Viewpoint: Data centers a looming environmental catastrophe

Reggie Spaulding

In 2025 the Montana legislature passed House Bill 424, giving tax breaks to data centers to generate their own electricity.

While I do believe that they should be incentivized to produce their own energy, I also believe that massive data centers are a looming environmental catastrophe. They don’t bring jobs or money to the state, they could DOUBLE the energy used in Montana, and you are paying for the upgrades to the energy grid through your increasingly high power bills.

Additionally, data centers use massive amounts of water for cooling, running our rivers and groundwater dry, or returning it polluted. And lastly, most of the deals with these businesses are done in private, so that we do not know the details and have no input.

So who wins? Big businesses like Amazon and Google! Not you or me. If elected to House District 92, I will work to educate folks about the damage these data centers can cause, make the companies pay for their energy and for grid upgrades, or even be require that they produce their own RENEWABLE ENERGY.

And I will work to make the deals with these companies transparent and open and accountable to public input.

Reggie Spaulding is a candidate for House District 92.