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Daniel Dew - Should Data Centers Be Able to Take Your Land?
•The Lars Larson Show
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Pacific Legal Foundation Vice President Daniel Dew joins Lars to discuss the use of eminent domain for infrastructure serving data centers. Should private companies be able to take property when landowners refuse to sell?
Hey, welcome back to the program. This segment of the show brought to you by Takelean.com. Everybody talks about weight loss, but if you want results without the needles, without the prescriptions, doctors created lean, and that was why I decided it was for me. It helps curb appetite, balance your blood sugar, and burn up fat. Get 20% off plus free rush shipping by going to takelean.com and use promo code Lars. That's takelean.com and use promo code Lars. It is a pleasure to welcome to the program Daniel Dew to stop talk about a subject that I am just absolutely confused by. Let me I'll just be honest about it. Uh Mr. Dew, welcome to the program. How are you, sir?
SPEAKER_00
Doing well. Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_01
Daniel, by the way, is vice president of external affairs at Pacific Legal Foundation. So I've always told my audience anytime the subject of eminent domain comes up, I'll say, well, I think eminent domain has to be there in the Constitution to allow states and the federal government to seize land when there is no other place, you know, to build a bridge or a power line or a military base, things like that. How in the world do we get to the point where we have data centers that are coming in and taking land out from under people using that power of eminent domain?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so so we're not at the point yet where the data centers are doing it themselves. There is some controversy right now with utilities power that is taking property for lines that only feed data centers. But you know, we've seen these things happen before where there are these projects that people deem are necessary for national infrastructure. And, you know, piece by piece, there's there's opposition to these projects, and then the government steps in and then does grant eminent domain authority to private projects. And I think most most notably we see that through these large natural gas transmission lines, which, you know, frankly, I I worked on those projects um earlier in my career. So I'm really familiar with about how this works. And the more government gets involved, the messier it gets.
SPEAKER_01
Okay, but the thing I'm curious about, Pacific Legal has said last month, Nashville's mayor, the mayor of Nashville, Tennessee, had filed legislation to condemn a piece of private property. And I think as they pointed out correctly, a data center can go anywhere. Now, when you're building if you're building a pipeline, there may only be one best place for reasons of geography and physics and everything else, to put a pipeline, or to put a power line, or to put a bridge, or to put uh, you know, a nuclear submarine base. I mean, there are lots of things where physics and geography say this is the only place that kind of thing can go. But a data center can be anywhere, can't it?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah. And that's and that's the crazy thing. And actually, in the case of Nash uh the Nashville case, it was actually they want the data center bought the lot the land and wanted to put a data center there, and then the city council wanted to condemn the land so that they couldn't put it there. So they were actually they were actually using it against the data centers.
SPEAKER_01
And so and you know, this is that legitimate into I Dan Daniel is that a legitimate use of eminent domain? I mean, it's not saying that the government says we have to have that piece of land because the only place we can physically build a bridge or build a power line or whatever. Can they use it to turn around and say we don't want something to happen, so we're gonna use eminent domain to block it?
SPEAKER_00
I don't think so. I don't think that's an appropriate use. I mean, what is it? I don't understand what the public use is, because that's the requirement of the use of eminent domain. There has to be a public use for the for the land, and blocking something is is not the way to do it. I I think that, you know, and the whole point of of you know my argument is that really we should be respecting property rights, which is data centered neutral, really. Sometimes it it'll land in favor of a data center, sometimes it'll go against it. Um, but what we shouldn't be doing is using the levers of government one way or the other. You know, it really should come down to markets.
SPEAKER_01
You know, it's funny because Mr. Dew, one of the things that's come up in the last couple of months is Elon Musk has proposed that we start putting data centers literally in outer space, saying we don't have to worry as much about cooling them, we don't have to worry as much about supply of power because they have direct access to solar, and we don't have to worry about real estate because outer space has endless real estate. I mean, it may be that if we make them uncomfortable enough on planet Earth, uh they'll end up putting them in space. And it might even have an effect on on how much of the regulatory infrastructure data centers run into. On planet Earth, there can be lots of regulations. I'm not s I'm not so sure how much regulation they can do on it if your data center is in orbit somewhere.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you know what? I feel like the government always finds the way to regulate things. So I I I'm not sure. I mean, but if if that's uh what he chooses to do, that's that's good for him if he's if he's capable and we can do that. But you know, I one of the problems we run into as well is that there's so many government incentives for things to do uh for where data centers are going to show up, or there's there they think that they're gonna run into less regulation. And so, you know, that's why we see them trying to build in places maybe that don't have as much water or that may be hotter, where really you wouldn't think about building these things unless it but for the political climate. I mean, if you really thought about it, kind of like what Elon Musk is saying, you would be building these things in cooler climates where there's lots of water. That would be the easiest way to do it. But you know, government is sticking its fingers in so many things that it's really messing with the markets and decisions that would otherwise be made.
SPEAKER_01
I saw one of the most clever ideas I've seen recently on that was somebody wants to put data centers on the north slope in Alaska. And you say, why? Well, because it's relatively cool most of the year. It's not not always snowy, but it's very cool all year, and it's right next to a natural gas pipeline for energy. And of course, uh, the amount of space you've got in states like Alaska is is considerably less limiting than it would be almost anywhere else in America. So that may be one of those ideas that people will find attractive.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I I think so. And and you know, just to go with some of the other complaints that that people have against data centers is you know, that it's so noisy in the water, you know, it I think that it shouldn't be exempt from the normal laws that we have. If it's too noisy, then it should be able to be stopped through um through nuisance laws, you know, things that are already on the books. Or, you know, if we're talking about water, ranchers and farmers have been dealing with that issue for hundreds of years, um, and dealing with water rights. And we should make them, you know, comply with the same laws that our farmers and ranchers have to comply with.
SPEAKER_01
I would say that's a fair way to go about it. That's Daniel Dew. Daniel is with the Pacific Legal Foundation. Mr. Dew, thank you very much. I appreciate the time. By the way, speaking of data, your car can be a spy. And here's a true story that proves that. A guy's car insurance had jumped over 20%, but he hadn't had an accident and he had no tickets. So he started digging to find out who had turned him in. Turns out it was his own car. Every time he hard braked, every fast merge he did, every late-night taco run, his automaker logged all of it. And they sold the information to a data broker, and the broker sold it to the man's insurance company. So he requested his file. Hundreds and hundreds of pages. General Motors just paid $12.75 million to settle the same kind of case with State Attorneys General over that exact thing. And the thing is, I want to do I want to wage war on data brokers myself. The lesson, data brokers aren't just selling your address anymore. They're selling all of your life habits to anybody. And that's why I started using Incogni back in January. It's the online service that forces data brokers and people search sites to delete all your information. Incogni has already scrubbed me from more than 925 sites so far. Go to incogni.com slash Lars for 60% off. IN C O G N I. Incogni.com slash Lars. Your car should take you places, but not for a ride.
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