Community Bill of Rights for Data Centers:
Empowered communities must have their own Community Bill of Rights for Data Centers, and these local leaders and citizens should be the primary decision makers on whether or not to site data centers in their communities.
Data Centers must fundamentally add more value than they extract from communities.
We believe that Data centers can unleash economic value and long-term community benefit, but only if they abide by some core principles of responsible partnership. We outline these below. We believe Tech companies who work to align themselves their host communities needs show good business sense. It is good business to be a good neighbor.
Community Data Center Bill of Rights
1) Private Property rights over data centers
Freedom to build must be anchored by shared commitment to responsibility. In the Ozarks we understand this. If you open a gate, close it. Leave your campsite better than your find it. Property rights are sacred, your pollution better stop at my fence line.
This is also true for Data Centers, which are responsible for an estimated $25 billion dollars of real pollution and health externalities. Data Centers can be tool of innovation, economic growth and shared prosperity. But they may not operate at the expense of our water supply, air quality, peace of mind and shared quality of life. Property rights are a foundation principle of American law. Noise pollution, air pollution and the degradation of water resources of data center host communities decreases property values, diminishes quality of life, and violates this shared covenant.
2) No Tax Credits without Job Creation
Data centers must provide job creation and monetary benefit commensurate with the tax benefit, water and power resources that they consume. Tax credits are a powerful economic development incentive that communities may use for responsible tech and business partners. However, state and local sales and property tax abatement must be directly tied to permanent and ongoing local job creation and revenues that go back to local states, counties and municipalities. There must be enforceable legal means to revoke these tax credits if job and revenue benefits are not realized.
3) Local control, not state or federal mandate is the fundamental
arbiter of whether a data center may operate.
No secret deals, NDAs or clandestine deals. Data Centers which have an outsize impact on communities must be subject to the highest levels of public input, disclosure and visibility.
4) No Rate Hikes for Consumers.
Utilities customers should not bear the cost of additional generation and grid upgrades in order to accommodate additional power demand. Utilities should require exit fees if data center breaks contract, and minimum power contract terms of 15 years to ensure grid stability and cost recovery.
5) Waste Heat and unused Buffer Land Are Assets that Should be Leveraged for Economic, Community and Agricultural Production.
Encourage use of waste heat from data center to warm swimming pools, indoor practice facilities, and hydroponic greenhouses. For example, low-grade wasted heat from data centers can reduce cost of running a hydroponic greenhouse while minimizing dependence on natural gas or propane as traditional heating source. These greenhouses grow food for communities, create jobs and create long term community good will for the tech data center partner. Data centers often require significant buffer land. One such use is for Agrivoltaics, which involves siting solar production in pasture, which allows cattle or smaller grazing animals like sheep to use the land, shelter under the shade of the panels. This creates a dual revenue source for farmers while also minimizing heat stress on livestock.
6) Union or Local Contractors and Suppliers Should be Used for Projects which receive Tax Credits.
When possible, local companies, contractors and Unions should be preferentially sought to build projects that use state and local tax credits. This ensures that these jobs and the economic benefit stays in the communities that host these sites.