To Jonathan Warrey,

Thank you for the legislative interim update in the last issue of the Cass County Reporter.  The tone of your letter sounds like a well thought out public response, but in the same vein I feel that your message is not consistent with your words on the Plains Talk Podcast with Rob Port. In the podcast, you stated you would be against any data center moratoriums because moratoriums suggest that our state is closed for business. This could not be any further from the truth. There is no harm in pausing development on data centers before we have all the facts and it would stop the most egregious offenders from setting up shop and being grandfathered in before responsible laws can be put into effect.

In regards to the agenda of the interim committee’s meeting, the list of presentations are heavy on industry insiders and lobbyists, while extremely light on the side of county, township, and city officials. There are very few experts on environment, energy industry, and water resource department officials. The narrative coming from the podcast and Mr. Warrey considers public opposition to be an obstacle to overcome rather than concerns that need to be taken seriously. There is an idea that AI tech and data centers are inevitable in North Dakota – this does not have to be the case. We have state autonomy and we should be making the rules. We should not be listening solely to data center developers and boosters.

As we as a state consider legislation, it would be prudent to consider the following basic guidelines:

1. We need to have a moratorium of at least 1 year to get regulations into place. ND citizens are asking legislators to take their time. 
2. The public, cities, counties, and townships must be able to remain autonomous in their ability to deny these projects.
3. All statewide laws passed regulating these facilities must be treated as a floor rather than a ceiling.
4. Public officials should never be allowed to sign Non Disclosure Agreements regarding these projects.
5. The facilities proposed must be able to prove their profitability before being considered.
6. The state should cap the size of these centers to 50 megawatts of power and that power should be provided on-site by the developer, not putting additional strain on our rural electric cooperatives and utilities. 
7. The state should not give tax breaks to companies building or using data centers.
8. There should be bonding or reclamation plans required to restore the land if the facility goes out of business or becomes obsolete.

The citizens of the state are paying attention and they will take action if the committee doesn’t. I’ve had several conversations with citizens across the state that are considering a potential statewide moratorium ballot initiative if our legislators don’t protect us, the citizens that work and live here. Casselton has decided to pause any construction and work on planning and zoning for Data Centers and I would advocate for every political subdivision to follow our lead. This is a process that we are all working through, and we are stronger when all voices are considered.

Regards,

Sam Wagner, Casselton ND City Council President