Tommy Tuberville Data Centers & AI Lies Alabama

Tommy Tuberville Now Says Data Centers Use 'As Much Water as Two McDonald's.' In September, He Wanted Them to Replace the Water They Take.

On October 14, Tommy Tuberville said he's '100% for data centers,' that they use 'as much water as two McDonald's' and won't raise power prices. Six weeks earlier, his own plan said they must replace the water they take and that Alabama ratepayers need protecting from them.

MAGA Report Cards · Oct 18, 2026

Tommy Tuberville Now Says Data Centers Use 'As Much Water as Two McDonald's.' In September, He Wanted Them to Replace the Water They Take. — Photo: Jose Luis Magana / AP, via AL.com

On Wednesday, October 14, before speaking to the Rotary Club in Birmingham, Tommy Tuberville was asked why he won't hold a debate to lay out his position on data centers. The Republican nominee for governor answered, as 1819 News reported:

"Well, I think people know how I feel. I am 100% for data centers because I've studied them for the last three or four years."

Then he told reporters what all that studying taught him:

"Everybody said they're going to run up energy prices — that's not going to happen. ... It uses as much water as two McDonald's. That's a fallacy when people say it uses too much water."

Six weeks earlier, Tuberville put his name to a very different picture of data centers.

What he wrote in September

On September 1, Tuberville published his "game plan for data centers" as an op-ed in Alabama Political Reporter. Its first rule was "If your community says no, my answer is no." The rest of the plan treats data centers as something Alabama has to protect itself from:

"Data centers must replace the power and water capacity they take. ... That's why I say: Build what you need. Replace what you take."

He wrote that data centers "will pay the total cost of the transmission lines, substations and water systems they require." And on power bills:

"Power companies stand to make a lot of money selling electricity to data centers. We must protect Alabama ratepayers while new facilities are built."

He said Alabama Power had committed to freezing rates through 2029, and that he intends to extend that freeze.

He hasn't dropped the first rule. In the same October answer, he said, "At the end of the day, the governor makes no decision on this. ... if you don't want one, you don't have to take one." What changed is what he says a town would be saying yes to.

Water

You don't write a rule that data centers must "replace the power and water capacity they take," or pay for the "water systems they require," about something that uses as much water as two fast-food restaurants.

And the numbers aren't small. A 2024 report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated that U.S. data centers used 17 billion gallons of water for cooling in 2023, according to researchers writing in The Conversation. Google reports that one of its data centers alone, in Council Bluffs, Iowa, used 1 billion gallons in 2024.

Power bills

In September, Tuberville wrote that Alabama ratepayers needed protecting "while new facilities are built." In October, rising prices were just something "everybody said." He told reporters he had talked to TVA, Alabama Power and the co-ops, and "we're not raising prices for data centers."

If data centers can't raise anyone's electric bill, his own plan was protecting ratepayers from nothing.

This isn't the first time

On July 13, at the Alabama Sheriffs Association conference in Opelika, Tuberville dismissed the worries about data centers, WBRC reported:

"I think there are 27 states that said we aren't 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. They are listening to all this nonsense they see on social media that's coming from China because China does not want us to grow."

We wrote about that at the time. On August 7, Applied Digital, a Dallas data center company that owns 1,300 acres near Brookwood, wrote his campaign a $25,000 check.

Why it matters in Alabama

Tuberville says the towns decide. But a town decides based on what it's told. In Brookwood, residents still can't find out what is going on that land, because the town's mayor has signed a non-disclosure agreement tied to data center proposals, as we laid out in August.

Now the man who wants to be their governor is telling them data centers barely use water and won't touch their power bills. Six weeks ago, his own plan said the opposite.

What the record shows

On September 1, Tommy Tuberville wrote that data centers "must replace the power and water capacity they take" and that "we must protect Alabama ratepayers while new facilities are built." On October 14, he said he is "100% for data centers," that a data center uses "as much water as two McDonald's," and that higher energy prices are "not going to happen." Federal researchers estimate U.S. data centers used 17 billion gallons of water for cooling in 2023.