The local government saga over a massive data center planned just northwest of Billings continues.
In a letter signed this week, Yellowstone County commissioners asked local legislators to review a new law they said is stopping them from regulating the 5,000-acre project near Broadview by developer Quantica Infrastructure.
The letter, approved Tuesday by Commissioners Mark Morse, Mike Waters and Chris White, is addressed to the “Members of the Yellowstone County Legislative Delegation” and asks them to “refine” a 2025 law called the Right to Compute Act.
The act passed the House 61-38 and the Senate 50-0. It says any government action that hampers the freedom to own and use software, algorithms and other technologies must be “narrowly tailored” to protect the public, and that the government can’t enact those restrictions if there are “less restrictive means” available.
Commissioners described the law as overly broad and said it “meaningfully limits the County’s ability to regulate data center development within its jurisdiction.”
Large-scale data centers, they wrote, use a lot of electricity and water, create noise and strain public infrastructure and emergency services.
“Counties have traditionally addressed such impacts through ordinary land use, zoning, permitting, and public health and safety regulation,” the letter said.
As written, commissioners pointed out, the Right to Compute Act sets a high legal standard for any county action that would affect the data center.
“That standard is difficult to meet and creates real uncertainty about whether the County may continue to exercise its customary regulatory authority over these developments,” commissioners wrote. “This creates a corresponding chilling effect on the County’s ability to protect its residents, infrastructure, and natural resources.”
Commissioners asked the local legislative delegation to amend the law in 2027 to make clear it doesn’t change counties’ or cities’ legal authority to regulate siting, construction and other operations of data centers “through zoning, permitting, and public health and safety measures.”
The Montana Legislature next meets in January.
Meanwhile, local opponents of the Quantica data center are forging ahead with efforts to allow voters to weigh in on the project. Broadview resident Kassi Solberg is again leading efforts to create a ballot initiative that would require approval from two-thirds of voters participating in the county election before data centers could start or resume operations in Yellowstone County.
That effort failed this summer. Solberg and others collected more than 14,000 signatures — the requirement was 16,560 — ahead of an August deadline before being told by county officials that local election administrators had calculated the deadline incorrectly. Officials determined that the new, accurate deadline was July 13 — a date that had already passed.
Now Solberg aims to have an initiative approved for the local election slated for May 4, 2027. Solberg and her attorney, Democratic Eastern District Congressional candidate Brian Miller, expect more legal challenges to their effort. In a Thursday interview, Miller told Montana Free Press that he had revised the initiative language and that he thought the new version has a better chance at surviving legal scrutiny.
“But I think they’re going to take a shot at it,” he said.
Solberg’s first ballot initiative was challenged in court by county officials, who asked a judge to clarify whether the initiative could appear on the ballot. The county cited possible legal complications from the Right to Compute Act, which sparked this week’s letter to lawmakers, and a recent Montana Supreme Court ruling, Treasure County v. Edlund, dealing with regulations for wind energy development.
After the regular discussion meeting Thursday, commissioners met with staff from the county attorney’s office in a closed-door session. According to the public meeting agenda, the topic for discussion was “Data Center Initiative.”
During public comment, local resident Jack Hanson noted that closed meetings of public bodies are allowed only in limited circumstances.
“As a member of the public I ask that you be perfectly clear about the specific topic of the meeting,” Hanson said.
In response, Chief Civil County Attorney Steve Williams specified that the group would discuss “litigation” in the private session, one of the allowable reasons for closing meetings to the public.
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