- Amazon said it will no longer use NDAs when negotiating data centers with local governments. According to the article, this follows a similar announcement Microsoft made earlier this year.
- The announcement appeared in the middle of an Amazon blog post arguing that data centers are good for local communities. The hosts saw it as part of a bigger story the company wants to tell.
- The hosts said that behind residents' worries about property values, electricity bills, and water use lies a history of closed-door negotiations. They also cited Uber's private tax incentive negotiations with local governments in the mid-2010s. However, the article does not clarify whether these concerns are real problems or exaggerated.
- New York State has a pause on permits for large projects for about 1 years, which the article says is expected to last until the state's environmental impact review process is complete. The host noted that this framework leaves room for positions to change later.
The detail that Amazon placed this announcement in the middle of the blog post caught my eye. I'm curious whether the timeline, where the suspension runs from 1 to 2 and the data center only starts operating 5 years after 2, matters as much as the negotiation disclosure. If you have ever looked at the regional negotiation materials directly, I'd appreciate it if you could tell me how far the disclosure actually goes.