We are calling it: America has grown a dangerous new species of development project, a breed of deal that requires comprehensive new safeguards — right now. 

Let’s call them “Dracula Deals.” These vampires don’t just need garlic; they require tall legislative guardrails! 

Extractive, predatory mega-projects like data centers, microchip fabrication plants, electric-vehicle and EV battery factories — projects that consume huge amounts of land, water and electricity — are so disruptive and costly they require new rules.

Don’t believe me? On data centers alone, read the news from places like Memphis, Tucson, Atlanta, and Prince William County in Virginia — where data centers, with their voracious demands for power and transmission lines, water, land, air to pollute, and tax breaks — are prompting lots of public blowback. Or New Carlisle in Indiana, Hillsboro in Oregon, and Genesee County in New York. 

By new safeguards, I especially mean process rules within state legislation that will enable local residents to become fully informed well in advance, empowering them to decide whether they wish to oppose, support, or improve a proposed project. 

First must come robust advance disclosure. At least 90 days before any legally binding vote to grant a Dracula Deal, any kind of land use privilege or development incentive, all application materials and supporting documents should be posted online. 

Specifically: a full accounting of any state and local tax incentives being requested; cost-benefit analysis; the unredacted project application with the legal name of the facility’s end user (not just the developer, an LLC, or a project code name); how much standby power generation the facility will have and how much air pollution those standby generators will emit; how much water it will use and which contaminants it will discharge and in what concentrations; how much power the facility will use and whether it will require new power transmission lines; and how much noise pollution will occur at what decibel levels and at what distance from other land uses. 

Nothing at the 90-days’-prior stage online posting should be covered by a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Such deals should be subject to at least three public hearings during those 90 days or more as well. 

Will these safeguards enable more community groups to weigh in to oppose or improve such deals? You betcha. That’s the point. The stakes are too high, and the damage being done to the quality of life is too profound to let Dracula Deals continue to stalk the American landscape.

If Tennessee had such rules in effect, Elon Musk’s xAI could not have suddenly started running dozens of methane gas turbines, polluting the already-high-cancer Boxtown community of South Memphis.

If Iowa embraced these safeguards, Waukee could not have granted Apple a $208 million tax abatement with only a few days’ notice.

If Arizona adopted process protections, residents of Tucson would have known that Amazon Web Services was the water-sucking company hidden by that “Project Blue” code name. Luckily, a massive community turnout blocked the deal at the last minute.

Cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) are vital industries benefiting our nation and the world. But they don’t need billions in tax breaks and they have no right to treat communities like roadkill when it comes to land use, water supply, air quality, noise, and the price of electricity. 

Elected officials know this issue has become a third rail. When Congress considered whether to ban state regulation of AI for 10 years (as part of President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill), the Senate backed off, 99 to 1. 

Now it’s state legislators’ turn — time to acknowledge the need for Dracula Deal laws that empower communities to protect their health, their quality of life, and their pocketbooks. 

Greg LeRoy directs Good Jobs First, a national watchdog group on economic development incentives and corporate accountability.