"I submit these comments as part of the public hearing record pursuant to Article 18-A of the New York General Municipal Law as well as the SEQRA Environmental Review Process for BUFA Project Double Reed—the data center complex proposed by STREAM US Data Centers for the STAMP mega industrial site in Alabama, NY.

We would like to address, in particular, the request to the Genesee County Economic Development Center (GCEDC) for tax abatements—funding, really—of nearly one and a half billion dollars with a "B" to construct an enormous data center at the STAMP mega industrial site.

The facts here are pretty well known, but for brevity, let’s focus on just energy, jobs, and costs:  

• Data centers alone currently use 5% of all the electricity in the country, with projected increases for the foreseeable future. 
• The STAMP project overall has submitted a request to NYISO for 600 megawatts semi-annually, or 1.2 gigawatts of power annually, and, per the New York Times, the proposed data center alone would use the bulk of that, equivalent to 20% of all the hydropower generated by Niagara Falls.  
• For comparison, this works out to 16 times more electricity use than all the households in Genesee County combined. 
• Adding this much load to the grid, without first building out renewable capacity and upgrading transmission lines, will foist higher energy costs onto existing ratepayers, including existing industries which employ tens of thousands in the region. This could force other industrial plants to close, putting all those workers out of a job. 
• In contrast, this project will create, at best, an estimated 125 actual jobs—at a cost of around $11.7 million each under this proposed economic package.

This particular project, by Apollo Global Management, is asking for one of the biggest data center tax breaks in state history, though the company that owns it is already worth $450 billion dollars. We know that they are interested in paying less into public coffers—just a few years ago this company's owner literally wrote to request Jeffrey Epstein's advice on how to avoid taxes. 

PPG and Clean Air know a lot about bad tax breaks in Western New York: a Tesla plant that has consistently failed to live up to its job-creation promises; a privately-owned stadium for which residents are paying $850 million; deal after deal that transfers money from regular taxpayers to wealthy developers and corporations.  

Last year, the city of Buffalo lost $20 million in tax revenue because of IDA incentives—and giving money and breaks to private industries means the rest of us have had to make up the slack. When companies do not pay their fair share of taxes, our schools and neighborhoods suffer. And when we support big out-of-state businesses, small local companies go under.

GCEDC is prepared to offer this development project one of the largest incentive packages ever, without any guarantee that jobs will go to local people, without any likelihood of creating a strong secondary job market, and without any commitment to residents or communities.

The public good comes when we include and empower and support the folks around us. Neighbors. Families. Please listen to them as they tell you what they need, and how to make Alabama and Genesee County and Western New York better.

We have additional comments that we will submit in writing. Thank you."