In Utah on Wednesday, State Senate President J. Stuart Adams—one of the most powerful Republicans in the state—lost his primary election after supporting a major data center development near the Great Salt Lake, in one of the clearest signs yet of the growing political risks tied to the industry.
That is actually the opposite argument as this project had. We’ll never know the full truth because in the Utah legislature the Republicans exempted themselves from FOIA/GRAMA requests. What it looks like happened based on the emails and records we do have is the Republican House Leader Stuart Adams (a land developer) bought 640 acres of waterless desert land for $10. He then tried to lure the data center to the land next to his by promising Kevin O’Leary it would be tax exempt. This would have made his plot exponentially more valuable.
The local county (about 50,000 cattle and peach farmers) government calculated the data center would cost the county government about $5 million per year because they’d be on the hook for police, fire, ambulance, water, sewer, snow removal, road maintenance etc. The county government didn’t think it was a fair deal for them so they got O’Leary to agree to a one time payment of $20 million, long enough for these local Republicans to win reelection and then everyone forget by the next cycle.
Fun fact O’Leary originally proposed a solar, wind, and battery powered data center but the state level Republicans put a condition on approval that it must be fossil fuel powered. The Utah Way!