Last month, Nashville’s mayor filed legislation to condemn a piece of private property. Often, condemnations are used to allow governments to acquire land to build roads or schools. But in this case, the condemnation was intended to stop a data center. A company had a lawful contract to buy the land, the zoning fight wasn’t going the mayor’s way, and so the city is attempting to take the land so nobody can use it.
That’s an abuse of eminent domain, and it deserves to lose in court. But local governments aren’t the only danger. Pressure is building for the federal government to step in to help build more data centers.
Some of what’s happening involves proper uses of government. An executive order fast-tracking federal permits or bills in Congress to accelerate the energy infrastructure these facilities need are helpful. When government speeds up its own approvals and gets out of the way, everyone wins…