The conversation around data centers in our region is real. People have genuine concerns — water use, power load, traffic, and the shape of the town they've spent their lives in. Those concerns deserve honest answers and honest debate. That's the kind of journalism The Pennant was built to do.
But there's something happening alongside that legitimate debate that deserves attention. When organized opposition arrives at a local hearing, and the signs are already printed, and the talking points are tight, and there's a consultant on hand with documentation — that's not a neighborhood that woke up worried. That's a campaign that found a neighborhood.
A group called the Center for Environmental and Development Studies — CEDS — has been cited in recent coverage of Grove City's data center discussions. CEDS is a Maryland-based consulting firm, a one-man operation founded in 1987 by Richard Klein, a former government environmental official. On the surface, it looks like the kind of neutral citizen-services group every community is glad to have.
The Pennant's editorial board has a habit that most news operations have abandoned: we look below the surface. Not because we assume bad actors, but because advocacy in America has become sophisticated, well-funded, and very good at wearing the face of the local and the spontaneous.
Here's the basic question we're asking: Who funds CEDS? Because CEDS's own client list reads like a roster of major national environmental advocacy organizations — groups with substantial budgets, clear policy agendas, and no shortage of opinions about how communities like Grove City should develop. That's not an accusation. That's a fact worth knowing.
CEDS appears to operate below the IRS reporting threshold that would require public financial disclosure. That means the public — you — can't see who's writing the checks. Some will call that irrelevant. We call it a story. Transparency is not a burden we impose only on the people we disagree with.
Let us be plain: The Pennant does not take sides between developers and environmentalists. We are not cheerleaders for data centers, and we are not opponents of them. What we are is suspicious of anyone — left or right, industry or advocacy — who wants to shape your community's future from a distance while presenting themselves as your neighbor.
This is part one. In part two, we'll trace CEDS's organizational connections and what they tell us about the agenda behind the clipboard. In part three, we'll ask the harder question: why do local news outlets keep reporting on what these groups say without asking who sent them?
Next: CEDS calls itself a citizens' resource. Its closest partners are some of the most financially powerful environmental litigation organizations in the country. The money trail leads somewhere — and it's not Grove City.
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