Debate in Alabama’s governor’s race last week centered on data center development in the state, as Republican nominee and current U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville released a new plan outlining his campaign’s approach to data centers — prompting Democratic nominee Doug Jones’s campaign to call out Tuberville’s financial ties to the tech industry.

Tuberville last week walked-back his previous open-door approach to data center construction in Alabama with an editorial outlining a new plan published in the Alabama Political Reporter. 

“When I am governor, data centers will pay for everything,” Tuberville wrote. 

The editorial included a four-point plan Tuberville says he would use to guide data center policy if he is elected governor in November. The points include:

1. “Local communities will decide whether a data center is right for them”
2. “Data centers will pay the total cost of the transmission lines, substations and water systems they require”
3. “Data centers must replace the power and water capacity they take”
4. “We will place data centers in Alabama’s highest property-tax bracket where they should be”

This plan marks a new, more regulated approach to data center policy for Tuberville’s campaign. Previously, Tuberville has praised the tax revenue data centers could generate for the state and suggested data center opposition is being encouraged by China. 

“I think there’s 27 states that have already said, ‘Oh, we’re not going to build data centers. We’re not going to do that. It makes too much noise. It’s going to ruin the climate.’ Bull crap,” Tuberville said at an event in Opelika in July.

Under current Alabama law, data centers are eligible to certain tax abatements that are not available to other industries. Data center projects that receive abatements prior to 2027 can receive breaks on state property taxes and non-educational county and city property taxes for up to 30 years. 

Data centers can also receive tax abatements available to other industries from cities, counties and public industrial authorities as well. These abatements include state sales and use taxes, non-educational county and city sales and use taxes and certain mortgage and recording taxes.

Data centers that invest more than $200 million into the state within a decade also receive special tax abatements. However, starting next year, new data center projects will no longer be eligible for tax abatements for 20 years under current state law.

Critics have responded to Tuberville’s new approach by pointing out that his campaign has received contributions from companies tied to data center development in the state. Critics have also pointed out that Tuberville holds stock in tech companies tied to data center development. 

Tuberville’s campaign received a $25,000 contribution from Applied Digital Corporation — a Dallas-based company linked to a potential data center project in Tuscaloosa County — in August.

“Alabama can build data centers, but we can do it right, with appropriate guardrails,” Jones said at a press conference last week. “And Alabama can do it without a governor who trades with these companies he regulates, and calls your questions and your concerns about your communities nothing but bullcrap.”

Jones, if elected governor, has said he plans to declare a one-year moratorium on data center development in the state. Jones’s plan also outlines plans to: 

• Ban nondisclosure agreements between data center developers and city and county officials
• Require at least two public hearings regarding any data center proposal
• Require full economic, environmental and health impact studies for all data center projects
• Create a searchable state-wide data base with details about data center projects
• Ensure data centers are taxed so that communities reap the maximum financial benefit from the projects
• Institute lifetime bans for officials who vote on data center projects if they or an immediate family member has financial ties to the developer
• Require disclosures for owners of all data centers.

In response to Jones’s accusations, Jordan Doufexis — the chair of Tuberville’s campaign — said Tuberville’s trading is done through a broker, not personally.

“Like many Americans, Coach has a broker who manages his investments and makes day-to-day decisions about when and what to buy or sell. Coach is not making those day-to-day trading decisions,” Doufexis said.

Currently, there are 13 operating data centers in Alabama, with 14 other projects planned. 

Alabama top stories in brief

Wahl’s eligibility for lieutenant governor challenged in court

• A lawsuit filed in the Montgomery County Circuit Court last week claims that Republican lieutenant governor nominee John Wahl does not meet the residency requirements to hold the office.
• The lawsuit was filed by Jarrod and Amanda Schulte, a Limestone County couple who says they tried to resolve the residency issue internally with the Alabama Republican Party to no avail.
• The lawsuit claims that Wahl in 2020 obtained a Tennessee driver’s license and registered to vote in the state, listing an address in Five Points, Tennessee, as his residence.
• Candidates for lieutenant governor are required to have lived in Alabama for at least seven years prior to the election.
• “This lawsuit is ridiculous. I was born and raised in Alabama, and I have always had a residence here. This is nothing more than a desperate attempt to overturn the will of Alabama voters through the courts,” Wahl told Alabama Daily News in response to the suit.

Attorneys fight lethal injection after nitrogen gas executions barred

• Lawyers for Alabama death row inmate Jeffery Lee are claiming the state should not be allowed to use lethal injection to execute Lee.
• Lee was scheduled to be executed earlier this year, but the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the state from using nitrogen gas in death row executions — delaying Lee’s execution. 
• Lee is now scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Sept. 17.
• Lee’s lawyers argue the state’s lethal injection execution protocol is also unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment’s protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
• Lee said his preferred method of execution would be via firing squad. However, the state does not offer this option.

State employee insurance boards forecast higher premiums

• Both the Public Education Employee Health Insurance Plan Board and the State Employees Insurance Board approved budget plans last week that would include higher healthcare premiums for subscribers.
• The PEEHIP Board approved a plan to ask the state legislature for a $222 million budget increase for fiscal year 2028. As part of this plan, the board is planning to set premiums at $1,226 per member per month rate for FY28.
• PEEHIP premiums will increase for FY27 — which starts Oct. 1 — from $904 to $1,048 per member per month.
• Meanwhile, SEIB’s board approved a plan to increase all premiums on all plans by $20. This will be SEIB’s first rate increase in 11 years.
• The boards cited rising healthcare costs as the cause of the rate increases. 

Federal government seeks summary judgement against ADOC in cruel and unusual punishment lawsuit

• Federal prosecutors last week filed a motion asking for summary judgement ahead of a scheduled November trial over if conditions in Alabama’s prisons violate inmates’ Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
• The heavily-redacted 260-page motion ask the federal judge presiding over the case to rule in the federal government’s favor on charges that the Alabama Department of Corrections failed to protect inmates from physical violence, sexual violence and the use of excessive force by correctional staff, as well as provide safe living condition for those incarcerated.
• A summary judgement is a ruling issued by a judge that does not require a full trial to occur.
• The case dates back to 2020, when the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state over the living conditions in the state’s prisons. 
• More than half of last week’s 260-page motion consists of testimony from inmates, detailing violent conditions inside Alabama’s prisons. The motion also highlights 10 homicides that occurred in the state’s prisons in 2019 alone.

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