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Data centers are terrible corporate citizens: They suck unseemly amounts of energy from the power grid, drain critical water resources and offer few jobs to the economy. Why any state would want them to locate within its borders is beyond me… but in South Carolina, politicians are actually bribing their corporate owners to locate here.
Using your tax dollars…
I’ve warned against these crony capitalist deals before, but Palmetto State politicians aren’t listening.
Just this week, governor Henry McMaster – whose allegiance to South Carolina’s failed status quo is eclipsed only by his laziness – announced the establishment of a new $800 million Meta data center located in Aiken County. According to a release from the governor’s office, the 715,000-square foot facility “will be optimized for Meta’s artificial intelligence workloads.”
“Meta’s decision to locate its newest operation in Aiken County is a major win for South Carolina’s thriving technology industry,” McMaster said in the release.
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Conveniently, McMaster said nothing about the cost of the deal – in terms of energy usage, natural resources or crony capitalist tax breaks. Inexcusably, his silence on all three fronts was echoed by The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper, which basically repurposed the governor’s press release.
Meanwhile, The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier – the purported paper of record in the Palmetto State – failed to address any of those three critical questions in its “coverage.” The paper did, however, regurgitate local officials saying things like “teamwork makes the dream work,” and referenced state lawmakers who attended the rally shouting “woo, woo, woo.”
What a joke…
Only one reporter – Jessica Holdman of The (S.C.) Daily Gazette – bothered to myriad problems with data centers or dig into the details of the deal. In her report, Holdman quoted S.C. Senate majority leader Shane Massey as being “concerned” about the energy and water usage of data centers.
And rightfully so…
As I’ve previously reported, the Palmetto State’s power grid was pushed to its breaking point just nineteen months ago, and demand is only increasing as the state’s population surges. Why on earth would South Carolina politicians be tripping over themselves to bring in a company that is going to suck a whopping 200 megawatts from our grid? While creating (at best) only 100 jobs?
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This morning, we welcomed @Meta to South Carolina as they announced their plans for an $800 million investment that will create 100 new jobs in Aiken! pic.twitter.com/cEu1Shqp9v
— Gov. Henry McMaster (@henrymcmaster) August 29, 2024
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Holdman also noted how Meta is receiving a massive, multi-million dollar property tax break – receiving a residential four percent rate when it should be paying a 10.5 percent levy. Oh, and that artificially reduced rate is locked in for the company… for the next forty years.
While Holdman’s report was far more comprehensive than her competitors, it did neglect to point out a slew of additional incentives Meta will receive from the state. For example, the company is exempt from sales tax on any equipment it installs, nor will it have to pay sales tax on the massive amount of energy it will pull from the grid.
Those sales tax breaks are permanent, too.
Again… why? Why is our state giving all of this away… for a measly one hundred jobs?
Meta claims it will match the data center’s electricity use “with 100 percent renewable energy,” and will “work with local partners to add new renewables to the grid.”
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RELATED | GOOGLE IS FULL OF IT ON ‘CLIMATE ACTION’
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The problem? The company didn’t say how (or where) the usage would be matched – or explain how renewables keep the power grid running when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.
Our guess? This is just more Big Tech hypocrisy when it comes to “climate action.”
As if all of that weren’t sufficiently damning, there’s one more issue to consider. McMaster’s announcement, incidentally, came just days after Meta leader Mark Zuckerberg admitted to congress that his company censored Americans in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election – and bowed to pressure from the administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to continue that censorship after the election.
And these are the people McMaster and his cronies are “woo, woo, woo-ing?” After staking them to potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of our hard-earned tax money?
Yeah… and we wonder why the Palmetto State perpetually resides at the bottom of the national barrel in terms of jobs, income levels and opportunity.
Also worth considering? While rolling out the welcome mat for a company that’s only going to bleed the state dry on multiple fronts, small businesses in South Carolina are being left to die on the vine…
““When a globally recognized company like Meta chooses to invest in South Carolina, it speaks volumes about our state’s world-class business environment and workforce,” S.C. commerce secretary Harry Lightsey said in announcing the deal.
No, it doesn’t. It speaks volumes about our ongoing short-sightedness…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the owner and founding editor of FITSNews. Prior to founding his own news outlet, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina, bass guitarist in an alternative rock band and bouncer at a Columbia, S.C. dive bar. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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4 comments
Crony capitalism is like the Legion of Doom, take away the “cronyism” and you still have a bunch of supervillains.
“This is just more Big Tech hypocrisy when it comes to ‘climate action.'”
It’s almost as if corporations under capitalism prioritize profits above all else, and therefore not only will capitalism fail to address climate change until the extinction of the species (because there’s no profit in it), it will turn its joke of a response to it into a profit-seeking venture as well.
Conservatives actually do realize this. It’s literally what they point out with carbon credit scams, where some fake factory in China gets “shut down” so some real factory in America gets to keep pumping out CO2 and we all pretend something positive happened. It’s an obvious con. The problem? Conservatives flock to defend the con artist trying to weasel its way out of corrective action for the messes it has helped create. Conservatives demand society just give up and let capitalism fully externalize the very real costs that come with global warming.
Conservatives can’t bring themselves to admit that, at our best, we still aren’t doing enough, because that implies we should be doing more. It makes their position that we should be doing even less 100% untenable. Thus we get the natural conclusion of such cognitive dissonance: “Global warming is just a hoax! It’s not me who’s out of touch, it’s all of those scientists!”
Capitalists can’t innovate a solution to a problem when they are themselves the problem.
Here, Will boosts an article that points out flaws with the energy bill pushed by the utility companies, which he fully endorsed with no question of the utility companies’ motives or concern for how the bill reduced consumer protections. Some real cognitive dissonance going on.
Herein Fits complains about cutting manufacturing property taxes from 10.5% to 4%. Meanwhile, on the woe is me homebuilder Fits was paid to promote lowering the property tax on rental housing from 6% to 4%.