There are not many things Americans can agree on anymore. One can usually find disagreement about Donald Trump, Taylor Swift, Griz/Cat or Cat/Griz, whether pineapple belongs on pizza, and apparently whether it’s okay to wear pajamas on an airplane.
But we’ve found our great national unifier: nobody wants a data center in their neighborhood.
In The New York Times, comedian Charlie Berens recently called opposition to data centers “the most bipartisan issue since beer.”
Out West, we have an old saying: whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting. Data centers have finally given us something to fight against together.
Montanans know that our state has something extractive industries have always desperately needed: land, water and power.
My answer is simple. Not ours. Not again.
I am a holdover Montana legislator entering my final session in the Montana State Senate. That gives me the unique privilege of submitting legislation early, and I have already done so.
In fact, my very first bill draft request for the 2027 session is to ban large-scale data centers statewide. I’m not interested in compromise. Why? Because Montana’s land and water are worth it.
We don’t have to guess how people feel about these facilities. Across America, communities are pushing back over electricity demand, water consumption, noise, land use and the costs of building infrastructure to serve them. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, 75 proposed nationwide data-center projects worth approximately $130 billion faced organized opposition.
Texas, hardly a bastion of anti-business environmentalism, has paused data-center expansion while it develops new rules.
And right here in Montana, nearly 50,000 people signed a petition opposing a proposed data center along the Blackfoot River in Bonner. After hearing the public’s concerns about environmental impacts, the property owner withdrew from the project.
That’s not NIMBYism. From Butte to Libby, Montana has a long memory of industries taking the wealth and leaving communities with the scars. Environmental justice means deciding that this time, the people who live here won’t be asked to sacrifice their land, water and health for someone else’s profit.
The bargain is a bad one for Montana: enormous amounts of our electricity and water, more pressure on our land and energy infrastructure, and relatively few permanent jobs once construction ends. We would be supplying the resources while out-of-state millionaires capture most of the economic value.
Montana has been down this road before. Outside corporations promise prosperity, Montana supplies the resources, the profits leave, and our people and land pay the price. This time, we can choose not to repeat it.
I’m not anti-technology. I use artificial intelligence. I think it’s extraordinary. But using AI doesn’t obligate Montana to become America’s server closet. There is nothing conservative about risking higher utility costs for Montana families to accommodate some of the wealthiest corporations on Earth. And there is nothing progressive about sacrificing water and land to power the AI arms race.
Other states can make a different choice. That’s federalism. Montana should make ours.
After years in the Legislature, I’m entering my final session knowing that laws come and go. Montana’s land and water must outlast all of us. I can think of no more important legacy than protecting the Montana we inherited for the people who come after us.
Our rivers. Our water. Our land. Our communities. No compromise. Montana is worth more than the electricity we can sell and the water we can pump.
Let’s become the first state in America to simply say: No data centers. Not here. Not ever.
Ellie Boldman is a Democratic state senator from Missoula.