Stop Pushing AI Data Centers Into Montana
The short version: A Montana congressional candidate goes on record against hyperscale AI data centers, warning about water, power costs, and the lack of long-term guardrails.
Our Take
Dr. Al Olszewski isn't a neutral commentator here — he's running for Congress in Montana's Western District, and this clip from Voices of Montana is as much campaign platform as policy critique. But the instincts he's tapping into are the same ones we hear from ranchers, mayors, and co-op board members all over the country: nobody asked us, and nobody's shown the math. When a candidate frames a hard "no" on hyperscale data centers as a freedom-and-affordability issue, that's a signal the buildout has become a live political fault line, not just a zoning footnote.
Montana's pitch to developers has always been cheap land, cold air, and a grid with headroom — exactly the ingredients that make a state attractive for gigawatt-scale campuses. The tradeoff is what Olszewski is pointing at without fully spelling out: who eats the transmission upgrades, whose water rights get renegotiated for cooling towers, and whether ratepayers end up subsidizing infrastructure built for a handful of tenants. Those are answerable questions with real numbers behind them, and they deserve more than a soundbite from either side of the aisle.
We'll keep tracking which counties, co-ops, and legislators are actually signing off on these deals — check our facility map to see what's proposed or under construction near you, and if you want to push for public hearings or rate transparency before ground breaks, our take-action page has next steps.
This is GridWatch the USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Dr. Al Olszewski, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.