Tom Tiffany, the Republican nominee for governor, is firmly opposing David Crowley’s Democratic proposal to make Wisconsin a data center hub for the “entire globe”, stating that it would result in the destruction of at least 100,000 acres of land—a large part of which is prime farmland—in order to provide power for two projects that would use solar, wind, and battery storage.
This week, Tiffany’s campaign released calculations showing that generating the electricity needed for the Microsoft data center in Mount Pleasant and the Vantage facility in Port Washington could be generated by solar power alone on approximately 93,000 to 130,000 acres. That area is almost two-thirds the size of Wisconsin’s entire state park system and greater than the combined land area of Green Bay, Appleton and Oshkosh.
“David Crowley’s plan to make Wisconsin a data center hub for the ‘entire globe’ comes with a price, and Wisconsin farmers and taxpayers would be left paying it,” Tiffany said. “He wants to preserve Big Tech’s tax breaks while his energy agenda would put more than 100,000 acres of Wisconsin land at risk just to support two data center projects. We have some of the best farmland in America, and once it’s gone, we don’t get it back.”
Crowley has advocated for data centers to “bring their own new clean energy,” which requires them to construct large-scale solar arrays, wind farms, and battery storage to meet a 100% renewable standard. Tiffany contends that this approach would be a disaster for land use, as it would permanently convert productive agricultural land into industrial energy infrastructure while securing expensive taxpayer subsidies for some of the world’s richest companies.
Tiffany’s alternative is straightforward and rooted in protecting Wisconsin’s core strengths:
- Stop providing taxpayer subsidies to data centers. Crowley has refused to roll back tax breaks projected to cost the state $2 billion in lost sales tax revenue for the state.
- Let local communities have the final say so that towns and counties that are unwilling to support a project are not pressured into accepting it.
- Protect productive farmland from being paved over for data centers or the solar, wind, battery and transmission infrastructure required to power them.
- Require data centers to pay their full costs and bring their own energy so Wisconsin families and businesses are not stuck with higher electric bills.
- Ban secret non-disclosure agreements that keep residents in the dark about proposed projects.
Tiffany has also promised that, during his administration, the Department of Natural Resources will enforce strict environmental standards and halt any projects that fail to meet them or lack community support.
Crowley’s vision prioritizes coastal tech giants and green energy mandates over the farmers, ratepayers and rural communities that actually live here. Tiffany is offering the opposite: no more blank checks for Big Tech, no more converting America’s Dairyland into America’s Dataland, and a clear preference for keeping Wisconsin land in the hands of the people who work it.
