Data centers are becoming a hot button political topic.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech. I'm Stephanie Hughes.

Lawmakers around the U.S. are moving to restrict data center development.

Maine recently passed with being called the country's first statewide ban on data centers.

The measure would prohibit building new data centers until late 2027.

As of this taping, Maine's governor, Janet Mills, was reportedly still undecided on whether she'd signed the bill.

And according to the National Conference of State Legislatures,

13 other states are also considering bans on data center development.

I asked Tony Pippa of the Brookings Institution,

how much of this pushback has to do with the speed,

with which data centers are popping up?

Speed is definitely part of it.

There's a lot of urgency. Many of these are showing up

in sort of peri-urban places, suburbs or places that are on the edge of an urban place. More and more,

they're starting also to show up in rural places. So it's the speed, I think, compounded with the limits on how quickly

local communities can respond and local leaders and elected officials can respond. It's that

combination, I think, that's part of this. Are some residents, you know, including those in the governments, local and state

governments, feeling left behind? Well, I think there's certainly feeling at a disadvantage,

and there is a lot of asymmetry, right? You're having large companies with lots of resources

that are already organized and know what they need coming into communities

that, for example, haven't planned for this, haven't had a community conversation,

haven't figured out what they would want their future to look like over the next 10, 20,

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