The American Conservation Coalition (ACC), a conservative nonprofit working to build a conservative environmental movement, has offered a more reasonable take on data centers in rural America. Instead of the usual calls for regulation or outright bans, the ACC argues for a free-market approach that still addresses local and rural concerns while acknowledging the economic benefits and the need to keep the U.S. competitive in the AI race. 

The group begins with the concern that data-center buildouts are pushing into farmland, but rather than arguing for moratoria or top-down zoning mandates, it says development should be steered toward brownfields, older industrial sites and other less sensitive areas. The idea is simple: local governments should make these less desirable locations easier to build on by cutting red tape, and actively avoid making prime farmland the path of least resistance. 

That is markedly different from the vast majority of data-center opponents. Their solution is to exert local control to guide the buildout and guide it to provide for their own interests. The ACC’s approach is how the AI data-center buildout must be handled among conservatives: channel investment where it does the least harm, and let the market do the rest.

"Data centers don't need to steal our farmland," the ACC wrote on social media. "Sixty-seven percent of the data centers currently planned in the US are going to rural areas. Not because rural land suits them better, but because the permitting is faster and incentives better. This doesn’t need to be the case."

A one-gigawatt campus needs 500 to 800 acres, and bigger ones go over 1,000. Developers generally won't look at anything under 40. While nationally that's still a small slice of American land, the bigger question is what that land gets converted from. Farm count and farm acreage are both falling already, and cropland that becomes a data center campus doesn't go back to being cropland later. One family in Kentucky turned down $26 million for half of their 1,200 acres (seven times the going local rate!) Continuing to farm was that important to them. While that’s commendable, plenty of families getting that offer right now can't afford to say no. Siting is drifting toward places it shouldn't, too. Four are proposed at the edge of Prince William Forest Park in Virginia. These buildings run around the clock, and they aren't quiet. Neighbors notice, but so does wildlife. 

"ACC’s position is that we should make brownfields and old industrial sites the path of least resistance, steer away from prime farmland and sensitive landscapes, and offset what does get used," they continued. "Still, blanket bans and moratoria are not the answer. Bans don't stop projects, they just relocate them, taking the economic benefits with it."

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This comes as conservatives struggle to form a unified approach to AI data centers, which are unpopular among roughly 75 percent of Americans, including over two-thirds of conservatives. Concerns range from environmental impacts and utility prices to economic benefits, backroom deals between local governments and “Big Tech,” and a general distrust of the industry. 

The approach must encapsulate a number of truths amid a debate characterized by misinformation. First, we must acknowledge that the United States must build AI infrastructure if it intends to remain a global leader economically and militarily. Second, it must adequately address local concerns while still enabling construction. Third, it must make especially clear how communities benefit from a data center. And just as importantly, it must not fall prey to the idea that a government-run regulatory roadmap is the solution. 

Conservatives are meant to be the antithesis to the rise of socialism. Adopting its underlying ideology on any issue is something we cannot afford to do.