Rogers Backs One-Year Michigan Data Center Moratorium

"While I don't support a federal ban, Michigan needs stronger guardrails to protect community control, prevent utility price hikes, protect our water and stop pay-to-play schemes," Rogers said in a statement reported by The Detroit News. "That is why I am calling for a one-year moratorium on new data centers until we establish a fair, transparent approval process that puts local communities first."

Asked about it at a news conference, Rogers said: "I think we need to take a pause, probably, and make sure that we're answering all the questions that people have," according to Politico.

The NRSC memo was blunt about the stakes. "If he loses and data centers get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice, and they will not go near the next one," it said, per Newsweek's account. "This has become a sleeper issue for the entire election cycle."

Abbott laid out four conditions in Texas: "Data centers must not take water needed by local communities. They must not take power needed by the Texas power grid. They must lower the cost of electricity. They must not disrupt neighborhoods or rural communities."

Barrett said in his ad that "Michigan water, Michigan land, and Michigan's future belong to Michiganders," and that he had voted against tax dollars for data centers — a vote that, Newsweek noted, took place in 2015 when he was a state lawmaker. Ravi Mangla, a spokesman for the Working Families Party, told The American Prospect that "Tom Barrett wants to reinvent himself as a data center fighter, but his record says the opposite," accusing him of having voted for billions in developer tax breaks. Barrett told Newsweek the ad was made before the NRSC memo, which he said he had not seen, and that siting decisions belong at the local level.