U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) believes that once Alabamians are properly informed about data centers, they will support more of them being built across the Yellowhammer State.
Tuberville, who is the Republican nominee for Alabama Governor, has been defending new data centers in recent weeks. He’s also faced opposition from Democrats, including U.S. Rep Terri Sewell (D-Birmingham), who have called for moratoriums on their construction.
“We have studied data centers because we know they’re coming, and here’s the problem that you have: you have to be transparent,” Tuberville said Thursday on WVNN. “People don’t understand them. You got this guy running against me. He couldn’t. He doesn’t have a clue what a data center is. And I’ve been in Virginia. I’ve been all over the country looking, talking to people that have data centers, talking to people like Elon Musk about the future of this country.”
Several cities across Alabama have been pushing pause on new data center projects this year, including Fort Payne, Cullman, Birmingham, Leeds, and Homewood. Just last month, the Cullman City Council voted unanimously to approve a one-year moratorium on data centers, doing so without commentary from council members.
“We want to be transparent,” Tuberville continued. “I, as governor, will get involved with every negotiation in the state. Now, it does pay a lot of sales tax, and it does pretty much double the tax for schools in your city or neighborhood. That’s the good part of it. And again, you don’t want to be overburdened on this, and you don’t want to get in the weeds on it. But you got to make sure you know what you’re doing and how you’re doing it, and make sure that you don’t give all these tax credits away when they got more money than they’d ever spend, and so make them come build it.”
The senator also explained to reporters during a press call Thursday that Alabama already has many data centers that have existed in the state for years.
“We have more than 20 centers of all sizes currently operating across our great state, with more being built as we speak,” he said. “A data center is a facility that is used to store information for all sorts of things: healthcare, military, technology companies, and yes, artificial intelligence. Data centers have been around for more than 20 years and operating in our state for at least the last 15 years. Data centers also take on many different forms. Some are the size of a Walmart, and some are the size of 20 football fields. You know they’ve received fairly little criticism up until now.”
Tuberville said his priority on the issue currently is to fight back against the disinformation being spread by our adversaries.
“You know there’s a lot of fake news out there about what data centers are and how they have changed over the years,” he explained. “A lot of this fake news is coming from woke EU climate activists and foreign adversaries like Russia and China. “We’ve been studying up on data centers for last couple of years and meeting with various people in the industry to weigh the benefits versus negative impacts on Alabama for if they come to Alabama. Back in the day, they created some environmental problems and were noisy. The technology has improved dramatically, and we will require the latest and greatest technology to avoid these issues in Alabama.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on X @Yaffee
