05/26/2026
Per Coffee County Democratic Party
The Air Force is making the final decision, but our elected representatives can pressure them. We need to contact these people THIS WEEK:
• Representative Scott DesJarlais (he oversees Arnold AFB funding):
Local #: (931) 962-3180
Washington #: (202) 225-6831
• Senator Marsha Blackburn: (202) 224-3344
• Senator Bill Hagerty: (202) 224-4944
Some helpful things to mention:
(1) You learned a decision on the data center is coming end of May/early June, (2) You oppose it because of water consumption, electricity rate increases, and environmental damage, (3) You want them to demand an environmental review before any approval.
You can also call Arnold AFB Public Affairs at (931) 454-3000 (ext. 3 for Public Affairs) and ask them directly what the status is and demand transparency about which company submitted the winning proposal.
The key is calling NOW, before the announcement. Once the announcement is public, it's much harder to stop. But if we flood their offices with calls from constituents this week, we can make this politically costly and force them to take a position.
A Data Center May Be Coming to Arnold Air Force Base. We Have Days to Organize.
For months, Coffee County residents have known a threat was looming: last fall, the U.S. Air Force solicited proposals from private companies to lease land at Arnold Air Force Base for a massive AI data center.
But just today, an independent source in Coffee County called Arnold Air Force Base's Public Affairs Office to ask for a status update, and the response was stark: a decision on the AI data center is expected at the end of May or early June. That's weeks away, not months or years. This is happening now. And once a decision is made, it will be nearly impossible to stop.
To understand what this means, look at what's already happening in other communities. Kevin O'Leary, the Shark Tank billionaire, is building a 9-gigawatt data center on 40,000 acres in Utah. When Box Elder County commissioners voted to approve it on May 4th, hundreds of residents showed up to protest. The commissioners approved the data center anyway.
Tennessee currently has over 60 data centers, with roughly 10 in Knoxville, 13 in Memphis, and 25 in Nashville. In Memphis, Elon Musk's xAI data center runs 24/7 with 35-46 on-site gas turbines powering the facility, causing constant industrial noise and emitting nitrogen oxides, toxic formaldehyde, greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide, and soot that exacerbate existing respiratory illnesses and create severe acute health risks. Imagine what that looks like in rural Coffee County, a community with far fewer resources to adapt.
A 100-megawatt AI data center consumes electricity equivalent to a city of 50,000 people. It uses as much water as 2,600 households annually. TVA rates already jumped 10 percent since 2023 because of data center demand across the region. When data centers arrive in communities, electricity rates spike another $20 to $30 per month for residents. Forests are leveled, like the one in the image below of a data center built in Leesburg, VA. Workers in those communities don't see jobs. These facilities are almost entirely automated. What they see is higher electricity bills, water scarcity, noise pollution, and their community's natural resources funneled to billionaire-owned tech companies.
This isn't theoretical. This is happening in real time across the country and the state, and the end results are uncertain at best, and dystopian at worst.
In a January 2026 interview with Peter Diamandis, Elon Musk stated "Don't worry about squirreling money away for retirement in like 10 or 20 years. It won't matter." When the Diamandis asked if that meant that "services will be there to support" Americans, serial entrepreneur Dave Blundin said "The way this unfolds is fundamentally impossible to predict." Musk smiled, gleefully saying, "It's called singularity for a reason. No one knows what happens after the event horizon."
When asked when this would happen, Musk simply said, "we're in the singularity."
It's important to understand that this isn't a partisan issue. On May 24th, Fox News made a post on Instagram, claiming that "a growing activist network united by anti-American sentiment -- and in some cases China-linked funding networks -- is now targeting America's AI infrastructure and industrial power."
But Fox News' own followers rejected that framing entirely.
One comment said, "Now being anti AI data centers is anti American? Give me a f*cking break." That comment received 5,731 likes.
Another simply said, "Pure propaganda." That comment received 4,027 likes.
One follower wrote: "Very conservative, PRO AMERICAN here. We don't want these data centers taking up our farmland, ruining our natural resources, and providing a surveillance network for AI." 729 likes.
But the most telling comment, which gained 1,188 likes, came from a self-described Republican: "Bruh I'm Republican and even I hate data centers. Data centers are leading to the impact and availability of important resources like water and power, and additionally they facilitate the growth and expansion of AI resulting in the real loss of jobs. This isn't just a liberal talking point, this is a real concern impacting both sides."
The message was clear: this is a community survival issue, not a political one.
And that's where groups like the Climate Reality Project come in.
The Climate Reality Project is a non-profit organization founded by former Vice President Al Gore in 2006, which promotes global action on the climate crisis by educating the public on climate science, promoting clean energy solutions, and training grassroots activists, known as Climate Reality Leaders, to drive policy change. Today, the organization has trained over 53,000 leaders across 140 US chapters and international branches, with over 4.5 million members in 196 countries.
To help fight back, the Coffee County TN Democratic Party is facilitating the launch a branch of the Climate Reality Project, right here in Coffee County. Creating a branch will arm us with the resources, information, and infrastructure to tackle the Arnold Air Force Base data center issue. We need passionate leaders in this community ready to take this on.
The data center decision could happen as early as the first week of June, so it's our goal to charter the Climate Reality Project branch and be mobilized by then.
If you're concerned about the data center coming to Coffee County, join us for The Informed Citizen Series presents "An Inconvenient Truth" 20th Anniversary on Sunday, May 31st, 2-5 PM, at the Coffee County Administrative Plaza. This is the 20th anniversary of the film that launched the climate movement. We'll discuss both the broader climate crisis and the immediate threat of the data center coming to Arnold Air Force Base, and we'll talk about how to start the Coffee County branch of the Climate Reality Project and how to get involved.
If you're interested in founding leadership of this branch, comment below or contact us directly. Tell us who you are and why you care about protecting our community. A representative will reach out to connect you with Climate Reality's training and resources.
The decision is coming in weeks. The organizing starts now.
