Sixth District Congressman Ben Cline is stuck, because of his fealty to Donald Trump, with having to support proposed data center projects, like the new one that hit the news yesterday in Roanoke, near the intersection of I-81 and I-581, but his Democratic opponent, Beth Macy, is free and clear to stick up for the 75 percent of us who don’t want these economic and environmental disasters in our backyard.
“Big Tech will continue to run roughshod over communities until there are guardrails on data center construction,” said Macy, in a statement from her campaign on the proposed data center in Wood Haven Technology Park, which the Western Virginia Regional Industrial Facility Authority made public on Tuesday.
Macy, in the statement, reiterated her support for a federal moratorium on new data centers – “until we have clear rules that will bring transparency to the process, protect our water, keep energy prices in check, force companies to pay for renewable energy and contain AI before it controls us.”
“Data center growth is happening, in part, to boost stock prices of AI companies such as Google, Meta, Anthropic and other tech giants,” Macy said.
From the archives
- Coverage of the Sixth District congressional race: click here.
- Coverage of data centers in Virginia: click here.
According to Roanoke TV station WDBJ, the LLC that was listed as being tied to the evaluation phase for the data center in the industrial park is tied to a firm used by the likes of Google and Meta to acquire land on their behalf, without their names being linked directly to what is going on.
Advice to the tekkies: set up another LLC to do this work going forward, because you’ve been figured out.
WDBJ reported that Google had already looked at the industrial park location previously, before deciding to go with a location in Botetourt County, as it turns out, where Cline makes his residence.
The reason Google went with the Botetourt County location: water issues.
Which the suits in local government down there that way addressed with a plan to build a pipeline to supply the industrial park with additional water capacity from the Spring Hollow Reservoir.
Big problem there: the reservoir is 27 feet below capacity because of the ongoing drought in the Roanoke region.
The assumption on the part of the suits here: it’ll rain eventually.
What hampers the efforts of the 75 percent of locals who will oppose this project from seeing the light of day is, their local governments are complicit in selling out their interests.
And Ben Cline is all over the place on who should have the final say. Last year, he voted in the House for a measure that included a 10-year moratorium on state and local regulation of data centers, which ultimately fell short in the Senate.
Now Cline is trying to tell us that data centers are not the responsibility of Congress.
“I disagree,” Macy said. “Congress must get involved. We need national rules that guide data center construction, and we need them soon.”
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Chris Graham
