By Henry Carnell
Publication Date: 2026-03-06 15:03:00
A banner hangs during a ceremony announcing a proposed $300 million expansion of Google’s data center operations in Georgia.David Goldman/AP
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Google is seeking to bypass data center zoning rules recently adopted by Linn County, Iowa, by annexing the land for its proposed campus into a city two miles away.
If approved by city officials in Palo, the move would free Google from the water-use and economic agreements that Linn County developed for unincorporated areas with input from the company’s representatives. Though Palo is part of the county, the data center would be subject to the city’s rules, not the county’s.
The workaround is “fundamentally wrong,” said Sami Scheetz, supervisor for Linn…