Even Former Senator Flouncy Strutmuppet Can't Help Data Center Industry; Pushback Coming Across Deep Red States

SAND SPRINGS, Oklahoma – One float stood out among the tinsel and holiday cheer at the annual Christmas parade here: an unsightly data center with blinding industrial lights and smoke pouring out of its roof, towering menacingly over a helpless gingerbread house. This city bordering Tulsa is a battleground, one of many across the country where companies seeking to build massive data centers to win the AI race with China are coming up against the reality of local politics. Sand Springs leaders were besieged with community anger after annexing an 827-acre agricultural property miles outside of town and launching into secret talks with a tech giant looking to use it for a sprawling data center. Hundreds of aggrieved voters showed up at community meetings. Swarms of protest signs are taking route along the rural roads.

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The industry has struggled to quell the concerns. In Chandler, Arizona, former senator Kyrsten Sinema (I), co-founder of the AI Infrastructure Coalition, implored city officials to get onboard with a large proposed project or risk the federal government pushing it through without city input. The city council rejected the project unanimously. The vote followed the Tucson city council’s unanimous rejection of a plan which would have required annexing land in the Sonoran Desert that until June had been zoned “rural homestead.” Some voters were outraged that local officials had signed a five-year nondisclosure agreement with Amazon, which did not come to light for two years. Frustration with the power company that would have provided the power has fueled a movement to drive it out in favor of a community-led nonprofit.

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The project developer, White Rose Partners, said none of the costs involved with providing electricity to the Sand Springs data center would fall on residential ratepayers. The firm says the data center would generate millions of dollars in revenue for local schools and services. It is cold comfort to many residents of the rural community where the data center would industrialize a landscape now defined by the ranches that drew them there.

“I don’t care how much chocolate icing you put on a dog turd, it don’t make it chocolate cake,” said Rick Plummer, who raises elite team-roping horses next to the proposed data center. “They are trying to fluff this data center thing up and say, ‘Man, eat this birthday cake.’ But it isn’t birthday cake.” On the other side of Tulsa, a steady stream of pickups pulled off the busy local road to sign petitions fighting a different data center proposed for the rural community of Coweta. One sign takes aim at the nondisclosure agreements, stating “NDAs BETRAY.” The petitions demand the firing of a city official who signed one. “We want to see this damn data center go away and go someplace else,” said Allen Prather, who was leading the petition drive dressed as Santa. “This town deserves a better centerpiece than a data center. They keep coming to smaller and smaller towns. Leave mine alone.”

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/01/06/data-centers-backlash-impact-local-communities-opposition/