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Even self-described ‘Trump in high heels’ candidate warns bit barns could send power bills soaring

Opposition to datacenters: it's not just for the Bernie Sanders crowd anymore. An arch-conservative running for the governorship of a solidly Republican state has called for a datacenter moratorium in one of the clearest signs yet that the tech sector is facing a backlash against its AI ambitions. 

US Representative and gubernatorial candidate Nancy Mace (R-SC) on Monday called for a one-year moratorium on new datacenter projects in her state, saying that reports of the southeastern state becoming a hot destination for datacenters don’t mean her constituents ought to see their power bills rise.

"South Carolina is not Big Tech's personal power grid," Mace said in a statement published on Monday in her capacity as a congressional representative. "These companies are planting massive data centers across our state, driving up energy demand, and leaving families and small businesses to pick up the tab. South Carolinians are already stretched thin. The last thing they need is a higher electricity bill subsidizing Big Tech's bottom line."

Mace said a one-year pause on new projects would give the state an opportunity to implement rules ensuring any future projects include protections that wouldn’t cause residents to pay more for electricity. She also said she does not want eminent domain seizures of private property on the table either, pointing to an ongoing matter in South Carolina’s neighboring state, Georgia.

Mace’s concerns over datacenters leading to higher energy costs aren't an unrealized fear, either. As we reported last week, wholesale power costs in the largest US energy market, the PJM Interconnection, rose by 75 percent over the past year due to datacenter growth. South Carolina isn’t part of the PJM, but if it’s a hot destination for datacenter projects, one could assume similar pains might be felt there if more datacenter operators come knocking. 

Mace has made statements about datacenters through her gubernatorial campaign as well, calling for South Carolina to adopt legislation that would require datacenter projects to cover their own energy costs, as well as expressing opposition to a bill designed to regulate datacenter development.

“While initially appearing to be a framework for sensible regulation, a dissection of this bill illustrates it is a masterclass in corporate welfare while leaving the hardworking citizens of South Carolina to foot the bill and suffer the consequences,” Mace said of South Carolina Senate Bill 867. 

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows

To call Mace a conservative is a bit of an understatement: She’s been deep in President Donald Trump’s MAGA camp for years. She and Trump have had an on-again/off-again relationship due to her opposition to Trump’s handling of the January 6 insurrection, insistence on the release of the Epstein files, and uncertainty regarding the Iran war, but she’s continued to support him and seek his endorsement for her race to lead South Carolina. 

In other words, she’s about as conservative as they come - she’s even called herself “Trump in high heels” in a bid to earn votes in the governor’s race. 

Speaking of Trump, the President has been a major proponent for datacenter expansion in the US, though he has also called for DC operators to provide their own power without increasing costs for other ratepayers. 

As for South Carolina, it isn’t exactly a toss-up state in terms of federal or state electoral politics. The governorship has been in Republican hands since 2003, and a Democrat hasn’t won a statewide election there since 2006. The state’s presidential vote has gone to a Republican in 13 of the last 14 elections, with Jimmy Carter’s 1976 win in the state the sole exception.

The South Carolina Republican gubernatorial primary is scheduled for June 9, and the race is tight. Mace’s victory isn’t guaranteed - she’s leading in some polls, but competition is fierce heading into the final stretch. If Mace is trotting out a datacenter moratorium plan with less than a month before the primary, she’s trying to win votes, suggesting citizens in deeply conservative South Carolina are just as opposed to bit barns as those everywhere else.

Polling outfit Gallup recently reported that more than 70 percent of Americans are opposed to datacenter projects in their neighborhoods, making opposition to new projects something folks on both sides of the aisle are coming together over. 

That said, Mace doesn’t appear to be entirely opposed to the use of AI (she’s pushed a bill to train federal government employees on the use of the tech) or datacenter projects done responsibly (her moratorium isn’t calling for the state to ban new datacenter projects).

“When it is over, the rules are simple: datacenters pay their own way or they do not come here,” Mace said of future datacenter projects in her state. Mace’s teams didn’t respond to specific questions about her broader positions on AI or datacenter projects. ®