WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Congressman Jake Ellzey (R-TX), Chairman of the Small Business Subcommittee on Rural Development, Energy, and Supply Chains, held a hearing titled "Empowering Rural America Through Investment in Innovation" to explore the challenges and opportunities created by the rapid expansion of data centers in rural communities.

"Today's hearing underscored the enormous potential rural communities have to drive America's economic future," said Chairman Ellzey. "By focusing on energy development and the growing demand for data centers, we are opening the door to new investment, high-quality jobs, and long-term growth in the communities that have too often been left behind. The conversations we had today will help shape practical, results-driven policies that ensure rural America is not just included in our future, but leading it."

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Watch the full hearing here.

Below are some key excerpts from today's hearing:

Chairman Ellzey: "Speaking of opportunities, Kirk, tell me how veterans meet the threshold for what you're looking for in these data centers?" Mr. Offel: "I appreciate the question, Mr. Chairman. You know, we talk about data centers because it's measured in mission critical. Mission-critical means you can quantify downtime in dollars or in terms of life or death for every second of lost infrastructure. I would argue that everyone who's put on the uniform and taken the oath has once entered a mission-critical environment that isn't measured in downtime but in their own mortality. The state of Texas-and what Chris was saying, why it's such a robust state-the sky for the cloud is Northern Virginia, but the home for AI will be Texas. It has 116 higher educational platforms, 15 military bases, and four of the most populous cities in the United States. Not to mention, it has more natural resources than any other state in the Union, including Alaska and Montana. So, we have the best access to the biggest workforce. There's a massive number of veterans coming out of the military who have been exposed to the most advanced weapons, machines, and technology ever built. The military is best known for being one of the largest leadership incubators ever built. So, we are not only-this industry does not-it's not lacking genius or intelligence. It does lack leadership, it lacks courage-and veterans are trained and conditioned and pressure tested in all three. So, I think that veterans have the highest likelihood. I have three kids who are in college right now, and I tell them that a college degree is about as useful as a taxi medallion in a few years because you can spend four years in the military and find yourself with a higher demand of opportunity that has the highest overall total earning potential versus something that you can find today going to college."

Rep. Finstad: "Mr. Crosby, many of my constituents in Southern Minnesota are concerned, have questions-maybe just don't know for sure-in regards to-I guess the questions I hear are really the big energy-intensive facilities like data centers. They're new to us. They may raise electricity prices or strain our local grids. We just heard a little bit about the water discussion. You've made the case that data centers can serve as anchor tenants, reducing costs by spreading fixed infrastructure costs and making upfront grid upgrade payments through contributions in aid of construction. So, what's your company doing to ensure that data centers and development in rural areas do not increase energy costs for community members and small businesses?" Mr. Crosby: "Thank you for your question. We do not go to these environments and look for them to pay us for them. So, we build infrastructure. We've bought land and transferred it to the utility company for easements. We've paid for transmissions. We've paid for switching stations, substations, and the like. That's the infrastructure that we're utilizing. Almost every single time, that involves additional infrastructure, such as in Red Oak, that other parts of the community can use that we pay for in order to bring it there. So, additional switches on a switching station, for example. The other aspect of this is that we are also working with regulatory bodies to get data centers to become grid resources. So, we are going through this cold snap right now. During Storm Yuri, if data centers had been allowed by law-and not threatened with criminal penalties to operate-12 people would not have died during Storm Yuri in the state of Texas. We can be stabilizing, distributed, islanded bodies. I will tell you, not a hundred percent of my colleagues would say the same thing, but all the Class A folks will absolutely look at that as: we can be the stabilizing factor for the grid. When we do that, we utilize infrastructure that's not being used right now because it's at 50 percent utilization outside those peak time frames. So, you have a very small amount of hours per year where-if we could be utilized by grid operators-we could actually reduce costs for consumers and stabilize the grid with it being our nickel."

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