Alamance County North Carolina, Is About to Decide Whether Big Tech Gets a Free Pass or a Rulebook

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Big Tech Is Welcome in Alamance Just Bring Your Own Power Bill

Alamance County is about to face a decision that could shape its rural landscape, electric infrastructure, water resources, property rights and tax base for decades.

County commissioners are preparing for a public hearing on a proposed temporary moratorium on new data-center development in unincorporated Alamance County. Regional reporting describes a six-month pause as the proposal under consideration, although local reporting says commissioners can still determine the final duration when they act. The public hearing is scheduled for August 17 at the Alamance County Historic Courthouse.

That distinction matters.

This is not a vote on whether Alamance County should permanently close its doors to artificial intelligence, cloud computing or major technology investment.

It is a debate over whether the county should write the rulebook before the first hyperscale project arrives.

And there is another fact worth emphasizing: local reporting says no data-center developer has publicly expressed interest in building one in rural Alamance County.

So this is not a battle against Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, OpenAI or some unnamed corporation waiting outside the courthouse.

It is an opportunity to establish predictable rules before billions of dollars, hundreds of acres and potentially enormous electrical loads are attached to a specific proposal.

For a Constitutionalist for Liberty, the right question is not:

Are data centers good or bad?

The better question is:

How does North Carolina welcome the technology America needs without forcing homeowners, taxpayers and utility customers to subsidize somebody else’s investment?

North Carolina Is Already in the Middle of a Data-Center Reckoning

Alamance County is hardly alone.

Greensboro is considering a 120-day moratorium on data centers exceeding 10 megawatts of electrical demand, while Yadkin County is considering a one-year pause. WFDD reports that several other Piedmont jurisdictions have already adopted temporary moratoriums.

The point is not that every county should copy every other county.

It is that local governments across North Carolina are suddenly confronting an industry whose scale is very different from the traditional warehouse or industrial plant.

Modern data centers are physical infrastructure for artificial intelligence, cloud computing, financial services, streaming, cybersecurity and countless services Americans use every day.

America needs that infrastructure.

President Donald Trump has made American AI leadership a national priority, with his administration emphasizing innovation, domestic infrastructure, energy production and competition with China. The White House AI strategy specifically lists building American AI infrastructure as one of its central pillars.

That is the correct strategic direction.

The United States should not surrender the physical foundation of the AI revolution to foreign competitors.

But winning the AI race does not require writing Big Tech a blank check.

In fact, President Trump has now explicitly embraced the opposite principle.

Trump Has Already Put the Right Principle on the Table: Big Tech Should Pay Its Own Power Bill

This is one of the biggest developments since the original version of this article.

President Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge says large technology companies increasing electricity demand for data centers should pay the full cost of the energy and infrastructure required to serve them rather than shifting those expenses to American households. Under the pledge, participating companies commit to building, bringing or buying the additional power they need and paying for new delivery infrastructure associated with their projects.

Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI were among the initial companies identified by the White House as participating.

The administration subsequently expanded the initiative. The White House said in July that more than 200 additional utilities, developers, cooperatives and states had joined the broader commitment.

That gives Alamance County an important national policy principle to work from:

Build the data centers. Build the power. Create the investment. Protect the ratepayer.

Those goals are not contradictory.

That is considerably better than choosing between two extremes:

BAN EVERYTHING

or

LET BIG TECH SEND EVERYBODY ELSE THE BILL.

There is a third option.

Make development pay its own way.

Alamance County Has a Special Problem: Almost No Countywide Zoning Safety Net

The most unusual part of the Alamance County debate may have very little to do with artificial intelligence.

It has to do with zoning.

Much of unincorporated Alamance County operates without conventional countywide zoning. Instead, county government has assembled a collection of development and industrial ordinances governing different types of projects.

Commissioner Sam Powell has acknowledged that there are land-use problems the county may have difficulty addressing without some form of zoning authority, while Chairman Kelly Allen has suggested strengthening existing development rules may be faster than constructing an entirely new zoning system.

That should make conservatives uncomfortable in both directions.

Property owners have rights.

A citizen who owns land should generally have broad freedom to sell it, develop it and put it to productive use.

Government should not treat private ownership as though citizens merely rent their land from the planning department.

But property rights are not a license to transfer the costs of private development onto everybody else.

If an industrial project requires substantial transmission infrastructure, new substations, road improvements, emergency-response capabilities, water infrastructure or other public expenditures, taxpayers have every right to ask:

Who is paying for this?

And neighboring property owners have rights too.

If a project produces excessive noise, creates traffic problems or materially interferes with the use of nearby property, government has a legitimate role in establishing transparent rules before the conflict erupts.

A simple principle works:

Use your property. Make your investment. Pay your own way. Respect your neighbor’s property rights.

That is limited government with guardrails.

A Temporary Moratorium Is Not the Same Thing as a Ban

The language matters.

A moratorium should not become a backdoor method of permanently prohibiting lawful development.

Local reporting indicates a majority of Alamance commissioners have not presented themselves as fundamentally opposed to data centers. Chairman Kelly Allen has discussed buffers, traffic and noise. Commissioner Ed Priola has expressed skepticism toward the national campaign against data centers while still saying there is no harm in temporarily pausing applications long enough to study the issue. Vice Chairman Steve Carter has highlighted the potential tax benefits of attracting a large project.

That is a much healthier conversation than declaring an entire industry unwelcome.

A temporary pause says:

Before somebody spends billions of dollars, everybody should know the rules.

That can actually be more business-friendly than regulatory chaos.

Companies making enormous investments want predictability too.

A developer is better off knowing the requirements for noise, buffers, utilities, emergency plans and infrastructure before purchasing land than discovering halfway through development that political opposition has forced local government to invent restrictions on the fly.

Clear rules protect residents.

They also protect investors.

Raleigh Has Been Working on Its Own Rulebook — But It Is Not Law Yet

North Carolina lawmakers have been wrestling with many of the same questions.

The House-passed version of Senate Bill 730, the Ratepayer Protection Act, would create substantial requirements for data centers with peak monthly electricity demand of at least 100 megawatts.

Among other provisions, the House version would require a site assessment examining sound impacts on nearby homes and schools and would allow examination of groundwater, surface water, air quality, agricultural resources, parks, historic properties and forestland.

The bill would also require qualifying applicants to attest that facilities will use closed-loop water or liquid cooling designed to minimize water consumption. Its proposed water standards would allow the state to require closed-loop or reclaimed-water systems in areas with water-availability concerns and would prohibit evaporative cooling systems as defined by the bill.

On electricity, the legislation would require contracts structured to prevent ordinary residential and business customers from subsidizing the costs of serving large data centers. Those contracts would include minimum billing requirements, sufficient contract terms and protections if a customer defaults or cancels service.

The House version also contains provisions prohibiting the use of eminent domain to acquire land for a data center and prohibiting local economic-development incentives for qualifying data centers.

But those provisions are not currently law.

The North Carolina House passed the amended bill 69-44, and the measure was returned to the Senate, where the official General Assembly record still lists its latest action as referral to the Senate Rules and Operations Committee on June 8.

So Alamance County cannot simply shrug and assume Raleigh has already settled everything.

It has not.

North Carolina Just Changed One Major Data-Center Tax Break

There has, however, been a major state-level change that deserves more attention.

North Carolina previously exempted qualifying electricity purchases at certain certified data centers from sales and use taxes.

That electricity exemption has now been repealed.

The North Carolina Department of Revenue says Session Law 2026-41 ended the electricity exemption, with the repeal applying to qualifying billing periods beginning on or after August 6. Electricity sold to those facilities is now subject to the applicable sales and use tax.

Other exemptions for certain qualifying items used at certified data centers remain in place, according to NCDOR.

That is an important update because it shows North Carolina is already reconsidering how much special tax treatment the industry still needs.

There was a time when states competed aggressively to convince technology companies to build massive server campuses.

But when an industry is already searching aggressively for land, electricity and fiber connections, taxpayers should ask whether every incentive created years ago is still necessary.

Economic development incentives should accomplish something the market would not otherwise accomplish.

Government should not give away taxpayer money simply because a corporation knows how to ask for it.

The Electric-Bill Question Now Has a Clear Standard

The debate over data centers and electricity sometimes becomes unnecessarily simplistic.

Opponents say:

Data center equals higher electric bill.

Supporters sometimes answer:

There is nothing to worry about.

Neither is a useful standard.

The better question is:

Who is contractually responsible for the incremental cost of serving the new load?

That is essentially the approach reflected both in President Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge and in the House-passed North Carolina legislation.

If a massive data center requires new generation, transformers, substations or transmission upgrades, there should be clear financial arrangements determining who pays.

The developer should know.

The utility should know.

The Utilities Commission should know.

And the ordinary customer should not discover the answer three years later by opening a larger monthly bill.

This does not require attacking Big Tech.

It requires a contract.

Water Claims Need Numbers, Not Panic

Water may become the most emotionally charged part of the Alamance debate.

That makes factual discipline even more important.

Not every data center uses the same cooling technology.

Not every facility uses the same amount of water.

Some systems rely far more heavily on water than others.

Some can use closed-loop systems, reclaimed water or other technologies.

That means government should not approve a project based on vague promises.

But activists should not be allowed to replace evidence with scary assumptions either.

Require the applicant to answer the questions.

How much water will the facility consume?

Where will it come from?

Will it use municipal water, groundwater or reclaimed water?

What cooling technology will be used?

What happens during drought conditions?

Could neighboring wells be affected?

What wastewater will be produced?

What infrastructure must be constructed?

Put the numbers in the public record.

Then make the decision.

That is better than fear.

It is also better than blind faith.

The Tax-Base Argument Is Real — And Conservatives Should Admit It

Data centers can bring substantial taxable investment.

Vice Chairman Steve Carter has argued that a large data center could potentially expand Alamance County’s tax base enough to reduce pressure on household property taxes.

That possibility should not be dismissed just because opponents dislike data centers.

A multibillion-dollar industrial facility can place enormous taxable assets in a county without producing the same school-enrollment demands or residential service costs associated with thousands of new homes.

That can be attractive.

But the taxpayers deserve the net number, not just the ribbon-cutting number.

How much taxable value will actually remain after exemptions?

What incentives are being offered?

How much road construction is required?

How much electric infrastructure is required?

Who pays for water and sewer expansion?

How many permanent jobs will exist after construction?

How quickly does expensive computer equipment depreciate for tax purposes?

What obligations remain if the project is abandoned or downsized?

If the project still produces a strong return for taxpayers after those questions are answered, then say yes.

That is economic development.

If government has to subsidize every stage of the project to make the numbers work, then perhaps it was not such a great deal after all.