My bottom line
Data centers, the warehouses that run AI and the internet, are landing in Montana fast, and NorthWestern Energy has already signed agreements for up to 1,400 megawatts of new demand, roughly double what our whole state uses today. Data centers aren't inherently bad. But they're built by some of the richest companies on earth, they chase the biggest, longest tax breaks they can find, and no one has required them to do honest environmental-impact studies or disclose what these projects will actually cost the communities they land in: in power, water, and land. And left unchecked, a data center can quietly become a warrantless surveillance machine. I won't allow that here.
At the federal level, that's exactly what I'll force: timely, accurate impact studies and full disclosure of their power demand, water use, and the runoff and water quality they leave behind. Until Montanans have those facts, no one can make an informed decision, so my answer is no until we do. But the facts are the starting line, not a green light. Even with them on the table, a project still has to clear a high bar: real consent from the community that has to live with it, enforceable protections for our power and water, and a deal that makes these giant cash cows work for the towns they’re built in, not just their shareholders. Until all of that is true, my answer stays no. And on our public lands, it’s a no, period.
What "yes" would take
To turn a no into a yes, a company would have to:
What Montana stands to gain
Handled right, this isn't just a cost to manage; it's a chance to pull real money and good jobs into Montana without trading away what makes this place home. The centers themselves won't employ many people, so the real prize is what they can fund: the research Montana already leads at our public universities, and the skilled work that grows around it. The goal is to capture that value for the communities already doing it, not to turn our towns into power sinks for someone else's servers, and not to chase the kind of growth Montanans never asked for.
So I'll make every project pull its weight for Montanans: guaranteed research computing for our public universities and startups; real partnerships with our universities, community colleges, and tribal colleges to train a homegrown tech workforce; and federal research and workforce dollars steered home. My rule is simple: a company that wants Montana's power, land, and tax breaks will earn federal support only if it's helping build Montana's future, not just its own bottom line.
Where I stand: what a U.S. Senator can actually do
A senator can't write Montana's zoning code or issue a water permit. But the federal tools are real, and here's how I'll use them, in order.
This is a federal fight: sunlight, a hearing, and a fair deal
People ask how a senator does any of this without trampling local control. The honest answer: data centers are interstate commerce, plain and simple. They run on an interstate power grid, they move data across every state line, and they are built by a handful of the richest companies on earth. Congress already treats them that way, so I don't have to zone a single county to make a difference. I can help write the federal floor every one of these projects has to meet, and three of those fights are already moving in Congress.
And none of this is Washington overriding Montana. A single state has a hard time holding a multinational to account across twenty state lines, and the courts limit how far one state can even reach. That is exactly why a federal floor makes sense: hold the out-of-state giants to one honest standard everywhere, so no company can play Montana against the next state over.
How we make it stick, and close the loopholes
A rule only matters if it can be measured and enforced. I treat this like a contract: if a term isn’t measured, testable, and backed by a penalty that stings, the company treats it as optional. So here is the move these companies make, and exactly how we close it.
How we close it: judge a facility on more than a single factor—its capacity, its actual power use, and its share of the local grid together, counted per operator. And back the federal 20-megawatt moratorium bill on the largest AI centers while the studies get done that will help us establish these comprehensive limits.
How we close it: meter power and water at the source, reported on one national standard and third-party audited, so every county sees the same numbers. Right now there isn’t even a common yardstick for what they do to local water, and that ends.
How we close it: penalties that scale with the overage and kick in automatically the moment they blow their plan, with a bond posted up front so there’s money to collect.
How we close it: no tax breaks for these companies, period. End Montana’s 0.9% giveaway, locked in through 2037, and never hand one a federal incentive.
No surveillance machines: if they want your data, get a warrant
There is one line I will not let these facilities cross. A data center should never become a surveillance machine, and I say that as someone who spent two decades in law enforcement. I know exactly how powerful these tools are, and exactly why they need limits.
Montana led the country on this. We were the first state to make police get a warrant for your location (2013), then a warrant for your stored messages (2017), and in 2022 Montanans voted nearly 82% to write electronic-data privacy directly into our state constitution. That is the standard I will take to Washington, and I will close the one loophole state law cannot reach on its own: the government buying your movements from a data broker instead of getting a warrant.
Warrantless location tracking. Flock-style cameras reading every plate that drives by. Your movements packaged up and sold to the government by a data broker who never needed a warrant to get them. That is not public safety; it's a dragnet, and it stops with me. I'll back the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act so the government has to get a warrant instead of buying its way around your rights, rein in Flock-style tracking, and require these companies to collect and keep the bare minimum, not a permanent file on every Montanan. If they want your data, they get a warrant. Same as it's always been.
And this is bigger than data centers. The same rules have to reach the whole pipeline: the data brokers who buy and sell your location and health data to anyone with a checkbook, and the government agencies that buy it to skip a warrant. That is a fight of its own, so I carry it as a full privacy plank, a hard set of limits on the companies that collect your data and the agencies that want to buy it. A data center should never become one more place your life gets bought and sold.
On a moratorium
Washington should not be dictating Montana's answer on this, and I won't. That's why I back the statewide moratorium Montana Democrats are pushing on new data centers: a pause is how we get the studies, the data, and the standards in place before the next shovel goes in the ground, so no community has to decide blind. My job in the Senate is to give that pause teeth with a federal right-to-know standard, not to override it.
And I take my lead from Montanans, who are already handling this in different ways. Missoula County passed its own temporary moratorium. Voters in Yellowstone and Butte-Silver Bow are pushing ballot measures that would require a two-thirds vote before any data center is approved. My job isn't to pick their answer for them; it's to listen, and to make sure the federal laws, research, and funding are there to back whatever those communities decide they need.
Backing Montana: where the fight belongs to the state
Water permits, zoning, noise rules, the property-tax break, rate classes, a full state framework: those are Montana's to decide, not a senator's. My job is to have Montana's back: bring the federal data and agencies (FERC, DOE, EPA) that strengthen the state's hand, steer federal workforce and university dollars home, and stand with any community facing down a trillion-dollar developer's lawyers.
A Montana warning
When a nearly-shuttered coal plant in Hardin was revived to power Bitcoin mining in 2021, its CO₂ emissions spiked more than 5,000% in a single quarter before the company pulled out in 2022, a preview of what unaccountable data-center demand can do to Montana's air and grid.
Montana keeps the final say
Montana's Constitution guarantees every person a clean and healthful environment, and any project has to clear that bar. Washington's job is what crosses state lines: the grid, the tax code, honest reporting; the final say over what gets built on Montana ground stays here. Until a project clears that bar, to the satisfaction of Montana communities, my answer stays no.
Every data-center project comes down to three questions: do Montanans have the facts and the final say, and has the company proven it's worth having here? If the answers aren't yes, the answer is no.
Sources
- NorthWestern Energy has signed large-load agreements for up to about 1,400 MW, against roughly 759 MW of current statewide demand. Montana Free Press (Nov. 2025); Daily Montanan (Apr. 2026).
- FERC large-load interconnection rulemaking (open), Docket RM26-4; six show-cause orders issued June 2026, no national rule yet.
- Energy Cost Fairness and Reliability Act (proposed): dedicated-generation requirement for 50 MW+ loads.
- Data Center Water and Energy Transparency Act, S. 4213.
- Clean Electricity Investment Credit, 26 U.S.C. §48E.
- FERC co-location order, Docket EL25-49.
- Hardin, Montana coal plant revived for Bitcoin mining; CO₂ emissions rose more than 5,000% in one quarter (2021) before the operation shut down (2022). EPA emissions data.
- Data-center cooling-water discharge is covered by Clean Water Act NPDES permits delegated to the states, but there is no standardized, data-center-specific water-quality metric or public reporting. Reed Smith; ITIF (2026).
- Data-center tax breaks run for decades in 37-plus states, uncapped, and in six states never expire; Virginia forgoes roughly $1.6 billion a year, Texas roughly $1.3 billion. Stateline (2026); Good Jobs First. Montana's Class 17 classification cuts a qualifying data center's taxable value to 0.9%, extended through 2037 (HB 424, 2025; MCA 15-6-162).
- Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act, passed the U.S. House 219-199 (2024).
- Montana was the first state to require a warrant for cell-phone location data (2013) and for stored electronic communications (2017); in 2022 voters approved CI-48, adding electronic data and communications to the state constitution's search-and-seizure protections, with about 81.9% voting yes. ACLU; Montana Code Annotated 46-5-112; Ballotpedia; Daily Montanan.
- AI Data Center Moratorium Act, S. 4214 (facilities over 20 MW). Missoula County moratorium (2026); Yellowstone and Butte-Silver Bow two-thirds-vote ballot initiatives (2026). Montana Free Press; Daily Montanan.
- Congress treats data centers as interstate commerce: the GRID Act, formally the Guaranteeing Rate Insulation from Data Centers Act (S. 3852), includes findings to that effect. Separately, the GRID Savings Act (S. 5199) would give FERC jurisdiction over large loads above 150 MW; the No Harm Data Centers Act (H.R. 8033) covers facilities over 50 MW; and the Ratepayer Protection Act (H.R. 9340, facilities 100 MW and up) passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee 52-0. Congress.gov.
- The Data Center Water and Energy Transparency Act (S. 4213) and the Data Center Transparency Act (H.R. 6984) directly require data centers of 25 MW and up to report water and energy use, in the same community-right-to-know spirit as laws like the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA).
- In Virginia, about 80% of localities with data centers operate under nondisclosure agreements; in Tucson, Arizona, a $3.6 billion campus (Project Blue) was negotiated behind NDAs that hid projected water use before the city rejected it (2026). Microsoft announced in 2026 it would stop using NDAs with local governments, a first among major firms. In Minnesota, at least eight cities, two counties, a state agency, and a school district signed data-center nondisclosure agreements, some just to see a proposal, as developers used code names and shell companies. Roughly $64 billion in U.S. data-center projects were blocked or delayed by local opposition from May 2024 to March 2025. Public Citizen; NBC News; Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette; Star Tribune; Minnesota Reformer.
- Community benefit agreement and public-hearing requirements are advancing in the states (Michigan HB 6137 / SB 1050; Pennsylvania Data Center Fair Share Act, SB 724; New York's data-center bill, passed by the legislature and awaiting the Governor, requiring a developer-funded public hearing before a permit; Port Washington, Wisconsin's referendum requiring a public vote before any data-center tax break, passed April 2026 and the first of its kind in the nation; and direct-vote bills proposed in Ohio, HB 983, and Illinois, HB 5755). Good Jobs First; DLA Piper; Ballotpedia.
- Federal environmental review and public input for large data centers are being narrowed by fast-track permitting and new NEPA categorical exclusions (2025). Congressional Research Service, R48762.