McCormick Presses Congress Not to Slow the AI Buildout

Representative Rich McCormick told Bloomberg This Weekend hosts David Gura and Christina Ruffini on Aug. 23, 2026 that the United States should keep expanding data centers to defend its lead in artificial intelligence, arguing the facilities can be built responsibly while benefiting local economies.

Representative Rich McCormick used a weekend television appearance to make a case that is becoming one of the sharper fault lines in American economic policy: that the United States cannot afford to slow the construction of data centers, the warehouse-scale computing sites that train and run artificial intelligence models.

Speaking with hosts David Gura and Christina Ruffini on Bloomberg Markets, McCormick argued that continued expansion is what keeps the country in front on AI, and that the facilities can be built responsibly while delivering benefits to the communities that host them. It is a two-part claim — a national-security-and-competitiveness argument stacked on top of a local-economics argument — and each half is now being tested separately.

Why a federal lawmaker is defending local construction projects

Data centers are, on paper, a local matter. They are zoned by counties, permitted by planning boards, and connected to the grid by state-regulated utilities. Members of Congress do not sign off on them. But the politics have escalated to the federal level because the inputs the buildout consumes — electricity, transmission capacity, water, advanced semiconductors — are governed by federal policy, and because the stated payoff is national rather than municipal.

That mismatch is the crux of the fight McCormick is wading into. The benefits a lawmaker cites when he talks about American AI leadership are diffuse and mostly accrue to a handful of large technology companies and their shareholders. The costs — construction traffic, substation buildouts, transmission lines, pressure on local power rates — land squarely on a county. Persuading a planning board to absorb a concentrated cost for a diffuse national benefit is a harder sell than persuading a television audience, which is why the "benefiting local economies" half of the argument is doing so much work.

The responsibility test is now a permitting test

McCormick's framing — that these projects can be built responsibly — implicitly concedes that some have not been, or at least that voters believe so. The pushback has moved past abstract concern. Zoning fights, moratoria and ratepayer-protection proposals have become live issues in state and local races, and the question of who pays for the grid upgrades a hyperscale campus requires is no longer a technical footnote buried in a utility filing.

What "responsibly" would have to mean in practice is fairly concrete:

• Cost allocation that keeps grid upgrades on the developer's balance sheet rather than the residential ratepayer's bill
• Water sourcing and cooling designs that survive scrutiny in drought-exposed regions
• Permanent job and tax-base commitments that outlast the construction phase, when employment peaks
• Interconnection queues that do not push other generation or industrial load to the back of the line

None of that is settled federal policy. Absent standards, "responsibly" is a promise rather than a requirement, and each county negotiates it alone against a counterparty with far more resources.

Markets have already priced the buildout as a given

Investors are not currently behaving as though the expansion is at risk. The S&P 500, tracked by the SPY exchange-traded fund, finished the most recent session at $765.72, up 0.41% from the prior close of $762.60, with a day range of $764.17 to $767.85, as of Fri, 21 Aug 2026 20:00:00 GMT. The Nasdaq 100 proxy QQQ — the index most exposed to the semiconductor, cloud and power-equipment names levered to AI capital spending — closed at $713.44, up 0.35% from $710.93. The Dow 30 fund DIA led the three, closing at $532.22, a 0.89% gain from $527.51.

Those are modest, orderly moves, and they matter mainly for what they are not. There is no sign in the tape of a market pricing in a policy shock to AI infrastructure spending. The capital-expenditure plans that underwrite a large share of technology-sector earnings expectations are being treated as durable. That makes the political risk asymmetric: a slowdown would be a surprise, and surprises get repriced quickly.

The pressure points to watch from here

The near-term action is not in Washington. It is in the state utility commissions deciding how to allocate the cost of new generation and transmission, and in the county boards voting on individual campuses. A federal lawmaker warning against slowing the buildout has limited direct leverage over either.

Where Congress can move the needle is on transmission permitting and on federal siting authority — the bottleneck that determines whether new power can physically reach a data center within the window a developer needs. If lawmakers who share McCormick's view want the buildout to continue at pace, that is the lever with actual mechanical force behind it. Rhetoric about American leadership does not shorten an interconnection queue.

The second thing to watch is whether the industry meets the responsibility standard voluntarily, before it is imposed. Developers that arrive with a water plan, a rate-protection commitment and a credible jobs number are getting through boards. Those that arrive with a tax abatement request and a non-disclosure agreement increasingly are not. The trajectory of the buildout over the next several quarters may depend less on federal advocacy than on how many projects fall into the first category.

The competitiveness claim is the hardest part to verify

The argument that slowing construction would cost the United States its AI lead is intuitive but difficult to falsify in real time. Compute capacity is one input among several — talent, model architecture, energy cost, chip supply — and no single county's decision determines an outcome at the national level. What is verifiable is that the buildout represents a very large, very concentrated bet on future demand for AI services, financed largely by a small number of balance sheets.

For local officials weighing a rezoning, the national-leadership frame is not especially useful. Their question is narrower: what does this facility cost my ratepayers, what does it pay in property taxes, how many permanent jobs does it hold after the construction crews leave, and what happens to the site if AI demand disappoints. Those are answerable questions, and the projects that answer them well will be the ones that keep getting built.

Key facts

• Who: Rep. Rich McCormick, on Bloomberg This Weekend with David Gura and Christina Ruffini
• Position: US should keep expanding data centers to support its AI leadership
• Nasdaq 100 (QQQ): $713.44, +0.35%, as of Fri, 21 Aug 2026 20:00 GMT
• S&P 500 (SPY): $765.72, +0.41% from a $762.60 prior close

Frequently asked questions

What exactly did Rep. McCormick argue?

Representative Rich McCormick said on Bloomberg This Weekend that the United States should continue expanding data centers in order to support its leadership in artificial intelligence. He also argued that these facilities can be built responsibly and that they can benefit the local economies that host them, pairing a national competitiveness case with a local economic one.

Who hosted the interview?

The segment aired on Bloomberg This Weekend, hosted by David Gura and Christina Ruffini. The interview was published by Bloomberg on August 23, 2026. McCormick used the appearance to warn specifically against policies or local decisions that would slow the pace of data center construction in the United States.

Why has data center construction become a political issue?

Data centers are permitted locally but consume federally influenced inputs such as electricity, transmission capacity and advanced semiconductors. The benefits of AI leadership are national and diffuse, while construction traffic, grid upgrades and ratepayer costs land on individual counties. That mismatch has pushed zoning and utility-cost fights into state and local politics.

How were markets trading around the time of the interview?

At the last close before the segment, Fri, 21 Aug 2026 at 20:00 GMT, the S&P 500 fund SPY finished at $765.72, up 0.41%. The Nasdaq 100 fund QQQ closed at $713.44, up 0.35%, and the Dow 30 fund DIA closed at $532.22, up 0.89%. All three showed modest, orderly gains.

Does Congress have direct authority over data center approvals?

No. Individual data centers are zoned by counties, permitted by local planning boards and connected to the grid by state-regulated utilities. Congress has no direct approval role. Federal leverage runs through transmission permitting, siting authority and energy policy, which shape whether new power can physically reach a site in a developer's timeframe.

What would building data centers 'responsibly' require in practice?

In concrete terms it would mean keeping grid-upgrade costs on developers rather than residential ratepayers, sourcing water and designing cooling systems that hold up in drought-exposed regions, committing to permanent jobs and tax base beyond the construction phase, and managing interconnection queues so other load is not pushed back.

Sources

• Rep. McCormick Warns Against Slowing AI Buildout — Bloomberg Markets

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