WEBVTT
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I'm John Batchelor. This is a Data Center Roundtable, and
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I welcome my special guest, Jim McTague. He is in
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Lancaster County, which is the ground zero of the debate,
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data center or death. And we welcome Simon Constable, who
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had the brave assignment from the Wall Street Journal recently
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to build a quiz, a very difficult quiz about what
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do you know about data centers? Simon has the answers.
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It There's no way any of you knew the answers
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before Simon's quiz. Now I hope you've learned them. And
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our special guest, Kevin Fraser. Professor Kevin Fraser leads the
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AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas
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School of Law. He's also a senior fellow at the
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Abundance Institute. Kevin was the... road into my understanding of
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what data centers represent, which is the ecosystem of AI,
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of robots, of cars that don't have drivers. Everything you
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see that looks magical right now has a data center
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at the beating heart of it. So gentlemen, I welcome
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you because we're going to turn to immediately politics. Jim
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explained James Malone, the evil politician who's taking money from
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special interests about data centers.
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Good day, John. Good day.
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First, Lancaster County essentially is Trump country, except for Lancaster City.
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It's the only blue area in Lancaster County. And Lancaster
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City went ahead and embraced two data centers. And the
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rest of the county, the Republican stronghold, apparently fears data centers,
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even though I can't think of any proposals anywhere else
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in the county. Uh, Which is a funny phenomenon because
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I've seen it in Kentucky, too, where people protest at
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a center that haven't even been proposed. So that's the
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situation here. So we have James Malone. He's a regular
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blue-collar guy who is mayor of East Petersburg, which is
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a borough with about 4,000 people. He ran for the
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state Senate. As a moderate, he unseated a MAGA extremist.
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In Trump country. So the Republicans were so disgusted with
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this MAGA extremist, they elected the mayor of East Petersburg.
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He won the state Senate race. The Republicans are desperate
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to get the seat back. Malone hasn't been in office
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long enough yet to do something outrageous. So they have
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nothing on him except that he favors data centers. So
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they're sending out circulars. with pictures of Malone piled high
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with bags of money, accusing him of being in the
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pocket of the data center lobbyists and interest groups.
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This is Lancaster County, a very prosperous county in a
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very prosperous state, Pennsylvania. Have you seen anything like this
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elsewhere in the country, Kevin?
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Oh, sure.
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Yes.
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So you can look to Utah. You can look to Texas.
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You can look to Oregon even. And you can find
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folks who are opposed to data centers that have been
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there even for decades. So I'm originally an Oregonian. Some
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of the first big data centers were built out in
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eastern Oregon. And there are concerns about water quality there.
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There are concerns about electricity rates. But as Jim was
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pointing out, a lot of these arguments are often built
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on what can only be described as lies, right? There
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may be some basis of fact, and occasionally you'll find
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one really bad actor that is flouting, for example, environmental
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standards or is not adhering to best environmental practices. But
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in this case, one rotten apple shouldn't spoil the whole
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bunch because If we were not having this data center
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build out right now, let me tell you, our economy
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would look a heck of a lot different. When average
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Americans are concerned about how the economy is doing, if
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we were to pause data center development and to pause
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everything that was built upon these data centers, we would
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be in a much worse economic situation. And I think
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that also is important to flag with respect to the
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jobs that data centers create. A lot of people say, oh, well,
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they're only two-year-long stints for construction workers, and that's not
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a real job. Well, go talk to a construction worker
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and they'll tell you they've never worked a 40-year construction project.
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The nature of construction work is that it's iterative and project-based.
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And so we really need to recognize that this is
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the modern infrastructure upon which our entire digital ecosystem depends.
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Simon, you can help us on this matter because your
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quiz answered a lot of these questions for the Wall
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Street Journal.
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Please explain, Simon.
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Well, one of the things that we had to do
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here was to dig in and find out what people
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might think of things. And so the questions we've got
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are hard, but you've got to think of it like
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you're reading a newspaper and you would expect to read
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something that you didn't know previously. Otherwise, it isn't news.
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And so the fact that they're hard. is neither here
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nor there. It's just a matter of getting to the
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end of it, and you will get the right answer
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at the end, and then you will know it and
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can go on.
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But there's some of them really simple things.
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So do you mind if I just offer a question
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or two? So there are– here's one. Number three out
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of ten questions we've got. There are currently more than 4,000
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data centers across the 50 U.S. states and the Districts
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of Columbia, according to the Pew Research.
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Which of the.
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Following states has the most– the most data centers. And
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I have a feeling Kevin will know the answer to
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this right now.
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Virginia.
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Yes, it is Virginia because it's right by Washington, D.C.,
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and Washington, D.C. needs a lot of those to do
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a lot of thinking, and it does a lot of
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thinking in its data center.
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So that one's pretty interesting.
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I didn't know that answer, and I'm going to give
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another one here to anyone who wants to say this.
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The U.S.
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Has more than 4,000 data centers. Yes, same thing. The
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highest of any country. Which country has the second highest
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number of data centers? This is when we wrote this.
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You have a multiple choice.
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Go ahead, Simon.
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The choices are China, France, Germany, India, United Kingdom.
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Mr. McTague, do you want to take a guess? China.
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China.
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Mr.
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Fraser?
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I would go China as well, but Simon's qualification at
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the end there makes me think that I'm going to
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miss something here.
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Drum roll, Simon. Big smile. The answer is?
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United Kingdom.
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Yes.
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At that point, at that point that we have the data,
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I'm sure that will change the Germany and I'm sure
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that China will catch up to it at some point
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because it generally does, particularly if they've snitched some data
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itself from other countries.
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What I take from this quiz that I failed when
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Simon gave it to me, Kevin, is that I know
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very little about data center interests. and what they require
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in a community. So I want to be specific rather
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than general. The data center that's now under construction in
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Lexington County, nearby Jim's home, across from a Costco, so
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it's a commercial district, it's in a former warehouse scale,
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I mean a huge building, that was owned by R.R.
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Donnelly and Company, which were high-end printers in the 20th century.
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My novels were printed at R.R.
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Donnelly.
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That's how important it was to those of us who
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wrote fiction once upon a time. And nonfiction. And the
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publishers in New York, dependent upon R.R. Donnelly, comes to
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the Asian expansion. The printing houses all went to Asia.
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The building was sitting there empty. And along comes the
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data center developers, a well-known company, a big one, and
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wants to give the county $ 6 million up front to
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buy the site and then pay $ 2 million in taxes
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a year.
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And, of course, Jim... Drumroll.
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Did the county say yes or no, and the city
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say yes or no to that offer?
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It was on the shoulders of the city. Again, let
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me emphasize that in Trump country, Lancaster City is the
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only blue city. That's where all the liberal nutcases live,
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and they embraced the data centers and the they had
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a big deficit for their school system. That's going to
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be erased. So it's a win-win for Lancaster City.
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One more detail, Kevin. The governor of the state, Josh Shapiro,
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who's often mentioned as a presidential candidate, at the time
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that this data center came in and handed money to
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the city and to the county eventually because there are
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going to be jobs, Josh Shapiro wanted to make Pennsylvania
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the data center state in the United States. He switched
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his position or softened.
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It since then.
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Now, Kevin, what did Lancaster County or Lancaster City do wrong?
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Is there anything they could have done to anticipate this fever?
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You know, I think here we have to go to
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Keynes and think about the animalistic spirits of the general public.
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And here that's really carrying over to our public policy discourse.
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And unfortunately, Governor Shapiro has seen the political winds and
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see where they're blowing. And he's riding right along with
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a big old parachute trying to catch the wave of
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opposition to data centers. But ultimately, what makes me the
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most angry is that a lot of the justification, supposed
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justification for this opposition is groundless. in environmental justice arguments.
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And those are arguments about we need to make sure,
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for example, that marginalized communities are being heard.
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We need to make sure that our resources are being respected.
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Well, John, you know as well as I do, and
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Simon knows and Jim knows, these data centers are going
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to get built. If they don't get built in the
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areas where we have the most available water, where we
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have the most available land, they're going to go to
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areas that are indeed less.
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Well-suited to data center development.
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And so instead of treating this as a national infrastructure project,
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just like we treated the national highway system, just like
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we treated the build-out of electricity, we are instead going
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to see data centers concentrate in certain communities. And I
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hope that they leverage, just as Lancaster City did, they
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leverage the ability to maximize the benefits for their local communities.
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But we do know that it's really important that these
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communities have savvy negotiators and have support when they are
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going and talking with these data center developers.
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We're going to turn to what is to be done,
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at least our ideas of what is to be done
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right now, because we're in the middle of this dispute.
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And it doesn't recognize Republicans or Democrats on one side
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or the other.
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It's all mixed up.
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Note that Josh Shapiro is a well-known Democratic leader. And
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the Democratic city that is most for data centers is
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Lancaster City, who entirely voted for Josh Shapiro for governor
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and will again anytime he makes an offer. Kevin Fraser,
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the AI Innovation Law Program. leader at the University of
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Texas School of Law as well as at the Abundance Institute.
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Simon Constable, he's in the south of France writing for
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the Wall Street Journal and other distinguished publications. Jim McTague,
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former Washington editor for Barron's Magazine. And when we come back, what.
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Is to be done? I'm John Batchelor. I'm John Batchelor
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with my colleagues.
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This is, to my knowledge, the first data center roundtable
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in the state of Pennsylvania about Lancaster County, a rich, abundant,
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growing county. My goodness, a mixed economy, tourism, the Amish,
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light manufacturing, tourism includes the Sight and Sound Theater where
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busloads of Churchgoers come out to watch recreations of scenes
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from the Bible. We're talking about wholesome America here and
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fields of grain. And everything about it is pleasurable. And
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to come to town to take up the empty building
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left behind by R.R. Donahue and Company, a first-rate printer
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that went to Asia. is the gumption of a data
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center that wants to give the county money. So what
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is to be done to convince people otherwise? I'm going
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to start with you, Simon, because you have another question
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that answers a lot of anxiety, the question about electricity.
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Please give that question, Simon.
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Yes.
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How much electricity is used? in each year as a
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percentage of the whole amount. And so it's about 1%.
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So here's answer number A, about 1% of the electricity
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power in the US. B, about 2%. C, about 3%. D,
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about 4%. E, more than 4%.
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All right, let me phrase.
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So this is how much electricity data centers used now
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of the whole use of electricity in the United States.
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Is that correct?
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Yes, that's right.
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Yeah. All right, Jim, do you have a guess?
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4%.
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Kevin, do you have a guess?
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I'm going to go with A. One percent.
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It's actually more than four percent, which is still not
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a very large number in terms of the massive amount
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of electricity that America uses. Four percent seems to be
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or just a bit more than four percent, which you
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were very close to, is significant. It's not so bad.
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If it was 25% of the entire electricity used in America,
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then I think that would be quite something different. And
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people will be saying, oh, this is a bit of
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a problem. We need to build more power stations. But
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it hasn't come to that yet.
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And Kevin, is that a number that threatens communities in Utah,
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more than 4% of the national use of electricity for
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data centers?
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Well, as you all were discussing earlier, when we're talking
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about electricity, we're talking about grid systems that in some
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cases are decades.
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If not even a century old.
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And we're talking about municipal and utility law that is
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wildly complex and is the sort of class that my
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law students tend to avoid taking because it's so naughty
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and tricky. And so when we're talking about the impact
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of electricity, by virtue of data centers on folks' well-being
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and on affordability, it is very variable. We know that
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certain communities are experiencing higher rates of electricity because we've
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seen an uptick in demand, but pointing a finger at
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data centers isn't necessarily the right answer. In many cases,
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we're seeing that we've needed to upgrade our grid system
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for decades and have been delaying that work, and now
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is the opportunity to improve our grid system I will
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say we've also seen that the largest data center developers
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have agreed to a rate payer protection pledge as championed
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by the administration and have said that they do not
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want to pass on higher rates to consumers.
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Now, Congress, instead of going on.
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Recess for five weeks over the entirety of August, could
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have acted on myriad proposals to make that law and
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to help protect American consumers from potential rate increases later.
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But instead, they're taking a break and actively relaxing, I guess,
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or just espousing more data center falsehoods on X.
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Oh, Jim, give a small idea of what risk you
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take when you go to the mailbox in the morning.
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What happened to you this morning?
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Well, I get inundated with friars attacking candidates from both parties,
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accusing them of being data center puppets. Hey, I forgot
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to mention earlier, in idyllic Lancaster County, there is a
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pocket of poverty. It's called Columbia, PA. It's on the
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Susquehanna River. There's an abandoned airfield on the edge of town.
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This county bought it from the previous owner for about
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$ 3 million, and it's losing money. A data center came
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in and proposed building a center on the airfield. It
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would have I flooded this pocket of poverty with the
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worst educational system in the county with millions of dollars.
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And the town came, 70 people came out and protested it.
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And so the city government said, no way, we're not
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having any data center. What they want is a drone manufacturer.
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They want somebody to make drones. Ukraine-style drones in the
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middle of the city, and it's not going to happen.
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So I just want to throw that out there. Colombia,
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a pocket of poverty, is solid Trump country. So that's
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the irony that the Republican Party of Reagan, which was supply-siders,
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they were for lower taxation, less red tape, and now
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they're proposing higher taxes on data centers and more red tape.
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And Actually, the Democrats in.
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The state are less— well.
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They're becoming more vocal anti-data center, but less so than
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the Republicans. So, again, when I go to my mailbox,
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the political literature is all about data centers. There's no
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other issue in the whole universe.
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That's it.
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We have about a minute, Kevin. Is there a major
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politician who's taking up the case for data centers and
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trying to calm the fears here that are based on
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a lot of poor information?
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Yeah, I know Governor Reeves in Mississippi has been unafraid
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of recognizing that data centers in the right conditions, especially
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when we support local negotiation and make sure that there's
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clear processes to adhere to, can be a great thing
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for communities.
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And therefore, the irony Jim just outlined, the poorest part
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of the county says no to $ 800, 000 rent a year
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plus the purchase price of off the borough's hands of
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a loser. Lancaster City, a liberal den, said, yes, please
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give us the money. The governor said, we're data centers.
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Then the governor says, we're not data centers. Is this
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an example of what's going on across the country, Kevin?
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Oh, certainly.
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We know that a lot of these debates are being dictated,
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as Jim pointed out, by a handful of people who
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have nothing else to do on a Tuesday night and
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by folks who are on X perpetually and not, for
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lack of a better phrase, touching grass. When you go
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and you meet folks who realize that their communities need
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tax revenue, that their schools need better paid teachers, they
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recognize that there are win-win situations to be had here.
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Kevin Fraser, leads the AI Innovation and Law Program, professor
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at the University of Texas School of Law. Jim McTague,
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former Washington editor of Barron's Magazine, now bombarded by circulars.
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And Simon Constable, who builds impossible-to-answer quizzes for the Wall
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Street Journal.
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I'm John Batchelor.
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I'm John Batchelor. This is a Data Center Roundtable, and
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I welcome my special guest, Jim McTague. He is in
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Lancaster County, which is the ground zero of the debate,
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data center or death. And we welcome Simon Constable, who
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had the brave assignment from the Wall Street Journal recently
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to build a quiz, a very difficult quiz about what
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do you know about data centers? Simon has the answers.
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It There's no way any of you knew the answers
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before Simon's quiz. Now I hope you've learned them. And
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our special guest, Kevin Fraser. Professor Kevin Fraser leads the
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AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas
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School of Law. He's also a senior fellow at the
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Abundance Institute. Kevin was the... road into my understanding of
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what data centers represent, which is the ecosystem of AI,
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of robots, of cars that don't have drivers. Everything you
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see that looks magical right now has a data center
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at the beating heart of it. So gentlemen, I welcome
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you because we're going to turn to immediately politics. Jim
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explained James Malone, the evil politician who's taking money from
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special interests about data centers.
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Good day, John. Good day.
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First, Lancaster County essentially is Trump country, except for Lancaster City.
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It's the only blue area in Lancaster County. And Lancaster
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City went ahead and embraced two data centers. And the
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rest of the county, the Republican stronghold, apparently fears data centers,
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even though I can't think of any proposals anywhere else
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in the county. Uh, Which is a funny phenomenon because
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I've seen it in Kentucky, too, where people protest at
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a center that haven't even been proposed. So that's the
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situation here. So we have James Malone. He's a regular
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blue-collar guy who is mayor of East Petersburg, which is
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a borough with about 4,000 people. He ran for the
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state Senate. As a moderate, he unseated a MAGA extremist.
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In Trump country. So the Republicans were so disgusted with
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this MAGA extremist, they elected the mayor of East Petersburg.
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He won the state Senate race. The Republicans are desperate
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to get the seat back. Malone hasn't been in office
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long enough yet to do something outrageous. So they have
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nothing on him except that he favors data centers. So
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they're sending out circulars. with pictures of Malone piled high
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with bags of money, accusing him of being in the
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pocket of the data center lobbyists and interest groups.
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This is Lancaster County, a very prosperous county in a
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very prosperous state, Pennsylvania. Have you seen anything like this
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elsewhere in the country, Kevin?
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Oh, sure.
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Yes.
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So you can look to Utah. You can look to Texas.
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You can look to Oregon even. And you can find
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folks who are opposed to data centers that have been
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there even for decades. So I'm originally an Oregonian. Some
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of the first big data centers were built out in
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eastern Oregon. And there are concerns about water quality there.
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There are concerns about electricity rates. But as Jim was
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pointing out, a lot of these arguments are often built
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on what can only be described as lies, right? There
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may be some basis of fact, and occasionally you'll find
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one really bad actor that is flouting, for example, environmental
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standards or is not adhering to best environmental practices. But
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in this case, one rotten apple shouldn't spoil the whole
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bunch because If we were not having this data center
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build out right now, let me tell you, our economy
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would look a heck of a lot different. When average
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Americans are concerned about how the economy is doing, if
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we were to pause data center development and to pause
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everything that was built upon these data centers, we would
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be in a much worse economic situation. And I think
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that also is important to flag with respect to the
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jobs that data centers create. A lot of people say, oh, well,
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they're only two-year-long stints for construction workers, and that's not
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a real job. Well, go talk to a construction worker
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and they'll tell you they've never worked a 40-year construction project.
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The nature of construction work is that it's iterative and project-based.
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And so we really need to recognize that this is
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the modern infrastructure upon which our entire digital ecosystem depends.
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Simon, you can help us on this matter because your
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quiz answered a lot of these questions for the Wall
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Street Journal.
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Please explain, Simon.
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Well, one of the things that we had to do
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here was to dig in and find out what people
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might think of things. And so the questions we've got
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are hard, but you've got to think of it like
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you're reading a newspaper and you would expect to read
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something that you didn't know previously. Otherwise, it isn't news.
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And so the fact that they're hard. is neither here
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nor there. It's just a matter of getting to the
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end of it, and you will get the right answer
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at the end, and then you will know it and
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can go on.
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But there's some of them really simple things.
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So do you mind if I just offer a question
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or two? So there are– here's one. Number three out
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of ten questions we've got. There are currently more than 4,000
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data centers across the 50 U.S. states and the Districts
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of Columbia, according to the Pew Research.
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Which of the.
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Following states has the most– the most data centers. And
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I have a feeling Kevin will know the answer to
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this right now.
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Virginia.
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Yes, it is Virginia because it's right by Washington, D.C.,
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and Washington, D.C. needs a lot of those to do
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a lot of thinking, and it does a lot of
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thinking in its data center.
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So that one's pretty interesting.
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I didn't know that answer, and I'm going to give
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another one here to anyone who wants to say this.
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The U.S.
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Has more than 4,000 data centers. Yes, same thing. The
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highest of any country. Which country has the second highest
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number of data centers? This is when we wrote this.
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You have a multiple choice.
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Go ahead, Simon.
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The choices are China, France, Germany, India, United Kingdom.
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Mr. McTague, do you want to take a guess? China.
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China.
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Mr.
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Fraser?
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I would go China as well, but Simon's qualification at
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the end there makes me think that I'm going to
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miss something here.
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Drum roll, Simon. Big smile. The answer is?
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United Kingdom.
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Yes.
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At that point, at that point that we have the data,
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I'm sure that will change the Germany and I'm sure
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that China will catch up to it at some point
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because it generally does, particularly if they've snitched some data
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itself from other countries.
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What I take from this quiz that I failed when
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Simon gave it to me, Kevin, is that I know
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very little about data center interests. and what they require
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in a community. So I want to be specific rather
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than general. The data center that's now under construction in
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Lexington County, nearby Jim's home, across from a Costco, so
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it's a commercial district, it's in a former warehouse scale,
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I mean a huge building, that was owned by R.R.
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Donnelly and Company, which were high-end printers in the 20th century.
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My novels were printed at R.R.
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Donnelly.
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That's how important it was to those of us who
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wrote fiction once upon a time. And nonfiction. And the
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publishers in New York, dependent upon R.R. Donnelly, comes to
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the Asian expansion. The printing houses all went to Asia.
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The building was sitting there empty. And along comes the
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data center developers, a well-known company, a big one, and
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wants to give the county $ 6 million up front to
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buy the site and then pay $ 2 million in taxes
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a year.
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And, of course, Jim... Drumroll.
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Did the county say yes or no, and the city
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say yes or no to that offer?
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It was on the shoulders of the city. Again, let
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me emphasize that in Trump country, Lancaster City is the
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only blue city. That's where all the liberal nutcases live,
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and they embraced the data centers and the they had
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a big deficit for their school system. That's going to
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be erased. So it's a win-win for Lancaster City.
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One more detail, Kevin. The governor of the state, Josh Shapiro,
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who's often mentioned as a presidential candidate, at the time
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that this data center came in and handed money to
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the city and to the county eventually because there are
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going to be jobs, Josh Shapiro wanted to make Pennsylvania
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the data center state in the United States. He switched
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his position or softened.
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It since then.
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Now, Kevin, what did Lancaster County or Lancaster City do wrong?
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Is there anything they could have done to anticipate this fever?
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You know, I think here we have to go to
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Keynes and think about the animalistic spirits of the general public.
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And here that's really carrying over to our public policy discourse.
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And unfortunately, Governor Shapiro has seen the political winds and
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see where they're blowing. And he's riding right along with
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a big old parachute trying to catch the wave of
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opposition to data centers. But ultimately, what makes me the
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most angry is that a lot of the justification, supposed
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justification for this opposition is groundless. in environmental justice arguments.
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And those are arguments about we need to make sure,
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for example, that marginalized communities are being heard.
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We need to make sure that our resources are being respected.
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Well, John, you know as well as I do, and
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Simon knows and Jim knows, these data centers are going
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to get built. If they don't get built in the
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areas where we have the most available water, where we
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have the most available land, they're going to go to
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areas that are indeed less.
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Well-suited to data center development.
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And so instead of treating this as a national infrastructure project,
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just like we treated the national highway system, just like
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we treated the build-out of electricity, we are instead going
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to see data centers concentrate in certain communities. And I
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hope that they leverage, just as Lancaster City did, they
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leverage the ability to maximize the benefits for their local communities.
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But we do know that it's really important that these
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communities have savvy negotiators and have support when they are
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going and talking with these data center developers.
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We're going to turn to what is to be done,
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at least our ideas of what is to be done
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right now, because we're in the middle of this dispute.
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And it doesn't recognize Republicans or Democrats on one side
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or the other.
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It's all mixed up.
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Note that Josh Shapiro is a well-known Democratic leader. And
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the Democratic city that is most for data centers is
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Lancaster City, who entirely voted for Josh Shapiro for governor
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and will again anytime he makes an offer. Kevin Fraser,
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the AI Innovation Law Program. leader at the University of
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Texas School of Law as well as at the Abundance Institute.
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Simon Constable, he's in the south of France writing for
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the Wall Street Journal and other distinguished publications. Jim McTague,
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former Washington editor for Barron's Magazine. And when we come back, what.
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Is to be done? I'm John Batchelor. I'm John Batchelor
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with my colleagues.
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This is, to my knowledge, the first data center roundtable
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in the state of Pennsylvania about Lancaster County, a rich, abundant,
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growing county. My goodness, a mixed economy, tourism, the Amish,
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light manufacturing, tourism includes the Sight and Sound Theater where
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busloads of Churchgoers come out to watch recreations of scenes
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from the Bible. We're talking about wholesome America here and
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fields of grain. And everything about it is pleasurable. And
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to come to town to take up the empty building
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left behind by R.R. Donahue and Company, a first-rate printer
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that went to Asia. is the gumption of a data
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center that wants to give the county money. So what
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is to be done to convince people otherwise? I'm going
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to start with you, Simon, because you have another question
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that answers a lot of anxiety, the question about electricity.
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Please give that question, Simon.
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Yes.
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How much electricity is used? in each year as a
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percentage of the whole amount. And so it's about 1%.
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So here's answer number A, about 1% of the electricity
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power in the US. B, about 2%. C, about 3%. D,
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about 4%. E, more than 4%.
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All right, let me phrase.
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So this is how much electricity data centers used now
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of the whole use of electricity in the United States.
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Is that correct?
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Yes, that's right.
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Yeah. All right, Jim, do you have a guess?
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4%.
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Kevin, do you have a guess?
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I'm going to go with A. One percent.
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It's actually more than four percent, which is still not
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a very large number in terms of the massive amount
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of electricity that America uses. Four percent seems to be
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or just a bit more than four percent, which you
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were very close to, is significant. It's not so bad.
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If it was 25% of the entire electricity used in America,
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then I think that would be quite something different. And
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people will be saying, oh, this is a bit of
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a problem. We need to build more power stations. But
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it hasn't come to that yet.
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And Kevin, is that a number that threatens communities in Utah,
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more than 4% of the national use of electricity for
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data centers?
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Well, as you all were discussing earlier, when we're talking
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about electricity, we're talking about grid systems that in some
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cases are decades.
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If not even a century old.
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And we're talking about municipal and utility law that is
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wildly complex and is the sort of class that my
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law students tend to avoid taking because it's so naughty
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and tricky. And so when we're talking about the impact
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of electricity, by virtue of data centers on folks' well-being
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and on affordability, it is very variable. We know that
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certain communities are experiencing higher rates of electricity because we've
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seen an uptick in demand, but pointing a finger at
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data centers isn't necessarily the right answer. In many cases,
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we're seeing that we've needed to upgrade our grid system
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for decades and have been delaying that work, and now
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is the opportunity to improve our grid system I will
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say we've also seen that the largest data center developers
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have agreed to a rate payer protection pledge as championed
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by the administration and have said that they do not
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want to pass on higher rates to consumers.
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Now, Congress, instead of going on.
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Recess for five weeks over the entirety of August, could
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have acted on myriad proposals to make that law and
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to help protect American consumers from potential rate increases later.
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But instead, they're taking a break and actively relaxing, I guess,
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or just espousing more data center falsehoods on X.
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Oh, Jim, give a small idea of what risk you
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take when you go to the mailbox in the morning.
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What happened to you this morning?
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Well, I get inundated with friars attacking candidates from both parties,
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accusing them of being data center puppets. Hey, I forgot
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to mention earlier, in idyllic Lancaster County, there is a
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pocket of poverty. It's called Columbia, PA. It's on the
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Susquehanna River. There's an abandoned airfield on the edge of town.
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This county bought it from the previous owner for about
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$ 3 million, and it's losing money. A data center came
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in and proposed building a center on the airfield. It
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would have I flooded this pocket of poverty with the
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worst educational system in the county with millions of dollars.
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And the town came, 70 people came out and protested it.
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And so the city government said, no way, we're not
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having any data center. What they want is a drone manufacturer.
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They want somebody to make drones. Ukraine-style drones in the
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middle of the city, and it's not going to happen.
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So I just want to throw that out there. Colombia,
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a pocket of poverty, is solid Trump country. So that's
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the irony that the Republican Party of Reagan, which was supply-siders,
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they were for lower taxation, less red tape, and now
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they're proposing higher taxes on data centers and more red tape.
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And Actually, the Democrats in.
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The state are less— well.
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They're becoming more vocal anti-data center, but less so than
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the Republicans. So, again, when I go to my mailbox,
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the political literature is all about data centers. There's no
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other issue in the whole universe.
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That's it.
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We have about a minute, Kevin. Is there a major
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politician who's taking up the case for data centers and
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trying to calm the fears here that are based on
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a lot of poor information?
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Yeah, I know Governor Reeves in Mississippi has been unafraid
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of recognizing that data centers in the right conditions, especially
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when we support local negotiation and make sure that there's
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clear processes to adhere to, can be a great thing
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for communities.
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And therefore, the irony Jim just outlined, the poorest part
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of the county says no to $ 800, 000 rent a year
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plus the purchase price of off the borough's hands of
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a loser. Lancaster City, a liberal den, said, yes, please
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give us the money. The governor said, we're data centers.
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Then the governor says, we're not data centers. Is this
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an example of what's going on across the country, Kevin?
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Oh, certainly.
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We know that a lot of these debates are being dictated,
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as Jim pointed out, by a handful of people who
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have nothing else to do on a Tuesday night and
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by folks who are on X perpetually and not, for
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lack of a better phrase, touching grass. When you go
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and you meet folks who realize that their communities need
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tax revenue, that their schools need better paid teachers, they
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recognize that there are win-win situations to be had here.
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Kevin Fraser, leads the AI Innovation and Law Program, professor
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at the University of Texas School of Law. Jim McTague,
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former Washington editor of Barron's Magazine, now bombarded by circulars.
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And Simon Constable, who builds impossible-to-answer quizzes for the Wall
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Street Journal.
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I'm John Batchelor.
