08/29/2026
Congressman James Comer says he's "very happy" about the new $100 billion data center heading to Paducah.
The problem is that our Kentucky Legislature left Frankfort without passing meaningful expanded regulations, transparency requirements, or community safeguards for data centers, and Congress (which Mr. Comer is a part of) has completely dropped the ball.
Right now, we are watching a tax-incentivized, government-backed AI buildout that increasingly looks like a stock-market bubble and is ripe for political profiteering. Meanwhile, Mr. Comer seems perfectly comfortable propping that door open for corporations with his whole body.
As Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, we should expect hearings into the federal government's growing equity stakes in Intel, critical-mineral companies, and other businesses tied to this AI infrastructure boom, along with its financial arrangements involving companies like Nvidia. We should know who benefits from these decisions and how they relate to the federal government's simultaneous push to expedite data center approval and construction.
As our sitting Congressman, we should expect him to promote meaningful federal data center regulations, transparency, water and environmental protections, and community oversight. We should also expect him to divest from any individual AI and data-center-related stocks he continues to hold and return corporate PAC money from industries whose interests come before his committee or his vote.
And as someone openly considering a run for Governor next year, we should expect him to demonstrate that Kentucky communities will actually be heard. We should not trade long-term community health for short-term economic promises, and wealthy corporations and political donors should never have a louder voice than the people who have been pushed to the margins.
When there are no meaningful community safeguards or enforcement mechanisms, corporations take the money and communities take the risk.
I support bringing jobs and investment to Kentucky. If even half of the concerns laid out in my AI and Data Center policies were addressed, we could begin having a good-faith conversation about moving projects like this forward.
I want Kentucky to be competitive. But being competitive because we offer decades-long tax exemptions, lack 21st-century regulations, and have communities without the political or financial power to fight back is not the kind of competition I envision for Kentucky.
The working class has been systematically deprived of real economic opportunities for decades. We should not allow corporations to dangle the promise of upward mobility in front of us in exchange for abandoning our community health, our resources, or our personal liberties.
I understand everyone's frustrations all around... I am here for you.
