Port: Gov. Armstrong signs data center 'rate payer protection' pledge 48%
By Rob Port62%
7/23/2026, 10:08:25 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 22 faulty reasoning types, including Hasty Generalization, Negativity Bias, and Appeal to Emotion, with Unattributed Quote as the most egregious example at 20.1% saturation with 123 hits. Analysis detected 795 faulty-reasoning hits from 613 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 48.8% and a BS Rank of 48% (11,584 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 52.90% of the article peer group.
MINOT — Gov.
Kelly Armstrong has joined 21 of his counterparts across the nation in signing a policy pledge supporting data centers, but also a federal initiative to ensure electricity rates do not increase for everyday consumers.
The pledge, organized by President Donald Trump's administration, calls for data center operators to fully fund their own power supply, grid upgrades and reserved energy capacity so consumers do not bear those costs, according to a release from the Republican Governors Association.
"America’s continued economic and technological leadership depends on reliable, large-scale data center infrastructure built here at home.
Data center infrastructure is the foundation of the Internet, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, and supports our economic and national security," the document states.
"As that infrastructure grows and the related electricity demand increases, the American people should not be footing the bill for the benefit of private companies.
Instead, the data center boom should be leveraged to address affordability and benefit all American households and businesses.”
Additionally, companies must cover all network upgrade costs to shield utility ratepayers, negotiate separate rates to fund power infrastructure regardless of actual usage and hire locally.
They would also need to share backup power with regional grid operators to prevent blackouts during peak demand.
Armstrong's office didn't immediately respond to an inquiry about the pledge.
The governor hasn't said a whole lot about the issue to date, though he did comment on it during a June interview on the Plain Talk podcast, saying at that time he wasn't very interested in singling data centers out.
"If we want to do some kind of state framework on industrial growth in small communities, I'm OK with that.
I'm not particularly OK with picking out one specific thing," he said.
"I mean, it doesn't matter if it's an ethanol plant.
It doesn't matter if it's a new transmission [line].
They use energy.
They use water.
We have a water commission.
We have all of that."
He also said some of the data center companies needed to do a better job of communicating.
"I think there are people who are bringing these things and want to bring these things into North Dakota and into communities that need to do a better job on the front end communicating with the locals," Armstrong said.
The pledge comes amid vocal opposition to data centers in North Dakota from a strange political alliance of Democratic-NPL candidates and far-right Republican populists.
It would appear as though Applied Digital, perhaps the biggest player in North Dakota's emerging data center industry, is already largely complying with the terms of this pledge.
Applied's Ellendale campus — which, as I reported recently, has generated more than $38 million in savings and benefits for ratepayers — was strategically sited to absorb excess power that was previously stranded or under-used on the local grid.
By consuming this surplus generation, the facility offset fixed grid costs, returning benefits to traditional power customers.
For a facility like the one in Ellendale to lower customer bills, the underlying rate structure and capacity agreements must shield regular ratepayers from bearing the risk if power demands spike or fluctuate unexpectedly.
The pledge calls for policies specifically formalizing this safeguard by requiring separate "take or pay" rate structures.
It also seems that the pledge does not address water consumption, which is another key area of concern of the data center opponents.
Nor does it address opponents' demand for local government autonomy over permitting the facilities, their call for a moratorium on permitting new facilities, and surety bonds from the data center companies to pay for the dismantling of any abandoned projects.
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