Two former officials who served under opposing presidents have written a joint argument about data centers in America. One led the Environmental Protection Agency under President Biden. The other chaired the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission under President Trump. They say they disagree on plenty of things, but not on this: the current situation is failing the country.
The problem, as they describe it, is simple. Data centers are being built faster than the rules meant to govern them can keep up. Communities are pushing back, and their complaints are concrete — higher power bills, air pollution, strained water supplies and constant noise.
Why Data Centers Are Facing Pushback From Communities
The authors lay out the pressure coming from several directions at once. Grid operators are warning about reliability. Local officials are not waiting for Washington to act. Governors and county boards are improvising their own responses, from moratoriums to new permitting rules.
Meanwhile, there is no national framework in place, even though the industry itself is asking for one. The authors warn that without a framework, the country faces two bad outcomes: stalling tools that are central to its competitiveness, or building them at the expense of the communities next door.
To put it plainly, the mess is not just about buildings full of servers. It is about who pays for the power, who breathes the air, whose water gets used, and who gets a say before construction starts.
What the Two Former Officials Want to Fix
The headline message from the two authors is that the status quo is failing America. Their shared position is that the current approach — where local governments patch together rules while federal agencies stay on the sidelines — is not working for anyone.
- Data center development is outpacing the rules that govern it
- Communities are raising concerns about power bills, air pollution, water supplies and noise
- Grid operators are warning about reliability
- Local governments are improvising with moratoriums and new permitting rules
- Washington has no framework, even as the industry asks for one
The fact that these two authors — one from a Democratic administration and one from a Republican one — agree on this issue is itself the story. They are not arguing about whether data centers should be built. They are arguing that the rules need to catch up, and that the country needs a shared framework instead of a patchwork of local fixes.
Our Take: A Rare Agreement That Washington Should Heed
In our view, this joint argument matters more than most policy op-eds. When a Biden EPA chief and a Trump FERC chair say the same thing about an industry growing this fast, it is a signal that the problem has moved past politics.
The communities raising concerns are not being unreasonable. Rising power bills, polluted air, strained water and constant noise are real costs that land on real people. At the same time, the authors are right that stalling these projects would hurt the country's competitiveness. The answer is not to pick one side. The answer is a framework that lets the industry grow while making sure the people living next door are protected and heard.
What readers should take away is this: the data center debate is no longer a distant tech story. It is a local story about bills, water and noise, and it is heading to more communities. The two former officials have shown that agreement across party lines is possible on this issue. The question now is whether Washington will act on it, or keep letting governors and county boards clean up a mess no one is officially in charge of.
