HELENA — In recent months, data centers and AI have become big topics on Montana’s political scene. Now, candidates in the state’s U.S. Senate race are staking out their positions on how to respond.
On Monday, independent candidate Seth Bodnar held a news conference in Helena. He said elected leaders haven't done enough to lay out a vision for how AI development and data center construction should be managed.
“We need real guardrails put in place right now,” he said. “We need people with plans, not people who just want to bury their heads in the sand or punt this problem down the road.”
(Watch the video to hear more from the Senate candidates.)
Bodnar released a six-point “Protect Montana” pledge. It included provisions saying local communities should have the final say on data center projects, that any costs shouldn’t be passed on to ratepayers, that construction should be done by Montana workers and that companies need to support workers displaced by AI.
The pledge also calls for more regulations on AI products, like safety standards for chatbots marketed to children and independent reviews of major AI models.
“There is potential for AI to have some very positive impacts on human society, but there's huge risk, and we need leaders who are actually thinking about comprehensive solutions,” Bodnar said.
Data centers are now a focus of debate in Montana, with neighbors in places like Broadview and Butte organizing against proposed construction in their areas.
On Monday, President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that communities who say no to data centers would “end up being backwards and poor.”
“If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign,” Trump wrote.
Bodnar referred to Trump’s post in his news conference.
“Montanans are not backwards for asking who pays when the well runs dry, who pays when our electricity bills double?” he said.
Republican Senate candidate Kurt Alme told MTN Monday he understood Trump’s interest in economic development, but he also believed the decisions needed to be made by local communities. He said companies will need to be transparent about impacts on electricity and water.
“Those are some of the important guardrails that have to happen, as well as hiring local jobs and just being sure that there are no impacts on the community – but then communities can make their own decision,” he said. “There's going to be positive tax base opportunities here for communities, as well as good-paying jobs.”
Alme said he believes the federal government will need to consider regulations for AI, as it’s an issue that will affect every state. He said there are ways to balance development with protecting privacy and consumer interests.
“As a senator, I'd have the obligation to be sure that we get the benefits of innovation, without having any harm from a new technology,” said Alme.
Alani Bankhead, the Democratic candidate for Senate, has called for a moratorium on large data centers. Her campaign said after Bodnar’s announcement that his pledge wouldn’t actually stop any center from being built.
In a statement, Bankhead criticized Bodnar for not supporting a broader block on data center projects and said he was late to the issue.
“I don’t want to manage this; I want to stop it,” she said. “At the very least, pause the big new ones until we mandate full transparency and right-to-know laws, and have the independent research and data to protect our water and our power bills. And it should be easy for every candidate to say BOLDLY that they will keep them off our public land for good.”
On social media, Kyle Austin, the Libertarian nominee for Senate, criticized Trump’s statement on data centers.
“I support Data Centers but in the ocean and SPACE not in YOUR backyards Montana,” Austin wrote on Facebook. “Those that have concerns are not ‘backwards’ or ‘poor.’”
Earlier this year, Gov. Greg Gianforte signed on to a “Ratepayer Protection Pledge,” outlined by the Trump administration, that called on companies to commit to paying the costs of building and powering data centers without passing them on to existing electrical customers. Bodnar and Alme both told MTN Monday there were positive steps in that document but more could still be done.
