As James pushes local control on data centers, past congressional votes sought to limit just that

Michigan gubernatorial candidate John James campaigns on local control over data center siting, citing water, pollution and farmland protections, but voted three times in the House Energy and Commerce Committee for a 10-year moratorium barring states from regulating AI systems, including data centers.

That provision was part of H.R. 1, which James supported and which ultimately passed the House without the moratorium surviving to the final law. His campaign spokesperson defended the broader bill's tax provisions but did not address the moratorium votes directly.

Trump, who endorsed James, has publicly pushed the opposite position, posting that communities resisting data centers will end up 'backwards and poor,' while polling shows 73% of Michigan respondents oppose current federal data center incentives.

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