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President Donald Trump‘s Ratepayer Protection Pledge is simple: America will lead the AI race against China, and we will do it without leaving working families holding the bill for big corporations’ profits. That’s true America First leadership. And there is no better place to prove it works than South Carolina.
Thanks to strong leadership from Governor Henry McMaster (R-SC) and the Republican-controlled legislature, South Carolina is leading the nation in economic development. The Palmetto State has posted the fastest population growth in the country, fueled by smart governance and business-friendly policies. Manufacturers, technology firms, and working families have all voted with their feet, choosing South Carolina over higher-tax, higher-regulation alternatives largely to their North. That balance is exactly what President Trump is calling for at the national level. South Carolina has proven they already know how to do it.
South Carolina’s military footprint also makes this state a uniquely high-stakes arena in the competition with China. The Palmetto State hosts installations representing all branches of the armed forces and carries one of the highest concentrations of veterans in the nation. These are the men and women who understand better than anyone that falling behind China in artificial intelligence is not an abstraction. It is a direct threat to South Carolinians.
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Data centers are the backbone of AI capability, as critical to national security as aircraft carriers or nuclear deterrents. If we can’t build them in a state with South Carolina’s military heritage, proven pro-growth track record, and deeply patriotic population, we cannot build them anywhere.
The QTS data center project near Lake Wylie in York County is a concrete example of this key test. The $1 billion campus is projected to generate $8 billion in economic revenue for the local area. It will create good-paying jobs and deliver massive benefits back to the local community, including more funding for schools without raising taxes on families. This is the kind of investment that strengthens communities rather than hollowing them out.
However, efforts to power responsible growth are running into a dangerous movement that is working to shut it all down. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have introduced the AI Data Center Moratorium Act to impose an immediate nationwide ban on new data centers. Democratic Senator Mark Warner said it plainly: a data center moratorium simply means China moves quicker, while Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has also warned it amounts to waving a surrender flag to Beijing.
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RELATED | S.C. GOVERNOR’S SPENDING SOARS
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This agenda isn’t staying in Washington. Funded in significant part by extreme left-wing environmental groups — including foreign-funded organizations with little accountability to American voters — opposition to data centers is now finding traction in red states like South Carolina. In Spartanburg County, a $3 billion data center project was killed after organized opposition pressured county council members to reverse course. Data center proposals are rapidly on the decline in the state. This stagnation will ultimately come at the cost of South Carolina working families.
The path forward is hard but not complicated. Data centers built with accountability, transparent rate structures, and genuine community engagement will earn public support. But it requires South Carolina’s leaders to stand firm against a well-funded campaign to kill data center development and instead put President Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge into action.
America cannot afford to lose the AI race to China. South Carolina cannot afford to surrender the economic momentum it has worked decades to build. And forgotten communities across this country cannot afford another generation of watching good opportunities disappear because radical ideologues and the foreign billionaires funding them were allowed to take control of the agenda.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Jenn Pellegrino is the Executive Director of Defend Forgotten America and Defend Forgotten America Action.
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2 comments
You sound like a member of the RINO defense club. If you believe govt won’t stick American taxpayers to help foot the bills of corporate America, you are sadly mistaken. Data centers will serve no good use to society. People like you want uncontrolled development at the cost of our contentment and peace. The SC legislature won’t be happy until they have “developed” all of SC into a cesspool of overcrowded people, roads and industry. Prosperity for all, right?
Hi Jenn! I researched your background which says you grew up in New York State. Have you ever been to South Carolina? If you have then you should know that we have some of the most beautiful outdoor places and we’d like to keep them that way. That means NO NEW DATA CENTERS! These data centers will only pollute our fresh water streams and acquirers, create noise pollution and destroy our rural communities. All for what? A handful of new jobs?
While the investor owned power companies will profit by building more gas plants, our ratepayers will have to pay more for electricity! Why? All because of corporate greed. AI companies want more profits at our expense. We will NOT be well served here in Beautiful South Carolina by giving these AI billionaires more tax breaks that will have to be paid by our citizens while these robber barrons cut up our rural communities.
You can keep your new data centers in New York! Please leave us alone! We will be just fine
without your greedy corporate buddies trying to make more money at our expense!