When a southern California city council proposed building a giant datacenter the size of four football fields last December, five residents vowed to stop it.

Through a frenetic word-of-mouth campaign, the small group raised awareness about the proposed facility in Monterey Park, a small city east of Los Angeles known affectionately as the country’s first suburban Chinatown. No Data Center Monterey Park organizers – working in tandem with the grassroots racial justice group San Gabriel Valley (SGV) Progressive Action – held a teach-in and rally that drew hundreds of participants, knocked on doors, and distributed flyers on busy streets. They emphasized how the computer systems facility would strain the power grid, drive up energy rates and create noise pollution. A petition quickly amassed nearly 5,000 signatures. All the materials were shared in English, Chinese and Spanish – a concerted effort to reach Monterey Park’s diverse populace, which is two-thirds Asian and one-quarter Hispanic.

In just six weeks, the community won. City leaders issued a 45-day moratorium on datacenter construction and a pledge to explore a permanent ban.

“It’s like the third act of an Oscar-winning movie,” said Steven Kung, a co-founder of No Data Center Monterey Park.

Over the past year, homegrown revolts against datacenters have united a fractured nation, animating local board meetings from coast to coast in both farming towns and middle-class suburbs. Local communities delayed or cancelled $98bn worth of projects from late March 2025 to June 2025, according to research from the group Data Center Watch, which has been tracking opposition to the sites since 2023. More than 50 active groups across 17 states targeted 30 projects during that time period, two-thirds of which were halted.

The movement against these facilities has even made for strange bedfellows, bringing together nimbys and environmentalists in Virginia, “Stop the Steal” activists and Democratic Socialists of America organizers in Michigan.

“There’s no safe space for datacenters,” said Miquel Vila, lead analyst at Data Center Watch, a research project run by AI security company 10a Labs. “Opposition is happening in very different communities.”

A bipartisan dislike of datacenters

Datacenters have exploded in states with abundant land, cheap power and generous tax breaks. Though the facilities power everything from streaming services to artificial intelligence, functioning as an engine for our digital lives, few people seem to want these sites that drain enormous amounts of water and energy, causing energy costs to soar. A November Morning Consult poll found that a majority of voters support banning datacenter construction near where they live and say “AI datacenters” are partly responsible for rising electricity prices.

Vila said a spike in media coverage from national outlets, particularly of protests in the north-east and midwest, had helped consolidate local campaigns against datacenters into a movement. The proliferation of the centers “has become a hot topic at a national level, which reinforces local dynamics”, Vila said.

In Indiana, a datacenter hub with more than 70 facilities, local communities are fighting another 50 projects and have halted at least a dozen in the past year, according to data from Citizens Action Coalition, an Indianapolis-based consumer and environmental advocacy non-profit.

“It’s like a revolt in the heartland,” said Bryce Gustafson, who organizes with the Citizens Action Coalition. “There’s an unbelievable amount of pushback, bipartisan and non-partisan, against these datacenters.”

The datacenter rebellion in the Republican stronghold of Indiana, he said, was built in part on a strong backlash in recent years against solar projects on farmland that many residents felt threatened the state’s rural character. The same concerns over land privatization and tech overreach carried over to the fight against datacenters, as conservatives and environmentalists joined forces to organize town halls, conduct canvassing training and file lawsuits to block developments.

“For many Hoosiers, datacenters have become a physical manifestation of their mistrust of big tech, the elected officials who have embraced them, and the system that allows all this to happen,” Gustafson said.

Local fights against AI infrastructure have even begun to turn the tide at the state and federal levels as the midterms approach. In Virginia – the datacenter capital of the world with more than 600 facilities – the newly elected governor, Abigail Spanberger, campaigned on lowering utility bills by ensuring that AI companies are paying “their fair share” of electricity costs rather than passing them on to consumers. The progressive lawmakers Bernie Sanders and Rashida Tlaib have publicly backed calls for a datacenter moratorium. GOP leaders, including the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, and Missouri senator Josh Hawley, have also introduced bills to regulate AI.

Datacenters’ fate in community hands

In Monterey Park, concerns over the proposed datacenter are primarily about its economic, environmental and public health impact. The facility would employ 14 on-site diesel generators, which researchers said produce “ambient air pollutants”, such as nitrogen oxide, that are linked to a host of respiratory illnesses, including asthma and lung cancer.

Organizer Hrag Balian said No in Data Center Monterey Park took inspiration from other communities’ organizing, including protests in Virginia and Pennsylvania that have stalled projects. “None of us had experience doing this, so seeing patterns and parallels have been tremendously helpful.”

Kung said a core tenet of the group’s organizing strategy was building coalitions with different community organizations in the greater San Gabriel Valley area, such as SGV Progressive Action, Asian Youth Center and Montebello Teachers Association. All these community groups mobilized their own members to show up and testify at the January city council meeting. “It’s a decentralized movement,” Kung said.

Andrew Yip, a community organizer with SGV Progressive Action who helped create flyers and organize rallies, said the campaign succeeded because residents were able to put aside their differences and rally around a single cause: halting a development that would affect their livelihoods.

“This is about community members rising to the occasion to look out for one another,” Yip said.

For Monterey Park organizers, the fight is far from over. Rather than gutting the proposed facility themselves, city council members are considering placing the decision before voters on the November ballot. Kung said the move would put the onus on residents to develop a “long, drawn-out awareness campaign” about datacenters for the remainder of the year. In the meantime, the organizers have continued to engage new neighbors, gather signatures for the petition, and show up at council meetings.

“We won a victory, but there’s still a lot of work to do,” Kung said.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) announced Friday it had suspended more than 100,000 California borrowers amid suspected fraud, with the alleged abuse totaling nearly $9 billion.

SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said the agency suspended 111,620 California borrowers linked to suspected fraudulent activity across SBA pandemic-era loan programs. Those borrowers received 118,489 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) loans totaling more than $8.6 billion.

“Once again, the Trump SBA is taking decisive action to deliver accountability in a state whose unaccountable welfare policies have created a culture of fraud and abuse at the expense of law-abiding taxpayers and small business owners,” Loeffler said in a statement.

HOUSE REPUBLICANS CALL MINNESOTA FRAUD PROBE ‘TIP OF THE ICEBERG’ AS MORE BLUE STATES FACE SCRUTINY

“Today, we announced we have suspended nearly 112,000 borrowers tied to at least $9 billion in suspected fraud,” she said. “This staggering number represents the most significant crackdown on those who defrauded pandemic programs, and it illuminates the scale of corruption that the Biden administration tolerated for years.”

Loeffler referenced the Trump administration’s fraud crackdown in another blue state, saying, “As we did in Minnesota, we are actively working with federal law enforcement to identify the criminals who defrauded American taxpayers, hold them to account and recoup the stolen funds.

“As we continue our state-by-state work, our message is clear: Pandemic-era fraudsters will not get a pass under this administration.”

GOP SENATORS LAUNCH TASK FORCE TO CRACK DOWN ON FRAUD TIED TO MINNESOTA SCANDAL

The announcement comes after the SBA said last month it had suspended 6,900 Minnesota borrowers after uncovering what it said was widespread suspected fraud.

The agency previously reviewed thousands of PPP and EIDL loans approved in Minnesota, identifying nearly $400 million in potentially fraudulent loans tied to borrowers.

That suspected activity included 7,900 PPP and EIDL loans approved during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Loeffler.

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The SBA previously said at least $2.5 million in PPP and EIDL funds issued during the pandemic era were connected to a Somali-linked fraud scheme based in Minneapolis.

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

By Yue Stella Yu, CalMatters

The auditor of California’s High-Speed Rail Authority wants the power to keep certain records confidential, drawing concerns from transparency advocates that the agency could shield vital information about a controversial and costly public infrastructure project from the public.

Assembly Bill 1608, authored by Assembly Transportation Committee Chair Lori Wilson, would allow the inspector general overseeing the high-speed rail authority to withhold records that the official believes would “reveal weaknesses” that could harm the state or benefit someone inappropriately. 

The bill would also prevent the release of internal discussions and “personal papers and correspondence” if the person involved submits a written request to keep their records private.  

The legislation appears to have the blessing of Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose administration released a nearly identical budget trailer bill — a vehicle for the governor and legislative leaders to adopt major reforms swiftly with minimal public input — on Monday. The language for both proposals came from the inspector general’s office, said H.D. Palmer, spokesperson of the state Department of Finance.

The Office of the Inspector General of High-Speed Rail Authority, which audits, monitors and makes policy recommendations to the authority, was formed in 2022 after Assembly Democrats held bullet train funding hostage in exchange for increased oversight. 

The rail line, designed to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles, was approved by voters in 2008. At the time, it was estimated to cost $33 billion and be completed by 2020. It is now estimated to cost more than $100 billion, with only a 171-mile segment connecting Merced and Bakersfield planned for completion by 2033.

The project delays and ever-increasing price tag have frustrated both Democrats and Republicans. Former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, a Los Angeles Democrat who held up the funding in 2022, said at the time there was “no confidence” in the project. U.S. Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Rocklin Republican, has fiercely criticized it as a waste of money and introduced legislation to gut federal funding for it. 

Wilson, a Suisun City Democrat and a former county auditor, said her bill would empower the inspector general’s office and shield it from public records requests for sensitive data, such as whistleblowers’ identities, details of fraud, documents regarding pending litigation and records about security risks. High-speed rail authority officials often will not turn over sensitive records to the oversight agency out of fear that the office would be compelled to release them, forcing the inspector general’s office to jump through hoops to obtain information for audits, she argued. 

“The only way we’ll get the level of transparency and the accountability that the Legislature requires is to make sure that our (inspector general’s office), who are technically the eyes and ears of the public … have every protection they need to be able to take the full deep dive without hindrance,” Wilson told CalMatters in an interview last week.

Palmer echoed Wilson’s point, arguing that the governor’s proposal aims to allow the inspector general’s office to “communicate sensitive findings to external bodies in position to take corrective action.”

But some good government groups see the measure as offering the inspector general’s office blanket authority to withhold anything it doesn’t want to disclose. 

“This is a wholesale atom bomb on disclosure,” said Chuck Champion, president of the California News Publishers Association.

And the measure is drawing opposition from Republicans who already consider the project a failure. Assemblymember Alexandra Macedo, a Visalia Republican, said it is “insulting” that the project began when she was in middle school and remains far from complete. She called the empty concrete high-speed rail structures throughout her district a “modern day Stonehenge.”

“As far as I’m concerned, every ounce of this project should be available for public consumption and should be presented factually and in entirety to the entire legislative body,” she said.

Officials from the High-Speed Rail Authority and the inspector general that oversees it declined CalMatters’ request for comment. Newsom’s office also did not respond to CalMatters’ questions.

The bill is the latest in a series of legislative attempts to shield records and agencies from the public. Last year, lawmakers passed laws that loosened public meeting requirements for various groups, from local governments to research review organizations, and exempted insurers from having to disclose information they report to the Legislature. State Treasurer Fiona Ma sponsored a measure to establish a new infrastructure agency within her office while exempting much of its operations from public disclosure, a bill that was ultimately watered down and killed last year. 

The California Public Records Act, which applies to all state and local agencies except the state Legislature and judicial offices, already exempts disclosure of various types of sensitive information Wilson’s measure aims to protect, said Ginny LaRoe, advocacy director at the First Amendment Coalition, which champions press freedom and transparency. 

For example, state law broadly allows agencies to withhold records when they believe it serves the public interest. There are also specific protections for preliminary drafts and internal discussions, trade secrets and documents related to pending litigation involving a public agency, which are disclosable once a lawsuit is resolved.

But interpreting the public records law would take up a lot of the inspector general’s capacity, said Wilson’s chief of staff Taylor Woolfork.

“The bill’s objective is for this small oversight body to concentrate on generating meaningful reports that strengthen the high speed rail program, not to divert limited resources toward interpreting complex CPRA questions or defending disclosure decisions in court,” he said in an email.

While Woolfork acknowledged the existing exemptions for the agency in the public records law, he said it does not go far enough to protect the inspector general’s office. Under current law, if the high-speed rail authority is being sued, the inspector general’s office could be required to release information because the agency itself isn’t being sued, he said.  

Both proposals would allow people who communicate with the inspector general’s office to stay confidential as long as they make a written request, a practice in laws that govern the state auditor’s office and inspectors general at other agencies, such as the state departments of transportation and corrections and rehabilitation. 

But the decision to withhold that information should be based on a set of “objective legitimate criteria … independent of someone’s personal wishes,” LaRoe said.

“A whistleblower … understandably may have fear of coming forward with important information about waste, fraud or abuse, but that doesn’t mean that they should unilaterally be able to control what the public has access to.”

LaRoe also took issue with allowing the inspector general to shield information due to potential “weaknesses” such as “information security, physical security, fraud detection controls, or pending litigation” — language that CalMatters could not find anywhere else in state public records access laws.

“On its face, I could see an agency refusing to disclose information because it’s embarrassing, because it shows a weakness,” LaRoe said. “Too often, we see agencies interpreting words in ways that ultimately protect people or decisions that maybe look embarrassing or are uncomfortable or create controversy.”

When asked about the language, Wilson said she expects the proposal will be  “honed in” on through the legislative process. “This was, we felt, a good starting point,” she said.

But it is troubling whenever lawmakers seek to further shield public agencies from disclosure requirements — especially a watchdog agency overseeing such a controversial project, LaRoe and Champion said.

“If any project should have intense transparency and scrutiny, it’s the high-speed rail,” Champion said. “This project has been a disaster from jump street. And what else is in there that we have not yet found that they could tuck into this loophole?”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.