Bay Area Sees 25 Data Center Proposals; Huffman Probes Public Lands

Rapid demand for artificial intelligence computing infrastructure has generated at least 25 new or expanded data center proposals across 10 Bay Area cities over the past two months, prompting local land-use debates in East Contra Costa County (San José Spotlight) even as North Bay Rep. Jared Huffman challenges federal public-land proposals across the American West (Hoodline).

According to regional reporting compiled between September and October, the 25 data center proposals or expansions span 10 municipalities across the greater Bay Area: Pittsburg, Oakley, and Brentwood in East Contra Costa County, alongside San José, Santa Clara, Hayward, Oakland, San Francisco, Daly City, and Gilroy. While local governments in San José and Santa Clara have courted server farm investment to bolster municipal tax revenue, residents and officials in several East Bay and South Bay communities have raised questions over electrical grid capacity, water consumption, backup diesel generators, and visual impacts near residential neighborhoods.

Brookings Institution political scientist Darrell West, speaking on NPR's Fresh Air, noted that communities nationwide are increasingly weighing the local tax benefits of large-scale computing facilities against the strain placed on regional utilities and ratepayers.

Huffman and 15 House Democrats Question 17,600 Acres of Federal Land Proposals

At the federal level, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee in the 119th Congress, has escalated oversight of proposals to site data centers and dedicated power infrastructure on public lands. On Sept. 24, Huffman, Nevada Rep. Dina Titus, and 14 other House Democrats sent a formal letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum requesting documentation on proposals covering at least 17,600 acres of federal lands across 6 Western states: Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming.

The lawmakers' Sept. 24 letter set an Oct. 8 deadline for the Department of the Interior to disclose project applicants, environmental review timelines, and potential impacts on water supplies, wildlife habitat, cultural sites, and tribal lands. Among the examples cited in the inquiry is the proposed 167-megawatt Townsite Data Center on 88.5 acres of Bureau of Land Management land in southern Nevada, a project that was halted in August after local opponents challenged its siting near the Sloan Canyon area.

The data center inquiry follows a separate Sept. 15 letter in which Huffman joined U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff and Rep. Jim Costa in urging the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service to reject a right-of-way request across a quarter-mile strip of Yosemite National Park sought for a luxury resort development on the adjacent 83-acre Hazel Green Ranch property.