Utah News

Utah Senator Mike Lee has received backlash after posting a collage of the four Black Republican House members to his personal X account to prove his party doesn’t have a diversity problem.

“This is not the party of Jim Crow,” he wrote, above the four headshots.

The four departing congressmen are Wesley Hunt of Texas, John James of Michigan, Byron Donalds of Florida, and Burgess Owens of Utah.

James and Donalds are running for governor in their respective states, Hunt took a tilt at a Senate slot and lost, and Owens is retiring because redistricting in Utah remade his seat as nominally Democrat.

“These are the only 4 black ppl in the Republican caucus and they’re all leaving office next year. Yet here you are flexing like your entire political ideology isn’t undergirded by racism, lol,” one X user replied.

Another user pointed out that even if the four were sticking around it wasn’t a shining example of representation.

“4 entire black men (no black women) in a body of 435??? You really made it!” they pointed out.

The four men were specifically recruited to the GOP as part of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s diversity push. The effort to increase Black representation within the party appears to have departed with McCarthy.

Come January, just one Black Republican will remain on Capitol Hill: Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.

“When I look at my party, we look like the most restrictive country club in America,” McCarthy said in 2023 speech after leaving Congress.

Despite being reminded of all this by X users after he posted the picture, Lee continued to post memes about the Democrats being the real “party of Jim Crow,” a line popular among MAGA mouthpieces due to the history of Jim Crow laws being implemented by Southern Democrats.

That line of attack ignores the realignment of the two parties in the first half of the twentieth century, when Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt expanded the social safety net, led America through the Great Depression, and secured the votes of 75 percent of Black American voters.

The civil rights movement solidified the flip.

When the conservative justices on the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in April, Republicans welcomed the move—dubbed by Democrats Jim Crow 2.0.

He reposted his own goal again a few hours later.

Utah is home to some of the strongest anti-gambling laws in the US, with vehement opposition dating back more than a century. But as prediction markets have surged – allowing users to bet on almost anything, from elections to sports to geopolitical events – the state has not escaped the nationwide boom.

Its Republican leaders are fighting back, setting up a battle between one of the country’s most conservative states and a rapidly growing industry that is embraced by a Republican administration in Washington – and members of the US president’s own family.

“It’s a unique issue,” Brady Brammer, a Republican state senator in Utah, said. “Because you have a lot of very conservative Republicans [in Utah] who are standing up to a conservative administration, essentially without dissent among them.”

Prediction markets such as Kalshi – recently valued at $22bn – and Polymarket allow users to “trade” on events from Oscar picks to election outcomes, and have surged in popularity in recent years.

The platforms have long contended that they do not facilitate gambling – an argument they have used to bypass the conventional regulatory landscape for gambling firms – and they operate almost nationwide.

With the backing of federal regulators under Donald Trump, they classify their products as financial exchanges, governed by federal commodities law, rather than state gambling rules.

Unlike casinos or traditional sports books, which set the odds on customers’ bets, prediction market users “trade” against one another while the platforms collect transaction fees. A Kalshi spokesperson said the platform “operates like any other derivative market”.

But around the country, an increasing number of state officials are taking a different view. Prediction markets are simply gambling by another name, they argue, and an encroachment on state authority.

So far, roughly 20 federal lawsuits have been filed nationwide over the platforms, with early rulings seeing split results. Among the most outspoken opponents of these platforms are Republican lawmakers in Utah, a key battleground in this escalating engagement.

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Spencer Cox, the Republican governor of Utah, has no time for the industry’s arguments. Prediction markets are “gambling – pure and simple”, he declared in February, and have “no place in Utah”.

Before Trump’s return to power in January 2025, the federal government appeared equally concerned about some of the platforms’ offerings.

Under then president Joe Biden, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the government agency that regulates the US derivatives markets and oversees prediction markets, sought to impose restrictions on the platforms and ban certain event contracts tied to elections, politics and sports. The FBI raided the home of Polymarket’s founder in November 2024, as the site faced scrutiny.

Under Trump, however, the CFTC has reversed course, defended its jurisdiction over the sector and curtailed the Biden-era crackdown.

At the same time, the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, serves as an adviser to both Kalshi and Polymarket. The president’s own company the Trump Media and Technology Group, which operates his Truth Social platform, has also explored launching its own prediction market product.

“We have a president who operates casinos,” said Brammer, the state senator, referring to Trump’s past ownership of casinos. “He clearly has no problem with gambling, and so it’s not overly surprising that his agency heads, particularly in this space, are much more gamble-friendly than they previously have been, but Utah is not.”

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Brammer and his colleagues are prepared to push back. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s Trump, or Biden or whatever administration it is, we’re going to stand up for what we believe needs to happen in Utah,” he said.

After the CFTC said in February that it was filing a friend-of-the-court brief defending its “exclusive jurisdiction” over the platforms, Cox vowed that he would use “every resource within my disposal as governor” to challenge them in court.

Derek Brown, Utah’s attorney general, has taken a similar stance,arguing that placing a “trade” on these platforms is “simply a bet, dressed up in different clothing”. In an opinion piece for the Deseret News, Brown wrote: “Betting. Wagering. Trading on futures. A wolf in sheep’s clothing is still a wolf …

“I was recently asked whether I plan to do anything about the rapid rise of prediction market apps that are now operating in Utah,” he added. “My response? You can bet on it.”

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The industry tried to get in first, taking the fight to court. In February, Kalshi sued Cox and Brown, alleging that Utah was preparing to block the company “from offering event contracts for trading on its federally regulated exchange”. The pair had “repeatedly represented that they believe Kalshi is operating unlawfully under Utah anti-gambling laws”, the company said.

Kalshi, which is seeking an injunction against any such ban, contends that any move by Utah to prohibit it from operating in the state would interfere with federal regulations – specifically those legislated by Congress to oversee financial derivatives and their exchanges. The litigation remains ongoing.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Kalshi said: “Whether a state has gambling operations or whether they ban it is irrelevant to federal law, which says you can have nationwide exchange for event contracts.”

“This is for the CFTC to decide, not the states,” it added. The CFTC and Polymarket did not respond to requests for comment from the Guardian.

Kalshi recently secured a victory in Arizona, where a federal judge blocked the state from pursuing criminal charges tied to alleged violations of state gambling laws. But the company has faced setbacks in Nevada and Tennessee.

“When we look around the country, they win some, they lose some,” John Holden, a business law professor at Indiana University who focuses on sports and gambling law, said of the prediction market platforms. “A lot of people would look at a state like Utah and basically say, well, they don’t have gambling, of course [Kalshi] is going to lose.

“But the reality is, when the federal judges are looking at these cases, they’re looking at, legally, is this something under the CFTC jurisdiction, in their view? And there’s clearly a lot of dispute here, because we’re getting these different court cases and decisions around the country.”

The complex patchwork of rulings raises a larger question, according to Holden: will the US supreme court take on this question?

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With Utah’s legal battle ongoing, state lawmakers have moved to reinforce their position by amending the state constitution.

In March, the GOP-controlled Utah state legislature expanded the state’s legal definition of gambling in its ban to include “proposition bets” – defined as “a gambling bet on an individual action, statistic, occurrence or non-occurrence” – in a bid to ensure prediction markets will be covered. Cox signed the measure later that month.

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Prediction market platforms are “unacceptable” in Utah, and should not operate in the state, Brammer, the Republican state senator who sponsored the bill behind the constitutional amendment in the state senate, said.

They carry “every characteristic of gambling”, he argued – a view shared by a majority of Utahns. A recent poll found that 50% of adults in the state consider prediction markets to be gambling, while 30% do not.

Brammer believes that lawmakers in Utah will “fight to the bitter end, to the US supreme court, before we would acknowledge that it is appropriate to have prediction markets in Utah”, he said. The legislation passed unanimously in the state senate.

Democratic state senator Stephanie Pitcher, who also backed the measure, said she was concerned about the potential “of insider trading and a type of either market manipulation or certain outcomes that could come forward” on these platforms.

Even Trump, when asked last month about concerns that federal employees might be using insider information on the prediction markets, claimed he was “never much in favor” of the practice.

The companies say that they monitor for such risks. Earlier this year, Kalshi expanded its surveillance and enforcement efforts to detect and remove accounts engaging in insider trading and market manipulation.

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Pitcher was not surprised Utah lawmakers have been so outspoken in their opposition. The state, along with Hawaii, remains one of the few without any form of legalized gambling, prohibiting everything from casinos to lotteries to sports betting.

Utah is heavily influenced by the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which counts more than 2 million members in the state – over half its population. And the church “really views gambling as a vice that leads to addiction, selfishness, destructive behaviors”, Pitcher said. “I think that is why you’re seeing Utah maybe a slightly different position than other red states.”

Patrick Mason, a professor of religious studies at Utah State University, added that Latter-day Saints are still “far the single biggest group in terms of powerbrokers in the state”, adding: “All of the Utah congressional delegation are Latter-day Saints – the governor, lieutenant governor, the senate and the house leadership are all Latter-day Saints.”

For the church, Mason explained, gambling is seen “as a moral issue” and “as a character issue” that can be tied to harmful social effects.“The church has also always had a very strong emphasis on a work ethic, on independence, on self-reliance. And they see gambling as trying to get something for nothing.”

Utah lawmakers are taking this fight to Washington, where the representative Blake Moore, a Republican from Utah, introduced the Event Contract Enforcement Act alongside representative Salud Carbajal, a Democrat from California, in March. The legislation, they said, would prohibit trading contracts tied to wars, illegal activity, elections and sports – and empower states to decide whether to allow the practice in their communities.

Moore has introduced 94 bills to the House floor in the five years since he was first elected, according to his congressional profile. “I’ve never had more interest in a single bill we just introduced,” he said. “So that’s a good sign.”

A Kalshi spokesperson said the company “already prohibit[s] markets directly tied to wars and illegal activity” and that “sports and elections markets are regulated by the CFTC”.

In the US Senate, another Utahn, Republican John Curtis, has introduced legislation alongside Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, that would bar CFTC-registered entities from offering any contract that resembles a sports bet or casino-style game.

Curtis and Schiff, along with the Democratic senator Elissa Slotkin and the Republican senator Todd Young, have also introduced a bill that would ban federal officials and government employees from using insider information to trade on prediction contracts.

The Kalshi spokesperson said the firm is “supportive of legislation that codifies into law what we already do – ban federal officials and government employees from using insider information to trade on prediction markets”.

But Utah Republicans are not prepared to stand down.

“Let’s call a spade a spade: sports prediction markets are gambling, and gambling is regulated by states, not the @CFTC,” Curtis, the US senator, wrote on X in February. “Some wagers just aren’t smart – and betting against Utah is one of them.”

After years of stockpiling draft capital and developing young talent, Utah Jazz suddenly find themselves within striking distance of the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft. That pick is currently owned by the Washington Wizards. Of course, with elite prospect AJ Dybantsa viewed by many evaluators as a potential franchise-altering superstar, the temptation to move up one spot from No. 2 has become impossible to ignore. The question facing Danny Ainge and GM Justin Zanik is how far they should actually go before the price becomes self-destructive.

Foundation in place

Utah’s 2025-26 season was defined by intentional patience and the steady evaluation of their young core. The Jazz allowed their young backcourt and versatile wing depth to play through mistakes, building a foundation of resilience. The team flashed dynamic offensive potential and an intriguing, modern style of play under Will Hardy. However, they ultimately prioritized the preservation of their pristine asset chest over a forced playoff push.

Winning the No. 2 pick in the lottery validated the organization’s long-term vision. The Jazz proved they already possess the culture and developmental ecosystem necessary for sustainable success. What they still lack, however, is that singular offensive alpha. Utah has complementary pieces such as Lauri Markkanen. What it does not yet have is the centerpiece. That is precisely where Dybantsa’s upside comes in.

Roster and draft capital

As the Jazz pivot toward the 2026-27 season, their primary objective is to acquire a true franchise cornerstone. Utah already boasts versatile defenders and ascending young talent. Players like Markkanen, Walker Kessler, and Keyonte George provide the kind of structural support many rebuilding teams spend years trying to find.

Holding the No. 2 pick alone already places Utah in a phenomenal position. Prospects like Darryn Peterson are viewed as potential future stars in their own right. That said, Dybantsa’s ceiling changes the calculus entirely. He projects as the type of two-way player capable of becoming the face of an era.

More importantly, Utah possesses the draft flexibility necessary to make the Washington Wizards seriously consider moving down. Few organizations can compete with the Jazz’s collection of future first-round picks. That asset surplus allows Utah to negotiate aggressively without completely gutting its own roster.

Absolute limit

When discussing a move from No. 2 to No. 1, perspective matters. This is, objectively speaking, a luxury upgrade. Of course, luxury upgrades should never come at the cost of organizational stability.

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The framework of any realistic deal must begin with the No. 2 overall pick. That alone gives Washington the opportunity to select another elite prospect like Peterson while remaining firmly positioned within the top tier of the draft. From there, Utah should be willing to include two future first-round picks. These should be selections acquired from other franchises rather than their own unprotected picks. That distinction matters enormously.

The Jazz cannot mortgage their own long-term flexibility chasing one player, regardless of Dybantsa’s talent. Utah’s rebuild has worked specifically because the organization resisted desperation. Sacrificing future unprotected Jazz picks would fundamentally undermine their entire long-term strategy.

In addition to draft compensation, Utah could include a promising young rotational player to sweeten the package. Someone outside the franchise’s untouchable core could help Washington accelerate its rebuild while preserving Utah’s overall structure. Of course, there are names that must remain completely off the table. Markkanen, Kessler, and George cannot be included.

Utah can walk away

The danger in pursuing the No. 1 pick is becoming so obsessed with the mystery box that you forget how valuable your current position already is. The Jazz are guaranteed access to an elite prospect at No. 2. That is clear leverage.

If Washington demands a king’s ransom, such as multiple premium players, unprotected Jazz picks, or foundational pieces, then Utah must certainly walk away. Danny Ainge understands this better than most executives alive.

If the Wizards are willing to make a reasonable deal, the Jazz should absolutely pursue it aggressively. However, if the price becomes organizational self-sabotage, Utah should stay put, draft an elite talent at No. 2, and continue building one of the league’s brightest futures.

After years of stockpiling draft capital and developing young talent, Utah Jazz suddenly find themselves within striking distance of the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft. That pick is currently owned by the Washington Wizards. Of course, with elite prospect AJ Dybantsa viewed by many evaluators as a potential franchise-altering superstar, the temptation to move up one spot from No.

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Gov. Spencer Cox warned on Monday that Americans have not yet woken up to the high-stakes era of global technological competition that artificial intelligence has unleashed upon the world.

If the United States does not prioritize American AI dominance by building infrastructure as rapidly as the country used to, then it will have much bigger problems to worry about than data centers, Cox said.

“I don’t know that we have our eyes as open as we should on this,” Cox said during a panel discussion with Deseret Voices host McKay Coppins for the Atlantic Across America tour hosted in partnership with the Deseret News.

President Donald Trump has taken aggressive executive action to accelerate data center development, including by asking top military officials to encourage states to support the administration in an international AI arms race.

On Monday, Cox described what he saw as the existential risk presented by America’s Cold War-esque contest with China over AI models like Claude Mythos, which can autonomously identify and abuse cybersecurity weaknesses.

“If China had gotten that piece of technology first — that could exploit the vulnerabilities of almost every major company, and government entity in our country — it’s over, we’re done folks,” Cox told the live audience.

This is the perspective missing from some national discussions around the investment needed to come out on top of what has been called the fourth industrial revolution, according to Utah’s Republican governor.

Cox balanced his urgent wake-up call with an evenhanded criticism of the whirlwind sequence of events that has made Utah a national flashpoint for Americans’ anxiety about the impending AI overhaul of the electrical grid.

The pushback of locals and national groups this month led to a reassessment of a massive data center project in rural Utah, with Cox assuring Utahns that the state can enter the AI age without compromising environmental priorities.

How big is the Box Elder data center?

On April 24, Utah’s Military Installation Development Authority endorsed what celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary of “Shark Tank” fame said would be the largest data center in the world, located in a barren part of Box Elder County.

There are roughly 700 hyperscale data centers across the U.S. Utah already has 48 data centers, drawing 920 megawatts of power, with 2,600 megawatts under construction, a Gardner Policy Institute analysis found.

But O’Leary’s proposed data center would be in a category of its own. At full buildout, it would cover 40,000 acres and consume between 7.5 and 9 gigawatts — or twice the amount of energy used by the entire state of Utah.

While Cox has devoted much of the past year to launching a national campaign to super-charge U.S. energy output ahead of the AI surge, he said he recognized the concerns about how Utah’s latest data center was approved.

“There’s been a tremendous amount of pushback. And people are right to push back,” Cox said on Monday. “The process wasn’t great.”

After it was fast-tracked through the state’s military economic development pipeline in April, the project received very visible backlash from a vocal group of Utahns who believe it will harm the Great Salt Lake.

Currently, a 100-megawatt data center requires approximately 2 million liters of water each day, which is about the daily use of about 6,500 households, as the Deseret News previously reported .

These evaporative cooling systems once commonly used to keep a data center’s massive banks of computer processors cooled down are being replaced by closed-loop systems, which are 70-75% more efficient, and air-cooled systems.

Proponents of the project have said the project will use a closed-loop system drawing from a portion of the 13,000 acre-feet (4 billion gallons) of water rights that come with the property, which is too dry for agricultural use.

The nonprofit Utah Clean Energy estimated that the 9 gigawatt data center could increase the state’s CO2 emissions by 50-75%, if it relies entirely on natural gas combustion to generate its power.

Utah State University physicist Robert Davies calculated a data center this big, with a dry air cooling system, would produce another 7-8 gigawatts of “waste heat,” potentially warming Box Elder’s Hansel Valley by several degrees.

Cox scales back the hyper scale project

Cox has said that one of the draws of Box Elder County — in addition to Utah’s expedited permitting process —is the convenience of a natural gas pipeline passing through the area which will make on-site power production easier.

A 2025 law, SB132, which was passed unanimously by the Utah Legislature, requires data centers to produce their own power so Utahns do not have to pay higher energy rates because of the huge demand created by AI.

On May 4 — after they were forced to move to a private room because protesters repeatedly interrupted them — Box Elder County commissioners permitted the data center, promising to provide careful oversight of the project.

The commissioners said they had reviewed thousands of public comments, mostly from non-Box Elder County residents, and had done research before making their decision, for which they have since received death threats.

Despite his early, and continued, support for the project, Cox acknowledged on Monday that the messaging around the data center had gotten away from state officials. He outlined some changes to reclaim public confidence.

That’s why Cox said his administration decided to issue a statement on Friday, “taking a step back” from some aspects of the project, “really just rightsizing this for this time because of the feedback that we got.”

The statement said the project developer has agreed to focus all approval requests only to phase I, limited to a 1.5 gigawatt facility, on less than 2,000 acres, and with no reduction to water going to the Great Salt Lake.

“Let’s make sure we are building these data centers in the right places, and in the right way so that we can do all the good things that can come from this,” Cox said.

An incremental approach is different from the “people against virtually everything” mentality that has paralyzed America’s ability to move forward with upgrades to energy infrastructure with endless lawsuits, Cox said last month.

Data centers are coming whether communities like them or not, Cox reiterated on Monday. What gives Cox hope is how Utah has demonstrated with its model approach to AI regulation that it can balance quality of life with innovation.

When asked whether he understood Americans who feel AI is being “shoved down their throats,” Cox said he shared the sentiment. But that doesn’t remove the responsibility to take a proactive stance on this issue, according to Cox.

“If China beats us to that, they lock us down, and I don’t know where we go from there,” Cox said. “So there is a real national security piece of this that I think we have to understand and that we have to be a part of, and Utah is going to be a part of those conversations.”

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

Earlier this month, Republican county commissioners fast-tracked approval for a 40,000-acre data center in northwest Utah, blocking public comment from hundreds of furious locals. The Stratos project, as the venture is known, is backed by Shark Tank entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary through his investment company O’Leary Digital. It’s designed to reach a 9-gigawatt power capacity, making it one of the largest “hyperscale” data centers in the world; at its projected $100 billion buildout, the center would generate and consume twice as much power as the entire state of Utah currently uses.

Despite a massive public outcry, Box Elder County commissioners unanimously approved the project after facing a contentious crowd in a May 4 meeting at the county fairgrounds. Commissioner Boyd Bingham threatened to have protestors removed by law enforcement, telling them, “For hell’s sake, grow up.” He and his fellow commissioners then left the room and finished the meeting in a closed session, livestreaming their final unanimous vote of 3-0. O’Leary, who did not attend the meeting, claimed on social media that the protestors were “professional… paid, and bused in.” Environmental advocate and former U.S. Senate candidate Caroline Gleich fired back, saying, “Utahns don’t want an out-of-state billionaire controlling our land.”

The controversy around data centers in the U.S. continues to grow; 67 percent of new data center construction is planned for rural areas, according to a recent Pew Research Center report. Last year, Rolling Stone reported on Amazon data centers in Eastern Oregon that siphoned tens of millions of gallons of water from state aquifers, worsening a water pollution problem linked to cancer and miscarriages. A $20.5 million class-action settlement agreement reached between Amazon and a group of Oregon residents in March marked the first time a Big Tech company committed to paying damages for public health threats allegedly exacerbated by its data centers.

Senator Bernie Sanders recently introduced a bill aimed at putting a federal moratorium on data center construction. “We cannot sit back and allow a handful of billionaire Big Tech oligarchs to make decisions that will reshape our economy, our democracy and the future of humanity,” Sanders previously said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “We need serious public debate and democratic oversight over this enormously consequential issue.”

Environmental fears, ancestral lands

Utah is facing a critical water shortage driven by the warmest winter in over a century, with snowpack levels at the lowest ever recorded. Scientists say that heat and emissions generated by a colossal data center like the Stratos project would wreak havoc on an area already severely impacted by climate change. There’s concern that the amount of water needed to cool Stratos facilities could further drain the Great Salt Lake, intensifying exposure to toxic sediments in the rapidly shrinking watershed. Wildlife biologists say the heat generated by the center could also disrupt the movement of migratory birds, deer, and antelope.

Patrick Belmont, professor of watershed sciences at Utah State University, says there are serious technical concerns with building a data center of this scale: “It’s like putting a hairdryer that has the energy consumption of New York City in the middle of a fragile desert ecosystem on the shores of one of the most imperiled lakes in the world.” Belmont says the facility would generate enough heat to raise nighttime temperatures by eight to 12 degrees, irrevocably shifting the dew point, the temperature at which water condenses. “It would desiccate the land, and increase evaporation rates in the whole region,” Belmont says, warning that it could affect the landscape and surrounding communities for generations to come. (Belmont’s views are his own, and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer.​

Carbon emissions from the data center would also have a significant environmental impact, with an estimated output of 30 million tons of CO2 per year exceeding emissions from Utah’s entire transportation sector. “It’s 50 percent more than every vehicle in Utah currently,” Belmont says. “I think a lot of people haven’t wrapped their heads around that.”

O’Leary, known as Mr. Wonderful on the ABC reality show Shark Tank, cites the environmental studies degree he received from the University of Waterloo in 1977 when dismissing concerns about the Stratos project, also known as “Wonder Valley.” (He’s also backing a controversial $70 million data center development under the Wonder Valley name in Alberta, Canada.) O’Leary, who is from Canada, tells Rolling Stone that water cooling won’t be an issue at the Utah facility. “There’s plenty of turbine technology now that uses air cooling, very, very efficiently,” he says, “and there are many examples across the country where they’re building out power from a combination of wind, battery, solar, and natural gas.”

But Stratos wasn’t designed to use a combination of energy sources; as a state official remarked at an April 22 meeting of the Box Elder County Commission, the project will be powered 100 percent off the Ruby Pipeline, a natural gas line that crosses northern Utah from Wyoming en route to Oregon. MIDA Executive Director Paul Morris told the meeting that proximity to the pipeline was the main reason O’Leary selected the site. MIDA spokesperson Kristin Kenney Williams said in a statement to Rolling Stone that “exploring any and all energy sources as Mr. O’Leary highlighted is absolutely a goal throughout the lifetime of the project and as technology advances.”

Robert Davies, a physics professor at Utah State University, estimates that, due to the inefficiency of natural gas, the facility would actually consume closer to 16 gigawatts at full capacity, an equivalent to “the energy footprint of 40,000 Walmart supercenters.” He noted that his results derive from a preliminary analysis, which “clearly indicate a full-scale analysis is warranted.”

Darren Parry is a former chairman of the Shoshone Nation, a Native American tribe that has inhabited the Great Plains for over 10,000 years. He recently visited the site in northwest Utah’s Hansel Valley, where, he says, “there are burial grounds about a quarter-mile away from the proposed map — close enough to be within the footprint of the ecological area [of the site].” Parry, who teaches Native American history at Utah State University, is calling for a responsible slowdown of the Stratos project. “There are too many unanswered questions,” he says, “especially if we’re going to have a footprint of something that’s bigger than two cities.” (A note on the Shoshone Nation website says Parry’s comments regarding Stratos “do not represent the official voice or position” of the tribe.)

Regulation runaround?

The Box Elder County commissioners’ May 4 vote gave Utah’s Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA) the green light to create the project area for the Stratos data center on unincorporated land. According to a plan released by MIDA officials, the area comprises 40,000 acres of privately-owned land and 1,200 acres of military and state-owned land — over 62 square miles in total.

Activists have raised questions about a taxpayer-funded state agency championing privately owned facilities in Utah. MIDA was created in 2007, ostensibly to strengthen national defense missions and support military initiatives, but in recent years, the group has backed a range of developments, including a luxury ski resort and a hotel. Project areas under MIDA oversight can offer a variety of incentivizing tax breaks and financing deals to developers. 

The group approved a series of resolutions to move O’Leary’s project forward last month, agreeing to charge lower taxes in a bid to help “lure the hyperscalers” to Utah. O’Leary appeared via video at the meeting, where, according to The Salt Lake Tribune, he lauded the speed at which MIDA officials had moved to greenlight the venture, telling them, “I heard about this opportunity just five months ago. No one has pulled this off this fast, ever.” Speaking on behalf of MIDA, Williams told Rolling Stone that while the “competitive nature” of the project meant that the group needed to move fast to create the project area, “per state regulation, environmental studies and approvals must be achieved — these will take time, and will be very transparent.” 

MIDA officials say the Stratos project is a matter of national security; Utah Gov. Spencer Cox defended building data center facilities at an April news conference, saying the state has an obligation to allow the U.S. to stay competitive as a world power. “We have to do this,” Cox said. “We can’t just say ‘no’ and shut the doors and go home and let China win this, this technology race.”

Environmental advocate Caroline Gleich says MIDA’s backing is simply a way to fast-track building the data center without environmental review. “This is one of the largest developments in northern Utah since the transcontinental railroad,” Gleich says. “People are concerned about its potential impacts and the lack of transparency in the approval process.” She spearheaded an online petition to stop the transfer of water rights from ranching to the Stratos project; following a deluge of nearly 4,000 formal protests filed with Utah’s Division of Water Rights, the application was withdrawn. Developers say that they intend to apply again at a later date. “Utah residents spent almost $60,000 filing these protests,” a frustrated Gleich says. “It costs $15 to lodge a complaint. There’s no refund — and no law that says [the developers] can’t just apply and withdraw as many times as they want.”

Gov. Cox’s calls for Utah residents to “pray for rain” to relieve the state from drought are especially galling to Gleich since the Stratos project is projected to require 16.6 billion gallons of water every year — the equivalent of 25,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. “It’s a hard pill to swallow when people are not watering their lawns, taking baths, or having gardens,” Gleich says.

AI-fueled opposition?

After news of the Stratos data center made headlines, O’Leary went on the offensive, claiming the criticism of his project was the result of foreign interference. “The Chinese are hell-bent on shutting down every attempt to enhance [U.S.] computing power,” he tells Rolling Stone. “I don’t believe that the majority of the people that live in Box Elder — the ranchers and the people on the land — are against this project.”  O’Leary accused China of paying protesters and riling up environmentalists on The Tucker Carlson Show, saying that they want to shut down “every single proposal” for U.S. data centers. In a Fox News appearance on May 12, O’Leary accused Gabi Finlayson, a founding partner of the Utah political consulting firm Elevate Strategies, of being a proxy for the Chinese government. Finlayson issued a sardonic reply, saying, “If we were Chinese operatives, we would be the worst operatives in the entire world. Someone alert Beijing that the payment portal to [our] Amex bills is somehow broken.”

Shoshone leader Darren Parry also dismisses O’Leary’s claims that online protestors are being paid, or that out-of-state residents were somehow summoned to oppose the county commission meeting. “People are awake now,” Parry says. “They’re tired of business as usual. They want their values reflected. What makes Utah so beautiful is the environment that we live in; let’s not destroy it.”

SALT LAKE CITY — Fewer Utah drivers are wearing seat belts, and Utah officials have a new campaign to turn those numbers around.

That means that, statewide, police are cracking down on drivers who don’t buckle up. Drivers will notice new billboards, a TV commercial, and police actively watching for drivers not wearing their seat belts.

Here’s why — the number of Utah drivers wearing seat belts continues to drop. According to the Utah Department of Public Safety, Utah’s seat belt use in 2025 was down to 89.6%. That’s a decline from 2024 and 2023, when, at 92.4%, seat belt use hit an all-time high.

To encourage more drivers to buckle up, 37 police agencies across the state are working 335 extra shifts, from May 18 through May 31, to ticket drivers not wearing a seat belt.

The state is also rolling out a new ad, telling Utah drivers to buckle up and live for another adventure.

“Any level of crash could be fatal; we’ve had very slow mile per hour crashes that ended with fatalities on Utah roads simply because people chose not to buckle up,” said Jason Mettmann, Utah Highway Safety Office communications manager.

So far in 2026, Utah has seen 16 deadly crashes involving people not wearing their seat belts, resulting in the deaths of 19 people. The research shows women wear their seat belts more than men, by 6.5%.

But the message applies to everyone. Utah law states that everyone riding in a car or truck must wear a seat belt. If not, the police will remind you with a ticket.