Small towns across America are being pressured into accepting massive data centers, even after they say no. When local leaders turn a project down, some developers answer with a lawsuit. When residents ask what is being planned, secrecy agreements can keep officials from telling them. State lawmakers have the power to stop this.

Newsrooms in Oregon, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey and Alabama teamed up to investigate how tech developers win land in rural places. Their reporting points to three tools: cash, legal pressure and secrecy.

In Michigan, developers behind a data center linked to Oracle and OpenAI took a small farm town to court after it refused to sell its land. The town is home to 3,000 people. After the lawsuit, town leaders accepted the project. In New Jersey, at least four towns are facing legal threats after rejecting data center plans. In Pennsylvania, one developer offered $10,000 to each household in Hazle if residents agreed to host a data center.

In other Michigan communities, local officials say nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) keep them from sharing data center plans with the residents they serve. People cannot speak up about a project they are not allowed to know about.

A town’s vote should not be overturned by whoever can afford the longest legal fight. Families deserve to know how a project could affect their land, water and roads before it is approved.

The state legislatures of Oregon, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey and Alabama should pass laws that shield towns from lawsuits aimed at forcing them into data center deals, and ban NDAs that stop local officials from sharing project details with the public.

Sign the petition to tell state lawmakers: let small towns decide for themselves and keep these deals in the open, before more communities are pushed into projects they never agreed to.