local pushback

His call for a ban in rural neighborhoods Tuesday comes as many rural counties and activists have attempted to pass moratoriums and called for the Legislature to grant them greater local control to prevent the construction of the centers. Opponents argue that the oftentimes gigantic operations will put their water availability and air quality at risk and threaten to hike their power bills.

Residents of Lima Township and surrounding areas who opposed a proposed Consumers Energy power plant celebrated a victory last week when the utility announced it had withdrawn plans for a 1.4-gigawatt power plant on a 120-acre parcel of farmland off South Lima Center Road. 

The July 1 decision came after weeks of protest from residents and lawmakers concerned about the potential health hazards of a massive power plant on land zoned for agriculture. 

“It was such an awesome team effort, how everybody came together,” Lima Township Supervisor Bill VanRiper told Michigan Advance. “There’s no right or left, we’re all fighting for the same thing.” 

The move in Jersey City comes as many New Jersey towns are banning data centers amid concerns about electricity bills, demand for water supply for cooling requirements, noise, and other quality of life issues.

A Northern Kentucky farm family’s recent decision to reject a $26 million land offer is putting a spotlight on a growing national tension: the collision between farmland preservation and the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Ida Huddleston, 82, and her daughter, Delsia Bare, turned down a lucrative proposal to sell part of their roughly 1,200-acre farm near Maysville, Kentucky — land their family has worked for generations.

“Stay and hold and feed a nation,” Bare said, according to WKRC. “$26 million doesn’t mean anything.”

The offer came from an unnamed company seeking land for a large-scale data center. The proposed development is part of a broader push by major technology firms to secure rural land for AI-powered infrastructure.

For the Huddleston family, the decision wasn’t financial, it was personal and historical.

“My grandfather and great-grandfather and a whole bunch of family have all lived here for years, paid taxes on it, fed a nation off of it,” Bare told the TV station. “Even raised wheat through the Depression and kept bread lines up in the United States of America when people didn’t have anything else.”

That generational connection to the land ultimately outweighed an offer far above market value. Bare told Realtor.com, “There is no price on earth enough for what they are getting ready to do. There’s no replacing what they’re getting ready to destroy.”

Denver City Council voted unanimously Monday night to approve a one-year ban on new data centers.

Monday’s vote followed a lengthy public comment. 

Council members Paul Kashmann and Darrell Watson co-sponsored the measure, which aims to create working groups to study things like noise, air quality, construction impacts, zoning, building, and energy codes, to name a few.

Community members also voiced their concerns during the public comment period; some called the moratorium a good first step in establishing regulations, and many highlighted environmental and health risks, as well as the impact these data centers have on Denver neighborhoods. Some even called for an outright ban on data centers.

As of 1 April, the Department of Justice has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for failing to turn over full copies of their voter registration lists. The push has hit repeated roadblocks, including legal defeats in California, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, Arizona and Michigan. But the justice department is also running into obstacles in some of America’s reddest states, with Trump strongholds Utah, West Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky and Idaho all refusing to hand over the requested data.

In their objections, the Republican-controlled states cite their constitutionally guaranteed authority over election administration, as well as concerns over data security, privacy laws and the questionable legal grounds of the department’s request.

On Monday, Fulton County’s lawyers moved to block the Justice Department’s request, arguing in a 27-page motion that the subpoena was intended “to target, harass, and punish the President’s perceived political opponents,” and could make poll workers less likely to participate in future elections.

The county’s motion also pointed out that the statute of limitations for any election-related crimes committed in 2020 has expired, meaning no criminal prosecutions could come from the data.