Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) said President Donald Trump’s administration did not brief him on the scope of a planned $100 billion data center campus before announcing the project.
The massive data center campus, which is slated to be built on federal land in Kentucky, is backed by energy company NextEra Energy and investment firm Brookfield Asset Management.
Recommended Stories
In an interview with Politico, Beshear said he has several “complaints” about how the project was handled. He said no one from the White House, Department of Energy, NextEra, or Brookfield briefed him on the investment before it was publicly announced in late July.
Beshear acknowledged that the Energy Department notified his office on July 29 that an announcement about a data center project would be made, but said he was not given details about the project’s size, power demands, or environmental impact.
“I was not briefed on it. I had gotten notice that there would be an announcement and that it was a data center announcement,” Beshear said. “But at no point did the companies come and talk about the scope, the power demands, how they were going to be met, designs that could reduce or eliminate — hopefully — environmental issues.”
“Those are the types of things that we want to talk through with any data center project,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Energy Department says that the governor was briefed.
“The Energy Department provided notifications to members of the Governor’s office the week prior to the announcement and again the week of the announcement,” A DEO spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “This is standard practice.”
The comments come as data centers have become a growing flashpoint in elections and environmental policy, with communities and lawmakers raising concerns about their demands on electricity, water, and other infrastructure.
Last week, Beshear, who is weighing a 2028 presidential bid, signed an executive order targeting data centers’ energy costs. The order requires companies seeking to build facilities in Kentucky to submit plans to the state Energy and Environment Cabinet showing how they will cover the full cost of their energy use, both currently and in the future.
“This establishes the framework to ensure that data center companies looking to do business in Kentucky, which will ultimately be a very local decision on whether to welcome them, but that any company looking at Kentucky, at minimum, is required to demonstrate they will be good neighbors,” Beshear said.
Beshear is among a growing number of governors from both parties who have moved to address concerns over data center expansion.
Andy Beshear orders data centers to prove they won’t hurt Kentucky ratepayers
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) have both taken steps to restrict or pause certain data center developments, while local communities are bucking the facilities over infrastructure demands.
Meanwhile, multiple Republican governors have signed onto Trump’s ratepayer protection pledge, which seeks to ensure that data centers bear their own electricity costs rather than passing those expenses on to residential customers.
