A Fast-Tracked AI Data Center in Utah

Public Shut Out as Great Salt Lake Faces New Threats

The Problem We’re Ignoring

We have a big problem on our hands when it comes to data centers. As we have fallen far behind the curve towards addressing climate change, massive corporations in the tech and utility industries are gearing up to spend trillions of dollars on new infrastructure to develop technologies many Americans don’t want but which we have no say in.

Here in Utah, we are seeing some of the worst proposals, with a new facility being considered that could use more power than the state as a whole right now.

This is well in line with Utah’s reputation for being far too friendly to big business at the expense of the communities we live in.

I’ve been critical of the damage the legislature has done to environmental regulations in the state for a very long time, and have been sounding the alarm on data centers in particular for years.

On Tuesday, I joined with State Rep. Rosalba Dominguez to call for a halt on the data center proposed for Box Elder County, on the ancestral homelands of the Shoshone tribe, which would more than double the needed energy capacity of the state. Much of this energy would likely be generated onsite by new natural gas turbines being fed from a nearby pipeline owned by Blackstone, a massive asset management firm. Box Elder County pushed an initial decision back to May 4 after the public outcry this week. Public pressure works.

It’s time for drastic measures.

Who Pays the Price

This industry, intertwined with bad actors pushing artificial intelligence and killing every effort to adopt common sense regulations, needs to be slowed down. We will all end up paying for the inflated costs and demand policymakers are being pushed to approve without a second thought.

It’s time for a moratorium on data center development.

We are on a path to far overbuilding the actual demand for new energy. Utilities are being led on by tech tycoons, inflating shareholder profits that we are all going to be left holding the bag for.

Everyone at the top profits and the rest of us see our electricity rates go up to cover the costs for unnecessary infrastructure that pollutes our air and water and feeds algorithms that divide us even further. A Carnegie Mellon study estimates data centers could raise the average U.S. electricity bill by 8% by 2030, surpassing 25% in the highest-demand markets. Consumer Reports found 78% of Americans are already worried that data centers will drive their energy bills higher. In a state as dry as Utah, with the Great Salt Lake in crisis and the Colorado River on the brink, we simply can’t afford to allow thousands more acre feet to be consumed by wealth-hungry tycoons who care nothing for our state.

This is why a moratorium is the right call. It’s not saying we’re never going to do the whole AI thing. It’s saying we need to give it some foresight before we lose control.

Why a Moratorium Makes Sense

I’ve spoken to experts. They are worried that without regulation, without really thinking this through, AI is going to continue gaining power and influence over our systems in ways we can’t fully grasp but that will make certain people extraordinarily wealthy while millions of others risk losing their jobs and their livelihoods. We need to understand these tradeoffs, these problems, before they happen, not just let them happen to us. This means slowing, even stopping the development of physical infrastructure until we fully understand the repercussions.

Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act in March 2026, and over 100 local communities have already enacted their own moratoriums. Maine’s legislature passed the nation’s first statewide ban on large data centers this month, and even the governor who vetoed it acknowledged that “a moratorium is appropriate given the impacts of massive data centers in other states on the environment and on electricity rates.”

A strong, comprehensive federal AI regulatory framework would start from a simple premise: technology that can reshape the economy, democracy, and the environment in a matter of years cannot be left to the discretion of a handful of unelected billionaires accountable to no one but their shareholders.

It would require mandatory pre-deployment safety reviews for large-scale AI systems conducted by a truly independent federal agency, not industry-funded labs. It would tie data center expansion to verified renewable energy sourcing, mandate full public transparency on water use and carbon emissions, and impose real penalties for violations. Companies deploying AI that eliminates jobs would contribute to a worker transition fund: you create the externality, you pay to clean it up. And it would ban AI in hiring, housing, lending, and criminal justice without affirmative proof the system does not discriminate, shifting the burden of proof from harmed communities to the corporations profiting off the technology. The goal is not to stop innovation; it is to ensure that when this technology reshapes society, it does so on terms set by the public, not by the people selling it.

The Right Type of Energy Infrastructure

During my time in the legislature, I was a leading skeptic of the push for unchecked growth of data centers and the required energy demand associated with them.

As a clean energy advocate, my goal has always been to see solar, geothermal, wind and battery storage come to dominate the market, because working as a portfolio we can achieve most of our energy needs with these sorts of technologies. But that is only if we are considering normal energy demands and replacing expensive, dirty fossil fuel infrastructure rather than just adding to the system to accommodate massive new AI loads. The IEA projects global data center electricity consumption will roughly double by 2030, and Utah already ranks second in the nation for enhanced geothermal potential, a resource that gets swamped when AI infrastructure is layered on top of the grid rather than built to replace what already pollutes it.

The question with AI is not whether we regulate it, but whether we do so before or after the damage is done. What is being approved right now in Utah, a single proposed campus in Box Elder County that would consume more than twice the electricity the entire state currently uses, powered entirely by burning fossil fuels, is not a debate about the future of technology. It is a decision, made at speed and without public input, about who bears the costs and who captures the benefits. The corporations racing to build are betting that regulation comes after. A moratorium bets that it comes before. That is not a radical position. It is the minimum standard of democratic governance, and if Utah’s legislature will not defend it, Congress must.

If you want to see real oversight, real accountability, and a pause before the damage is done, I need your help to keep this fight going.

In solidarity,

Nate Blouin

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