Thirteen months ago, with little notice, we were asked to approve plans for a data center in Little Rock. The Little Rock Chamber of Commerce and others encouraged us to move forward, saying it's great for our city, and economic development competition prevented more disclosure.

We did, and have spent a significant amount of time over the last year asking questions that should be answered up front. Equally significant, since that time data centers have been announced in the county (AVAIO), eastern Arkansas, and possibly Conway.

While there are benefits to data centers, we need a moratorium until all the questions regarding electricity costs, water resiliency, environmental exposure, tax revenue adequacy, and more are answered. With 44 percent of Arkansans below the federal poverty line and 28 percent qualifying as the working poor, one unexpected bill can be devastating.

Each facility requires an enormous amount of power, constant electricity to power hundreds of computers and circulating water needed for cooling. Entergy Arkansas must expand generation and transmission capacity well beyond anything they have done in recent memory. Entergy already faces a capacity crisis that has nothing to do with data centers; the White Bluff coal-fired generating station in Jefferson County is under a court order to cease operations by 2028. That alone necessitates new investment.

Three replacement plants are currently under construction--two in Jefferson County and one in Hot Springs--with a combined output roughly equal to the output White Bluff provides today. Are these plants to replace aging infrastructure, or to serve the incoming load? While we might not get a real........

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