When AI data centers consume billions of gallons of water and gigawatts of electricity — and use eminent domain to seize farmland for transmission lines — what do religious traditions and constitutional principles say about who pays the cost of the AI boom?
Religious traditions teach that natural resources are held in trust for the community — not as commodities for unlimited private extraction. The Constitution's Takings Clause requires that public use justify property seizures and just compensation be paid. The current AI data center expansion is producing real economic benefits and real American technological leadership — but the costs are being borne disproportionately by people who do not share in those benefits: residents whose electricity bills rise, farmers whose land is taken for transmission, communities whose water tables drop. Reasonable people can support AI development while still insisting that the rules governing its costs be set by deliberation rather than by leaving the powerful to extract what they want from the powerless. Stewardship is not opposition to development. It is the requirement that development happen with eyes open to what it costs and to whom.
Religious perspectives
Religious traditions consistently teach that natural resources are held in trust — and that those who consume disproportionately bear special obligations to those affected.
Christianity: "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it" (Psalm 24:1). Stewardship in Christian tradition is not ownership but trust. The community has a claim on resources that the powerful cannot simply dismiss. Pope Francis's encyclical Laudato Si' addressed exactly this: natural resources, especially water, are not private commodities but communal goods.
Judaism: Bal tashchit (do not destroy) prohibits needless destruction of natural resources. Jewish water law in the Talmud is enormously detailed — water rights, sharing of wells, obligations to neighbors. The principle: water is not infinite, and those with access have obligations to those without.
Islam: "We made from water every living thing" (Quran 21:30). Water is treated as a communal resource that cannot be privately hoarded. Islamic law explicitly requires sharing of water resources during scarcity. Hoarding water — physically or economically — is a serious violation.
Indigenous traditions: "Water is life" (Mní Wičhóni). Indigenous teachings treat water as a relative, not a resource — with obligations of relationship rather than rules of consumption. The traditions have particular relevance because Indigenous communities have often borne the heaviest costs of resource extraction.
The shared principle: When a small number of users consume resources at a scale that affects the broader community — depleting aquifers, straining electrical grids, raising prices for everyone else — the principles of stewardship and shared resource management require that the community have meaningful input. Religious traditions are nearly unanimous that the answer cannot be "the powerful take what they want."
Constitutional & legal framework
The AI data center boom raises constitutional questions on multiple fronts — eminent domain, federalism, regulation of natural resources, and the relationship between private profit and public costs.
The scale (2025-2026):
- Stargate Project: $500 billion joint venture (OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank) announced January 2025. First Texas site (Project Stargate One) covers 940 acres — larger than Central Park. Power demand: up to 1.2 gigawatts (enough for ~1 million homes). At least 19 additional facilities planned nationally.
- Water consumption: Texas data centers projected to use 49 billion gallons of water in 2025; up to 399 billion gallons in 2030 (equivalent to drawing down Lake Mead by 16+ feet annually). The average mid-sized data center uses 300,000 gallons of water per day — equivalent to ~1,000 homes.
- Electricity consumption: Texas data centers currently use 9,402 megawatts (equivalent to powering 7.8 million homes). ERCOT projects the Texas grid will need to roughly double capacity (from 85 GW to up to 218 GW) by 2031, primarily due to data center growth.
- Data City Texas: A planned 50,000-acre data center hub near Laredo, with construction beginning in 2026.
Eminent domain expansion: The transmission lines required to power data centers are increasingly being routed through farmland, forests, and small towns via eminent domain. In Maryland, landowners along a proposed 67-mile transmission line posted "No eminent domain for corporate gain" signs — illustrating the tension between private property rights and the infrastructure required to serve data centers.
The Fifth Amendment Takings Clause: "Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." Kelo v. City of New London (2005) controversially held that "public use" can include economic development benefiting private parties. Many states responded with statutes restricting such takings. Use of eminent domain to seize farmland to provide power to private data centers tests both the constitutional and statutory limits.
Tax incentives: Lawmakers in more than 30 states have created tax incentives for data centers. Texas's data center sales tax exemption program grew from a $157 million projected cost in 2023 to $1 billion in 2025. At the federal level, 100% bonus depreciation under §168(k) and Rural Opportunity Zone provisions provide additional substantial subsidies. The cumulative effect: massive corporate facilities subsidized by public funds while consuming resources owned in common.
Who pays:
- Other electricity ratepayers: When data centers draw heavily from the grid, capacity expansions and infrastructure costs are typically spread across all ratepayers. Residents and small businesses subsidize data center electricity through their utility bills.
- Water users: In Texas, Arizona, and other water-stressed states, data center water consumption competes directly with residential, agricultural, and ecological uses.
- Property owners in transmission corridors: Farmland and timber owners face takings to enable transmission infrastructure for facilities they will not benefit from.
- Local communities: Many data centers operate with relatively few local jobs while consuming disproportionate local resources.
State responses: The "AI Data Center Moratorium Act" (S.4214) and various state-level bills propose moratoria, additional review, or specific resource-protection requirements. Implementation varies widely by state.
The federalism dimension: Federal AI policy increasingly favors data center expansion (Stargate, federal subsidies) while local communities bear the resource costs. The vertical mismatch — federal benefits, local costs — creates pressure on state governments to balance competing interests.
See: Fifth Amendment (Takings Clause) → | AI Data Center Moratorium Act (S.4214) →
Sources cited:BibleTorahQuranConstitutionSupreme Court