Aaron Ford’s Sudden Data Center Outrage 

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford unveiled his latest gubernatorial campaign pledge this week, vowing to pause new tax abatements for data centers if elected, audit existing ones, ban evaporative cooling, and force the industry to “bring their own water or coolant” and “pay for their own electricity.” In classic Democratic fashion, the rhetoric is thick with hyperbole and thin on historical facts.

 “Data centers are swarming into Nevada communities, draining our water, and jacking up our energy bills – and Joe Lombardo is handing them Nevadans’ tax money to do it,” Ford’s campaign declared in a position paper released Wednesday. He promised to end “Joe Lombardo’s gravy train” and impose “some of the strictest rules in America.” 

When I’m Governor, Joe Lombardo’s gravy train for data centers is coming to an end. I’m going to implement some of the STRICTEST rules in America and end tax abatements until companies prove they’re delivering for Nevadans. pic.twitter.com/bWEiWOGNO8

— Aaron D. Ford (@AaronDFordNV) August 19, 2026

Data centers, it seems, have suddenly become the new Democratic du jour talking point—complete with dramatic claims of communities under siege and ratepayers crushed under the weight of corporate welfare.

Missing from the outrage? The fact that Ford himself was a primary co-sponsor of the 2015 legislation (SB 170) that created Nevada’s data center tax abatement program in the first place. The bill passed unanimously. 

At the time, Ford and his Democratic colleagues celebrated the incentives as a smart way to attract tech investment and jobs. There were zero guardrails on energy or water use written into the law he helped author. Now, more than a decade later and with polls showing him trailing, the same Aaron Ford wants voters to believe he has only just discovered the alleged downsides. 

State figures show the program has grown substantially—nearly $240 million in tax breaks during the 2023-24 fiscal years, up from $97 million in the prior biennium—yet Ford’s sudden conversion arrives only after the issue became politically toxic in some communities. The facts he now rails against were baked into the very framework he helped build.

Pretending the entire “problem” began under Governor Joe Lombardo, however, is pure campaign fiction. Team Lombardo wasted no time calling out the reversal. “Aaron Ford authored the bill to give tax breaks for data centers, which included ZERO guardrails on their energy or water use. Now, Ford wants to rewrite history and lie to Nevadans. Unfortunately for him, the record is clear,” the campaign posted, linking directly to the 2015 legislation. 

Aaron Ford authored the bill to give tax breaks for data centers, which included ZERO guardrails on their energy or water use.

Now, Ford wants to rewrite history and lie to Nevadans. Unfortunately for him, the record is clear: https://t.co/cI09QGdf0k https://t.co/Hz0Lebwl1O pic.twitter.com/vd03OWpQUq

— Team Lombardo (@teamlombardonv) August 19, 2026

The selective hysteria is curious. Reports document Neville Roy Singham—a Shanghai-based American Marxist with documented CCP-aligned activities—channeling money into U.S. left-wing groups, including the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). PSL has organized or participated in multiple anti-data-center campaigns, contributing to delays or blocks on projects totaling billions. 

Other foreign (mostly European) philanthropic money has flowed into environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, that actively lobby to ban data centers. Congressional letters and lawmakers, including those from the House Energy & Commerce Committee and Sen. Tom Cotton, have called for investigations into these ties. 

Ford is happily riding a wave that includes documented foreign influence networks seeking to slow America’s AI infrastructure edge—precisely when China is racing to dominate the same technology.

Speaking of technology, Aaron Ford’s sudden demand that data centers “bring their own water or coolant” and his explicit call for a statewide ban on evaporative cooling conveniently ignore how far the industry has already advanced—while he was busy co-sponsoring the very tax abatements that invited them here in the first place.

In his August 19, 2026 campaign platform, Ford announced he would extend Southern Nevada’s existing local restrictions on evaporative cooling to the entire state and require data centers to adopt “the latest technologies, including but not limited to closed-loop water systems.”

Modern AI facilities already do exactly that. Closed-loop liquid cooling, direct-to-chip systems, and dry coolers recirculate the same fluid indefinitely after an initial fill. Microsoft, NVIDIA, Meta, and Amazon have deployed or announced designs that use near-zero operational water for cooling in most climates and use reclaimed municipal wastewater and on-site treatment to further reduce any draw.

Ford’s new ban essentially codifies technologies already being rolled out at scale, then claims credit for “solving” a problem his own 2015 legislation helped accelerate.

Ford’s late-breaking transformation fits a familiar pattern: Democrats invent a crisis, ignore their own fingerprints on the policy, then demand credit for “solving” it with tougher rules that conveniently appear only when votes are needed.

Nevadans will ultimately decide whether a candidate who co-wrote the original giveaway is the right person to lecture anyone about accountability.