By S.T. Karnick, Heartland Institute
The war on data centers has intensified to the point that localities all across the country are banning them outright or stopping them through targeted regulation such as zoning decisions. Although people’s concerns are understandable, the hysteria over these enterprises exemplifies what has gone wrong with the American political system since the rise of progressivism at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Public opposition to data centers has increased by 12 percentage points in just the past four months, with 61 percent now saying they oppose building new data centers, according to the Annenberg Public Policy Center.
Opponents of data center construction held 142 protests in 42 states on July 18. Expressed concerns include excessive water use, noise, high electricity demand and potential power outages, air pollution, and lowering of land values in the surrounding communities.
Predictably, politicians are turning against data centers.
On Tuesday, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania signed an executive order restricting construction of data centers, bragging that he was imposing “the strictest guardrails in the nation.”
Asserting “a long history in Pennsylvania of industry running roughshod over our communities to make a buck,” Shapiro said “we will not be bullied” or “bulldozed” by developers and their lawyers, in a speech marked by fierce moral dudgeon.
Critics noted that Shapiro, who is up for reelection this year, strongly supported data center construction in the state, even including them in a fast-track approval program, until the recent wave of grassroots objections spooked him.
Across the country, 211 county and local governments now have active moratoriums on data center construction. There are more than 3,000 such centers currently operating in the United States, with 1,500 others under construction, the Pew Research Center reports. Construction is moving to rural areas, with two-thirds of planned facilities set for locations in the wide-open spaces, whereas 87 percent of existing data centers are in urban areas.
It is reasonable to worry about potential harms from any human enterprise. Concerned citizens have a right to inform property owners about such possible damages and request that they reconsider their plans. In fact, people have a moral responsibility to do so.
That, however, is where their rights end. There are very good reasons for this limit. No one can foresee the full consequences, positive and negative, of any proposed enterprise—or even calculate them afterward.
That is why we have courts: to examine claims of harm people may have done to others, and to determine what is just recompense and any deserved punishment. An objective and impartial civil justice system removes the need for extensive regulation and preemptive limits on human creativity.
With courts available to adjudicate disputes, governments should not impose targeted taxes or regulations to impede proposed business activities, nor use subsidies to encourage such investments. In the case of the data centers, governments should leave them alone to pay for the energy they use, subject them only to reasonable laws that apply to everyone, give no preferred access to water and other natural resources, and so on.
In short, governments should not allow anyone to harm others, and they should use the civil and criminal courts to examine and decide on the validity of assertions of actual damage, instead of imposing preemptive regulatory command and control based on unproven worries.
This approach optimizes justice, social cohesion, and the use of resources. Over the years and through the common law, courts can ascertain the Social Cost of Whatever, and free enterprise can measure those costs against the underpublicized Social Value of That Same Thing. Government regulation is a very poor substitute for that.
In a free society, then, you don’t get to decide what other people do with their property. That goes for “you” plural, too. The fact that many people may want to band together to determine how to use someone else’s property or limit their liberties does not make it right. Stealing and coercion are wrong regardless of the number of people who agree to the theft and duress.
There is an obvious alternative to this gangster racket. People who do not want a data center to be built on a particular property have a simple solution at hand: buy the land.
If you cannot afford to buy the property, you can put together a consortium to buy it. Instead of organizing protests, you can use those skills to arrange a purchase.
If you and your neighbors can afford the property but prefer not to buy it, you have the same option as everybody else: mind your own business.
If you buy the property, you can use it however you like—as long as your neighbors or other nearby busybodies don’t object to your plans as you did to the proposed data center. Mission accomplished.
The company that wanted to build the data center will just go somewhere else, and take with it the jobs, local tax revenue, and increased prosperity the center will generate for some less- meddlesome community.
This approach to governance brings about the greatest prosperity and human thriving possible in a world of limited resources. Buying and selling of properties, goods, and services ensures that the people of a particular place will put all available resources to their best feasible uses, as prices encourage the purchase and sales of these things by those to who expect to make the highest-valued uses of them.
Unfortunately, that’s not good enough for an ever-increasing number of Americans. The opposition to data centers parallels the rise of support for democratic socialism in reflecting a widespread valorization of collectivism over individual rights.
Though concerns are understandable, and those who want to build these centers should listen to objections, the reflexive demand for control over other people’s property represents the long decline of the American Way and the rise of collectivism.
Restoration of property rights is the only way for the United States to renew prosperity and human flourishing. Maybe we should start with the data centers.
Sources: KYW Newsradio Philadelphia; Pennsylvania Capital-Star; U.S. Data Center Moratorium Tracker
S.T. Karnick is a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute.
