Former data center CEO Jim Connaughton told Congress on March 11 that outdated permitting — not contamination or cost — is the real obstacle to building data centers on brownfield sites, proposing an "Approve, Build, and Comply" model to cut regulatory delays. Connaughton, who chaired the White House Council on Environmental Quality under President George W. Bush, said a project with zero environmental impact still took three and a half years to win approval.
Ohio's Rep. Bob Latta questioned Connaughton directly, asking what Congress needs to do to move brownfield projects faster. Connaughton's answer: the problem is a redundant regulatory process, not actual environmental risk.
The exchange is directly relevant to Ohio, where communities from Licking County to Clinton County are pushing back on data centers consuming farmland. Some companies have already begun eyeing brownfield sites as an alternative — and on March 20, the federal government broke ground on a massive 10-gigawatt data center campus on the site of a decommissioned uranium enrichment plant in Pike County, now being rebranded as the PORTS Technology Campus.
If it works there, Ohio policymakers might have a model — and a congressman already on record asking the right questions.