Where I Stand on the Stratos Data Center in Box Elder County
The proposed Stratos Project would bring a hyperscale data center to Box Elder County. The questions it raises about MIDA, water, and accountability are still unanswered.
The rollout of the proposed Stratos data center in Box Elder County was a failure. Not a stumble, not a rough patch. A complete and utter failure, and the way the people behind it handled the public outcry that followed made it worse.
A project on this scale, 40,000 acres in Hansel Valley, cannot be pushed forward without real public engagement, without transparency, and without a process people can trust. When it is, the result is exactly what we have seen. Hundreds of residents showed up to object. They were met with spin and dismissal rather than answers, and being talked past is its own kind of insult. The frustration it produced is not manufactured, and it is not unreasonable. I share a lot of it.
So let me tell you where I stand, and where I do not yet. The current path forward is not acceptable, and a lot has to change before I could support this project moving ahead.
I Am Not Ready to Render a Verdict on the Project
I am not prepared to say yes or no to the data center itself. Not yet.
That may frustrate people on both sides who want a clean answer. But a project this large, with this many open questions, deserves more than a reaction. Before I could support it moving ahead, I need a clear picture of the full scope, what the developer has actually committed to in writing, and what oversight exists or can still be built in. Those answers do not exist in the form they need to right now.
The burden is on the people promoting it to show, with specifics, why it deserves to move forward and what Utahns get in return.
What a Project Like This Could Offer
Here is why I have not simply come out against it. The other side of the ledger is real.
The country is in a race to build the infrastructure that powers artificial intelligence, and that infrastructure is going to be built somewhere. The states that compete for it will shape the next economy. The states that wave it off will watch that investment, and the leverage that comes with it, go to California, Texas, and Virginia instead. I would rather Utah be at the table than on the menu.
A project of this kind can bring real benefits. High capital investment of a sort that rarely finds its way to rural Utah. Skilled construction work during the build and steady operations jobs after it. A larger tax base that, handled correctly, can support local services for years. This fits the approach I have taken throughout my career and as Chair of the House Business, Labor, and Commerce Committee. Utah should be the place serious builders want to come, because we keep taxes low, regulation sensible, and government out of the way of people who want to create something.
The developer also argues the project serves national defense, supporting military computing and AI capabilities. If that is true, it should be straightforward to document and to structure properly. A genuine defense purpose is an argument for getting the process right, not for skipping it.
So, I do not dismiss the promise. I take it seriously. That is exactly why the way this has been handled is so frustrating. A botched rollout and a thin process put a potentially valuable opportunity at risk before it can even properly start. The economic case for doing this well is the same reason we cannot afford to do it badly.
The Deeper Problem Is MIDA
My larger concern runs underneath this project to the agency steering it.
The Military Installation Development Authority was created in 2007 for a narrow and defensible reason, to help protect Hill Air Force Base by developing underutilized military land and sending the revenue back to support the base. That was the deal. Over the years, MIDA grew into something far bigger than that original purpose, with authority that now reaches well beyond anything tied to a military mission. The accountability structures around it never caught up to that growth.
Stratos is the clearest example yet. An appointed board, not voters, holds the authority here. The county's consent, once given, cannot be taken back. And the agency that selects and pays its own auditor is the same agency now steering a development larger than many Utah cities. That is not a partisan observation. It is a structural one.
I have been pushing for MIDA reform, and I will keep pushing. This project has sharpened that focus rather than created it. An agency with this much power should be able to withstand scrutiny. If it cannot, that tells us something important on its own. (See: What Is MIDA? The Unelected Agency Behind the Box Elder Data Center)
The Project Itself Raises Real Questions
The governance problem is not the only reason for caution. Set MIDA aside for a moment, and the project still carries serious questions that have not been answered.
Start with power. At full buildout the developer describes a campus drawing 7.5 to 9 gigawatts, supplied by on-site natural gas generation. For perspective, the Energy Information Administration put Utah's total summer generating capacity at about 10.3 gigawatts in 2024. A single project that approaches the scale of the state's entire power supply is not something to approve on optimism. It deserves to be understood fully before it is built.
That on-site generation raises a second question. Natural gas plants of this size produce emissions, and Utah already fights hard for clean air along the Wasatch Front. The state has the authority and the obligation to hold this project to the Clean Air Act and Utah's own standards. The Department of Environmental Quality has said the air and water permitting alone is likely a year or more away, and could take two, including roughly a year of background air monitoring before the developer can even apply. That is not an obstacle to complain about. That is the process working, and it should run its full course before anything is locked in.
Then there is water, and here the honest answer is that we do not yet have one. The developer has twice filed for water rights and twice withdrawn the applications. The site sits near the Great Salt Lake that is already at or near record lows, in a state living through real drought. I am not going to put a number on the project's water use, because no reliable number exists yet, and I will not trade one set of exaggerated claims for another. What I will say is that a project of this scale, in this location, has to answer the water question completely and publicly before it earns anyone's support. An unanswered question of that size is itself a reason to slow down.
And the land is not nothing. Even at a reduced footprint, this is a permanent industrial transformation of open rural ground in Box Elder County. That tradeoff deserves an honest accounting, not a rushed one.
None of this means the project cannot be done. It means it has not yet been shown that it can be done responsibly. Those are different things, and the difference is the whole point.
What Has to Change
A few things would have to be true before this project earns real support.
Transparency on the full scope and the binding commitments, in writing, available to the public, not described in general terms after the fact.
Binding answers on water, power, and air, secured and made public before approval, not promised in general terms and sorted out later.
Enforceable accountability. If the developer does not deliver what was promised, there have to be consequences. Performance benchmarks and clawback provisions are standard in serious economic development deals. They should be here too.
Real oversight that does not depend on the goodwill of an unelected board.
Where This Leaves Me
There are some signs the pressure is working. The Governor has set a higher bar of review for large data center projects. The Legislature has voted to study the environmental impacts. Senate President Adams called on the developer to cut the project's footprint, and the developer has agreed to scale it back. That is government responding to its citizens, which is how it is supposed to work, and I want that same responsiveness aimed at MIDA itself.
But responsiveness is not the same as resolution. The questions that matter most are still open, the commitments are still not binding, and the agency steering all of it still answers to no voter. So, my position is the one I have held from the start. I am not prepared to oppose this project, because the opportunity is real and Utah should compete for it. I am not prepared to support it either, because the current path forward is not acceptable as it stands. A great deal must change before it could be.
I will keep asking the hard questions, and I will keep you informed as this moves forward. The people of Box Elder County, and Utahns across the state, are owed a process they can actually trust. So far, they have not gotten one.
Rep. A. Cory Maloy represents House District 52, covering portions of Lehi, American Fork, and Saratoga Springs along the Silicon Slopes corridor. He chairs the House Business, Labor, and Commerce Committee and serves on the House Government Operations Committee.