Department.Technology

Tag: Public Trust

  • Build It With the Controllers: The Danger of Rolling Out SMART Without NATCA

    By the Founders, Department of Technology | San Diego, California | November 15, 2026

    The FAA is using MI (Machine Intelligence, aka AI or Artificial Intelligence) to help manage the nation’s airspace. The tool, called SMART, began limited operation around Washington, D.C. on September 21 and was expanded to all 22 air route traffic control centers on November 10, three days before the November 13 ground stop. The union that represents air traffic controllers says it had no part in designing, testing, or implementing it.

    We are not claiming that SMART is unsafe, or that it caused the ground stop. Officials say it did not, and the cause has not been confirmed. Our claim is narrower: when a critical system is rolled out without the people who use it every day, the risks go up, and the cost of avoiding them is small. This is the third post in our series. Our first post asked what accountable technology leadership would have changed, and our second asked what should be settled before $50 billion is spent.

    What we know so far

    Here is what has been reported. Most of the reporting on the union’s role dates from September.

    • The rollout. The FAA began limited use of SMART in the Washington area in September. It told FLYING that SMART was active in all 22 centers as of November 10, and AeroTime reported that the expansion came after lawmakers had sought a pause in the Washington-area rollout.
    • The union’s position. In September, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) said it had not been involved in the design, testing, or implementation of SMART and could not speak to its effect on the workforce, as NPR reported. FLYING reported that the union stressed that new technology should complement controllers’ judgment, not replace it.
    • A lawmaker’s account. Rep. Don Beyer called on the FAA to suspend SMART at Washington-area airports until controller feedback and independent stress testing showed it was safe. He said he had been told that controllers were not consulted on its design and development, were not trained on it before it went live, and had been told it can adjust schedules and potentially even routes, according to Common Dreams. That is his account, and we have not seen the FAA respond to it directly.
    • The FAA’s description. The FAA says SMART cannot replace controllers or take over an aircraft, and that every recommendation is reviewed by FAA staff, with local leadership free to accept or pass, per MeriTalk. The agency credits the Washington rollout with saving an average of 10 minutes per rerouted flight, according to AeroTime.
    • The ground stop. Officials said Friday’s outage was not related to SMART, as the Taos News reported, and we have no reason to doubt that.

    What we do not know

    Several basic questions are still open.

    • Whether the FAA consulted controllers or facility leaders in other ways. To our knowledge, the agency has not described what consultation took place.
    • Whether NATCA has been brought in since September. We found no union statement on the November expansion.
    • What testing was finished before the expansion, and what criteria had to be met first. Airways noted that the FAA’s November statement does not explain how its savings were calculated, give a comparison baseline, or report how often facilities accepted recommendations.
    • The cause of the ground stop, which has not been confirmed.

    Five dangers of skipping the people who use the system

    Everything in this section is our analysis, not reporting.

    1. A human review is only as good as the reviewer’s understanding

    The FAA stresses that staff review every SMART recommendation. That safeguard depends on people who understand what the tool is doing, trust it enough to use it, and doubt it enough to challenge it. People who were not involved in building or testing a tool, and who may not have been trained on it, are more likely to accept its output without question or to ignore it altogether. Either outcome defeats the purpose of keeping a human in the loop.

    2. Designers miss what operators know

    Controllers know how traffic really moves at their facilities, where the workarounds are, and what a recommendation looks like in the middle of a busy shift. That knowledge rarely makes it into a specification. Bringing it in during design is far cheaper than discovering its absence after go-live.

    3. Mixed messages about what the tool does

    The FAA describes SMART as advisory. According to Beyer, controllers were told it can adjust schedules and possibly routes. We cannot say which description is right, and the gap itself is the danger. In a safety-critical workplace, people need to know exactly what a tool can and cannot do, and who has the final say. A joint design and review process is how those answers get written down and shared.

    4. Speed without a shared record of what was learned

    About seven weeks passed between the first Washington-area use on September 21 and the nationwide expansion on November 10. A staged rollout is a sound idea, but a stage only teaches something if the results are examined, ideally by people with independent standing. As noted above, we have not seen public figures on how often facilities accepted SMART’s recommendations. Union representatives who help review each stage, against criteria agreed in advance, would give the process a credibility that an internal sign-off alone cannot.

    5. Goodwill is scarce, and so is public trust

    The FAA is still thousands of certified controllers short of full staffing, and many work mandatory overtime and grueling schedules, according to NPR. Asking a stretched workforce to adopt a major new tool it did not help shape spends goodwill the agency can ill afford. And when something goes wrong, as it did on November 13, a thin public record of how the tool was vetted leaves room for speculation. Headlines linked the ground stop to the SMART expansion the same day, even though officials said the two were unrelated. A visible partnership with the controllers’ union would have been part of the answer to that question.

    What investing the time would look like

    None of this requires slowing the work to a crawl. Based on the problems above, these are the steps we would suggest. They are our proposals, not the FAA’s plan.

    • An early invitation. Bring the union into design review before a system is built, and into testing before it goes live.
    • Training before go-live. Train every controller and traffic manager who will see the tool’s output, and give them a clear written statement of what it can and cannot do.
    • Joint review at each stage. Agree in advance on the criteria for moving from one stage to the next, and have the union help review the results.
    • A public report. Publish what was tested, what was found, and what changed, including how often recommendations were accepted or passed.

    Where reasonable people disagree

    Supporters of the current approach point to the staged rollout, the FAA’s reported savings, and the fact that SMART is advisory and reviewed by FAA staff. Airlines for America praised the push to modernize, according to NPR. Skeptics, including Beyer, argue that a tool with safety implications should be vetted with controller feedback and independent testing first. We think both sides have a point. Inviting the union in is not the same as giving it a veto, and it does not have to be slow. It is a way of finding problems early, while they are cheap to fix.

    Where a Department of Technology fits, and where it does not

    A Department of Technology would not design SMART, run air traffic control, or negotiate with NATCA. As described in our federal framework, it would audit major technology initiatives, require impact assessments, and report to Congress and the public. We would add one requirement that goes beyond the written framework: for any major system that changes how safety-critical workers do their jobs, the sponsoring agency must document how those workers and their representatives were consulted before rollout. That ties together two arguments we have already made: that changes should be tested before they go live, as in our first post, and that leaders should understand how systems work in practice, as in Back to Basics.

    Questions for officials and candidates

    1. Was NATCA invited to help design, test, or review SMART before the September launch, and before the November expansion? If not, why not?
    2. What testing and review had to be completed before SMART was expanded to all 22 centers, and who signed off?
    3. How were controllers trained on SMART, and what were they told it can and cannot do?
    4. How often do facilities accept or pass on SMART’s recommendations, and will that data be made public?
    5. Will you commit to involving the workforce and its representatives in design and testing for the next major system?

    The bottom line

    A tool that helps manage the nation’s airspace should be built with the people who keep planes apart, not delivered to them. The time and goodwill it takes to invite the union in are small compared with the cost of losing the trust of the workforce, or the public, in a system everyone depends on. Whether or not SMART had anything to do with November 13, the lesson is the same one running through this series: name who is responsible, test before you go live, and show your work.

    Read the rest of this series: The November 13 Ground Stop: What a Department of Technology Would Have Done Differently and Fiber First? The Questions to Ask Before $50 Billion for Air Traffic Control For the basics of our proposal, read What Is a Department of Technology? We will update this post as more is reported, including any response from the FAA or NATCA.

  • Isn’t This Just Another Bureaucracy? Answering the Hardest Questions About Elected Technology Leaders

    By the Founders, Department of Technology | San Diego, California | November 13, 2026

    Our proposal for elected technology leaders at every level of government draws the same skeptical question again and again: aren’t you just adding a layer? It is a fair question. Here are the nine hardest objections we hear, with our best answers and the limits of those answers.

    We would rather be challenged than applauded. If an idea cannot survive its strongest critics, it should not become law. Where we have evidence, we cite it. Where we are making a judgment, we say so.

    1. Isn’t this just another layer of bureaucracy?

    It would be, if it added a layer without removing a gap. The gap is the problem. Today, the pieces of the technology buildout are split across utility commissions, economic development offices, zoning boards, treasurers and workforce agencies, and no one answers to voters for how they fit together. An NBC News review of more than 30 data center proposals in 14 states found that in a majority of cases local officials signed NDAs and worked with what appeared to be shell companies. That is not what a coordinated system looks like. Our test for any new office is whether it replaces confusion with accountability. If it does not, it should not exist. We also think a new office should come with a published cost estimate and a sunset review. We have not priced it for your jurisdiction, and you should be wary of anyone who claims to have done so without details.

    2. Why elected? Why not appoint someone?

    Because the decisions are value judgments. Whose land, whose power bills and whose jobs are tradeoffs, not technical questions, and voters should be able to hold someone to account for them. There is precedent. Voters elect utility commissioners in 10 states, and on November 3 voters in nine states elected 14 members of their state utility commissions. That is not an untested idea. But the record also contains a warning: those races draw far less public attention than other contests on the same ballot, even though the winners will help decide whether data center costs are passed to existing ratepayers. And S&P’s regulatory research unit has long attributed greater investor risk to states where commissioners are elected. So election alone does not guarantee accountability. It needs visibility, and we would pair it with the transparency rules we describe elsewhere.

    3. Don’t utility commissions and other regulators already do this?

    They do part of it, and in some places they do it well. Virginia’s State Corporation Commission, for example, ordered Dominion to develop a tariff to assign more transmission costs directly to data centers. But a utility commission sets rates. It does not decide where a facility is zoned, how much water it may use, what tax breaks it receives or how a county prepares its budget for a downturn. The proposal is not to replace regulators. It is for a technology leader to participate in their proceedings, and to coordinate across the decisions that no single regulator owns.

    4. Won’t an elected technology leader be captured by the industry?

    It is a real risk, and it is a risk for any regulator, elected or appointed. Campaign money, revolving doors and information asymmetry all push in one direction. We would counter it with rules, not hope: publish meetings and calendars, bar NDAs, require recusal where there is a financial interest, and open the records. Those safeguards are our suggestions, not a guarantee. A reasonable person can conclude that appointed, professional regulators are safer than elected ones, and that is a debate we welcome.

    5. Will they have the expertise?

    Not automatically. Elections reward name recognition more than engineering. Some states already set minimum qualifications for commissioners; a Platte Institute research note observes that some states require knowledge or experience in fields such as economics, finance, engineering, energy and law. We would consider something similar, along with a funded professional staff, so that the elected official is accountable for the decisions and the staff supplies the analysis.

    6. Won’t this slow down the buildout and hand China the lead?

    It should not, and if it does, the design has failed. Speed matters. Our concern is that speed without accountability produces backlash that stops projects anyway, as voters showed on November 3 when they favored limits in 40 of 41 local data center measures. Clear rules can also speed things up: AEP Ohio’s large-load pipeline reportedly fell from roughly 30 GW to 13 GW once it had a tariff, which suggests that rules can weed out speculative requests that waste everyone’s time. And Loudoun County credits favorable zoning and fast approvals for accelerating its data center growth. A good technology leader should make the process predictable and fast for projects that meet the standards.

    7. What will it cost?

    We do not have a number for your jurisdiction, and we would not trust one without a detailed budget. The fair comparison is with the cost of the current arrangement, though that is not proof of savings. In Ohio, for example, Policy Matters Ohio reports that a single tax break cost state and local governments about $2 billion in a year, well above the state’s forecast. A small county could begin with a staff director and a part-time advisory board and expand only if it proves its worth.

    8. Isn’t this a partisan project?

    It is not meant to be, and the evidence we rely on is bipartisan. In Virginia, 21 Democrats and seven Republicans in the state Senate voted to curtail a data center tax break. Republican Governor Mike DeWine paused Ohio’s break, and Democratic Governor Andy Beshear called for ending Kentucky’s. Skeptics of the buildout and enthusiasts for it both need an accountable referee. We will count the proposal a failure if one party sees it as a weapon.

    9. Why not let states and markets sort it out?

    They will sort out something. In 2026, 29 states enacted AI legislation, and many local officials are negotiating one deal at a time against a handful of very large buyers, often under NDAs. A patchwork can be a healthy laboratory, and a federal standard may eventually be the right answer. Either way, the people who live next to the project need someone whose job is to speak for them across every decision, not just the one in front of a given committee.

    What would change our mind

    We care about the function more than the title. If a jurisdiction shows that a staff-level technology director, a joint committee or an existing regulator can deliver one accountable owner for the whole picture, with public records and a name voters can hold responsible, we would support that model. If evidence shows elected technology leaders performing worse than appointed ones, we will say so. What we will not accept is the status quo, in which nobody is responsible. Our proposal is at department.technology/.

  • The Data Center Casino: Why America Needs Elected Technology Leaders Now

    By the Founders, Department of Technology | San Diego, California | November 13, 2026

    America needs more data centers. That part is not in dispute. What is in dispute is who decides where they go, who pays for them, and whether anyone is looking at the whole board.

    If the United States wants to remain the world leader in artificial intelligence, it has to build the computing capacity, and the power to run it. We start from that premise. But for several years, officials in both major parties, in red states and blue, have treated new data centers less like public infrastructure and more like a slot machine: pull the lever, hope for a jackpot of investment, tax revenue and ribbon-cuttings, and worry later about who covers the losses.

    The question that has been asked is “how much money can be made?” The question that should be asked is “what is the best outcome for the community that has to live next to this?”

    Three risks pull in three different directions. Build too fast, and we strain an aging grid and inflate a financial bubble. Build too slow, and other countries may make our lead obsolete. Ignore what AI could do to employment, and we erode the tax base a modern society runs on. No one in government is currently accountable for all three at once.

    The casino logic

    Thirty-eight states offer tax incentives to data centers, and at least 28 of them considered scaling those incentives back this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. At least ten states forgo more than $100 million a year in these breaks, with Texas and Virginia each losing as much as $1 billion annually, according to Good Jobs First, as reported by Broadband Breakfast.

    In Ohio, Policy Matters Ohio reports the break cost state and local governments about $2 billion last year, far more than the state had forecast, which led Republican Governor Mike DeWine, who had previously vetoed a repeal, to order a temporary pause.

    The backpedaling is bipartisan, which is exactly the point. In Virginia, 21 Democrats and seven Republicans in the state Senate voted to curtail a 5.3% tax break. Kentucky’s Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, has called for ending his state’s incentives, and Ohio, Arizona, Nebraska and Illinois have paused theirs.

    When lawmakers of both parties are reversing course, the original approach was not a partisan mistake. It was a structural one: the deals were made one project at a time, often in secret (as we noted in our open letter, 25 of 31 Virginia local governments involved in data center development had signed NDAs), and no one owned the cumulative consequences.

    Build too fast: the grid and the bubble

    Our electrical grid is where the cost of speed shows up first. In PJM, the nation’s largest grid market, wholesale power prices jumped almost 76% in the first quarter of 2026 compared with a year earlier, and the market monitor said the price effects on customers were very large and not reversible, according to E&E News.

    Capacity auction prices rose roughly tenfold in two years, from about $29 to $329 per megawatt-day, and the December 2025 auction fell short of its reliability target for the first time, per one analysis of PJM’s results. Ordinary ratepayers are paying for capacity built to serve some of the wealthiest companies in the world.

    Then there is the money behind the buildout. Hyperscalers will spend about $750 billion this year, and they are borrowing heavily to do it, while economy-wide statistics still show little or no productivity growth from AI. Jefferies warns that AI investment was the main driver of U.S. economic growth last year after consumer spending, so a sudden collapse would leave the economy exposed. And The Economist notes that more than half the spending has gone to servers and specialized chips that become obsolete within a few years. A technology can be transformative and still be overbuilt. If that happens, the stranded assets and the unpaid debts will not stay on Wall Street.

    Build too slow: the electron gap

    The opposite risk is just as real. The United States leads in advanced chips but is short on power, while China has the power and is short on chips. BloombergNEF estimates China will add more than six times as much generating capacity as the U.S. over the next five years. Morgan Stanley has forecast a 44-gigawatt shortfall for U.S. data centers within three years, roughly the summertime capacity of New York State. According to calculations reported by The Washington Post, Chinese data centers pay about a third of what American ones do for electricity.

    We cannot answer that gap with moratoriums and lawsuits alone, and we cannot answer it with secrecy and subsidies either. Speed that costs public trust is not speed. As voters showed on November 3, when they favored limits in 40 of 41 local data center measures, communities will stop projects they feel were done to them rather than with them.

    Ignore the jobs: the tax base

    The third risk is the quietest. A RAND analysis found that 84 percent of federal revenue in 2024 came from individual and payroll taxes, both collected from labor income. Because income is concentrated in high-paid white-collar jobs, replacing those roles with AI would hit revenue harder than the headcount suggests, and higher corporate profits would not make up the difference unless corporate tax rates roughly doubled.

    The same logic applies closer to home. New York City’s Comptroller built five AI scenarios for the city’s finances, put a combined 50 percent probability on the three with worse outcomes for jobs, growth or tax revenue, and recommended building a reserve fund to 16 percent of annual tax revenue. Every county and state should be asking the same question before the layoffs arrive, not after.

    Why we need elected technology leaders

    Look at who currently holds a piece of this problem. Utility commissions watch rates. Economic development offices watch ribbon-cuttings. Treasurers watch revenue. Each sees one slice, and none is answerable to voters for the combination. That is how a state can win a data center, lose a billion dollars a year, raise its residents’ power bills and weaken its future tax base, all through decisions that each looked reasonable on its own.

    We are calling for elected technology leaders at the local, county, state and federal levels, with one job: to weigh speed, grid capacity, public cost and long-term fiscal health together, in public. In practice that means:

    • Public plans before approvals. Grid, water and fiscal impact published before a project is approved, not after.
    • No secret deals. Public bodies should not sign NDAs that keep residents from learning what their own governments agreed to.
    • Large users pay for what they trigger. Grid upgrades and capacity costs assigned to the facilities that cause them, not spread across households.
    • Incentives with accountability. Tax breaks tied to measurable jobs and revenue, with clawbacks if the promises are not met.
    • Fiscal readiness for AI displacement. Scenario planning and reserves at every level of government.

    They should be elected, not appointed, because the tradeoffs here are value judgments about whose power bills, whose land and whose jobs, and those belong to voters. And they are needed now because the contracts are being signed now.

    The case against our case

    A fair reading includes the strongest objections.

    • Incentives may be what brings projects at all. The Data Center Coalition’s Dan Diorio argues that revenue estimates overlook the chance a project would never have been built without exemptions, and notes that states with the most growth, including Virginia, Texas and Pennsylvania, offer them, while Colorado, which does not, has less (S&P Global).
    • The electron gap may be overstated. The Brookings Institution cautions that no one knows how many data centers will be needed or how fast chips will become more efficient, and that worries from builders are not the same as geopolitical shocks (Brookings).
    • Job forecasts are uncertain. One UK think tank’s scenarios range from eight million jobs lost to none at all (IPPR), and New York’s Comptroller itself says it is hard to tie current trends to AI with certainty.
    • Another elected office is another layer. Critics may reasonably prefer strengthening utility regulators and legislatures over creating new positions. Our answer is that each existing body owns only a slice, but that is a debate worth having in public.

    Start the conversation

    Neither the casino nor the moratorium is a plan. The country needs people whose job it is to build enough, build in the right places, make the builders pay their share, and prepare for what comes after. That job does not exist yet. We are asking every candidate and every sitting official, of every party, to start the discussion about creating it, at department.technology/.

  • Ten Questions Every Candidate and Elected Official Should Answer About Data Centers and AI

    By the Founders, Department of Technology | San Diego, California | November 13, 2026

    Voters deserve specific answers about who pays for data centers, who is accountable, and what happens if AI does not deliver. Here are ten questions you can put to any candidate or sitting official, with the evidence behind each, what a strong answer sounds like, and what evasion looks like.

    This is a nonpartisan tool. We score the quality of an answer, meaning whether it is specific, honest about tradeoffs and accountable, and not whether it matches our views. A candidate who answers concretely in favor of a policy we would not choose earns the same points as one who answers concretely against it. Send the same ten questions to every candidate, give everyone the same deadline, and publish the answers word for word.

    How to score

    For each question, give each answer 0, 1 or 2 points:

    • 2 points: a clear position, a specific mechanism, and an honest acknowledgment of a tradeoff or limit.
    • 1 point: a clear position without a mechanism, or a mechanism without a position.
    • 0 points: no answer, a deflection, or generalities that could mean anything.

    A total of 16 to 20 suggests a candidate who has thought hard about the whole picture. A total of 10 to 15 suggests a developing view. Below 10 suggests the issue has not yet been taken seriously. This is a conversation tool, not a scientific rating, and we encourage independent groups, newsrooms and civic organizations to score the answers themselves.

    Question 1: Who is accountable?

    The question: If a data center proposal comes before your body, who in government is responsible for weighing power, water, land, taxes and jobs together? Who should be?

    Why it matters: The pieces of this decision are split among utility commissions, economic development offices, zoning boards and treasurers, and no one answers to voters for the combination.

    A strong answer names a person or office and a mechanism, such as a standing committee, a technology director or an elected leader, and says how voters can hold them to account.

    Red flags: “The market will sort it out,” or an answer that lists existing agencies without saying who coordinates them.

    Question 2: Will you sign secret agreements?

    The question: Will you sign a nondisclosure agreement about a development project, and will you support limits on them?

    Why it matters: An NBC News review of more than 30 data center proposals in 14 states found that in a majority of cases local officials signed NDAs. Records requests in Louisiana turned up 54 NDAs signed by elected officials since early 2024. Microsoft says it is working to end active NDAs governments have signed.

    A strong answer gives a clear yes or no, says when confidentiality ends (for example, before any public vote), and explains how legitimate trade secrets would be protected.

    Red flags: “NDAs are standard practice” with no limit, or a blanket promise with no mention of how negotiations would work.

    Question 3: Who pays for the grid?

    The question: Should the largest new electricity users pay the full cost of the grid upgrades built to serve them? Should that be mandatory or optional, and what minimum commitments should they make?

    Why it matters: The Ratepayer Protection Act passed the House 417 to 3 and then failed a Senate procedural vote 57 to 43, largely over whether the protection should be optional or mandatory. At the state level, 23 states had approved at least one large-load tariff as of May. Ohio’s AEP tariff requires 85 percent minimum payments and at least twelve-year contracts, and Dominion’s Virginia tariff requires 14-year contracts and $1.5 million per megawatt of collateral.

    A strong answer takes a side on mandatory versus optional and names at least one term, such as minimum bills, contract length, collateral or exit fees.

    Red flags: “Make Big Tech pay their fair share” with no mechanism, or “markets will handle it.”

    Question 4: Do you support tax breaks, and on what conditions?

    The question: Do you support tax incentives for data centers? If so, what conditions, such as job targets, sunset dates and clawbacks, should come with them? If not, why not?

    Why it matters: Thirty-eight states offer data center incentives, and at least 28 considered scaling them back this year. In Ohio, the break cost state and local governments about $2 billion in a year. The jobs are mostly temporary: an Illinois study projected 121,000 jobs from $57 billion of investment, but only 2,800 permanent direct positions, while a Reno facility’s records estimated 73 permanent jobs.

    A strong answer takes a position either way, separates temporary from permanent jobs, and says how results would be measured.

    Red flags: Quoting job totals without saying how many are permanent, or promising “jobs and growth” without numbers.

    Question 5: Who gets a say before approval?

    The question: Should data centers be allowed by right, or should each one require a public hearing and discretionary approval? Where should the final decision sit?

    Why it matters: Loudoun County eliminated by-right zoning for data centers, and Harrisonburg, Virginia, moved them to special-use permits. Loudoun also credits favorable zoning and fast approvals for accelerating its growth. There is a real tradeoff between speed and consent.

    A strong answer describes a process, such as hearings, timelines and standards, and acknowledges the tradeoff.

    Red flags: “Let the community decide” with no process, or “get out of the way” with no protection for residents.

    Question 6: What about water, land and cleanup?

    The question: What studies, standards and financial guarantees should a data center have to meet for water, noise, farmland and eventual closure?

    Why it matters: Linn County, Iowa, requires a water study and a water-use agreement before construction and also covers decommissioning bonds. Few places have anything comparable.

    A strong answer names specific requirements and who would enforce them.

    Red flags: “Environmentally responsible” with no specifics.

    Question 7: How do we build enough, fast enough?

    The question: How would you make sure America builds enough power and computing capacity to compete, without bypassing the public?

    Why it matters: BloombergNEF expects China to add more than six times as much generating capacity as the United States over five years, and Morgan Stanley has forecast a 44-gigawatt shortfall for U.S. data centers. At the same time, AEP Ohio’s pipeline reportedly fell from roughly 30 GW to 13 GW once it had a tariff, so not every request is real.

    A strong answer addresses generation, transmission and permitting, and distinguishes real projects from speculative ones.

    Red flags: An answer that is only “beat China” or only “stop the data centers.”

    Question 8: Who bears the loss if the boom slows?

    The question: If AI investment slows or reverses, who bears the losses, and what would you do now so residents are not left holding the bag?

    Why it matters: Hyperscalers will spend about $750 billion this year, borrowing heavily. Jefferies warns that AI investment was the main driver of U.S. economic growth last year after consumer spending, and The Economist notes that more than half the spending goes to equipment that becomes obsolete within a few years.

    A strong answer names protections such as collateral, minimum bills, exit fees or cleanup bonds, without predicting a crash.

    Red flags: Either “this can’t fail” or doom with no plan.

    Question 9: What is your plan for the tax base?

    The question: Has your government modeled what happens to revenue if AI displaces significant work, or if data center revenue falls? What reserves and triggers are in place?

    Why it matters: A RAND analysis found that 84 percent of federal revenue comes from individual and payroll taxes. Loudoun County reports that data centers generate 38 percent of its general fund revenue, and New York City’s Comptroller recommended a reserve of 16 percent of annual tax revenue in response to AI risk.

    A strong answer says what share of revenue is exposed and describes a scenario plan and reserve.

    Red flags: “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

    Question 10: Should Congress override state AI laws?

    The question: Should federal law preempt state AI rules? If so, what federal protections and enforcement would replace them, and who would administer them? (For state and local candidates: what role should your jurisdiction keep?)

    Why it matters: The Senate voted 99 to 1 against an early preemption proposal, while 29 states enacted AI legislation in 2026. Even the White House’s approach would leave data center infrastructure to the states.

    A strong answer takes a position, names the enforcement mechanism and says who is accountable for it.

    Red flags: “Washington can’t be trusted” or “states can’t be trusted” with no alternative.

    Which questions fit which office

    • City council or county board: Questions 1, 2, 5, 6 and 9.
    • State legislature or governor: Questions 2, 3, 4, 7, 8 and 10.
    • Congress: Questions 3, 7, 8, 9 and 10.
    • Bonus question for everyone: Will you publish your meetings with developers, utilities and lobbyists on this issue?

    The case against our case

    • Scorecards reward rehearsed answers. A well-coached candidate can sound specific without meaning it. That is why we ask for mechanisms and why we suggest publishing answers in full and comparing them with later votes.
    • Not every office has the power. A county commissioner cannot set federal policy, and a member of Congress cannot rezone land. The “which office” guide above is meant to keep the questions fair.
    • Ten questions oversimplify. Real issues have more dimensions, and some candidates will rightly say “it depends.” We would count a thoughtful “it depends”, with the conditions named, as a strong answer.
    • We might be seen as scoring for our side. Our proposal for elected technology leaders is not the only acceptable answer to Question 1, and a different structure can score full points. We would prefer that a neutral organization do the scoring.

    Print-ready list

    1. Who in government is responsible for weighing power, water, land, taxes and jobs together, and who should be?
    2. Will you sign a nondisclosure agreement about a development project, and will you support limits on them?
    3. Should the largest new electricity users pay the full cost of grid upgrades built to serve them, and should that be mandatory or optional?
    4. Do you support tax incentives for data centers, and on what conditions?
    5. Should data centers be allowed by right, or require a public hearing and discretionary approval?
    6. What studies, standards and guarantees should a data center meet for water, noise, land and cleanup?
    7. How would you make sure America builds enough power and capacity to compete, without bypassing the public?
    8. If AI investment slows, who bears the losses, and what would you do now to protect residents?
    9. Has your government modeled what happens to revenue if AI displaces work or data center revenue falls?
    10. Should Congress override state AI laws, and if so, what replaces them and who administers it?

    Use it

    Send these to every candidate and every sitting official you can reach, at every level, and ask for answers in writing by a stated date. Publish what comes back. If you are a candidate, answer before you are asked. Our proposal is at department.technology/.

  • A Briefing for the New Congress: What the Last Two Years Got Wrong, and What to Do Differently

    By the Founders, Department of Technology | San Diego, California | November 13, 2026

    To the newly elected: you are about to inherit the most consequential technology decisions in a generation, and the last Congress left you a map of what not to do.

    This is not a partisan scorecard. The record we describe below includes members of both parties acting in good faith and members of both parties falling short. Newly elected members of Congress are sworn in this January, and we think you are better served by an honest account of what happened than by a flattering one. We start with what worked.

    What the last Congress got right

    It is easy to say Congress did nothing on data centers. That is not quite true. In July, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the Ratepayer Protection Act 52 to 0, a bill from Republican Gabe Evans and Democrat Kathy Castor. In September, the full House passed it 417 to 3 under a procedure that required a two-thirds majority. The bill would require state utility regulators to consider standards that make large data center customers pay the full cost of the grid upgrades built to serve them. In a polarized era, that is a real accomplishment, and it shows what is possible when members start from a problem their constituents can feel: the electric bill.

    Then came the mistakes.

    Mistake 1: Trying to pass the big thing through the back door

    For two years, advocates of a national AI framework tried to move federal preemption of state AI laws by attaching it to must-pass bills. Those efforts, including the defense authorization bill and the 2025 budget reconciliation law, were unsuccessful. Senators rejected a broad preemption proposal 99 to 1. In March 2026, the White House sent Congress a national policy framework that again called for preempting burdensome state laws while carving out areas such as child safety and state zoning for AI infrastructure. By one account, Congress left for its August recess without moving a federal AI framework out of committee.

    The lesson is not that preemption is right or wrong. Reasonable people disagree, and we lay out both sides below. The lesson is that a question this large cannot be settled by rider. It needs its own hearings, its own text and its own public debate.

    Mistake 2: Letting the one agreement become a campaign prop

    The Ratepayer Protection Act did not stall because no one wanted it. It stalled because of how it arrived. On September 30, five weeks before Election Day, the Senate voted 57 to 43 on a procedural motion that needed 60 votes. Only four Democrats voted yes.

    The two sides told different stories, and each has a serious argument:

    • Republican supporters said the bill had passed the House almost unanimously, with Democratic votes and Democratic cosponsors, and accused Senate Democrats of refusing to take yes for an answer for political reasons.
    • Senate Democrats said the bill’s core protection is optional, since states need only consider standards, and offered their own GRID Savings Act to make large customers actually pay for grid upgrades. Senator Schumer called the Republican bill “optional” and toothless.

    We take no side on optional versus mandatory. We do note that Reuters reported Senate Republicans aimed to improve their midterm prospects with the vote, and that the bill arrived at the end of the session, after the Senate had not moved on data centers for months. A measure introduced in July and brought to a test vote in the last weeks before an election will be judged as a campaign move whatever its merits. The practical lesson for new members: if you want a data center bill to become law, negotiate the mandatory-versus-optional question in the spring, not the fall.

    Mistake 3: Solving one slice of a three-part problem

    Even if the Ratepayer Protection Act had passed, it would have addressed one of three risks we described in our earlier piece, “The Data Center Casino.” It deals with who pays for grid upgrades. It does not address how fast we can build power to compete with China, the financial exposure if the AI investment boom turns, or what happens to federal and state revenue if AI displaces high-paid white-collar work. Congress legislated the slice that polls well. No committee is responsible for the whole.

    Mistake 4: Leaving a vacuum for states and for secret local deals

    When Congress does not act, others do. In 2026, 29 states enacted AI legislation, and for the first time both Republican- and Democratic-led states passed laws adding requirements or oversight for data centers. That is encouraging, and it is also a patchwork. Meanwhile, at the local level, many deals are still negotiated under non-disclosure agreements. As we noted in our open letter, 25 of 31 Virginia local governments involved in data center development had signed NDAs. Residents learn about the largest infrastructure project in their county after the decision is made.

    Mistake 5: Nobody owns it

    This is the mistake underneath the others. AI, data centers, the power grid, student data, surveillance and the workforce are governed by a patchwork of committees and agencies. Each handles a slice, and no one is accountable to voters for how the slices fit together. We raised this directly. In February 2025 we submitted a proposal to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for a national AI action plan, and in July 2025 we published a response to the plan that followed. We have not had a substantive engagement with either. We mention it not as a complaint, since a good idea should not depend on one administration, but because it illustrates the structural problem: there was no office whose job it was to say yes or no.

    What new members can do in the first 100 days

    1. Hold hearings on the whole picture. Grid capacity, public cost, competitiveness and fiscal impact together, with the same witnesses in the same room.
    2. Settle optional versus mandatory early. Bring Republicans and Democrats who both voted for ratepayer protection into one room and write the version that can reach 60 votes.
    3. Keep big structural questions out of must-pass bills. Preemption, if it happens, should be debated on its own.
    4. Open the deals. Require public disclosure of data center agreements that involve public land, public utilities or public incentives.
    5. Create a single point of accountability. At minimum, a standing joint committee with jurisdiction over the whole question. Ideally, an elected technology leader at every level of government, including a Secretary of Technology at the federal level, whose job is to answer to voters for the combination.

    The case against our case

    A fair briefing includes the strongest objections.

    • Preemption advocates argue a patchwork of state laws slows innovation and that national competitiveness requires one national standard, and they note that the longer Congress waits, the harder preemption becomes as states pass more laws (Broadband Breakfast). Opponents respond that preemption without enforceable federal protections would leave residents with fewer remedies.
    • Optional standards may be the right design. Supporters of the Ratepayer Protection Act argue that utility regulation has long been a state responsibility and that a federal mandate would overreach. Critics respond that voluntary pledges have not been enough.
    • Congress already has committees for this. Some will say the problem is political will, not structure, and that a new office adds a layer. Our view is that structure shapes will: when every committee owns a slice, no one is blamed for the whole. But we welcome the argument.

    The first step

    The new Congress does not need to solve everything in January. It needs to stop treating the central question, who is accountable for the technology buildout, as someone else’s job. Start the conversation about a Department of Technology and elected technology leaders at every level. We will help, and we will be honest with you when we think you are wrong. Find our proposal at department.technology/.

  • Voters Didn’t Reject AI. They Rejected Building It Backward


    By the Founders, Department of Technology | San Diego, California | November 9, 2026


    Voters Didn’t Reject AI in 2026. The ever-increasing number of paid memberships for OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude AI), Google Gemini, and others has proved this to be the case.

    They Rejected Building It Backward.

    On November 3rd, voters across ten states said no to data centers almost every time they were asked. The reason is not that they oppose AI. It is that they have watched the buildout run ahead of the power grid, and they suspect the people steering it are not putting the public first.

    In Ashville, Ohio, the village council had already approved an agreement with a data center developer. Residents petitioned to put it on the ballot anyway. On Election Day, 82% of voters rejected the deal, according to Northeast Ohio reporting by Fox 8.
    Ashville was not an outlier. Ballotpedia counted 41 local data center measures on the November 3rd ballot across 10 states, with Ohio accounting for 21. Voters favored limiting data center development in 40 of the 41. The one exception was Harwood, North Dakota, where voters defeated a proposed review requirement. Voters in Granville, Ohio, approved a ban by 84%. In Urbana, 77% backed one.

    This was not a one-day mood. A Heatmap poll reported by Forbes found more than 70% of Americans would oppose a data center planned for their area, with rising electricity prices the top reason.
    Many voters may not weigh how much national AI leadership depends on new computing capacity. That is a fair criticism, and we take it seriously below. But the voters who showed up made a different judgment, and it deserves a hearing: they believe this buildout is being driven first by profit, with national strategy a distant second, and that their concerns about power bills and the environment were treated as obstacles rather than inputs.
    The comparison with China shows why that suspicion is not irrational.

    What China Did First
    China and the United States are in a race for AI leadership, but they are not running it from the same starting line.
    According to Inside Climate News, China added an estimated 540 gigawatts of generating capacity in 2025, more than 80% of it renewable. The United States added about 54 gigawatts, roughly 60% renewable. Al Jazeera reports that China already generates more than twice as much electricity as the US, and that BloombergNEF expects China to add more than six times as much generating capacity over the next five years.

    Transmission, the high-voltage lines that carry power from where it is made to where it is used, tells the same story. Grid Strategies estimates the US needs roughly 5,000 new miles of high-capacity transmission per year but has averaged only about 600 since 2017, according to Yale Climate Connections. China, by the same report, has been building over 1,000 miles of ultra-high-voltage lines per year. In January, China’s State Grid announced a CNY 4 trillion (about $580 billion) investment plan for 2026 to 2030, up 40% from the prior plan, including 15 new ultra-high-voltage lines, according to Enerdata.

    Getting connected is the other bottleneck. A ChinaTalk analysis finds that the time for a US generation project to connect has grown from under two years in the early 2000s to over four years for projects built from 2018 to 2024. Because China plans generation, transmission, and demand together under state direction, the American concept of a years-long interconnection queue for large loads barely exists there.

    The US leads on the other side of the equation. Stanford’s AI Index counts an estimated 5,427 US data centers in 2025 versus 449 in China. As one analyst quoted by Al Jazeera framed it, the US has the chips and is short on power, while China has the power and is short on chips.

    Cost is where the picture gets less lopsided. Reporting from bne IntelliNews puts Chinese industrial electricity rates roughly in line with the US, at about $0.08 to $0.11 per kilowatt-hour, while Chinese households pay about $0.08 versus $0.15 to $0.17 for American households. The Financial Times reported that Beijing is subsidizing power for data centers using domestic chips down to about 5.6 cents per kilowatt-hour, against a US industrial average of 9.1 cents.

    The Warnings Were Public
    Here is the part voters understand best. The power shortfall was not a secret.

    In its Long-Term Reliability Assessment, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) raised its ten-year summer peak demand forecast sharply and said new data centers account for most of the projected growth, with several regions at high risk of supply shortfalls by the end of the decade. This spring, NERC issued a Level 3 alert, its highest tier, over large computational loads like data centers, and found that grid operators cannot reliably model how 77% of operating data center load behaves during grid disturbances, according to reporting by SAN and Utility Dive.

    Grid operators are also being overwhelmed at the front door. Texas’s ERCOT built its process for a large-load queue of 40 to 50 projects, then received 225 new interconnection requests in 2025 alone, about 70% of them data centers, according to the Texas Tribune. ERCOT itself cautions that many requests are speculative and its demand forecast is probably inflated. That caution cuts both ways: it means some projects may never be built, and it also means officials are approving and planning against numbers nobody can fully trust.
    We want to be precise. We are not claiming that officials privately concealed a known shortfall. What the public record shows is that independent grid reliability authorities published escalating warnings, and in many places projects advanced anyway, sometimes under nondisclosure agreements and sometimes over local objections. When voters see that sequence, and then see their bills, they draw a conclusion.

    Why the Bill Concern Is Real, and Why It Is Contested
    The electricity price argument is the most contested part of this debate, so it deserves care.

    In PJM, the grid operator serving 13 states and Washington, DC, capacity auction prices rose from $28.92 per megawatt-day for 2024/25 to $329.17 for 2026/27, roughly tenfold. PJM’s independent market monitor attributed 63% of the increase in the 2025/26 auction to data center demand, about $9.3 billion in added costs recovered from ratepayers, according to analysis by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
    But capacity charges are only about 10% to 20% of a typical bill, as FactCheck.org notes, and several studies find no clear nationwide link between data centers and household rate increases. A Rutgers policy lab analysis found no statistically significant local bill effect yet, while warning that “not yet” is not the same as “nothing to worry about.” FactCheck.org also cites an estimate that capacity increases added about $18 per month to the average home bill in western Maryland and $16 in Ohio between mid-2025 and mid-2026, with 63% of that tied to data centers.

    The honest summary: the bill effect is real and documented in some regions, overstated in others, and likely to grow if the cost-allocation rules do not change. Voters are reacting to the direction of travel, and the direction is up.

    “Doesn’t Slowing Down Hand China the Win?”
    This is the strongest objection, and it is not frivolous. If China is building power at this scale and pricing it for AI, then any delay in the US could cost real strategic ground.

    But the China comparison cuts against the current approach, not for it. The binding constraint on American AI is no longer chips alone. It is power, transmission, and public consent, and the backlash of November 3rd shows what happens when a project skips the last of those. Projects imposed on unwilling towns get voted down, and every vote down is a delay no strategist planned for.

    We also want to avoid the lazy conclusion that the US should copy Beijing. China’s model rests on centralized, state-directed planning that the US system, with its many jurisdictions and its commitment to local consent, cannot and should not replicate. China’s buildout has its own costs: Oxford Institute for Energy Studies notes it added as much as 80 gigawatts of new coal-fired power in 2025, and Al Jazeera reports a gap between China’s data center capacity and how much of it is actually used. The lesson is narrower and more useful: China treats the grid as infrastructure to be built before the load arrives. We have been building the load and hoping the grid catches up.

    The Fix: Grid First, Public Accountability Always
    The way out is not a moratorium on AI infrastructure and not a free pass for developers. It is a different order of operations. The framework at Department of Technology proposes layered accountability: a confirmed federal Secretary of Technology, and elected technology leaders at the state, county, and local level who answer to the voters whose bills and water supply are on the line. Concretely:
    Grid first. No major data center approval without a utility- or grid-operator-certified plan covering power supply, transmission, and interconnection timing.

    Make the large loads pay. Require large-load tariffs so the full cost of new generation and grid upgrades lands on the facilities that cause it, not on residential ratepayers. Pennsylvania’s governor has moved this direction with an executive order requiring developers to build, bring, or buy their own capacity, and a Republican challenger has pressed for a ratepayer-protection moratorium. This is not a one-party issue.

    Publish the grid impact. Before any rezoning or tax abatement, publish projected power demand, water use, and cost allocation in plain language, and limit NDAs on projects that use public land, money, or incentives.

    Fund the wires. Treat transmission and interconnection reform as national AI infrastructure, because it is. If the United States wants to out-build China on compute, it has to stop being out-built on the grid.

    What Each of Us Can Do
    Congress: Prioritize transmission permitting and interconnection reform, and pass transparency rules for large-load projects.
    Statehouses and utility commissions: Adopt large-load tariffs and grid-readiness tests before approvals, and require public notice before rezoning or tax breaks.
    Candidates and local officials: Answer two questions in public. Who pays for the power this project needs? Where is the grid study that says it can be delivered?

    Voters: Ask every candidate those same two questions, at every level, before the next ballot.

    The Choice
    The United States can win the AI race, but not by asking communities to host the buildout on faith. China’s advantage is not that it has better engineers. It is that it built the power first. If we want national AI leadership, we have to earn it the way voters just demanded: build the grid, make the costs transparent, and put people accountable to the public in charge of the decisions.

    Summary
    Voters in 40 of 41 local data center ballot measures on November 3rd chose limits, and polls show most Americans oppose a data center near them. The backlash is not a rejection of AI. It reflects a buildout that outran the grid, a shortfall that grid reliability authorities publicly warned about, and a bill impact that is real in some regions and contested in others. China built power and transmission first, at a scale and speed the US has not matched, though its model is not one we should copy. The answer is to put the grid first, make the large loads pay, and make the decisions accountable to the people who live with them.
    Sources

  • America Won’t Lose the AI Race to China’s Chips. It Will Lose It to Distrust.

    Voters have already rejected data centers at the ballot box in 2026. The officials building this infrastructure are still hiding deals and holding stakes in the companies they oversee.

    Last week, on November 3rd, 2026, voters delivered a verdict on the AI buildout. They weighed nearly 40 data center-related ballot measures across 10 states, and in Edgewater, Florida, over three-quarters of voters approved a ban on new data centers. This week, ProPublica reported that our United States Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum is leading the push to put data centers on public lands while holding between $18.1 million and $64.4 million in AI-company investments, according to an analysis by the advocacy group Save Our Parks.

    Our United States Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum says any suggestion that his decisions are driven by personal investments is false. But lawyers told ProPublica his holdings appear to be acceptable under current law. That is the real scandal. If an official can steer national AI policy while holding a stake in the industry he is steering, the problem is the law, not just the official.

    The argument of this piece is simple: America will not lose the AI race to foreign chips. America will lose it to its own distrust, unless the people building our AI infrastructure are accountable to the people who live next to it.

    A Lead That Depends on Power and Public Trust

    The United States still dominates the hardware and capital side of AI. Global data center capacity is projected to grow by 97 GW between 2026 and 2030, effectively doubling, and that buildout could require $3 trillion in investment. China, meanwhile, is closing the capabilities gap and training a large share of the world’s AI researchers.

    Chips are no longer the binding constraint. Energy and public consent are. BloombergNEF estimates a 63 GW gap between what AI chip shipments imply the U.S. should build by 2033 and what energy constraints will allow. A country that cannot power its data centers, or persuade its citizens to host them, will not win this race.

    Washington DC Has Not Built the Grid

    AI is, at bottom, a question of electricity. A serious national defense strategy would fast-track nuclear baseload, advanced renewables, and modernized transmission lines. Instead, Congress has taken only minimal steps to regulate these facilities, and the cost is landing on aging local utility systems and the people who pay for them.

    The Backlash Is Rational

    Gallup found that 71% of Americans oppose an AI data center in their local area, including 48% who are strongly opposed. A later Heatmap Pro poll put strong support at just 4%, down from 13% a year earlier. This is not simple NIMBYism. A majority of Americans, 59%, expect their electricity bills to rise if a data center opens nearby, and these facilities also draw heavily on local water and grid capacity.

    When officials answer this with dismissal, they deepen the problem. Burgum has blamed the mass rejection of data centers on a foreign psyop. Calling public worry about bills and water a foreign plot cannot win the cooperation of the communities that must host the infrastructure of national power.

    Secrecy and Self-Dealing

    Consider Tucson, a drought-stricken city. Amazon Web Services and a developer spent nearly two years negotiating a $3.6 billion, 290-acre data center campus behind NDAs, keeping the public in the dark about projected water usage. Residents learned the details only after the deal was largely set.

    Tucson is not unusual. In Virginia, 25 of 31 local governments involved in data center development had signed NDAs. In Louisiana, records requests found at least 54 NDAs signed by elected officials. This is the pattern we warned about in our analysis of America’s AI Action Plan: data centers sited without local democratic input.

    The conflicts reach the top, too. ProPublica’s database shows more than 320 members of our Trump administration have ties to Alphabet, with large numbers also tied to Nvidia and Meta. Our Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum pledged to divest many of his AI investments, but not his stake in Titan Development, a real estate firm that has handled land acquisitions for data centers in the Southwest. And the administration has not completed any environmental reviews for data centers on public lands.

    This is not a one-party problem, and the rules must not be one-party rules. The standards proposed here should apply to every official in every administration, including all members of Congress, the White House and others.

    Reform is starting. Lawmakers in at least ten states have introduced bills to restrict or ban these NDAs, Pennsylvania’s governor has barred them for agencies under his control, and a bipartisan federal bill, the No Secrets for Data Centers Act, would void NDAs signed by officials acting in their official capacity. Industry has a defense: one developer says NDAs protect officials from insider-trading exposure, since a planned campus can count as material non-public information. That argues for narrow disclosure rules and a limited carve-out for genuine trade secrets. It does not justify blanket secrecy over water, power, and tax breaks.

    “Won’t Rules Slow Us Down?”

    The strongest objection is that accountability will slow the buildout and hand China an advantage. The opposite is closer to the truth. Projects imposed on unwilling communities are the ones being voted down, and secrecy is what turns a zoning question into a ballot-box revolt. Transparency is how projects survive.

    The Fix: Accountability at Every Level

    Our AI strategy is currently shaped by appointed officials, zoning boards, and “AI czars” who answer to executives rather than voters. The framework at Department of Technology proposes a permanent Department of Technology with layered accountability:

    • Federal: a cabinet-level Secretary of Technology, nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. That gives one accountable official real authority over national AI policy, cybersecurity, and digital infrastructure, with a public confirmation process where conflicts must be disclosed and divestment pledges can be tested.
    • State, county, and local: elected technology leaders. They face voters, and they would decide questions like whether a data center goes up beside a reservoir.

    An elected state secretary of technology or county technology commissioner cannot easily hide behind a corporate NDA when residents are looking at their utility bills and voting on the next term. A federal Secretary who is vetted, confirmed, and held to strict divestment rules would have far less room to wave away grid concerns.

    As we argued in Stop the Litigation Loop, a national AI strategy works best when elected state and local partners help carry it out. Elected officials can be conflicted too, so the office needs disclosure and divestment rules from day one.

    Four Legal Changes, Now

    1. Treat AI infrastructure as defense infrastructure. Foundational models, sovereign compute clusters, and their dedicated power supply should be formally classified as critical to national defense.
    2. Create an AI conflict-of-interest offense, modeled on war profiteering law. Criminalize officials trading stock, holding options, or receiving deferred compensation from AI companies bidding on or serving federal defense and intelligence contracts, including public land leases, where the official has authority over those decisions. Provide a safe harbor for diversified index funds and qualified blind trusts, so the rule targets real conflicts rather than ordinary retirement savings.
    3. Ban NDAs on public-interest infrastructure. Void any NDA that binds public officials or covers projects using public funds, land, or incentives, with a narrow carve-out for real trade secrets.
    4. Require divestment as a condition of office. Anyone overseeing technology, public lands, or energy policy, including the proposed Secretary of Technology, should divest direct holdings in AI and tech companies before taking office. Violations should be prosecuted as threats to national defense, not settled with ethics fines.

    What Each of Us Can Do

    • Congress: pass the No Secrets for Data Centers Act and adopt divestment rules that cover both parties.
    • Statehouses: enact NDA bans like those introduced in at least ten states, and require public notice before any rezoning or tax abatement for a data center.
    • Voters: ask every candidate, at every level, two questions. Will you divest from AI and tech holdings while in office? Will you refuse NDAs on projects that use public land, money, or water?

    The Choice

    Our adversaries will not be stopped by a nation whose officials hold stock in the contractors they oversee, hide deals from the towns that host them, and brush off voters’ concerns about their own bills. To win the algorithmic cold war, we have to build the grid and earn public trust. We also have to make sure those who write AI policy have no stake in the outcome. The voters have already spoken. Now the law has to catch up.

    Summary

    Seven in ten Americans oppose a data center in their community, and the officials deciding where they go may own a piece of the companies building them.

    Gallup found that 71% of Americans oppose an AI data center in their local area, and last week voters made that opposition official, weighing nearly 40 data center-related ballot measures across 10 states. This week, ProPublica reported that the Interior Secretary, who is pushing to build data centers on public lands, holds between $18.1 million and $64.4 million in AI-company investments, according to an analysis by the advocacy group Save Our Parks.

    Interior disputes the characterization, and lawyers told ProPublica the holdings appear to be acceptable under current law. That last part is the heart of our new article; America Won’t Lose the AI Race to China’s Chips. It Will Lose It to Distrust, which argues that our race will be decided by the power grid and public trust as much as by chips, and that trust collapses when local officials sign NDAs that hide water and power costs from their own residents and when officials hold stakes in the industries they oversee.

    This is not a Republican or Democratic problem, and the rules we propose would cover every official in every administration. Imagine being able to see what your town agreed to before the contract is signed, knowing the people overseeing AI and energy policy have no financial stake in the outcome, and having a vote over whether a data center goes up beside your reservoir.

    That future is within reach: lawmakers in at least ten states have introduced bills to restrict or ban these NDAs, and a bipartisan federal bill, the No Secrets for Data Centers Act, would void NDAs signed by officials acting in their official capacity. What the momentum needs is public pressure, and public pressure starts with people knowing what is happening.

    So please share this article today: post it with one sentence on why it matters to your town, send it to your city council member or state legislator, forward it to a neighbor who pays an electric bill, and ask every candidate whether they will divest from AI and tech holdings while in office and refuse NDAs on projects that use public land, money, or water. The voters have already spoken, so help make sure the law catches up at department.technology/.