After weeks of public outcry, Yellowstone County asks state to clarify 2025 data center law

Faster, offline reading & native notifications. Montana's independent nonprofit news source. Your state. Know what's shaping Montana. From community meetings to federal policies, MTFP reporting answers critical questions across the state. The local government saga over a massive data center planned just northwest of Billings continues. In a letter signed this week, Yellowstone County commissioners asked local legislators to review a new law they said is stopping them from regulating the 5,000-acre project near Broadview by developer Quantica Infrastructure. The letter, approved Tuesday by Commissioners Mark Morse, Mike Waters and Chris White, is addressed to the “Members of the Yellowstone County Legislative Delegation” and asks them to “refine” a 2025 law called the Right to Compute Act . The act passed the House 61-38 and the Senate 50-0. It says any government action that hampers the freedom to own and use software, algorithms and other technologies must be “narrowly tailored” to protect the public, and that the government can’t enact those restrictions if there are “less restrictive means” available. Commissioners described the law as overly broad and said it “meaningfully limits the County’s ability to regulate data center development within its jurisdiction.”

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