Dozens of cities and counties across the US have imposed local moratoriums on data center development in response to local opposition. At least a dozen state legislatures have introduced state-level moratoriums this year, including Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
But Sanders’ bill represents a significant departure from many of these laws. The new bill focuses not only on the environmental and community impacts of data centers, but also on AI security as a whole. Since his announcement in December, Sanders has been vocal about the potential threats posed by AI to society, especially workers.
“It makes sense to me that his bill is going to focus primarily on that aspect,” says Mitch Jones, policy and litigation director at Food & Water Watch, an environmental watchdog group that has advised Sanders’ office on the moratorium. Food & Water Watch also called for a December letter from progressive groups.
The Pew survey found that Democrats are more likely to view data centers negatively — but it’s not just national progressives raising concerns. Even before Sanders stated his opposition to data centers, some prominent Republican and MAGA politicians, including Representative Thomas Massie, Senator Josh Hawley, and then-Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene, were already vocally questioning data center construction. Last month, Hawley and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal introduced a bill to protect customers from electricity rate increases caused by data centers. In December, Steve Bannon, one of the most influential anti-AI voices in Washington, hosted a segment of his war Room The podcast is called “Data Centers Are Swallowing Public Lands.”
Many of the bills introduced at the state level were sponsored by Democratic politicians. (Food & Water Watch helped draft the New York bill.) Bills in some states, including Oklahoma, were introduced by Republicans; Georgia’s bill had both Democratic and Republican cosponsors.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been particularly vocal on the potential harm from both data centers and artificial intelligence. “I don’t think there are very many people who want higher energy bills just because some chatbot can corrupt a 13-year-old online,” DeSantis said at an AI roundtable in February. In December, DeSantis supported legislation that would establish a bill of rights to protect consumers from potential harms from AI, including preventing minors from interacting with AI chatbots without parental consent, as well as a data center proposal to strip subsidies from tech companies and prevent data centers from increasing electricity bills. The resulting AI Bill of Rights Act passed the state Senate, but died in the House.
Both the White House and Big Tech companies have acknowledged that the push to build data centers suffers from a poor public perception. In March, representatives from top data center developers and AI companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Google, gathered at the White House to sign a non-binding agreement aimed at making data centers pay for “the full cost of their energy and infrastructure” and protecting consumers from rate increases. “Data centers…they need some PR help,” President Donald Trump said at the event. Experts told WIRED that the agreement signed at the White House was largely symbolic, and some of the key objectives of the agreement — including covering any additional costs on data center customers’ bills — are largely out of the hands of both the White House and the tech companies.
“The moratorium would limit Internet capacity, slow critical services, eliminate hundreds of high-paying jobs, reduce billions in local tax revenues and increase costs for American families and small businesses,” Cy McNeil, senior director of federal affairs at the Data Center Coalition, an industry group, told WIRED in an email. McNeil says the industry is, “committed to working with communities, local officials, state and federal policymakers and administration to ensure the continued responsible growth of this industry while protecting families and businesses.”
