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The Trade Shortage Crisis: How Data Centers Are Exposing America’s Skills Gap
Rapid data center construction exposes a U.S. skilled trades shortage decades in the making. Details labor gaps in electrical, mechanical and plumbing fields, argues companies must co-invest in apprenticeships and rebuild vocational pipelines, and proposes shifting software tools to keep experienced tradespeople on job sites rather than behind desks.
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Data center fights pit social values, democracy and capitalism against each other
More than 30 data center proposals have emerged in Michigan in two years, pitting tech companies, utilities, community leaders and residents against each other. Ypsilanti's water authority refuses to supply a University of Michigan project. In June 2026, Utah voters ousted a state senate leader who backed a large data center.
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What a Data Center Moratorium Can Buy
A Boondoggle newsletter analysis by Pat Garofalo (co-written with Maxine Adelson, an intern at the American Economic Liberties Project) surveys the fast-spreading wave of data center moratoriums as New York's legislature approved a one-year statewide pause (awaiting Gov. Hochul's signature) after Maine's governor vetoed a similar bill. It catalogs roughly 100 municipal/county-level moratoriums already enacted…
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Bipartisan bill fails to protect US consumers from datacenters’ true costs, critics warn | Datacenters | The Guardian
The bipartisan Ratepayer Protection Act, backed partly by Microsoft, lets state utility commissions ignore its largely voluntary consumer protections while speeding data-center grid connections. Electricity costs in heavy data-center regions have jumped 267% over five years, and a Federal Reserve analysis found wholesale prices up to 50% higher in some areas — costs the bill…
Exposing AI Data Center Threats and Harms