Jim Shaw

Oklahoma’s Data Center Disaster

“You can’t drink data”. The quote from Tulsa Rep. Amanda Clinton encapsulates what many, probably most, Oklahomans feel as they struggle to comprehend the full-scale invasion of data center growth currently underway in their state. “Invasion” is an accurate term to describe what is happening, as large corporations descend on Oklahoma to exploit our relatively cheap electricity, water, and gullible city councils who are cajoled into entering into murky agreements with faceless megacorps, and in the process selling out their community and surrounding population for…what, exactly? The data center invasion is something that nobody asked for, much less the thousands of residents who feel they are being completely ignored by their elected leaders when they rubber stamp these water-and-electricity devouring atrocities. What benefit do they gain that will offset the inevitable rise in their monthly bills and blight the land near their homes? We can smell a scam coming a mile away, and we can’t help but feel powerless when we’re muscled out of the deal-making entirely. We understand that we will be the ones footing the bill for these facilities, and more than likely the last in line to reap any benefits.

Gov. Kevin Stitt is fully onboard with the data center incursion, touting “economic growth” as he always does when opening another door for large corporations to exploit our state’s low-cost resources. In his 2025 State of the State address, Stitt stated that he wanted “Oklahoma to be the high-tech capital of the world”. I think we should take his word for it. That may sound great to him, but to the rest of us it rings ominous.

Each day, a typical hyperscale, AI data center will consume roughly as much electricity as 100,000 homes, and around 5 million gallons of water. The larger data centers are expected to use 20 times as much electricity. According to one study, data centers in Texas consumed 49 billion gallons of water in 2025, and are expected to use as much as 399 billion gallons each year by 2030. In 2024, US data centers accounted for 4% of all the energy usage in the entire nation, or 183 TWh (terawatt hours). By 2030, that number is expected to jump to 426 TWh. Is this dramatic rate of increase in energy consumption really sustainable, and what does it mean for residents?

Construction of large data centers have proceeded at a break-neck pace in our state, and few residents have had the time to even understand what is happening to their communities. The lack of knowledge has been an advantage to the metastasizing industry so far, because when Oklahomans do realize what’s happening, they almost universally oppose it. What’s in it for them? How does “data” improve their lives in the slightest? The sheer cost of electricity, water, and land that these data centers consume is staggering, and many wonder how our electric grid and water reservoirs could ever supply the needed resources without averting a total disaster.

According to www.datacentermap.com, 37 data centers currently operate in Oklahoma. Many of these are small facilities that our grid can handle. But the new data centers are “hyperscale”, dedicated to processing unheard-of amounts of information for AI purposes, and will use millions of gallons of water, and more electricity per day than most Oklahoma cities.

Four hyperscale data centers currently in the planning phase or already under construction are located in Claremore, Coweta, another on the outskirts of Owasso, and another just outside of Sand Springs. Dubbed ‘Project Mustang’, Project Atlas’, ‘Project Clydesdale’, and ‘Project Spring’, all four complexes will be located within 20 miles of each other, and are projected to use vast amounts of water and electricity each day.

Project Mustang is planned 300-acre data center, estimated to use 1.5 million gallons of water per day. Project Atlas, a $1 billion, 200-acre data center, will use an estimated 400 MW of electricity per day. Project Anthem will be located on 304 acres and is projected to use 2 million gallons of water per day. Project Clydesdale will span roughly 500 acres, and use an estimated 7 million gallons per day. The developer, Beale Infrastructure, has not publicly disclosed estimated electricity demand for the complex.

Google’s Project Spring is set to be a massive, 827-acre hyperscale data center located just outside of Sand Springs. Despite overwhelming public opposition, the Sand Springs city council approved rezoning for facility in a 6-1 vote. Beau Wilson, to his credit, was the lone dissenting vote. Local grassroots group Sand Springs Alliance filed a lawsuit, alleging violations of annexation policies. Residents voiced they concerns about a doubling of their utility bills, concerns that fell on deaf ears.

One point of great contention is the fact that many city councils and counties sign non-disclosure agreements with data center developers long before the public learns anything at all, and before the backroom deals begin to take shape. Details of a deal for a planned data center in Stillwater was kept under wraps for months before the public was made aware that the new facility would be a Google-owned data center. Almost every planned data center has been wrapped in vague wording, almost up to the moment that the deal is inked.

The real questions that are never answered clearly is: is this sustainable? Do we have enough water and electricity long-term to allow these enormous facilities to operate in our state without devastating consequences for Oklahoma residents? What the residents who understand the issue want to know is simply this: what are our leaders getting us into?

The biggest AI companies in the world are bypassing our Legislature entirely, going straight to small city councils with their slick presentations about how their gargantuan facility will somehow benefit their community. Councilmembers see dollar signs, and not much else, apparently. Is it really appropriate for city councils to hold such consequential decision-making power over these ventures when the outcome could very well lead to a doubling or tripling of utility bills, or at worse, ecological disaster? And when those councils appear to completely disregard the voices of their residents, it is appropriate to ask whether they should be stripped of this power entirely.

Thankfully, several Oklahoma legislators have taken notice of this ominous development, and have offered legislation to pump the brakes on the data center invasion. Tulsa Rep. Amanda Clinton has filed a host of bills aimed at creating transparency. HB 3392 would require the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to conduct studies of the long-term impact of these large load data centers on the communities they operate in. The bill recently passed out of Committee to a unanimous vote. HB 3394 would require the Commission to keep a detailed database of all data centers in the state. HB 3397 would “quantify the electricity needs of large-load electric users, such as data centers and other industrial operations, measure their impacts and find ways to ensure these large-load users pay their fair share”, according to Clinton.

State Senator Ken Sacchieri filed SB 1488, which would impose a moratorium on data center construction until November 1st, 2029.

Rep. Brad Boles filed HB 2992, the Data Center Consumer Ratepayer Protection Act of 2026, requiring data centers to pay for their own infrastructure costs, rather than offloading it on current residents through rate hikes.

Rep. Mickey Dollins filed HB 3917, which would force large load electricity consumers to pay a surcharge during peak electricity demands. The bill passed unanimously out of the House Appropriations and Budget Natural Resources Subcommittee and now heads to the House Appropriations and Budget Committee before being slated for a vote.

The big lie surrounding this issue is that data centers are inevitable, and we should just accept it, and let them be built. But we know that this isn’t inevitable, and we do have the power to direct the destiny of our communities if we organize and oppose them. A planned data center in New Brunswick, New Jersey, was just defeated after intense pushback from local residents. Another data center project in Monterey Park, California, was scrapped after a sustained and organized opposition campaign was waged by local residents. Data Center Watch reports that $64 billion of data center projects have been successfully opposed across the nation.

It is possible, if only there is a will.

February 22, 2026 0

Representative Jim Shaw Announces ‘Save Oklahoma Plan’ Endorsed By 21 Liberty-Minded Organizations In Oklahoma

We The People are over it.

I mean, seriously OVER IT. Our tax dollars are stolen from us and then used for everything from giving tax incentives to PRIVATE COMPANIES like OG&E (yet our electric bills keep going up) and Google (so they can keep trying to put data centers in our backyards) to backing each other up to keep an abusive husband – Representative Ty Burns – from having to suffer the same consequences any of us We The People would in that same situation, to preventing We The People’s choice for House Representative in District 32 (the author of “the plan”) from hearing any of the bills he proposed to solve the issues We The People elected him to solve.

Please, PLEASE don’t talk about Oklahoma like it’s a red state. It’s not. Certainly, our AG (who’s literally told a We The People to take a hike with her petition and that he doesn’t care if nobody votes for him) Gentner Drummond (and then commenced sentencing and adjudication of Rep Burns to misdemeanors in less than one day because he didn’t think Burns’ attempt to gouge his wife’s eyes out rose to the level of a serious crime).

Pause. Let’s watch the video of gubernatorial hopeful Drummond telling a voter he’s “not a politician, I’m a grown ass adult” and “I don’t have to have your vote“:

That was fun wasn’t it! Sounds like a representative of We The People, huh? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

Well, today, We The People guy, Representative Jim Shaw, released what he’s calling his “Save Oklahoma Plan” – a plan to which 21 liberty-minded organizations – including this one! – have signed on to promote because we believe it will help bring liberty to Oklahoma’s We The People. You can see his announcement on X below (if you’re not following Shaw, take a second to do that before you go on…).

SEE BELOW! 👇 https://t.co/Fes0wKszEa
— Jim Shaw (@ShawForOK) September 2, 2025

Shaw’s plan encompasses 7 points:

Fight the Green Agenda
Prohibit agricultural use of biosolid waste (human poop)
Criminalize hostile foreign ownership of (Oklahoma) land
Mandatory E-Verify for all Oklahoma businesses
End perpetual toll roads and expose the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority
Stop discrimination based on vaccination status
End taxpayer funded lobbying

Just to be clear: these are all things that many of our Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma have told us they – like We The People – want, but when push comes to shove and a good bill is authored, it’s either not heard in committee, or when brought to the floor, these lawmakers VOTE WITH THE CHAMBER, or whatever lobbying arm is funding their campaigns.

THIS HAS TO STOP.

We so appreciate Jim Shaw’s stalwart leadership and those of us who have endorsed this plan will be working hard to make sure it all comes to fruition in 2026 – the year of MANY ELECTIONS!

The plan can be found in full below. Please pass on this information to others that you know because We The People need to back this plan and see it through if we’re going to see change on these issues.

Join with us and let’s send a message to the ‘leadership’ in our state capitol that WE’RE OVER IT with the elitist, political-class rule of our state as though we’re an oligarchy instead of a REPUBLIC!

September 2, 2025 0

Oklahoma’s Republican Supermajority Passes More Democrat Bills Through The House Than Republican Bills

Republicans Lose To Democrats in a Republican Supermajority

Oh, don’t get me started on this two-tiered committee system dreamed up by the House leadership this year. If you haven’t seen my critique of the House on Organizational Day, you might want to take a bit to at least listen to that. It was a phenomenal specter of what we’ve now seen as the House and Senate begin to hear each other’s bills and head for the legislative finish line.

You might even follow that up by reading this overview of what happened to at least one of our House members this year – not a single one of Representative Jim Shaw’s bills were heard on the floor. Not. A. One. In fact, I make the argument that, in a way, everyone in his district should throw their own little Boston Tea Party because I couldn’t find a better current day example of Taxation Without Representation. Honestly, disgusting – but again – I think those of us who have watched politics for a time could have seen that coming.

Former House Rep. Jason Murphy penned a phenomenal article summing up the huge issue of our Republican majority House, passing more Democratic bills out to the Senate than Republicans. I’ve asked his permission to copy some of that into this blog because you need to see his commentary. If you’d like to share his article directly, it’s called, “Why is Oklahoma’s GOP House Protecting Illegal Alien Drivers? The Secret Behind The Blocked Effort to Close The Illegal Alien Driver’s License Loophole?” and you can find it on his Oklahoma State Capitol Substack.

Below is a section from his article:

Navigating even one committee in the House’s smoke-and-mirrors system is challenging enough, especially when certain privileged legislators can kill bills without proper consideration. Navigating two committees, however, is mighty difficult for grassroots legislation lacking institutional support. Such legislation will most certainly struggle to pass through the closed-door decisions of two separate committee chairmen, either of whom can single-handedly halt a bill’s progress.

This essentially created a new layer through which grassroots legislation could be killed without the people closest to the Speaker having to get their hands dirty by refusing to give the bill a hearing before the full house.

So, back to Murphy’s article? What was that case-in-point bill, killed by the system?

It was House Bill 1043. And it was a vital proposal, based on an already enacted Florida law, that closes the loophole by which illegal invaders of our nation are using blue-state driver’s licenses to drive on Oklahoma roads.

Nineteen states reportedly offer driving privileges to the invaders, including New Mexico and Colorado, states that border Oklahoma.

The need for House Bill 1043 became very apparent when Oklahoma City Democrat Arturo Alonso-Sandoval, in declaring his opposition to the reform, reportedly claimed that “many” are using out-of-state licenses.

If Alonso-Sandoval is correct, Oklahoma’s roads are likely buzzing with those who have been enabled by blue states to bypass our driving laws and regulations. They are presumably living in Oklahoma but aren’t following the requirement that Oklahoma residents must obtain an Oklahoma driver’s license to drive on our roads. They’ve found a blue-state-enabled loophole and once again, a way to get around the laws and regulations by which the citizens are governed.

This disrespect for our laws, is sure to have consequences. Anyone who has been in Oklahoma City traffic recently, has no doubt taken note that something is now very wrong: it’s almost impossible to drive through that city without encountering an insane driver who has no regard for the traffic laws—almost as if they have no reason to respect the laws or fear of their enforcement.

House Bill 1043, by Jenkins of the House and Bullard of the Senate, would have closed that blue-state-enabled loophole by refusing to recognize these illegal alien driver’s licenses.

The bill was heard in the public safety committee where it was unanimously approved.

At that point, the legislation should have advanced to the house floor for a hearing before the full house.

But that’s where Hilbert’s new system—and one tyrannical super committee chairman—stood in the way. That chairman, Robert Manger, recently eked out a narrow election win after declaring to his constituents that he was 100% conservative. How, or what he based that on, is unclear, but it was just enough of a head fake to eke out a victory. But what is known, is that according to The Oklahoma Constitution’s Conservative Index—which since 1979 has been Oklahoma’s gold standard for gauging the voting of legislators—Manger actually scored a mere 60% conservative score in 2024.

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But no, the self-declared 100% conservative, Manger, simply refused to as much as give the bill a hearing in his committee.

Thus House Bill 1043 provides us with the perfect case-in-point of how Kyle Hilbert’s new committee system is functioning. It’s another new hallway of smoke and mirrors added to the already crazy house that is the House of Representatives.

So, if after reading that, you can’t see your way to become involved in the 2026 elections in order to get some of the worst offenders of this system out, then please move to another state – like Colorado or California – they’re already ruined. In the meantime, follow those of us reporting on grassroots efforts and let’s push back with everything we have. This is getting nuts.

April 5, 2025 0

Governor Stitt Calls Us “Political Animals”, The Oklahoman Calls Us “Far Right-Wing” – Who Really ARE HD32 Jim Shaw Supporters?

It is a very sad thing to have to say, but we’ve come to a point in our country when the basic values held by so many in America – particularly rural Americans – of hard work, faith in Jesus Christ, love of family, patriotism, being neighborly and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps without bending the knee and kissing the ring of government, are being out right demonized.

And not just demonized by a media many Americans today have begun to realize merely manufacture government propaganda rather than reporting actual news, but by their own elected representatives and fellow citizens.

This primary season, a young man from HD32 – a district which bumps up against the border of eastern Oklahoma county where I live – decided he had great concerns about what was happening in his backyard.

Plans are being enacted by private ‘green energy’ companies (which get American tax-payer subsidies and couldn’t exist in the free market without them) to create wind generation installations in the back 40’s of these Oklahomans – some of whom have maintained family ownership of their properties since statehood. Most landowners don’t want that, yet absentee owners have sold out for the promise of the dollars they think they can collect while ruining the health and vitality of the land of their on-site neighbors with giant, bird-killing, non-compostable, oil-leaking monstrosities and they’re nervous about keeping their land intact. [If you’re interested in the problems with this ‘technology’, you can find a full podcast on the issue here.]

His own Representative, Kevin Wallace (Chairman of the House Appropriations and Budget Committee – a very powerful position in state government because it holds the purse strings to how Oklahoman’s tax dollars are spent), admitted to dumping human waste on his property as fertilizer twice and then defended it by saying that it was legal in Oklahoma to do so.

Biosludge is a nightmare. It smells so badly that neighbors who live downwind of an application often can’t take full breaths outdoors, it draws flies and it contains everything that goes down the sewers in Oklahoma county from pharmaceuticals to industrial chemicals. Like many of his neighbors, this young man had developed great concerns about what this substance could do to the health of his family and his neighbors, but also the health of the aquifer from which we ALL draw in this region. [If you’re interested in the problems with biosludge, you can find a full podcast on the issue here.]

And these are just a few of the concerns residents in the district have had for years.

After realizing that no one – including Wallace – seemed to be confronting the issues that affected them beyond giving them lip service, entrepreneur and family man, HD32 resident, Jim Shaw, decided he needed to run against his politically powerful representative to try and do something about these issues for his neighbors and himself, running on a platform of Land, Livelihoods and Legacies.

The incumbent conducted his campaign abysmally. Wallace called Shaw (a political newcomer and a neighbor) a liar and a hypocrite via social media, direct mail and video ads nearly daily, and – late in the campaign – posted a Google Earth photo of Shaw’s farm with his address clearly labeled for the public to see, calling him a hypocrite for coming out against ‘green energy’ initiatives when he used a small solar panel bank for personal sustainability. According to one writer, Wallace’s construction company has undertaken numerous state jobs, “raising questions about whether Wallace’s legislative position has intersected with his business interests”. But then, Wallace is no stranger to public money, having accumulated about $68,000 in disaster and commodities subsidies over the last 10 years.

Donors to Wallace’s campaign – during which he spent over $440K just in the pre-run off period – read like a “who’s who” of lobbyist, special interests and PACS. In fact, frequent ROPE contributor Karmin Grider found that – over his entire career in the House – Wallace had collected less than 1% of his campaign funds from people in his district.

One of Wallace’s campaign issues centered on a bill to stop foreign ownership of private land in Oklahoma. Shaw researched and found the touted bill did nothing to stop foreign ownership of private land. When he challenged Wallace on the issue, Governor Kevin Stitt produced an off-the-cuff video supporting Wallace, the bill and Wallace’s role in passage of the bill while calling Shaw supporters “political animals”. (But Wallace did vote for a bill to protect people who put biosludge on their farms from possible EPA fines over ‘forever’ chemicals.)

During the run-off election, House Speaker Charles McCall, Governor Kevin Stitt, Marathon PAC Chairman Thomas Tillison (a PAC which contributed $5k to Wallace in the run-off and whose family contributed $7,600 during the primary), Senator Grant Green and Speaker-elect Kyle Hilbert all came to the district to stump for Wallace. (Photos taken from public posts to Kevin Wallace’s Facebook page)

I awoke this morning to a video in Facebook Messenger and a headline from the Oklahoman.

The article in the Oklahoman labeled those of us who supported (and still support heartily) candidate-now-Representative, Jim Shaw, “far right-wing”.

The video (below) was from a man I’ve become friends with while supporting Jim Shaw for election. He lives on his family’s long-held farm in the district, is wildly intelligent and salt-of-the-earth as they come. This is a timeline he created from pictures he’d taken from start to finish of the campaign featuring all the neighbors, friends and now-friends who came together wanting a leadership change in the district.

THESE are the “political animals” – the “far right-wing” people who overturned a powerful member of the Oklahoma legislature when they believed he didn’t have their best interests in mind.

Call us what you will, but we’re God-fearing, loyal, patriotic, self-sufficient and loving. We’re proudly American. We’re your neighbors. We’re everything all Americans USED to be.

So as the propagandists seek to minimize us, demonize us and destroy us, they should just understand one thing with every fiber of their being;

WE’RE THE FOUNDATIONS OF RURAL AMERICA AND WE’RE NEVER GONNA TO CHANGE.

Video audio: Sturgill Simpson Coal Miner Family From Kentucky.

August 29, 2024 3

Seeking His 5th Term, House Appropriations & Budget Chair, Kevin Wallace, Doxes Opponent Whose Supporters Gov. Stitt Calls “Political Animals” And Spends $440 Thousand Dollars To Win Re-Election

Oklahoma Representative, Kevin Wallace is doing EVERYTHING he can to win re-election to a seat that makes $47,500/year with a generous $168/day per diem. Why? Does it have anything to do with the fact that he controls the purse strings for multi-MILLIONS of dollars of taxpayer funds as the House Appropriations and Budget Chair? Who would want access to those millions of dollars forced from hard working citizens each year? Special interests? Businesses?

Wallace drew two challengers for the November 2024 general election – Jim Shaw and Jason Shilling. Both men ran on similar platforms; concern about biosludge application to farmland (Wallace has admitted publicly to dumping humanure/biosludge on his farm twice) and the takeover of private land by solar and wind technology firms, among other issues.

In what could only be called a ‘dark horse’ race, Jim Shaw, beat Wallace by 212 votes in the primary, forcing a run-off election scheduled for Tuesday, August 27th.

[NOTE; only 5117 voters participated in the primary. That’s ONE FIFTH of the REGISTERED voters in HD32 according to Oklahoma County Election Board statistics for January 2024. Get a load of the census data and you’ll see that the percentage of REGISTERED voters is a fraction of the TOTAL of the over 18 citizens in the district. It’s gross. We’re a representative REPUBLIC, but not if YOU DON’T VOTE! If doing anything else is more important than becoming educated about your representatives in government and then voting, MOVE TO ANOTHER COUNTRY! You’re the reason we’re losing this one!]

Jim Shaw moved to Chandler from Arcadia with his wife and two small girls several years ago. He’s never been involved in politics before, and didn’t even have running for an office on his radar, until he became concerned about the assaults being made on the land occupied by Oklahoma’s small farmers and ranchers – solar, wind, biosludge, Chinese land ownership (which has skyrocketed since medical marijuana was legalized) and a swath of land to be usurped for a giant electricity transmission corridor, just to name a few.

Though Wallace has been in office since 2014, the Primary clearly unsettled the incumbent.

Since that time, Kevin Wallace been on a PAC/lobbyist/attorney/business spending spree that has resulted in a reported $380,714.02 spent just for his political consultant, Campaign Advocacy Management Professionals (CAMP) alone. In fact, he has raised a total of $368,738.95 and spent $438,572.96 just since the Primary! What’s interesting, is that there are so few INDIVIDUAL DISTRICT CITIZENS donating to his campaign, I could barely spot them on his report – can you? But that’s not new, don’t forget – we showed in our May 19th video – that less than 1% of all Wallace’s donations came from citizens in his district!

[NOTE; Apparently Wallace LOVES getting taxpayer dollars as much as he LOVES spending taxpayer dollars. He’s taken $67,603 from the federal government in disaster and commodities subsidies since 2015!]

Truly, since the Primary, the HD32 race has been disgusting on the part of Wallace – and his supporter Governor Kevin Stitt! In the video below, Shaw explains that a video recorded by the Governor in support of Wallace – in which the Governor calls Shaw supporters “Political Animals” and then basically calls Shaw a liar by saying that Wallace helped him author a bill to stop Chinese land ownership – is wrong. Shaw shows in the video below that – NO! – the bill that BOTH the Governor and Wallace are talking about HAS NO TEETH. It’s completely unenforceable, rendering it null and void essentially.

But this is nothing new. This is the Kabuki Theater that IS Oklahoma government. If you watch the FULL live video (Rumble, YouTube) you’ll see me go into a rant about how the Common Core legislation was the same – yes, it was repealed from law, but no one could ACT on it to keep it out of schools.

Hopefully, you read a recent article on this blog about Governor Stitt’s TOOTHLESS immigration bill. The Kabuki theater goes like this; you put a title on a bill that the leftist news media will pick up on – never reading the bill – and it goes viral because the lefties are all screaming against it. This automagically makes all those on the right start shouting about how great the bill is to counter their narrative and voila! A bill passes that would be fine except that it will be meaningless once the Task Force the Governor will implement comes back with a way to get the illegals here illegally to stay legally. It’s all nonsense and yet SO MANY people buy it because they won’t research what is actually going on instead of listening to all the media hype.

And then, of course, there’s the post made by Wallace to one of his three Facebook pages (the one from which I’ve been blocked, apparently!), where he has someone from his campaign go onto Jim Shaw’s property to take photos and then puts his address on a PUBLIC POST in an effort to show that Shaw has solar panels on his property, thereby making him a “liar” and a “fraud”.

I’d have been embarrassed to post something like this, but when he was confronted with the FACT that he doxed his opponent, he would simply respond, “It’s called Google”. This person should represent others in his district? I’d also have been embarrassed to conflate a solar panel array on personal property for personal use, with a 10 thousand acre solar installation, but hey, maybe Wallace is just so interested in winning that he’s vacated all rational thought.

Wallace – and his ilk; career politicians who serve special interests above their constituents – are exactly the people we need to remove from public office. Jim Shaw is exactly the person our Founders talked about when they spoke of the importance of Citizen Legislators.

August 25, 2024 1