Why it’s a bad idea to ban data centers in NC cities and counties | Opinion

Lately, the loudest voices in the data center debate have been calling for moratoriums and bans. Chatham County, Gates County, Brevard and others have hit pause. Apex, Boone, Orange County, and Cumberland County are considering similar measures. A coalition of advocacy groups is pushing for a statewide ban on hyperscale data centers altogether. And a lawsuit in Stokes County is trying to undo the rezoning that cleared the way for Project Delta, a proposed facility along the Dan River.

We understand the impulse. Nobody wants a massive industrial project dropped into their backyard without a real conversation about what it means for their community. The residents raising questions about energy, water, noise, and who actually benefits deserve straight answers.

But a ban is the wrong answer. It would hand our competitors, both other states and other countries, exactly what they want: North Carolina on the sidelines while the biggest infrastructure buildout of our generation moves forward without us.

This is a national security question. Polling from the Rainey Center shows 77% of voters think it’s extremely or very important that American data not be stored in Chinese data centers. Eighty-three percent say data centers serving U.S. consumers should operate on American soil. Majorities of Democrats, Independents and Republicans felt the same way. Seventy percent of voters agree we’re in a technology competition with China, and they want us to win it.

If we don’t build this infrastructure here, it gets built somewhere else. Maybe Virginia. Maybe overseas. The AI revolution is not waiting on us to sort out our zoning disputes.

What does get lost in the opposition coverage is the money. Data centers are property tax engines. Democrat strategist David Shor’s polling found that when voters learn a data center could cut their property taxes by 10%, support nearly doubles, from 31% to 59%.

And the jobs are middle-class careers that can’t be out-sourced. Building a data center takes years of construction work. Running one takes electricians, HVAC technicians, plumbers, security staff.

The grid concern comes up a lot, but it’s outdated. The largest new data center projects operate on a “bring your own power” model. They generate their own electricity behind the meter at giga-watt scale, onsite. They’re not competing with your house for power.

Water is a fair question, especially with every county in the state under some level of drought right now. But the data centers being built today are far more water-efficient than the ones people picture. New cooling systems use a fraction of what older facilities needed. Across the entire country, data centers account for less than 1% of water use.

Here’s what worries us more than any single data center proposal: the 2024 Disaster Recovery Act included a provision that bars local governments from down-zoning property without written consent from all affected owners.

That means once a county rezones land for heavy industrial use, it’s nearly impossible to reverse. That’s another reason to get this right from the start, with clear standards and enforceable agreements, rather than rushing to ban everything and then watching counties make one-off deals with no guardrails at all.

The people in rural communities who are worried about being taken advantage of are not wrong to feel that way. Rural communities have been on the losing end of enough deals to be skeptical. The answer is to make sure the next round is different, not to walk away from the table entirely.

Do we want the data from our phones, our doorbells, our kids’ school accounts stored in China? We don’t. And we don’t want the jobs and tax revenue going to Virginia or Georgia because we couldn’t figure out how to say yes responsibly. North Carolina has the workforce, the infrastructure, and the location to lead on this.

Jeffrey C. McNeely and David Allen Willis are Republican members of the North Carolina House of Representatives, representing Districts 84 and 68, respectively.