Required Reading

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Citation:

  Walsh, J. (2026, January 21).  Impacts of Data Centers on Rural Communities [Written Testimony for House Committee on Small Businesses Hearing on Empowering Rural America Through Investment in Innovation]. Food and Water Watch. https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118870/documents/HHRG-119-SM21-20260121-SD007.pdf

Citation:

  Asim, R. (2026). Turning the tide: Reforming Western water law in the age of AI infrastructure. Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law, 28(4), 795–827. 

https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1695&context=jetlaw

Citation:

 Zwick, A. (2026). Something Wired This Way Comes: What Fracking Taught Planners That Data Center Communities Need to Learn. Journal of the American Planning Association., 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2026.2710901 

Citation:

Clemmer, S., Chavez, M. F., Dotson, S., Gignac, J., Sattler, S., Shaver, L. (2026, January 21). Data center power play: How clean energy can meet rising electricity demand while delivering climate and health benefits. Union of Concerned Scientists. https://www.ucs.org/resources/data-center-power-play

Citation:

Kollar, J. (2026). Planning Under Preemption: State Power and Local Authority in the AI Data Center Era. Journal of the American Planning Association, 92(2), 326–332. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2026.2618221

 This presentation was shown and discussed during the Utah State Legislature Economic Development and Workforce Services Interim Committee meeting on  Wednesday, August 19, 2026 at  8:00 a.m.

Dr. Shon Hiatt is an associate professor of business administration at the University of Southern California.

More information about this meeting and upcoming meetings can be found here.

Watch the recorded meeting.

Citation:

Hiatt, S. R. (August 2026). Data Center Growth: Policy Choices Facing Utah and Other States. USC Marshall Zage Business of Energy Initiative. https://le.utah.gov/interim/2026/pdf/00003139.pdf

Click here for a KSL News article discussing the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute's recent release of their Data Centers and Utah's Property Tax report (included below). Also helpful is this April 2026 Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute report, Data Center Growth in Utah and the United States.

Citation:

Oritt, M. & Roney, N. (August 2026). Data Centers and Utah's Property Tax. Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. https://d36oiwf74r1rap.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/DataCentPropTax-FS-Aug2026.pdf

Citation:

Gustafson, E. (2025). AI Data Centers in the United States: A Media Framing Analysis. Florida Communication Journal, 50(2), 66–88.

Citation:

Kunkel, C. (2026). Will the Data Center Boom Make the Climate Go Bust? New Labor Forum (Sage Publications Inc.), 35(2), 82–89. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10957960261437086 

Citation:

Pan Fang, T., & Greenstein, S. (2025). Where the Cloud Rests: The Economic Geography of Data Centers. Strategy Science (INFORMS), 10(4), 404–420. https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/stsc.2024.0225

Citation: 

Punari, R. H., Arifin, K., Mansor Ali, M. X., Ayub, K., Abas, A., & Mansor, A. J.  (2026). Reframing Data Center Fire Safety as a Socio-Technical Reliability  System: A Systematic Review. Fire, 9(4), 151-181. https://www.mdpi.com/2571-6255/9/4/151