Cullman. Birmingham. Leeds. Homewood. Fort Payne. Bessemer. Pinson. Wilsonville. Mobile.

Those are Alabama communities that have seen strong local opposition to data centers or moved to ban them — the enormous, power-hungry, water-cooled warehouses that run AI. Several have been pumping the brakes on new projects this year, and last month the Cullman City Council voted unanimously for a one-year moratorium.

On Monday, July 13, Tommy Tuberville stood in front of the Alabama Sheriffs Association in Opelika and told them what he thinks of those neighbors.

"Bull crap"

Here's what Alabama's Republican nominee for governor said, as reported by WBRC:

"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."

So: the people in Cullman are not worried about their water. They are not worried about their power bill. They are not worried about a hum that never stops, three hundred yards from a bedroom window.

According to the man who wants to be their governor, they are repeating talking points fed to them by the Chinese government.

He offered no evidence for that. WBRC asked his office about the China comment and got no answer before publishing.

Tuberville also made clear that whatever these communities decide, it isn't really up to them:

"You can forget about doing away with it because it's coming."

The concerns he called "nonsense" are the actual concerns

The issues Alabama city councils have been debating are water use, noise mitigation, electrical demand and landscaping. This is not a foreign influence campaign. It's zoning.

Doug Jones, the former U.S. senator running against Tuberville, put it to WBRC this way:

"To say this opposition is coming from China is one of the most ridiculous things Tommy Tuberville has ever said, and that's a high bar. The people raising these concerns aren't foreign agents. They're Alabama families who found out about massive projects in their own communities after decisions had already been made. Instead of listening to them, Tuberville insults them."

Cullman is not a hotbed of environmental activism. Neither is Fort Payne. As Alabama Reflector's Brian Lyman pointed out, these are ordinary Alabama communities — many of them deep red — organizing against projects being dropped into their neighborhoods. Insulting them is a strange way to ask for their vote.

Eleven days later, a different tune

Then something interesting happened.

On Friday, July 24, Tuberville was back on the subject — and the "bull crap" was gone. Now, he told WVNN, "you have to be transparent" and "We want to be transparent," because "People don't understand them."

That's a real shift in eleven days. It's also still not an answer.

"People don't understand them" is a nicer way of saying the same thing he said in Opelika: the problem is the public, not the projects. Nobody in Cullman asked for a better explanation. They asked how many millions of gallons of water a year the thing will use, and who pays when the grid needs upgrading. "Be transparent" is what you say when you've decided the answer and want credit for showing your work later.

And note what he still isn't offering. Jones has called for an immediate statewide moratorium until Alabama has a real plan, a ban on non-disclosure agreements between developers and local governments, and independently funded community advisory boards. Tuberville's position remains that it's coming whether you like it or not.

Who benefits

Tuberville's pitch is that the tax money is worth it. He told the sheriffs the revenue is "unbelievable for schools, for law enforcement," and later said a data center "does pretty much double the tax for schools in your city or neighborhood."

Left out of that pitch: who's on the other side of the deal.

Among Tuberville's top Senate donors is the Blackstone Group — the private equity firm that calls itself the leading investor in data centers and power infrastructure. Blackstone bought the data center company QTS in a $10 billion deal — at the time the largest in the industry's history.

Another top donor is Drummond Company, Alabama's largest coal company, alongside Vulcan Materials. Data centers need enormous amounts of electricity and enormous amounts of concrete.

So when Alabama residents ask questions about power and water, and the answer they get is bull crap, that's China talking — it's worth knowing whose interests line up with getting these built fast and quiet.

The record behind the rhetoric

None of this is out of character on the environment. The League of Conservation Voters scored Tuberville at 0% for 2025 — zero pro-environment votes out of 33 scored — and gives him a 3% lifetime score. Across his whole Senate career, he has voted the pro-environment way about three times in a hundred.

That's the person now telling Alabamians their concerns about water use and power bills are foreign propaganda.

What this actually looks like

A city council in Cullman voted unanimously — Republicans, all of them — to take a year and think about it before letting a data center in.

The Republican nominee for governor called that reasoning "bull crap" and said it came from China.

If he wins in November, those are the towns he'll be governing. He's already told them what he thinks their opinions are worth.

Source

Reporting by Josh Gauntt for WBRC and Yellowhammer News, with additional context from Alabama Reflector. Photo: Yellowhammer News.