public pressure

Fortunately for all of us, an unlikely and unruly coalition has emerged to resist the AI takeover by taking aim at the industry’s core infrastructure. In 2025, about 48 datacenter projects worth an estimated $156bn were blocked or stalled by local opposition. By all measures, 2026 is shaping up to be an even bigger year for the AI resistance.

From rural North Carolina to suburban Virginia to the foothills and farmlands of New Mexico and Oregon, ordinary people are coming together across partisan divides to say no to a status quo that allows tech lobbyists to ram through datacenter deals at a breathtaking clip, often behind a veil of secrecy enforced by NDAs. In deep red Indiana, more than 10 counties have enacted moratoriums or temporary bans on new AI datacenters; the Seminole Nation in Oklahoma recently passed a moratorium for their territory; and across New Jersey, project after project has been cancelled due to local fury about the raw deals on offer.

A Republican-led bill that would change how the U.S. protects endangered animals was pulled from the House floor schedule this week after a surge of public opposition, a top Democratic lawmaker said Tuesday.

Rep. Jared Huffman of California said people across the country contacted Congress to oppose the measure, known as the ESA Amendments Act (H.R. 1897). The bill would update the Endangered Species Act, a 1973 law that helps keep animals and plants from going extinct, or disappearing forever. The legislation was led by Rep. Bruce Westerman, an Arkansas Republican who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee.

Nearly 4,000 people have lodged objections to the project being approved, with this pushback leading to contentious public meetings that Lee Perry, the Box Elder county commissioner, said have left him feeling “physically sick” amid alleged death threats and false accusations.

O’Leary has claimed in social media posts that most of the protesters don’t live locally and have been paid to object to the project. “There are professional protesters that are paid by somebody, I don’t know who,” O’Leary said in a video posted to X last week. “They’re being bused in.”

Opponents of the project have rejected this accusation. On Monday, a group calling itself the Box Elder Accountability Referendum filed an application for a referendum to reverse the commissioners’ approval of Stratos. If the group is able to collect 5,422 signatures from registered voters in the county in the next 45 days, the project approval will go to a vote in November.

“Instead of speaking with us, Kevin O’Leary went on social media saying we were out-of-state, paid protesters, and we don’t want people from out-of-state making decisions for us,” said Brenna Williams, lead sponsor of the referendum push.

“The only thing he’s right about is that we don’t want him, an out-of-state billionaire, making decisions for us.”

The vote follows months of pressure from parents who started a group called Schools Beyond Screens, speaking at board meetings, on social media, at district listening sessions, and in private meetings with administrators and board members about problems their children faced when required to use school-issued Chromebooks and iPads.

More than 160 environmental and public health organizations on Tuesday called for Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator, to resign or be fired.