Data center moratoriums are right for Alabama
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Op-Ed by Doug Jones
Editor’s note: This op-ed piece; written by Democratic nominee for governor, Doug Jones; responds directly to Tripp Skipper’s recent column opposing a moratorium and explains why Alabamians deserve answers to fundamental questions about water use, electricity demand, tax incentives, and who ultimately benefits from these projects.
Apparently, asking questions and raising community concerns now makes you a socialist. At least that’s what you’d believe if you listened to some of the arguments being made by Sen. Tommy Tuberville and his supporters against a temporary pause in Alabama’s rush to approve AI data centers.
Ask who pays to build the new power plants these facilities require, and suddenly you’re threatening national security and supporting China.
Ask whether billion-dollar corporations who stand to make billions more should receive generous taxpayer subsidies, and you’re accused of channeling Bernie Sanders and AOC.
Ask whether the state and Alabama cities should demand transparency and negotiate harder before giving away their land, water, electricity, and tax dollars, and somehow, you’re against jobs and technology altogether.
Those aren’t answers. They’re distractions. And they’re downright silly. Civic engagement is the essence of democracy, not socialism.
The people of Alabama deserve better than straw-man arguments whenever they ask reasonable questions about their future and quality of life.
Across Alabama, communities are asking reasonable questions. How much water will these facilities consume, and what will it mean for our water supply? Who pays for the power and infrastructure they require? What tax incentives are being offered, and what guarantees are taxpayers receiving in return? On what terms should Big Tech come to Alabama?
Those are not ideological questions. They are community questions. They are reasonable questions everyone is asking. I hear them from folks everywhere I go.
And given the amount of money involved here, there is another very important question that folks in Alabama are asking: Who benefits? Tommy Tuberville says these data centers will be “gold mines.”
Maybe that is so, but Alabamians deserve to know who will be getting the gold and who will get the shaft.
Alabama should welcome investment. We should welcome innovation. But welcoming investment is not the same thing as surrendering our precious natural resources and possibly our quality of life.
That’s why I support a temporary moratorium on the construction of new data centers – not to stop progress, but to give us time to put guardrails in place to strengthen transparency and protect communities.
No secret deals. No blank checks. No tax giveaways without real jobs. No higher utility bills for Alabama families. Stronger ethics laws to ensure that no public official or their immediate family members profit from any data center project.
Those are not unreasonable demands. They’re the minimum Alabama should require before giving away some of its most valuable resources. AI is coming, and Alabama should compete. But we should compete on Alabama’s terms with appropriate guardrails in place – not on Silicon Valley’s terms.
Alabama deserves leaders who negotiate on behalf of Alabama … not leaders who see every new project as another opportunity for well-connected corporations – and well-connected investors – to cash in.
That is the real danger: that Alabama is asked to contribute everything of lasting value – its land, its water, its electricity, its infrastructure, its tax dollars, and the quality of life of its communities – while accepting the greatest share of the risk and only a fraction of the reward. If that is the arrangement, then Alabama is not being treated as a partner for progress … we are once again being treated as a cash machine by politicians in Washington and Montgomery.
Tommy Tuberville is entitled to support these projects. The public is equally entitled to ask why.
That is not an unfair question. It is especially appropriate when directed at a U.S. senator whose stock trading while serving in office has repeatedly attracted public scrutiny. Public officials should welcome questions about potential conflicts of interest, not ridicule the people asking them.
We must not surrender what we see with our own eyes to scare tactics and strawman arguments. This is not about rejecting economic growth or sending jobs somewhere else.
This debate is about ensuring that Alabama does not give away its most valuable assets before determining what it receives in return.
It’s about making certain that the wealthiest corporations in the world pay their fair share for the resources they consume.
Ultimately, we must ensure that Alabama families – not multinational technology companies – are the first beneficiaries of Alabama’s land, water, power, and tax dollars.
The issue isn’t whether Alabama should say yes or no. The issue is whether Alabama has enough self-respect to ask the tough questions and demand answers before it does. That, folks, is democracy, not socialism, at work.
