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Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee has introduced a bill that would block federal money from building or operating a data center unless the project has the approval of the state and local governments where it would be built, putting communities in charge of the fast-growing developments rising in their backyards.
The Community Control of Data Centers Act, H.R. 10976, was introduced on Tuesday, November 10, and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The bill is one page long. It says that "notwithstanding any other provision of law," no federal funds may pay to build or run a data center unless the project follows all applicable state and local laws, including obtaining any required state or local approval. It had no cosponsors when it was received.
"As the former Mayor of Knox County, I know how important local control is over projects that could have adverse effects on the municipality where they're located," Burchett said in a statement announcing the bill. "This bill allows local governments to retake control over new data center construction, putting the power back in the hands of the folks who are most affected."
Speaking to Migrant Insider after introducing the bill, Burchett said: "It just provides local control. That's what we need. If folks want 'em, they oughta be able to get 'em. But if they don't, it's local control." He added that he thinks data centers ought to be built on military installations and on federal land — though the bill itself does not steer them there. It only cuts off federal dollars to projects that skip local approval.
Under the bill, the Secretary of Energy, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, would decide whether a data center project has followed the relevant state and local rules. The bill takes its definition of a data center from a 2007 energy law.
The fight over where data centers get built — and who pays for the electricity, water and grid upgrades they demand — has become one of the sharpest local issues in the country, as enormous campuses rise next to suburbs and small towns. In July 2025, the Energy Department selected four federal sites — Idaho National Laboratory, the Oak Ridge Reservation, the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant and the Savannah River Site — where private partners will develop artificial intelligence data centers and energy generation.
Burchett is not the first lawmaker to take up the issue. Representative Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania proposed the Local Control Protection Act, H.R. 9262, in June. Representative Tom Barrett of Michigan has filed the Protecting Local Control of Data Centers Act, which would bar any federal agency head from overriding state or local land-use, zoning, siting or permitting authority for data centers on non-federal land. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has also pressed the issue.
The bill also lands as Washington moves on the same questions from the other direction. In October, President Trump set a rule that big data centers must generate their own electricity, sell or give any excess power back to the local community or the grid, and pay the towns that host them a dividend. And the Senate is scheduled to vote Monday on cloture for the bipartisan energy-permitting bill, whose data-center rule would make a new facility of 20 megawatts or more pay the full cost of the grid service it needs, with that cost barred from being passed on to other customers.