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Data centers have complicated the midterm calculus for Democratic and Republican campaigns everywhere. But until this week, the subject hadn’t had much of an impact on a tight Maine Senate contest dominated by immigration, war, and affordability issues like heating oil and housing.
That changed this week. On Thursday night, a protester jumped into the final debate between Sen. Susan Collins and former state Senate President Troy Jackson at Husson University in Bangor. The person apologized for interrupting Collins and launched into a tirade about AI centers “destroying our climate” and “poisoning our water” before being summarily hauled out by security officers. Collins tried a joke about “one of Troy’s supporters,” but Jackson was not amused. “Oh, shut up,” he said. “I don’t even know the kid.”
Fearing for jobs and environmental impacts, young people are some of the staunchest opponents of data centers. The Thursday debate did not return to the issue, but during a forum earlier in the week, Collins and Jackson had picked their way through the data center minefield cautiously.
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The two candidates were aligned on what has become the center-lane positioning on the divisive infrastructure facilities. Establishing “guardrails” has become the default position for many lawmakers, which no doubt sounds more soothing than the R word—regulation. Collins and Jackson agreed that the facilities must not affect water usage or force ratepayers to pay more for electricity and that local agreements were key.
But Congress has lagged far behind in regulating the tech giants since the dawn of the internet age. Collins trumpeted a bill designed to regulate construction and water and energy impacts (in reality, it wouldn’t have done much), but she had little to say about putting the brakes on those companies, some of which have admitted that, yes, AI could be dangerous for humanity. Hers is a reactive mindset illustrating the simple fact that the United States has been derelict in creating comprehensive regulations governing artificial intelligence. Members of Congress are attempting to back into something resembling a framework while skirting over numerous more fundamental issues about a potentially lethal technology that has generated fear and anger.
There’s also this: According to a Forbes investigation, Collins is among the top five senators with between $300,000 and $500,000 in data center–adjacent investments. The figures were calculated by household; the shares belong to her husband.
Jackson asserted that the AI race needs to slow down or stop. Indeed, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who has endorsed Jackson, has introduced a national data center moratorium proposal as well as a ban on so-called “superintelligence”; both have languished in the chamber. In Maine, the question of moratoriums recalls the major error that outgoing Gov. Janet Mills made earlier this year when she vetoed a legislative moratorium to preserve the town of Jay’s ability to site a data center. The uproar she provoked forced Mills to drop out of the Senate race soon afterward, and the project later collapsed.
A University of Massachusetts Lowell/Center for Public Opinion poll indicates that 72 percent of Mainers oppose siting data center projects. Those fears are certain to explode as Mainers learn more about research in progress to explore the feasibility of underwater data centers in the Bay of Fundy. A Massachusetts-based developer, DeepGreen Western Passage SPV, is exploring a 15-megawatt data center powered by tidal currents. The firm has received an initial permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The Bay of Fundy has some of the highest tides in the world. Those currents are “free, continuous, and completely predictable, unlike wind or solar,” Louis Wolfson, the developer, told The Boston Globe. “And the ocean naturally cools things without touching a single drop of drinking water.” Like a number of Maine cities and towns, Eastport, near the Canadian border, has passed a data center moratorium. Indigenous peoples in Maine and New Brunswick oppose the project, as does the Eastport Coalition for Healthy Oceans, a local group.
On Tuesday, Collins concluded that she and Jackson weren’t that far apart, but their answers showcased how far behind federal, state, and local lawmakers are on reining in the AI companies accelerating a technology that has American voters seriously alarmed.
