How Congress’ Biggest Tech Booster Got Wrapped Up in a Data Center Land Deal
Microsoft says it bought nearly 3,500 acres of land near Cheyenne from the family of Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis.
The family of one of Congress’ biggest Big Tech boosters has reportedly sold thousands of acres of land to Microsoft for a new data center.
Late Monday night, the city council in Cheyenne, Wyoming approved a measure necessary for Microsoft to connect a new data center campus to city services, including water access. The council’s action annexes almost 3,500 acres that was owned by relatives of the state’s junior senator, Cynthia Lummis. A Microsoft representative testified to the council that the company acquired the land on June 26.
Honestly, it’s a surprise that the land annexation — reportedly one of the largest single additions of land to the city’s control in its history — was even approved. Just last week I confirmed local reports that officials had traced rare bacteria in the city’s municipal wastewater system to another data center project overseen by a subcontractor for Meta. This incident led the city to ban data center developers indefinitely from disposing wastewater from closed-loop cooling systems into the municipal wastewater system.
The land annexation was approved in the wee hours of the night by a 7-3 vote, after a nearly eight-hour marathon session of the city council that also included other much smaller land swaps for the Microsoft project. The state representative for the area where the property sits, Republican Ann Lucas, testified against the measure. Many Cheyenne residents who spoke in opposition to the project referenced the Meta-linked incident, and a handful of neighbors of the future data center complex got together to testify against it.
“I oppose this annexation, but I understand that Senator Lummis has a right to request it, just like she did for the land that my house is on,” testified Peggy Gates, who lives in a residential community called Sweetgrass that is adjacent to the property. “My sincere question to the city council is, why is it necessary for this annexation and rezoning vote to be completed tonight?”
Patrick Collins, Cheyenne’s mayor, told her the city faced a choice: either move forward with an annexation that would put the property under its control and let it connect to municipal services, or Microsoft would have to go its own way under solely county control.
“It’s a good question,” Collins replied from the dais. “I would guess if we postponed it for three months, people would say we should postpone it longer. At some point we just have to vote and say yes or no and give the people who want to develop that piece of property clearer direction of whether they can be in the city or not in the city. They already own the land. They’re either going to do it in the city or outside the city. We’re trying to give them direction as to how they should make their plan. Should they drill [water] wells or use city water and sewer?”
How much money the Lummis family may make from the data center land deal has not yet been made public, nor have the ways in which the senator or her family could profit. The family has reportedly held much of this land going back to the 1940s, and it now sits in the name of companies such as Arp and Hammond Hardware, Old Horse Pasture Inc., and Lummis Livestock Company LLC.
As far as I can tell, this is the first major data center deal ever involving a sitting member of the U.S. Congress. Lummis is also the “crypto queen” of the Senate, known as a policy thought leader in all things technology, artificial intelligence, and the digitization of human existence. She’s recently waded into the data center debate: In mid-June, after Microsoft disclosed its intent to acquire the Lummis properties, the senator introduced a bill requiring the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to quickly craft new regulations making it easier for data centers using 100 megawatts or more to connect to the existing electrical grid.
Lummis announced in December that she will not be seeking re-election. Her office did not respond to requests for comment.
Microsoft told me in a statement that the senator’s connection to this land played no role in selecting this site for their project: “This expansion reflects our continued long-term investment in Cheyenne and builds on more than a decade of growth in the region. Senator Lummis’ political standing had nothing to do with our decision to continue growing in Cheyenne,” the company said.
