ICYMI: Ford Proposes Data Center Restrictions

This week, Attorney General Aaron Ford outlined his plans to make data centers pay up and prevent them from raising costs for Nevadans at a press conference near a Las Vegas data center. Flanked by Nevadans speaking out against the threats data centers pose to their communities, Ford emphasized that he will hold data centers accountable by requiring them to bring their own water, pay for their own electricity, and be open and transparent with communities. The press conference followed Ford’s announcement last week that he will pause new data center tax abatements as Governor. 

“Nevadans have been clear – and unlike Joe Lombardo, I’ve listened and I say enough is enough,” said Attorney General Aaron Ford. “Joe Lombardo says he’s ‘wholeheartedly in support of data centers’. I’m going to be the Governor who is wholeheartedly supportive of Nevadans. That means making data centers pay up.”

“I don’t want to see my electricity bill go up because billion-dollar corporations need more electricity. Costs are already too high in the Lombardo-Trump economy,” said Brynn DeLormier, a resident of Boulder City who has spoken out against Trump’s efforts to skirt Nevada’s rules and build a data center there. “That’s why Attorney General Aaron Ford’s plan to pause tax breaks for data centers until they make good on their promises to Nevadans is exactly what we need. His plan also goes further by ensuring that these companies, not Nevada families, pay for the infrastructure and resources they need.”

A day before Ford spoke out about how he’ll center working Nevadans and hold data center corporations accountable, new reporting revealed that Joe Lombardo has taken more than $2 million from billionaires funding data centers in Nevada.

ON SOCIAL MEDIA:

@NevadanNews: Nevada activist: Data centers could make affordability worse (video)

@TheNVIndy: Ford breaks down his stance on data centers (video)

IN THE NEWS:

Fox 5 News: Gubernatorial candidate Aaron Ford proposes data center restrictions 

• Ford held the news conference in a neighborhood near Jones and Blue Diamond, an area near some data centers. He said data centers would need to bring their own water or coolant and pay for their own electricity. Ford also wants to pause tax abatements and create bans on evaporative cooling.

• “We don’t have to wait. We have to continue to be proactive. And this plan that is going to limit data centers from using our water is a proactive approach to ensure that we can continue to conserve and preserve water for actual human beings,” Ford said.

Nevada Current: Ford banking on the ‘many’ to beat the ‘money’ in November 

• The campaign “was always going to be about the money versus the many, and we have many people supporting us,” Ford said Wednesday during an outdoor news conference. 

• For the second time in two weeks, Ford’s campaign focused on his newfound concern regarding data centers, which the candidate attributed to being “responsible and responsive” to the will of voters he encountered during his campaign stops throughout the state.  

• He said under his administration, data centers in Nevada would encounter “the strictest rules in the country” and would not increase electricity bills by “even one cent.” He vowed Wednesday to require new data centers to import their own water, to prohibit wasteful evaporative cooling, and require that sustainable jobs go to Nevadans. 

Reno Telumundo: Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford held a press conference on his data center agenda

• Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford held a press conference to discuss his plans to ensure data centers cover the costs they generate, rather than passing those expenses on to residents through higher utility bills. He also proposed protecting the state’s water and energy resources and questioned the tax incentives granted to these facilities.

The Lever: Nevada Governor Backed Data Centers Days After $1 Million Donation 

• Three days after a prominent artificial intelligence investor and his wife donated $1 million to a political action committee boosting Nevada Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s reelection campaign, Lombardo publicly endorsed the state’s booming data-center buildout. A week later, the PAC collected another $1 million from the wife of a developer building those facilities in Nevada, according to campaign finance records reviewed by The Lever.

• “Now we know why Joe Lombardo says he's wholeheartedly in support of data centers: He’s bought and paid for by them,” Ford told The Lever in response to the data center-related donations. “Taking care of his and Trump’s ‘billionaire friends’ at Nevadans’ expense is standard operating procedure from Lombardo. I’m running for Governor to pause and audit data centers’ tax breaks and block them from raising our costs, because I fight for working Nevadans – not data center billionaires, like Joe Lombardo.”

###