Part One followed the money to Washington. Part Two follows it to the places where the data-center boom is actually being built — state capitals, county courthouses and city halls where a rezoning vote or a five-page bill can decide whether a community ever gets a real hearing.
The pattern that shows up repeatedly is not a single bad actor. It is a sequence: incentives are approved before residents understand the scale, non-disclosure agreements limit what elected officials can say, and, in some states, the legal authority to say “no” is transferred away from the people closest to the project. By the time the public arrives, the deal is often already done.
What We Found
Part Two documents that sequence across five states. In West Virginia, House Bill 2014 created a “Certified Microgrid Program” that lets qualifying projects bypass Public Service Commission siting review and local zoning — a preemption disclosed to residents of Tucker County only after the Ridgeline project was already moving.
In Louisiana, HB 827 — now Act 730 — extended tax breaks worth billions to the data-center industry as Meta’s Hyperion campus ballooned toward a reported $50 billion commitment. A separate strand of reporting by Floodlight documented a state senator advocating for the project while quietly negotiating land sales to the utility building its power supply. The senator has denied wrongdoing.
In Minnesota, Google’s Project Skyway in Pine Island advanced under a code name while local officials weighed a $36.5 million incentive package the public had not yet seen. And in Pennsylvania, Senate Bill 939 would strip municipalities of the authority to require conditional-use hearings for data-center projects — a move opposed by the Pennsylvania Municipal League.
Why It Matters
The federal fight over who pays for the AI build-out gets most of the attention. The state and local fight is over something more basic: who decides. Preemption statutes, NDAs, code-named developments and incentive packages structured before public notice are not incidental features of the boom — they are the mechanism by which the deal gets locked in before the vote.
Part Two does not argue that every project is corrupt or that every rejection is wise. It documents a repeating sequence in which the public’s only remaining role is to react to a decision that has already been made.
Counter-Cases: When the Public Process Still Had Teeth
Not every community loses. In Franklin Township, Indiana, Google withdrew a proposed 468-acre campus after the Indianapolis City-County Council retained real authority over the rezoning and residents organized before the vote. In Chandler, Arizona, the city council rejected the rezoning unanimously despite an AI Infrastructure Coalition campaign led by a former U.S. senator. The common factor in both outcomes is not opposition. It is authority — a jurisdiction that had not already been preempted, and enough information delivered early enough for the public to organize.
Inside Part Two
- How West Virginia’s Power Generation and Consumption Act preempts local zoning — and how a Fundamental Data representative said the company helped write it
- The Louisiana sequence: HB 827 / Act 730, an NDA-covered land deal, a public-service commissioner and a state senator with property along the project route
- Pine Island’s Project Skyway and the pattern of code-named data-center developments
- Pennsylvania SB 939 and the fight over municipal conditional-use authority
- Indianapolis and Chandler as the counter-cases — what changes when the vote still matters
- How preemption, NDAs and incentive design combine into a repeatable playbook
Follow the Lobby Money is a continuing Techstrong investigation. Tips, disclosures and corrections: Email Us
