving away these uh these benefits to the richest companies in the world.
00:27:11.440 --> 00:27:18.160
So, and if they are paying their fair share, then show us, don't redact these contracts, show us the receipts.
00:27:18.400 --> 00:27:36.640
So it's just this information war that I feel like I'm battling and uh does make me feel like I'm taking crazy pills sometimes, but um, but we do have to um get the message out there, and that's why I keep going to these data center town halls, is because people are frustrated by the lack of information.
00:27:36.799 --> 00:27:44.400
And when you human nature, when you completely redact something, then the psychology of human nature is you're gonna assume the worst.
00:27:44.480 --> 00:27:53.519
And and I I don't think people are wrong to assume that the richest and most powerful companies and people are taking advantage of the situation that we're in now.
00:27:53.839 --> 00:27:55.200
Yeah, yeah.
00:27:55.519 --> 00:28:11.680
I really relate to everything you both just said, and I guess the the third um the third pressure that I really am feeling is is time because we are in the midst of a climate collapse.
00:28:12.079 --> 00:28:32.160
We we've been working so hard to try to get renewables up and running, to try to find creative ways to expand renewable energy, cut down on peaker plants, especially in New York City, where peaker plants are some of the most polluting um uh infrastructure that we have.
00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:41.759
Most of the renewable energy in New York exists in the upstate area, and that's where the cheaper energy is because the renewable energy is cheaper.
00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:46.000
So that's where a lot of these data centers are setting up, right?
00:28:46.079 --> 00:29:23.759
And because it's done so secretly, because it's done with like buckets of misinformation being dumped all over the town, because people are saying we need this economic opportunity, there's so much time pressure created, and we are, you know, we're looking around us at everything, the poly crisis that we're in, and we want to be moving towards just getting our energy grid settled, getting our renewable energy systems put in place, actually decommissioning these picker plants.
00:29:23.920 --> 00:29:29.920
And now we've got somebody out of left field coming in and saying, actually, we want your dirty gas.
00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:37.440
Actually, we want to take all of your renewable energy and put it into something that doesn't help any single person in the state.
00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:55.359
And actually, we're doing all this for our own profit because this is actually about this really sick division that's happened now with the the techno-billiers and the rest of us.
00:29:55.519 --> 00:30:36.880
And so it's it's really, you know, I'm I'm a big fan of Yanis Varifakis and techno-feudalism and and his philosophy that he's written about um that, and it's really just uh an exacerbation of that, where um we are all actually just serfs to these, you know, places like Meta, places like um, you know, Elon Musk companies, um, because we are the product, our attention is the product, and we are being basically farmed to create um the things that they're profiting off of at the expense of the earth and all of our money.
00:30:37.119 --> 00:31:00.559
And and then to add insult to injury, you know, there was a recent article out that um the the oil and gas companies are making private deals with the governor to give them discounts on um you know, on the energy where the ratepayers are are are still paying like ever increasing amounts of money.
00:31:00.880 --> 00:31:05.119
So, you know, I just really feel this crushing pressure of time.
00:31:05.279 --> 00:31:11.200
Like we don't have time to solve all of this, but we have to solve it all at once.
00:31:11.440 --> 00:31:14.240
And I think that can be really overwhelming.
00:31:14.480 --> 00:31:27.039
But I think the solution is that in New York, the things that have gone really well, like coming to a fracking ban, things like that, it was done at the municipal level through community organizing.
00:31:27.200 --> 00:31:45.279
And I think we have some really great examples in our history of how we can organize ourselves to go at the smallest level of government first, pass bans, and then up, up, up until we can really just ban the whole practice or create reasonable guardrails when we have the information to do so.
00:31:45.599 --> 00:31:47.119
That was extremely informative.
00:31:47.279 --> 00:31:47.920
Thank you all.
00:31:48.079 --> 00:31:54.720
Um, Peter, you mentioned something that I'm I'm fascinated by, which is the information flow.
00:31:55.599 --> 00:32:03.680
One question that a lot of people in DC and New York perhaps are wondering is what does an ideal data center look like?
00:32:03.920 --> 00:32:07.680
We're gonna have data centers, our community is gonna accept anything.
00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:14.240
And when that question gets posed to the communities that we organize with, they're like, Are you serious?
00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:17.599
The only information we have is a pamphlet from Google.
00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:22.160
Let's say people we hear that again and again and again.
00:32:22.319 --> 00:32:34.079
How are you, you know, the analogy we use, I'm a basketball fan, you know, the analogy is like if if Peter and I were gonna had two basketball teams and they said, I have two players, I'll trade them for three of yours.
00:32:34.240 --> 00:32:35.119
What do you think?
00:32:35.759 --> 00:32:37.440
Uh well, it depends on the players.
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:43.359
So what's the point, right?
00:32:43.519 --> 00:32:45.119
It's like, are they injured?
00:32:45.279 --> 00:32:46.559
Do they have good statistics?
00:32:46.720 --> 00:32:47.440
Are they even alive?
00:32:47.599 --> 00:32:48.880
Are they even on my team?
00:32:49.039 --> 00:32:50.400
I mean, we don't know.
00:32:51.039 --> 00:32:58.400
This is the place that communities find themselves in when you know people are saying, oh, you guys just need to negotiate a community benefits agreement.
00:32:58.559 --> 00:33:07.599
Okay, I'll take uh, you know, my stepsister and the single mom who lives next door, and they'll negotiate against a hall of meta lawyers.
00:33:07.759 --> 00:33:09.039
I mean, it's ridiculous, right?
00:33:09.200 --> 00:33:16.799
So I'd like to pass it down the line and on that score, but communities are fighting to even know what the hell these companies are doing.
00:33:16.960 --> 00:33:34.640
And then you could start to you know say, well, these are the regulations we want, these data centers, if they really had to be built, which is a false premise, but if they were going to be built, they should be this X, Y, and Z distance from schools and churches and uh metro stations, they should be, uh, which by the way is passed in Virginia recently.
00:33:34.720 --> 00:33:35.759
It's pretty cool.
00:33:35.920 --> 00:33:43.599
Um, they should be, you know, using renewable energy and and you know, not putting the water and stuff so transparent, etc.
00:33:43.839 --> 00:33:48.799
But could you all talk about, as elected officials, how you're finding information?
00:33:48.960 --> 00:33:53.039
And what are you having to do to figure out what these companies are doing?
00:33:53.119 --> 00:33:58.559
Uh, and and what is the information flow like to those folks who are representing the people?
00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:03.200
Yeah, I mean, I think the information is is wild.
00:34:03.279 --> 00:34:09.519
So when Meta decided to come to Louisiana, we had all these rumors of uh a large data center.
00:34:09.679 --> 00:34:15.840
Then the utility filed an application that said a large customer in North Louisiana.
00:34:16.079 --> 00:34:22.079
So I'm starting to review a data center application for a rate, and I have no clue who the customer is.
00:34:22.239 --> 00:34:30.079
And the only way I found out before the public announcement was when the utility executives came to my office to kind of brag about all the community benefits.
00:34:30.159 --> 00:34:33.119
They flipped the page too fast and then I saw Meta's logo.
00:34:34.480 --> 00:34:41.199
So that's that's how I found out it was Meta, was simply by them like, look at all the great things they're gonna do for the community.
00:34:41.280 --> 00:34:47.280
Uh and they just forgot to put their thumb back in the same spot it had been holding uh the PowerPoint presentation.
00:34:47.599 --> 00:34:55.360
Um and so it's it's it's really hard to then talk to people because, like I said, when the commissions, we're really the last stop.
00:34:55.599 --> 00:35:10.800
Uh, and and what I think a lot of people don't realize is we're not even really regulating data centers, we're regulating that energy service agreement, the agreement for their power between the utility that has an obligation to serve them and what uh the customer wants to pay.
00:35:10.960 --> 00:35:19.360
But oftentimes, because of the NDAs, because of the secrecy, the only time community ever hears about a project is really when it gets to the commission level.
00:35:19.519 --> 00:35:26.079
Um, and so it makes it very hard because now you're having to navigate well, where did the permit come from?
00:35:26.159 --> 00:35:27.599
Or what's their water usage?
00:35:27.679 --> 00:35:41.199
All these questions that would have probably been answered at the local level, in a community meeting, that now is technically not part of my job, but I also feel an obligation to ask these questions because community never had the chance to do so.
00:35:41.280 --> 00:35:48.639
And so I'm gonna have to hold the line on something that's really not in my authority just to give people an opportunity to make their voice heard.
00:35:48.800 --> 00:36:00.800
Uh, and so I think that's the real challenge with these uh projects is that they want to claim they're doing great for the community, but they don't want the community to know who they are.
00:36:01.119 --> 00:36:15.280
Uh our governor got on the news the other day and said, Oh, yeah, when he announced Elon Musk coming to SpaceX and on the on an island in the bayou of Louisiana off the Gulf of Mexico, we're gonna shoot rockets, which makes a lot of sense.
00:36:15.440 --> 00:36:19.440
Um he literally told the community, he said, Oh, just trust me.
00:36:20.159 --> 00:36:21.360
Just trust me.
00:36:21.599 --> 00:36:30.000
Uh and so it's this like weird dynamic that right now where a lot of the elites just feel like they know what's best for a community.
00:36:30.239 --> 00:36:34.239
And they like they're gonna save all these communities, and it's like, no, you should engage them.
00:36:34.400 --> 00:36:36.400
You it you shouldn't be afraid.
00:36:36.480 --> 00:36:42.639
If your product, as Peter said, is so good, then go stand on the front line and take the hits or answer the questions.
00:36:42.719 --> 00:36:43.599
That's what we do.
00:36:43.840 --> 00:36:49.840
But we face questions from the utilities all the time about why we don't want to do what they want to do, so why can't you face uh the people?
00:36:49.920 --> 00:37:04.079
And I will never forget in the hearing that we had uh yesterday uh last month when we were voting on whether or not to subpoena Meta, there was a conservative gentleman who like picked up his phone and says, Meta knows everything about me.
00:37:04.239 --> 00:37:06.320
Why can't I know anything about Meta?
00:37:07.440 --> 00:37:10.559
And I was like, that is that's really the moment we're in right now.
00:37:10.639 --> 00:37:14.239
It's like communities just want to know what you already know about us.
00:37:15.920 --> 00:37:35.920
Yeah, so on the question of uh information and and and the lack of information, even as a state-level uh constitutional office uh officer with access to some of these data center contracts, I really only concede the large load contracts, the ones that are a hundred megawatts or larger.
00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:43.360
And I think there's been a little over half a dozen just from Georgia Power, but then they have several dozen more that I haven't seen.
00:37:43.519 --> 00:37:54.320
There's also the nonprofit co-ops that are cutting their own deals with data centers, and we don't have visibility on that in Georgia because we only regulate the for-profit utility companies.
00:37:54.559 --> 00:38:01.679
So even uh someone like me in my position, I don't have all of the information to be able to understand what the implications are.
00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:03.440
But you know, I'm not alone.
00:38:03.519 --> 00:38:06.880
Uh Devante serves on the Louisiana Public Service Commission.
00:38:06.960 --> 00:38:11.360
There's 49 other states besides Georgia that are all grappling with these questions.
00:38:11.440 --> 00:38:16.159
And so I very much look to my peers to see what they're doing, what they're up against.
00:38:16.239 --> 00:38:21.599
And that's very helpful to have that network so that we're not kind of going at this alone.
00:38:21.840 --> 00:38:24.400
But just to the question of, you know, what could they do better?
00:38:24.480 --> 00:38:42.880
I mean, I don't know that there is an ideal data center, but certainly the very first thing you do, and I learned this way back as a Peace Corps volunteer, is when you go into a village in a new location, you sit down with them and ask them what they need in their community, you find out what is needed, and then you can kind of enshrine that in um in a document.
00:38:42.960 --> 00:38:51.039
And I know there's uh there's not, you know, it's community benefits agreements are just depends on what it looks like.
00:38:51.199 --> 00:38:54.239
I really think they should not just be a one-time investment, but a dividend.
00:38:54.320 --> 00:38:57.199
If they're gonna do it, then it should be a long-term investment.
00:38:57.519 --> 00:39:02.000
They should not be um, you know, doing it under cloak and dagger with NDAs.
00:39:02.159 --> 00:39:08.960
There should be more um transparency around citing the electric transmission lines to plug into these data centers.
00:39:09.119 --> 00:39:13.599
Right now we just kind of run roughshod over people, take their land for eminent domain.
00:39:13.760 --> 00:39:19.039
There's just a lot of things that we're doing incorrectly, or that the data centers are doing incorrectly.
00:39:19.280 --> 00:39:22.239
And uh it's just leaving a bad flavor in people's mouths.
00:39:22.320 --> 00:39:26.320
And again, you know, just to reiterate it a third time, if they are so good, show us.
00:39:26.559 --> 00:39:32.800
Um but it's just uh that even I um have a don't have the full picture.
00:39:32.960 --> 00:39:43.920
And so I think that's why smart politicians are saying, let's hit pause, let's figure out um uh if it is even possible to do data centers correctly, and that's a big open question.
00:39:44.079 --> 00:39:50.960
Um and it just feels like we're stumbling around in the dark sometimes without all the information to make a good informed evidence-based policy.
00:39:51.280 --> 00:39:52.239
Thank you so much.
00:39:52.559 --> 00:40:02.880
I don't know about y'all, but I find it quite troubling that our elected officials are relying on uh lobbyists being disorganized to find out what company is coming into their state.
00:40:03.599 --> 00:40:23.199
Um the fact that Devontae uh happened to see the Meadow logo on the back of a PowerPoint, and that's the only way the public service commissioner elected to the state of Louisiana knew that Meadow was coming to build a 3,650-acre data center, is uh mildly troubling to say the reason.
00:40:23.440 --> 00:40:34.079
Um I want to ask you all, uh, we only have a few minutes left, and I want to ask you all to go down the line and tell us something that you found surprising in this work.
00:40:34.159 --> 00:40:40.400
Um, we have a lot of experts, organizers, researchers in this room, and who listen to the show.
00:40:40.719 --> 00:40:46.960
We have a lot of really brilliant people in the locally community who are working on AI data centers all over the country.
00:40:47.039 --> 00:40:59.280
So I'd love for you to uh just think for a minute about what is something in your fight that's been surprising, or you think that people in this room maybe wouldn't know about the fight against AI data centers in your community.
00:40:59.599 --> 00:41:15.519
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people coming from the deep south of Louisiana assume like we're just wildly crazy conservative, which there is a tint of conservatism at the national level, but at the state level, people really do care about the issues.
00:41:15.599 --> 00:41:29.440
And it's it's it's it's it's amazing to watch how a coalition in Louisiana is developing uh around around carbon capture, around data centers, around SpaceX, with unlikely allies.
00:41:29.599 --> 00:41:44.480
I I got I'm sitting at a meeting with with the president of the New Orleans Democratic Socialists of America uh and uh Chris Alexander, who's a MAGA podcaster in Louisiana, who's like, Leah, we need to fight these.
00:41:44.559 --> 00:41:57.679
And so it's a moment that's really showcasing that it is probably the closest we've ever had to trying to build the multi-racial, multi-social economic coalition that we've all talked about that we want.
00:41:57.840 --> 00:42:16.400
Uh, and if we do it right in this fight, and we we don't really exile people for some of the other issues that we, of course, disagree on and have strong opinions on, but see this moment, say like we can start to showcase that it's never been that the poor wanted too much, it was just that the rich couldn't get enough.
00:42:16.559 --> 00:42:16.960
Yes.
00:42:17.280 --> 00:42:28.800
And that's where you're seeing that there is a real movement of just people, whether they are deeply conservative or deeply liberal, saying, wait a minute, like when when does it stop?
00:42:28.960 --> 00:42:31.599
When do you stop getting everything that you want?
00:42:31.760 --> 00:42:46.400
Uh, and so you're you're seeing this coalition bubble up in Louisiana, which is not a place you you would, but as much as we care about the environment, that that fisherman cares about having access to to get his oysters, and that's his living.
00:42:46.559 --> 00:42:56.800
We we got the we we're seeing the loggers and the campers saying, well, wait a minute, if you cut all the trees to build this Manhattan data center, how's my my lumber and timber business going to stay in?
00:42:56.960 --> 00:43:03.840
Uh, and so while we may be coming from it from a different side and a different angle, we're finding a common cause and a common fight.
00:43:04.079 --> 00:43:18.719
And I think that's really what's surprising me and motivating me to keep to keep going and building this now unlikely coalition that is fighting the most powerful players we've seen and building a strong opposition to it.
00:43:20.079 --> 00:43:23.280
I'm gonna pick up on that as well with the Strange Bedfells.
00:43:23.440 --> 00:43:40.239
It's been remarkable to see how all different political stripes are coming together because of the fast and furious nature of data centers just coming in, just barreling down and this mentality of move fast and break things that the tech billionaires like to throw out there.
00:43:40.719 --> 00:43:50.800
But um, you know, they we keep hearing this refrain of you know, we must win this AI race with uh China, we um, but I never hear the follow up question of why.
00:43:50.960 --> 00:43:55.840
Like what is what is the reason something faster, I guess.
00:43:56.159 --> 00:44:00.719
Um but you know, there's just fundamental questions that aren't being Asked.
00:44:00.880 --> 00:44:04.639
And you know, I just see this as yet another extractive industry.
00:44:04.719 --> 00:44:11.599
We've had oil and gas where they just rape the earth and take what they can, and I see this as just another extension of it.
00:44:11.760 --> 00:44:21.679
So that's been really interesting to see how people are coming together to just, you know, we're worried about our jobs, we're worried about our natural resources.
00:44:21.920 --> 00:44:30.960
I've also just been in the fight, really surprised to see how we also, another refrain I hear is, well, this is the way that we've always done things.
00:44:31.119 --> 00:44:32.880
And so we're just going to keep doing it that way.
00:44:32.960 --> 00:44:40.239
And that the commission, I don't like this process, but we rely very heavily on staff to do the initial analysis.
00:44:40.320 --> 00:44:47.760
And I think that we should be more proactive and step up to the plate as commissioners and just put a proactive vision out there.
00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:53.360
But the a lot of the commissioners just don't want to take on that workload.
00:44:53.440 --> 00:44:56.159
They don't want to have to answer the hard questions.
00:44:56.239 --> 00:45:02.480
And that's been something else in the fight is you know, having people actually step up and and um take initiative here.
00:45:02.639 --> 00:45:04.320
So there's a range of issues.
00:45:04.400 --> 00:45:17.599
Um I don't know that I have all the answers, but um this is just happening so quickly that I think we're all just trying to grapple with this, and uh none of us have the answers, and I think that's why it's good to have you know folks in the room like this to talk about it.
00:45:18.719 --> 00:45:32.320
Yeah, I am you know thinking of something that I could tell all of you that you wouldn't know about this seems like really difficult given that I feel like I know almost nothing about this, and you probably know a lot more than me.
00:45:32.559 --> 00:45:52.000
Um but I think, yeah, like what I've noticed about it is that it really kind of follows along on this lack of transparency that's actually existing in almost every single problem that we're facing as a society, right?
00:45:52.239 --> 00:45:56.320
And this one, though, is going to be plopped in our backyard.
00:45:56.559 --> 00:46:00.079
So it's like all of a sudden we care a little bit more.
00:46:00.159 --> 00:46:06.960
But you know, I think about the work that we do around um, you know, criminal justice reform.
00:46:07.119 --> 00:46:14.400
A lot of people have no idea about how prison actually works, how um, you know, the judicial system actually works.
00:46:14.559 --> 00:46:17.440
People don't know how most things work.
00:46:17.760 --> 00:46:30.480
And uh the reality is that we need to have the same kind of curiosity and interrogation of all of the systems that kind of facilitate our society that we are having about data centers.
00:46:30.559 --> 00:46:39.360
So I would say like data centers, like let's allow that to crack open our um our complacency about the society that we live in.
00:46:39.519 --> 00:46:43.840
I think most of us aren't happy with the way that our society is functioning.
00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:54.400
It doesn't work, it's really expensive, and it's it's punishing people who don't deserve punishment and letting people who do deserve punishment off the hook, right?
00:46:54.559 --> 00:47:00.400
We live in a very unjust society and we are destroying a lot with it.
00:47:00.639 --> 00:47:14.000
And if we actually use this same kind of passion, interrogation, and interest in everything that we look into, um everything that surrounds us, we can actually create the society that we want.
00:47:14.159 --> 00:47:27.679
I think that's actually within our reach, never more than it is now, because I think we've woken up to so many geopolitical issues, local to national to global.
00:47:28.079 --> 00:47:32.320
And we need to take this energy and not rest with it.
00:47:32.480 --> 00:47:42.000
I was I remember after Trump won, um, the first time people were like really upset, and then people got kind of used to it, like it's the lobster in the pot, right?
00:47:42.079 --> 00:47:46.159
Like, oh, this is fine, um, the dog and the hat and the room on fire.
00:47:46.320 --> 00:47:50.719
Um but as time goes on, people adjust and they stop interrogating things.
00:47:50.800 --> 00:47:59.280
I think what we need to say is this is a symptom of a really broken society, this whole data center thing.
00:47:59.519 --> 00:48:06.320
And we need to use that energy to push forward to totally change what we're doing.
00:48:11.840 --> 00:48:13.119
I'm inspired.
00:48:13.280 --> 00:48:14.960
Um thank you all so much.
00:48:15.119 --> 00:48:20.079
So I see a few people sneaking out to get drinks already.
00:48:20.719 --> 00:48:22.480
It's probably my friend's house.
00:48:22.960 --> 00:48:33.440
Um that was my conversation with elected officials Devante Lewis, Peter Hubbard, and Emily Gallagher that we co-hosted with Lead Locally.
00:48:33.679 --> 00:48:36.960
You can find more about their work in the show notes.
00:48:37.280 --> 00:48:39.199
You've been listening to The Hung.
00:48:39.440 --> 00:48:45.119
We're publishing new episodes weekly, so if you absolutely loved what you heard, make sure to tell your cousins.
00:48:45.440 --> 00:48:51.440
Message us on Instagram at the HumPod to get connected to organizers in your state or country.
00:48:51.679 --> 00:48:54.960
The Hum is produced in partnership with Rohome Productions.
00:48:55.119 --> 00:48:58.000
Rohome's creative director is Alex Lewis.
00:48:58.159 --> 00:49:00.719
Their executive producer is John Myers.
00:49:00.880 --> 00:49:03.280
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00:49:03.519 --> 00:49:09.519
The Hum's video producer is Adultrehan, and we partner with the Center for Nonviolent Conflict Research.
00:49:09.760 --> 00:49:12.800
I'm Saul Levin, your host and banjo journeyman.
00:49:12.960 --> 00:49:15.920
Thanks for listening and see you next Tuesday.
