The Logic-less Crusade That Just Killed a Data Center

[PARTIAL] This is a National Review Plus article. The openly visible text ends after the second paragraph (the quote from McCollum’s father comparing her to Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King). Everything after that is paywalled and NOT captured here; the claims below come only from the visible opening, the subhead and NR’s “Key Takeaways” box.

Key claims

• A $5 billion data center campus in Prince George’s County, Md. was blocked by a local movement led by Taylor Frazier McCollum, who told NPR the fight was her political “awakening.”
• Cooke’s central charge is a failure to connect cause and effect. McCollum is simultaneously upset that the county will not pay for a new roof on her grandfather’s home; Cooke says she cannot see the link between turning away the investment and the county’s inability to fund services.
• The county is fiscally weak. Per the piece: a budget deficit above $130 million, high unemployment, the permanent closure of the Six Flags park there in 2025, the Washington Commanders planning to leave in the next few years, and the FBI also trying to leave.
• The subhead’s question is about opportunity cost. Cooke asks whether activists think the $5 billion is simply waiting to be allocated elsewhere in the county.
• NR’s summary of the argument: blocking the investment has consequences for a county already in deficit, and demanding public benefits while driving businesses away erodes the tax base that pays for those benefits (see Taxes).

Notable quotes

“Do activists believe that the $5 billion that would have been spent on this project is just waiting to be allocated elsewhere?” (subhead)

“Somehow, McCollum cannot see the connection between these two things.”

“Prince George’s County is not in good shape.”

How it connects

• Data Centers: a local-opposition case study in the AI buildout.
• NIMBY, Permitting Reform and Abundance: the fight is a textbook local veto over a large project, which is the problem the abundance and permitting-reform camps are organized around.
• Taxes: Cooke’s argument is that the forgone tax base is the cost of the veto.
• Rat’s Nest Problems: Kyle’s essay on problems like the AI power crunch that “could be solved fairly quickly, but it’s not allowed.”
• The Internet Wants Me Dead: Kyle’s essay touching on misinformation about data centers, water and energy.