← UnGovr Oversight

Datacenter Oversight

Concept

Overview

Data centers are being built across the country at a pace that local governments are still learning to govern. Many arrive with public subsidies and tax abatements, draw large amounts of electricity and water, and are sited through processes that vary widely from one jurisdiction to the next. The terms are often negotiated privately and disclosed unevenly.

Datacenter Oversight is a public record of what governments have agreed to and what they have disclosed. It documents the deals, the resource demands, and the siting decisions behind government-backed data centers, and scores the oversight structures that apply. It reports these facts; it does not argue a position. The project is United States–first.

What It Documents

  • Subsidies & tax abatements — the public money, tax breaks, and incentives granted, and the terms attached.
  • Power & water — contracted electricity and water draw, the energy mix, and the impact on local utilities and ratepayers.
  • Siting & land use — zoning actions, permits, public notice, and who was consulted.
  • Operators & customers — who builds and runs the facility, and the government's own data centers.
  • Disclosure — what is released versus withheld as trade secret or under a non-disclosure clause.

The Five Tracks

The same dataset, viewed five ways:

01
Subsidies
Tax abatements, grants, and incentives granted — and the claw-back terms, if any.
02
Power & water
Contracted load and water use, energy source, and the effect on ratepayers.
03
Siting
Zoning, permits, environmental review, and public-notice process.
04
Operators
Who develops, owns, and uses the facility — including government's own.
05
Disclosure
What the public can obtain versus what is sealed by trade-secret or NDA terms.

The Oversight Score

Each jurisdiction is scored on which oversight structures exist around its data-center deals — not on the technology. Where a jurisdiction does not respond, the item is recorded as “not disclosed,” never left blank.

# Example jurisdiction profile (illustrative)
→ disclosed_deal_terms yes
→ public_impact_data partial
→ disclosed_operator yes
→ governing_oversight partial
→ score 68 / 100

Built on Public Records

Every data point traces to a public-records request — development agreements, utility filings, permits, and council records. Coverage, recipients, and deadlines are driven by UnGovr's per-jurisdiction records-law analysis, and each request stays within the law in every case. The underlying analysis is published at law.ungovr.org/records/us

Part of UnGovr Oversight

Datacenter Oversight is one member of UnGovr Oversight, a family of observatories that turn opaque corners of government into public datasets with a consistent oversight score. It will live at datacenteroversight.org.

  • Civil Grand Jury — California's civil grand jury reports
  • CA Oversight — California local-government oversight
  • Sheriff Oversight — sheriff civilian oversight bodies
  • watchwatch — government surveillance technology (concept)
  • Datacenter Oversight — government and public-money data centers (this project)
  • AI Oversight — government use of AI (concept)

Get Involved

We're looking for journalists, local-government watchdogs, and researchers to help shape what the observatory tracks first. Your experience with development deals and utility records will inform what we build.

Tech Stack

Public Records Engine Entity Registry Records Law DB Oversight Score Utility Filings PostgreSQL