Op-Ed: America can win the AI race without sending the bill to working families
Published in The Spokesman Review | By Michael Baumgartner
As cloud computing and AI companies push to build new data centers that could consume as much electricity as small cities, Eastern Washington is showing up on the list of possible locations.
The reason is literally easy to see. Either by driving up to the Grand Coulee dam, down to the Snake River or by looking at Riverfront Park, our hydropower gives us abundant, inexpensive, clean, renewable power.
It’s what attracted factories here decades ago, and AI is every bit as essential to the 21st Century economy as aluminum smelters were to the 20th.
But, our recent popularity with hyperscalers should be met with caution. I share the concern of many families, farmers and local officials asking: Who pays for the new power plants, transmission lines and water infrastructure? How can local communities and ratepayers be protected?
The answer should be simple: If you build it and use it, you should pay for it.
Technology must serve the community, not the other way around. Artificial intelligence’s value must be measured not by how much computing power it creates, but by whether it advances human dignity, strengthens our families and improves people’s lives.
I have introduced the Power and Water for Families Act to protect Northwest communities from the negative impacts of data centers or other industrial megaprojects. The bill creates a clear national framework for these large investments while still harnessing their benefits.
Data centers should not be forced onto communities that do not want them. Families should not be asked to pay higher electricity or water bills to subsidize private development. Farmers and small businesses should not lose access to affordable power or reliable water because a major new industrial user arrived with vague promises and a checkbook.
If a major new facility wants to connect to the electrical grid, it must pay the full incremental cost of the generation, transmission, distribution and grid upgrades. It must provide meaningful financial assurances, so families and small businesses are not left paying for infrastructure built around speculative promises.
The same principle applies to water. My bill sets in place a framework for data centers to use recycled water instead of drawing down Spokane’s precious sole source aquifers.
It creates an investment tax credit for qualifying water-reuse projects. The credit would support onsite recycling systems, projects that replace freshwater with recycled municipal water and municipal infrastructure that expands the availability of recycled water for industrial use.
Eastern Washington has never been afraid to build.
Grand Coulee helped transform an arid landscape into some of the most productive farmland in the country. During World War II, the Kaiser Aluminum rolling mill in Spokane Valley produced aluminum sheet for the aircraft America needed to win the war.
Some people oppose AI itself and reject data centers just as part of a larger project of trying to stop this new technology. But even if it were possible to stop AI (and it’s not), we should welcome the positive aspects which it can bring.