Watch: Voter who lives near data center confronts Vance on ""unbearable" outdoor conditions

Channel: CBS News

Transcript

Language: English (original, YouTube automatic captions)

[0:00] Mr. Vice President, thank you very much

[0:02] again for continuing this conversation.

[0:03] You know, for tonight's town hall, we

[0:05] got more questions on the topic of data

[0:08] centers than anything else.

[0:10] >> Sure.

[0:10] >> Uh and a lot of the questions came in

[0:12] from selfidentified Trump voters. I I

[0:15] guess they're part of this 70% of

[0:17] Americans who do not want data centers

[0:19] built near their homes. And we have one

[0:21] such voter tonight. Lindy Valenuela is

[0:24] here. Lindy, the floor is yours.

[0:27] >> Mr. vice president. Um, I live in

[0:29] Dwajek, Michigan. My family and I live

[0:33] directly across the street from a data

[0:35] center. For years, we had been exposed

[0:38] to the constant noise from this

[0:40] company's daily operations. Being

[0:43] outdoors for any amount of time became

[0:45] unbearable,

[0:47] resulting in our yard becoming a useless

[0:49] patch of grass that we could look at but

[0:52] not enjoy.

[0:54] Opening our windows to let in a breeze

[0:56] became a luxury that we could no longer

[0:57] enjoy.

[0:59] Even with our windows closed, the

[1:01] buzzing could be heard throughout our

[1:03] home day and night, 24/7.

[1:06] Our children's room faces the data

[1:09] center. And our two small boys had to

[1:12] sleep through this constant noise.

[1:15] It was like having a vacuum in our

[1:17] living room. It has taken a class action

[1:20] lawsuit, of which I am a plaintiff, for

[1:23] this nuisance, to finally be addressed.

[1:26] You claim to care about communities like

[1:28] mine. What are you doing about this

[1:31] problem?

[1:33] >> Well, it's a great question and uh I I

[1:35] want to assure you that we do very much

[1:37] care about communities like yours. How

[1:38] old are your kids? Can I ask?

[1:40] >> Yeah, sure. Um my youngest is three

[1:41] months and my oldest is 21 months. I

[1:43] really do care about this and I care

[1:45] about it not just because, you know, I I

[1:47] can tell you as as I'm sure you could

[1:49] tell everybody else that when you have a

[1:50] three-month-old who's exposed to

[1:51] constant noise, it can be a problem for

[1:53] everybody, especially mom's sleep. And

[1:55] so, uh, very very mindful of that. And I

[1:57] I guess the way that I think about it is

[1:59] data centers can be good. They can also,

[2:02] as in your case, cause real problems.

[2:04] And I think there's some basic

[2:06] principles that we've tried to apply in

[2:07] the Trump administration. I think that

[2:09] we have to make sure that these things

[2:10] are good community members. And there

[2:12] are a couple of examples of this where I

[2:14] think it's worked very well for the

[2:15] local community. So there's an example

[2:16] in Louisiana of a data center where the

[2:19] local community, the local teachers are

[2:21] going to be getting $50,000 bonuses per

[2:24] teacher because of the revenue that's

[2:26] been generated by data centers, which

[2:27] I'm sure is going to make the school

[2:28] system a lot better, make the teachers a

[2:30] lot happier and get them some of the

[2:32] money that they've earned. At the same

[2:34] time, that data center is going to feed

[2:36] electricity back into the grid. And and

[2:37] and your your complaint is about noise.

[2:40] One of the biggest complaints I've heard

[2:41] with data centers, even from friends of

[2:43] mine, who are typically pro- innovation,

[2:45] pro technology, is a data center went up

[2:47] and my power bill went up by $300. And

[2:50] that's totally unacceptable. And what

[2:52] we've done, it's called the rateayer

[2:54] protection pledge. Is that we've

[2:55] effectively required the data centers to

[2:58] say before they go into community,

[3:00] they're going to make sure that they're

[3:02] good community citizens. They're going

[3:03] to be given teachers bonuses rather than

[3:05] make it impossible for your

[3:06] three-month-old to sleep. And I think

[3:08] that basic principle has to apply

[3:09] because there is a good that comes from

[3:11] data centers too. And what I mean is you

[3:14] know that whenever we use AI on our

[3:16] phone like the the the actual work the

[3:19] the the computation is actually being

[3:21] done at at at a data center whether it's

[3:23] in Michigan or anywhere else across the

[3:25] country. And we do know, and I've seen

[3:27] the intelligence reports that our

[3:29] biggest competitor internationally, the

[3:31] the the People's Republic of China, they

[3:34] really really want to beat us in this

[3:37] arms race of technology. And so I think

[3:40] that so long as we follow a simple

[3:41] principle that data centers have to be

[3:44] good citizens, they have to not build in

[3:46] a way that's going to make it impossible

[3:47] for your kids to sleep. They have to

[3:48] feed power back into the community. They

[3:51] have to maybe some of the economic

[3:52] benefits they're generating. They can't

[3:54] just go to a few tech billionaires. It

[3:55] has to go to the community at large.