US EditionTrump’s push for more AI data centers faces backlash from his own voters
Montour County residents and officials oppose rezoning for a 1,300-acre AI data center citing risks to farmland, water, and rising utility bills amid a $64 billion national data center backlash.
- This year, more than 300 Montour County residents, many Trump supporters, packed a planning commission meeting that recommended against rezoning by a 6-1 vote; the issue now moves to county commissioners including Rebecca Dressler.
- Federal and state officials are urging regulatory relief to accelerate AI-related infrastructure, with U.S. President Donald Trump promoting the build-out as an economic and national security priority.
- Talen Energy is seeking rezoning to build a multi-building data center complex that would convert 350 acres of farmland into 12 to 15 buildings near its gas-fired plant amid Amish-used dirt roads.
- Electricity prices in Pennsylvania rose about 15 per cent in the past year, squeezing households as Pennsylvania utilities and grid operators face rising capacity prices and rates, while analysts warn of growing household energy debt.
- Political strategists view rising utility and data-center anger as an electoral risk going into next year, noting many Trump voters in Montour County oppose the project alongside farmers and environmentalists.
8 Articles
8 Articles
Trump’s push for more AI data centers faces backlash from his own voters
A backlash in central Pennsylvania reflects a growing coalition of farmers, environmentalists and homeowners who have united across partisan lines to resist data-center expansion. Residents fear data centers will raise utility bills and strain resources.
Trump’s push for more AI data centres faces backlash from his own voters
The residents came in camouflage hats and red shirts signaling unity, more than 300 of them packing into a rural Pennsylvania planning commission meeting to protest a proposed data center they feared would carve up their farmland and upend the quiet rhythms of their valley
Data Centers Are Embedding Themselves in American Communities. Who Will Pay?
Francis Chung/POLITICO/APData center developers are offering towns and cities across the country tempting reasons to allow them to set up shop. It’s leaving local officials grappling with a decision: decline what could amount to millions of dollars in revenue, or jump on a building spree that some increasingly see as unsustainable.Tech giants like Meta, Microsoft and Google told investors this fall they expect to spend hundreds of billions of do…
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