During his online town hall last week, a caller asked Congressman Troy Downing his view on AI data centers, adding that they could drive up electricity costs and imperil the local environment due to water use.
“I can’t even imagine how many people around here would be devastated by discovering their favorite fishing hole or hunting grounds ruined by these facilities,” said Lorena from Billings. “A lot of these heartbreaking communities around these data centers are left holding the bag with undrinkable water, horrible pollution, noise.”
Rep. Downing, the Republican incumbent for the state’s eastern Congressional district, agreed that the issue raised concerns, but added that some things, like electricity, had been blown out of proportion. Because the U.S., and Montana in particular, lack the on-grid power to drive many gigawatts’ worth of data centers, he explained that tech firms have turned to other solutions.
“The [Trump] administration’s been working with data center companies on getting requirements in place that they deal with their energy needs, whatever that looks like,” said Downing, suggesting the possibility of data centers built next to a power plant. “Making sure that they have something that’s generated, metered, or separate from the consumer power supply.”
This is the scenario proposed for a possible Jefferson County data center, as The Monitor reported early this month. Thunderhead Energy Solutions is seeking environmental exemptions for its planned off-grid natural gas turbines, which would power a 500-megawatt federal government-linked AI data center. Many locals have denounced the plan, mainly due to fears of exorbitant water use. Downing suggested these concerns are overwrought.
“There’s been a lot of misconception about water for cooling,” he said. “Some of the folks that we’ve talked to are working on closed-loop systems. So that’s not gonna affect the fisheries. It’s not gonna adversely affect any of our rivers or streams.”
That may be an exaggeration. Closed-loop cooling is thought to decrease water use by up to a third, but water consulting firm KETOS estimates that after all those cycles through the system, the wastewater ultimately released by closed-loop systems could be terribly polluting.
When that water “finally leaves the site, it can carry nitrite, glycol, and heavy metals at thousands of times the limits set for surface waters,” writes Ganesh Hegde, director of KETOS’ data science.
Whatever their impact, Downing considers AI data centers a matter of national security.
“Artificial intelligence really is the modern-day arms race, and there’s going to be winners and losers in this. And right now it’s the United States versus China,” he said, adding that this creates a huge opportunity for jobs, expanding the tax base, and driving economic growth. “But like you, I’m concerned that this has an adverse effect on everything that we love about our great state.”
Another caller challenged Downing on his support for opening up public lands for oil and coal extraction. More than three of four Montanans (76%) oppose allowing Congress to make such moves, according to a recent Conservation in the West poll.
Downing, who was recently appointed to the House Committee on Natural Resources, responded that he would always protect public lands. He pointed out that he’d been one of the 14 legislators who last year successfully pushed to remove provisions from the “Big Beautiful Bill” that would have allowed for the sale of millions of acres of public land.
He also told constituents that he’s an avid mountain biker – to the point that he helped build a trail in nearby Broadwater County. “I was out there with shovels and axes building mountain bike trails in Copper City just out of Three Forks when they first started doing that on BLM land,” he said. “I was out there putting sweat equity in there because I care about that.”
He cited his work on the Fix Our Forests Act, which seeks to shorten environmental review times, expand project exclusions, and reduce lawsuits against management actions. Downing neglected to address how extractive practices might impact public lands, but he did insist that federal spaces could embrace “multiple use” with little adverse effect on public access.
Last year he supported the administration’s proposal to rescind the Bureau of Land Management’s Public Lands Rule, clearing the way for greater energy development and timber production. More recently, his bill to reopen the Powder River Basin to coal mining just passed the House, undoing a Biden-era halt to coal extraction.
“This is an incredibly important thing to Montanans, it’s an incredibly important thing to me,” he said of conserving public lands. “And I think that my track record really shows that I am thoughtful about all the things we want to do.”
Downing expressed some hope about the 2026 Farm Bill, which has provisions aimed at increasing customs-free processing facilities for ranchers and increasing consumer access to locally raised beef. Congress has struggled to pass a farm bill since 2018.
This one may not be as comprehensive as some others in the past; Montana Farmers’ Union President Walter Schweitzer has described the bill as “pretty skinny”. But Downing viewed its House passage, earlier this month, as a win.
“It’s obviously very important to our farmers and ranchers out there that we have some long-term predictability and stability,” Downing said. “We’re not simply kicking this down the road with another continuing resolution.”
