ST. GEORGE, Utah — Residents from a state starving for water have become the face of local struggles against Big Tech, locked in protests against a proposed data center that at one point was set to sprawl thousands of acres larger than its infamous Bryce Canyon.
Some are looking for federal guardrails to protect against encroachment on natural resources. But the saga that has unfolded in Utah highlights how far Congress is from legislating on the issue.
So far, lawmakers are mostly leaving it to localities to figure it out.
Investors in the Stratos Project in Box Elder County say its closed-loop cooling system won’t further exacerbate a drought emergency — a recurring problem for one of the nation’s driest states — but residents, activists and some politicians fear that’s wrong.
While the project has been dramatically scaled back after public outcry, it earned national headlines as protesters went viral. Even before that, lawmakers have been watching as more data centers pop up around the country, pushed by worries of keeping up with China and the promise of new jobs.
