Mike Rogers calls for 1-year data center moratorium

Former Rep. Mike Rogers, the GOP nominee in a critical Senate battle in Michigan, on Thursday called for a one-year pause on data center construction, the latest sign of the political toxicity of the server warehouses fueling the AI boom.

Rogers said in a statement that he is pushing for a yearlong moratorium on new data centers “until we establish a fair, transparent approval process that puts local communities first.”

“While I don’t support a federal ban, Michigan needs stronger guardrails to protect community control, prevent utility price hikes, protect our water and stop pay-to-play schemes,” he added.

His opponent, Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, has previously waded into the data center debate, putting forward a series of “terms of engagement” for new projects. This includes requiring developers to cover any increased energy costs and commit to using closed-loop cooling systems.

“Unless and until we have those terms of engagement at the federal level, I stand with local and state elected officials saying that we cannot approve any more of these until we have federal level guardrails,” El-Sayed said in July during an appearance alongside local organizers at a data center construction site.

The Michigan race is critical to both parties’ hopes of holding the Senate majority in the next Congress. Democrats need to pick up four seats to win the majority, but that is assuming they hold on to the Michigan seat that retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D) now holds.

Data centers are playing an increasingly prominent role in midterm races across the country as Americans have grow wary of the push to rapidly build more AI infrastructure. The chief concerns are whether the new centers will drive up electricity costs and strain water resources and how they will affect the local environment.

In a highly competitive Senate race in Ohio, former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) is taking aim at his opponent, incumbent Sen. Jon Husted (R), over his record on data centers .

Brown’s campaign has accused Husted of supporting tax breaks for the projects while serving as the state’s lieutenant governor, arguing he “led the charge, he was the point man to bring these data centers to Ohio.”

Husted has responded by pointing to his efforts to ensure data center developers cover their share of utility costs, including legislation he introduced last month.

The Senate Republican campaign arm, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), wrote in a private memo this week to AI companies that the Brown campaign’s central focus on data centers spells trouble for public opinion on data centers if Husted were to lose.

The NRSC urged companies to make a better case for themselves and do it fast: explaining who benefits, who pays for higher costs and why communities should want data centers.