In a New York Times interview, Will Lawrence, an incoming member of Congress elected to a rural district in Michigan on the strength of the data-center backlash, warned against the lame-duck Congress passing legislation designed to expedite the data-center buildout.
“I think it would be a terrible mistake after an election that was about corruption to pass this bill,” Lawrence told Times reporter Claire Brown about the industrial-expediting bill known as BAAJA, “which further empowers the wealthiest corporations in the country to run roughshod over local communities to build community-polluting projects.”
Lawrence further warned that the purported benefits for the renewable energy industry of fast-tracking projects with limited or no public review could spur an even greater political backlash against the transition away from fossil fuels.
“The data centers issue is poisoning the entire conversation around the energy transition in my district,” he said. “People see transmission lines feeding power to data centers, and if we don’t deal with the data centers, then there will continue to be extreme backlash against clean energy as well as transmission. And that’s what I’m seeing in my district.”
Lawrence, a co-founder of the youth climate activism organization Sunrise Movement, defeated Republican incumbent Rep. Tom Barrett in Michigan’s 7th District, which includes Lansing and its surrounding rural communities. Opposition to the imposition of data center projects in the district became his top issue, as they threatened the constituents’ land, water, air, and autonomy. He supports a federal moratorium on new data center construction until the existential risks that the AI companies themselves claim their products pose are properly regulated.
Transcript:
Congress is working on a bipartisan permitting bill that will make it easier to build energy projects. What are your thoughts?
I hope that Congress doesn’t pass the bill in this lame-duck session. I think it would be a terrible mistake after an election that was about corruption to pass this bill, which further empowers the wealthiest corporations in the country to run roughshod over local communities to build community-polluting projects. We simply must do better. I understand that there are good provisions in this bill, but this is not the way.
The data centers issue is poisoning the entire conversation around the energy transition in my district. People see transmission lines feeding power to data centers, and if we don’t deal with the data centers, then there will continue to be extreme backlash against clean energy as well as transmission. And that’s what I’m seeing in my district.