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Posted on 08/23/2026 11:31:35 AM PDT by Miami Rebel
Artificial intelligence data centers have been a hot topic in Utah this summer, and reforms could be on the way.
Gov. Spencer Cox told reporters at his Aug. 20 monthly news conference to expect efforts to change the approval process and additional regulation for data centers when lawmakers return to Capitol Hill in January.
Central to that move toward reform, he said, was the contentious Stratos Project in Box Elder County, which experienced incredible public pushback earlier this year.
“The process was not good, and the MIDA process, especially,” he said. “I think we need major reform when it comes to MIDA, and I will be pushing for that reform moving forward.”
The Military Installation Development Authority first approved the Stratos Project in April. The independent agency can bypass local land use rules within certain project boundaries. Cox said its board is aware of the push to reevaluate the authority’s scope and believes that they would be receptive to some degree of change. In particular, Cox is looking for elected officials to have “a little bit more of a say in what happens there than what we've had in the past.”
“We have a lot of independent entities in this state, and they're great. They play a very important role, but we've also delegated a lot of authority there,” he said. “The people are going to hold us accountable for what those entities do, and we need to make sure that we have insight and some say in what it is they're doing, what projects they're taking on, and are they the right projects for our state.”
In the wake of the uproar over the Box Elder project, Cox issued an executive order in May calling for higher standards for data center approvals.
The public largely supports more oversight, too. During an Aug. 19 interim legislative committee, public comment overwhelmingly opposed data center development.
Murray resident Allison Barton said the public needs non-biased examinations of projects to have confidence in the process.
“Like many others here, I would like for there to be independent studies on data centers, particularly with regard to water,” she said, “And I would like this to be a requirement and independent of any developer's analysis.”
Barton and others also raised concerns about their environmental effects on the Great Salt Lake, air quality and overall water conditions in the state following the driest winter on record.
Although the discourse around data centers has exploded in recent months, it isn’t a new issue for lawmakers. The Legislature passed a law requiring water use disclosures for the facilities earlier this year. However, it only applies to large-scale projects that use 75 acre-feet of water or more per year. One acre-foot of water is approximately 32,581 gallons.
Cox said he has “no problem whatsoever” supporting expanded legislation to include so-called closed-loop systems that are more water efficient, because “we want to make sure everybody knows what these data centers are using.”
Going a step further, he even said he’d be open to requiring all future data center proposals to use closed-loop cooling.
“If I felt I could do it with executive authority, I would have done it already,” he said. “That's the best technology available.”
That regulation and others could come during the 2027 legislative session, which starts Jan. 20.
Cox’s sentiment echoed what state officials told lawmakers this week. Utah Office of Energy Development Deputy Director Jake Garfield said that because of the state’s water-strapped nature, adopting new technologies — and doing it fast — is in everyone’s best interest.
“I think that is just a necessity in a state with very constrained water resources and a very constrained airshed,” Garfield said. “There's no special carve-outs. There's no shortcuts for data center developers.”
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The proliferation of data centers is emerging as a powerful issue for November.
its a shame the chinese communists have succeeded with demonizing data centers. these data centers are the least intrusive of factories compared to say, cememt factories or steel factories or auto factories or you name it factories.
these data centers would have brought needed revenue to many rural counties across the usa and broadly distributed their wealth creation abilities.
that said there are millions of square miles of empty federal lands in deserts across the usa. many have brackish water aquifers. it takes about a year to set up 1.5 square miles of solar panels in these deserts to power a gigawatt size datacenters.
all of data centers on these federal lands could be fast tracked if there were any interest in doing so.
as far as I can tell, there is no interest in doing so.
nor does there seem to be any interest in uppping the price data centers are willing to pay to locals to site their data centers in rural counties.
Data Centers have existed for 50+ years. Hyperscale data centers emerged in 2002. In 2024 there were thousands in the US, over 100 in any state with a big city.
There were zoning issues the same as one would see for any warehouse or similar large commercial building.
But one cannot see “opposition” to “Data Centers” for being “Data Centers” until late 2025. Now there are more stories about opposition in 1 week than in all of 2025.
Who is driving the panic? Who is fear mongering? Who benefits from killing data centers in the US?
Example: I googled complaints and issues with data centers in GA. Equifax uses big data centers in Atlanta for many years. No issues popped up about the data centers. What popped up was issues about the invasion of privacy of Equifax and issues about the bad quality of the Equifax data.
State Farm sold its data center in Johns Creek GA, a tony Atlanta suburb. No complaints when State Farm owned it. No complaints against the new owner. But complaints about the way State Farm handled some claims.
In googling for complaints about dozens of specific data centers, no complaints about those specific data centers.
But now in 2026 ignorant fear mongering about the building of new data centers.
Just as with a new warehouse, a new factory, a new shopping center, there are legitimate issues:
...Should they be subsidized, receive tax breaks
...Should they....
But who benefits from and is driving the fear mongering?
There was an episode of The Rockford Files that touched on data centers.
It was called “The House On Wills Avenue “.
A key element of the MAGA movement was distrust of Big Tech.
The second Trump term has seen a symbiotic embrace between between Big Tech and the Administration, a complete reversal of the historic ties of Silicon Valley to the Democrats.
The base has not moved to an acceptance of Big Tech (with the exception of Elon Musk, once reviled for his advocacy of EVs.)
There is still a distrust of Big Tech, especially when it comes to AI and robotics.
Data centers are proving to be a wedge issue that is peeling away MAGA enthusiasm for the GOP ticket. We saw that in Utah, and see it now where Republican candidates in Ohio, Michigan, and Texas are distancing themselves from positions they enthusiastically espoused mere months ago. (E.g., Abbott.)
WHEN YOU LIVE RURAL ON A WELL ON AN AQUIFER-—YOU CAN HAVE AN OPINION......
UNTIL THEN-—YOU ARE SORELY OUT OF TOUCH
WHEN YOU LIVE RURAL ON A WELL ON AN AQUIFER
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a golf course uses more water than a data center.
If this scares them would you call it the “Stratos Fear”?
I’ll show myself out.
Politicians, luckily for all of us, are honest, filled with integrity and the desire to work for their constituents who trusted them to be put into office, and thus they are immune from offers of top dollar bribes from AI oriented corporations. /SARC
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