BY GLENN BECK | SEPTEMBER 2, 2026
Data centers are arriving in communities across the country with promises of investment, tax revenue, and technological growth. Their opponents raise concerns about electricity prices, water, noise, pollution, property values, jobs, and land. Some of those concerns are well documented, some depend almost entirely on the specific project being proposed, and some simply do not stand up to scrutiny.
That distinction matters because at a public hearing, one exaggerated claim can make officials dismiss five legitimate ones. The strongest case, whether you ultimately support or oppose a project, is built around questions that can be answered with documents, engineering specifications, contracts, permits, and development agreements. It helps to separate the arguments into three categories:
Tier 1- Concerns are documented and deserve serious scrutiny.
Tier 2- Concerns may be valid but depend on the specific facility and agreement.
Tier 3- Arguments are unsupported, obsolete, or overstated enough to undermine the stronger case.
TIER 1: GREEN — YOU’RE RIGHT TO PUSH
These are the concerns with the strongest factual foundation. If you are challenging a project on these grounds, there is substantial evidence behind the questions you are asking.
“My electric bill is going up because of this.”
That is partly true, but the honest version of the argument is stronger than the exaggerated one. Residential electricity prices have risen sharply in recent years, including in states with significant data center development, but while data centers are a driver, they are not the only driver. Industry research has attributed a significant share of recent capacity-price increases to load growth, much of it associated with data centers, while also pointing to power-plant retirements, market-design changes, supply constraints, equipment costs, an aging grid, and clean-energy requirements.
One number in particular is easy to misuse: the often-cited 267% increase. That figure refers to a wholesale price increase, not a 267% increase in a household electric bill. Electricity supply is only one portion of what residential customers pay; transmission, distribution, taxes, and other charges make up the rest. Using a wholesale increase as though it were a household bill increase gives opponents an easy way to discredit the larger argument.
The stronger issue is scale. Utilities have received hundreds of gigawatts’ worth of new connection requests, and demand of that magnitude cannot be absorbed without new generation, substations, and transmission infrastructure. Someone will pay for it. The important question is who.
“They’ll stick ratepayers with the bill for the infrastructure.”
This is a legitimate concern, and regulators across the country are already trying to address it. The mechanism is called cost shifting: a utility builds new substations, transmission lines, or power generation to serve an enormous new customer, such as a data center. If that customer is not required to pay the full cost of that infrastructure, some of the expense can be passed on to the utility’s other customers through higher electric rates.
That is why states are increasingly creating large-load tariffs requiring extremely large electricity users to bear more of the cost of serving them. Numerous states have adopted or proposed protections intended to shield ordinary ratepayers from data-center infrastructure costs, but those protections are not foolproof. Even jurisdictions with cost-allocation reforms can still experience residential rate increases, so the real question is whether the particular tariff actually prevents infrastructure costs from migrating onto household customers.
Ask: Does my state have a large-load tariff? If not, why is the county approving a massive new load before those protections exist?
“The noise will be unbearable.”
Noise may be the most underrated local impact of a data center. Cooling equipment and rooftop fans can operate around the clock, creating a constant mechanical hum, while backup diesel generators can be far louder when they run. The problem is not simply volume but also frequency. Many local noise ordinances were written for ordinary neighborhood disturbances and rely on A-weighted decibel measurements, or dBA, which may not adequately capture the low-frequency mechanical sound associated with some data center equipment.
That means a facility can technically comply with a noise ordinance while nearby residents still experience a persistent hum inside their homes. Backup generation adds another concern because during an extended outage or emergency, generators may operate for hours or even days. For that reason, communities should not settle for a vague promise that a developer will simply “meet the ordinance.” Meaningful protections should include enforceable limits measured at the property line, with specific provisions for low-frequency sound and generator operation.
“The backup generators are going to pollute our air.”
Diesel generators emit fine particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, and diesel exhaust is associated with serious health risks. What makes large data centers unusual is the potential scale: a hyperscale campus may contain dozens or even hundreds of backup generators.
Permitting rules also matter. If emissions are regulated primarily through annual limits, a facility may be able to use a large portion of its permitted emissions during a concentrated outage period. Backup diesel is also no longer the only concern. Some facilities have considered or installed on-site gas turbines for primary electricity generation rather than emergency backup, creating a very different emissions profile because that equipment may operate routinely.
Ask: Are the backup generators Tier 4 emissions-rated? How many are proposed? How many hours per year may they legally operate? Is any on-site primary generation proposed now—or allowed later?
“They get enormous tax breaks and create almost no permanent jobs.”
This is one of the strongest areas for scrutiny because the construction workforce and permanent-employment numbers are dramatically different. A large campus can require thousands of workers during construction, but once it is operating, staffing requirements are much smaller. Those permanent jobs may be technically skilled and well paid, but the question is whether the public subsidy is proportionate to the lasting economic benefit.
Research on major data center incentive packages has found extremely high subsidy-per-job figures in some cases, and states can lose significant sales-tax or property-tax revenue through exemptions designed to attract projects. Just as importantly, incentives may not always determine where a facility locates. Data centers primarily need combinations of power, fiber connectivity, land, and infrastructure, so communities should ask why they need to surrender decades of tax revenue for a project that may have chosen the area anyway.
Different communities have negotiated dramatically different deals with the same industry. Some have granted long-term abatements, while others have required companies to pay normal property taxes. That means the subsidy package is not an unavoidable consequence of hosting a data center. It is a negotiation.
“They’re going to take my land for the power lines.”
Data center companies generally do not possess eminent-domain authority, but utilities do. When enormous new electrical loads require new transmission corridors, landowners can find themselves facing condemnation proceedings for infrastructure whose primary purpose is serving those loads.
The legal issue is complicated because electric transmission has traditionally qualified as a public use, but data center development raises a newer question: “what happens when a transmission project exists primarily because one or a small number of private customers require enormous amounts of electricity?” Regardless of how courts ultimately answer that question, landowners should not assume that agricultural preservation status or conservation restrictions automatically prevent transmission construction.
Ask: What new transmission infrastructure does this project require? Where will it go? Whose property will it cross? Has eminent domain been discussed?
“Nobody will tell us who is actually behind the project.”
Large developments can move through local approval under code names, with economic-development officials subject to nondisclosure agreements and the ultimate tenant or owner undisclosed during critical stages of review.
There may be legitimate reasons for some commercial confidentiality, but communities are also entitled to question a process in which officials are making billion-dollar land-use decisions while residents do not know who the ultimate operator will be or what commitments have been made. You do not have to oppose data centers to believe that major land-use decisions should be transparent.
“We’ll be left holding the bag if the AI boom collapses.”
Utilities may build generation, substations, and transmission based on projected demand that takes years to materialize. If a project is canceled, downsized, or abandoned after infrastructure has already been built, those investments can become stranded assets, and the danger is that remaining utility customers eventually absorb the costs.
That is why contract terms matter. Regulators are increasingly considering minimum commitments, termination fees, and other protections designed to prevent a giant customer from encouraging billions of dollars in infrastructure spending and then simply walking away.
Ask: What is the minimum contract term? What is the early-exit penalty? If the customer leaves, who pays for the infrastructure built for them?
TIER 2: YELLOW — IT DEPENDS ENTIRELY ON THE PROJECT
These are the arguments where both sides can quote technically accurate numbers while describing completely different facilities. The answer for your community is not in a national talking point; it is in the engineering plan, utility agreement, environmental permit, and development agreement.
“It will drain our water.”
The honest answer begins with one question: What cooling system are they building? An evaporatively cooled data center and a closed-loop facility can have radically different water demands.
Traditional evaporative systems can consume large quantities of water because much of what is withdrawn is lost through evaporation instead of returning to the watershed. Large facilities using these systems can consume millions of gallons per day, making them a significant concern in small municipalities, drought-prone regions, or communities dependent on stressed groundwater.
Closed-loop systems are very different. Water circulates rather than continuously evaporating, dramatically reducing consumption, and newer liquid-cooling technologies may lower direct water use even further. The technology is also changing because increasingly powerful AI chips generate enormous amounts of heat, pushing the industry toward different cooling designs.
That means two seemingly contradictory statements can both be true: some data centers consume enormous quantities of water, while some newer facilities use comparatively little direct cooling water. National comparisons do not settle the local question. Agriculture, golf courses, or leaking municipal water systems may consume far more water nationally, but water is not withdrawn from a national reservoir. It comes from your aquifer, your river, or your municipal system.
Ask: Is the cooling evaporative or closed-loop? What is the projected WUE? Will evaporative cooling be used during summer peaks? How much? Is the water municipal, groundwater, or recycled wastewater? Is there a binding consumption cap?
“My well went bad after they broke ground.”
Residents near large construction projects have reported sediment, discoloration, and other changes in private well water. In some cases, the most plausible mechanism may be construction, not the operation of the completed data center. Grading, excavation, and heavy earthwork can disturb shallow groundwater systems, while pressure changes can affect what nearby private wells pull from surrounding geology.
That means a resident can experience real damage even when the finished facility does not use groundwater for cooling. The central problem is baseline evidence. If nobody tests nearby wells before construction begins, both sides are left making claims afterward that are difficult to prove. Residents say their water was fine before construction; developers respond that no one can prove the project caused the problem. Without a dated baseline, both positions can become nearly impossible to resolve.
For homeowners on private wells, one of the most practical protections is simple: have the water professionally tested before construction begins. A certified baseline can be far more useful later than testimony based only on memory. Communities should also ask what happens to wastewater leaving the facility, not simply how much water goes in.
“It will tank my property value.”
Distance appears to matter enormously. Research around major data center markets does not support the claim that every home near a data center automatically loses value, and some analyses show strong appreciation in data-center-heavy areas. But those results can reflect the fact that data centers tend to locate where valuable infrastructure, jobs, and development already exist.
The local effect is more nuanced. Homes extremely close to a large facility may face discounts because of noise, views, truck traffic, and industrial surroundings. As distance increases, that effect can diminish or disappear. Farther away, communities may even benefit if the project materially expands the tax base.
There is an important catch: that tax-base benefit only exists if the facility is actually paying substantial taxes. A project receiving a decades-long property-tax abatement cannot simultaneously be credited with delivering the full tax-base benefit it would have produced without that abatement. Property-value claims therefore have to be considered alongside setbacks, landscaping, noise restrictions, and tax terms.
“It’ll be good for our schools.”
Maybe. Once again, the agreement determines the answer. A data center can be attractive from a public-finance perspective because it occupies expensive property, consumes comparatively few local public services, and adds virtually no students to the school system. If it pays full property taxes, that can produce a favorable revenue-to-service ratio.
But if the project receives a long-term property-tax abatement, the equation changes completely. The same building can either become a substantial contributor to school revenue or receive a large subsidy from the local tax base.
Ask: What percentage of taxes is being abated? For how long? What will the school district actually receive in year one, year five, and year fifteen?
TIER 3: RED — THESE ARGUMENTS DON’T HOLD UP
Being wrong publicly on one dramatic claim can cost you credibility on everything else. There are plenty of strong questions to ask about data centers; you do not need weak ones.
“Living near a data center will give me cancer from radiation.”
The evidence does not support this claim. A commercial data center does not function like a cellular tower or radar installation; its servers are essentially computing equipment operating at enormous scale. The more legitimate electromagnetic-field question involves substations and high-voltage transmission infrastructure, which produce extremely-low-frequency magnetic fields like other electrical infrastructure.
There has been scientific debate for decades about possible health associations from long-term ELF magnetic-field exposure, including epidemiological research involving childhood leukemia, but causation has not been established. If someone wants to raise the issue, the stronger approach is not to claim that the data center itself is emitting dangerous radiation. Ask instead for actual field measurements near substations or transmission equipment.
“It’s waterless technology and uses no water at all.”
This is also false, just in the opposite direction. Some newer facilities can dramatically reduce direct cooling-water consumption, while others still use evaporative cooling and may consume very large volumes. “Closed-loop” is a design choice, not a universal industry standard.
The right response to anyone claiming water is irrelevant is simple: show us the cooling design.
“One AI question uses a whole bottle of water.”
This claim is increasingly obsolete. The widely repeated 500-milliliter figure was based on estimates involving a multi-question interaction and included indirect water consumption associated with electricity generation. Subsequent estimates have been substantially lower, while production measurements have reported a much smaller direct on-site water footprint for individual text prompts.
Exact numbers still vary dramatically depending on the model, data-center location, cooling system, season, electric grid, and what researchers choose to include. Lack of consistent disclosure is itself a legitimate criticism, but “one question equals one bottle of water” is not a strong argument to take into a public hearing.
“The data center is a secret government surveillance facility.”
A commercial data center provides computing and storage infrastructure. Debates about corporate data practices, government surveillance, warrants, and privacy laws are real debates, but those issues generally do not depend on whether the servers are physically located in your county or somewhere else. They are not strong land-use arguments.
“They’ll cause blackouts and my lights will go out.”
This is usually overstated. The stronger concern is less dramatic but more defensible: huge, concentrated increases in electricity demand can increase congestion, require major infrastructure investment, tighten reserve margins, and contribute to higher electricity costs.
The strongest argument is about price, infrastructure, and risk allocation, not an unsupported prediction that the neighborhood will suddenly go dark.
THE QUESTIONS TO TAKE TO THE HEARING
If you take nothing else from this article, take these questions. Every one of them should have a factual answer, and when a developer or public official refuses to provide one, that is information too.
- Cooling: Is the facility using evaporative or closed-loop cooling? What is the projected WUE? Will supplemental evaporative cooling be used during summer peaks, and at what volume?
- Water source: Will the facility use municipal water, groundwater, or recycled water? Is there a binding consumption cap written into the agreement?
- Noise: What is the guaranteed decibel limit at the property line? Is that limit enforceable? Does it address low-frequency noise or only A-weighted decibels?
- Generators: How many backup generators will there be? What emissions tier are they? How many hours per year may they legally operate? What noise enclosure is required?
- On-site generation: Is any primary electricity generation proposed on the site now? Could it be added later without another public hearing?
- Taxes: What percentage of taxes is being abated, and for how many years? What will the school district receive in year one and year fifteen?
- Jobs: How many permanent jobs are guaranteed in writing? Is there a clawback if the developer fails to create them?
- Grid costs: Does the state have a large-load tariff? Who pays for the substation, transmission lines, and generation capacity?
- Contract term: What is the customer’s minimum commitment? What early-exit penalty applies if the customer leaves?
- Transmission: What new transmission infrastructure is required? Whose land will it cross? Has eminent domain been discussed?
- Setbacks: How far is the facility from the nearest existing home? What berms, fencing, and landscaping are guaranteed?
- Baseline testing: Will the developer pay for pre-construction well testing and baseline noise monitoring on surrounding properties?
- Disclosure: Who is the ultimate owner or operator? Has any public official signed a nondisclosure agreement concerning the project?
- Expansion: Is the proposal only Phase One? What is the full anticipated buildout? Will later phases require another public hearing?
CONCLUSION: ASK BEFORE YOU APPROVE
The data center debate becomes much clearer once the weak arguments are stripped away. If you are a hard no, your strongest ground is not radiation or sensational predictions about blackouts; it is the documented, measurable issues—noise, diesel emissions, subsidies compared with permanent jobs, transmission corridors and eminent domain, potential cost shifting onto ratepayers, and approval processes that may reveal too little until the community’s leverage is gone.
If you are undecided, remember that “data center” is not a single environmental or economic outcome. Two facilities of roughly the same size can affect their communities very differently depending on their cooling systems, setbacks, tax agreements, noise restrictions, utility arrangements, and infrastructure costs. The technology alone does not determine the outcome. The agreement does.
And if you are inclined to say yes, insist on protections anyway. Require low-water cooling where feasible, negotiate the tax package instead of automatically granting the maximum abatement, require modern emissions controls, put enforceable noise limits at the property line, establish groundwater and noise baselines before construction, protect ratepayers from stranded infrastructure costs, and require meaningful exit penalties. Put it in writing.
Many communities that later found themselves dealing with damaged wells, persistent noise, wastewater disputes, or unexpected infrastructure consequences did not suffer simply because computers exist. They suffered because critical questions were not answered before construction began. Once the land is rezoned, the agreement is signed, the tax package is granted, and billions of dollars of construction are underway, the balance of power changes.
Before approval, a community can negotiate. After approval, it can mostly complain. Ask first. That is the leverage a community has, and it may be the only time it has it.
LINK TO ARTICLE ON GLENNBECK.COM
Last Updated on September 2, 2026 by Real KBrett