“Lead, follow, or get out of the way,” is a phrase coined by my great uncle, General George Patton. It was also a favorite of Lee Iacocca’s, a champion of American industry and leadership.
Both men did incredible things for our country, one leading the Third Army on their way to winning an impossible war against unspeakable evil and the other, helping to lead an industry out of near certain bankruptcy while helping to revitalize a vital sector of America’s economy.
It's an adage of courage and confidence, not one of temerity and passivity. Donald Trump is a great president because he, like Reagan before him, is a man of action born of confidence in himself and the greatness of our country.
I wonder if the current conversation about data centers, artificial intelligence, and American ingenuity will continue to be fueled by the traditional American belief in our ability to meet challenges head on and solve them, or if now is the time we will turn to worrying about what horrible things will happen if we act.
Maybe that is the sentiment of the time, and if it is, it comes at precisely the time when this president is asking us to make America Great Again. What irony! Right now, we have far too much wringing of hands, saying no to almost everything, and not enough leading.
Take for instance my colleague in New York state, Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY), who has just put a one year pause on the construction of any new large AI data centers in her state. She chose sensation over sense. What short-sighted thinking. Her response is not sober reflection and prudent policy, but political faint-heartedness.
Let me be clear: as governor, I do not support any state-mandated moratorium on building data centers in Wyoming. The job of deciding whether to encourage the building of data centers falls, as it should, on the more than capable shoulders of our local communities within the constraints allowed by the legislature.
As with most development, it is the communities, counties, and local boards who do the heavy lifting in economic opportunity. We shouldn’t change that now. I believe, as our founders, that government closest to the people has the ability to fiercely protect their own homes and families.
Governor Hochul and her leftist friends in Albany are swallowing the dictates of their far left supporters, by banning the fracking of oil and gas in New York state, blocking pipelines conveying gas to the Northeast, and now by banning data centers. And to what end?
Lost economic opportunities only hurt the communities, workers and families in her state that would benefit from the tax revenues and the jobs brought by these companies–while compromising our nation’s security and leadership.
America has had enough of “Build Absolutely Nothing Near Anybody” dogma. We are a great nation not because we did not do anything, but because we worked hard to do it right and to do it well.
Leadership is the will to keep going even in hard times. Leadership requires perspective, objectivity, careful consideration, and initiative as much as it does direction to navigate through the maze of conflicting information and disinformation whether generated from the far left or the far right. It’s true for agriculture. It’s true for energy. And it's true for business.
President Trump, in his recent statement decrying Hochul’s disastrous decision said this, “Data centers are tremendous wins for the states and communities that are lucky enough to get them.”
I concur.
He is exactly right. They use our energy here, energy over 80% of which we currently ship to states who have tried to control how, where, and what we develop.
They can be built to conserve our water and compliment our communities. This is not some doe-eyed endorsement of all tech; it is an endorsement of Wyoming people, whom I know and respect, that we can do it the right way.
President Teddy Roosevelt famously said, "People of Wyoming, I believe in you and in your future." He was not saying that to people who lacked courage, were reluctant to engage, or were happy to let things happen to them. He was talking about people who carved their future from what was given to them.
My Executive Order, Data Centers the Wyoming Way, requires Wyoming’s state agencies to prosecute current law to the limits granted them by the Legislature, and it also asks them to bring back recommendations for improvement within the coming month. Those will be reviewed, refined, and forwarded to the Legislature for their consideration in 2027.
In meantime, I call on all Wyomingites to reject election-year fearmongering, to reflect soberly on the issues, and to join me in leading Wyoming into a bright future.
My great Uncle also said, “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” Here in Wyoming we raise sheep, we do not act like them.
Mark Gordon is the 33rd governor of Wyoming
