The Pentagon Wants to Build Data Centers. Congress Would Like a Word.
According to Politico, the Department of Defense’s push to lease military land to private companies for AI data centers is drawing bipartisan scrutiny in Congress over energy and water consumption. Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness, proposed a sweeping amendment to the House’s fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act that would require DOD to evaluate data centers’ water and energy consumption, noise, light pollution, and security effects before deals are finalized. House Armed Services Republicans rejected the amendment.
The military’s data center buildout follows a Trump executive order directing the Pentagon to identify suitable sites on installations for AI infrastructure. The Air Force has offered land at five installations, and the Army has signed two conditional agreements for “commercial hyperscaled data centers”: Carlyle Group will build on 1,384 acres at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, by 2027, and CyrusOne will build on 1,201 acres at Utah’s Dugway Proving Ground by 2029. The Army says the projects will come at “no upfront cost to taxpayers” and include “comprehensive behind-the-meter power and water solutions,” but El Paso Matters has reported the Fort Bliss facility alone could require more power than all of El Paso’s 460,000 electricity customers combined.
House appropriators adopted a bipartisan amendment package requiring the Department of Energy to address data centers’ effects on grid reliability and ratepayers, and a separate Defense-spending provision from Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) requiring DOD to brief Congress on community impacts before construction begins. Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) secured a House-passed NDAA provision barring DOD from leasing land to data centers containing “significant components” from US adversaries. In the Senate, Armed Services Committee Republicans defeated a Democratic amendment that would have blocked DOD from leasing land until the agency finalizes a data center strategy. Some Republicans and DOD officials warn the added oversight could slow military AI ambitions; Rep. Pat Harrigan (R-N.C.) said an amendment like Garamendi’s “just buries them in paperwork.”
What It Means for Subcontractors
Congressional pushback could reshape the scope, timeline, and reporting requirements attached to military-base data center construction, which contractors are actively bidding on at sites like Fort Bliss and Dugway Proving Ground. Firms pursuing DOD data center work should watch how the House and Senate reconcile their NDAA and appropriations language later this year, since new environmental and security reporting requirements could add pre-construction review steps.
