The Health Researcher Diving into Data Center Policy

This week’s conversation is with Emma Uridge, analyst with the Kansas Health Institute. Uridge spent copious hours analyzing state and local laws on data center development to best understand how policymakers are responding to the potential environmental public health impacts of large AI infrastructure, including power and water. The report, which came out this week, also goes in depth into those health impacts. I reached out to her to discuss what she sees as must-watch territory for our readers on this emerging policy arena.

Our conversation was lightly edited for clarity.

What is actually being done on policy when it comes to data centers — beyond moratoria of course?

So first I’d like to just talk about the point of moratoria. It’s helpful to talk about how these policies emerge in the first place. One area where moratoria are helpful is when a data center is proposed but the county has no approach for how they’d like to potentially regulate them. That’s temporary, most of the time. It lets local governments conduct research on the various impacts and also negotiate community benefits, ones that can mitigate any potential negative impacts — like Lancaster Pennsylvania, which instituted a community benefit agreement that maximized the potential benefits of development while mitigating what large data centers can do. That agreement looked at capping municipal water use at 20,000 gallons per day and requiring 100% clean energy. It had financial penalties for non-compliance. The company also committed $20 million to their local economic development and clean energy fund. There are ways to negotiate with developers.

We also see amendments to existing zoning. Data center proposals are increasingly popping up in rural areas, many of which are unzoned, so there’s no way a county can negotiate unless there’s a moratorium in place.

Other policy solutions include different performance standards or requiring on-site renewable energy, like what Jefferson County, Missouri, looked at. Also setback requirements, mandatory noise buffers, ending by-right zoning.

Where are local governments getting ideas for regulating data centers?

A lot of the technical information comes from developers. That can in cases be seen as a biased source of information. I wouldn’t say there’s a dedicated group providing assistance to local governments when a project is proposed — which is a similar story to wind industry development, where we have only a handful of consultants who provide technical advice. It can be really helpful to get a multi-disciplinary approach to hearing information. It can be helpful to have the utility commission, public health folks, those in academia, as well as the developer.

As of right now, especially in rural areas, local governments have a hard task of balancing pushback while getting the most accurate, evidence-based, neutral information to make decisions. That balance can be contentious.

What is the federal government doing on data center policy? How is the Trump administration approaching it?

A few things there. In the early days, the drive was for AI expansion and to be competitive with foreign adversaries. Now due to the amount of public pushback in red and blue localities and a more cautious approach.

I’m not seeing a lot of actual policy movement at this time.

I know the EPA is looking at the chemicals used in cooling data centers because when that water is cycled through the system, some of it is discharged into the water system, so they’re looking at the Toxic Substances and Control Act for monitoring that.

How much of an impact does this minimal federal role have on industry behavior?

Y’know, this isn’t specific to data centers. This is true for all kinds of large-scale development: there’s a need to require some sort of federal monitoring and regulation.

That’s where I see an emerging role for public health. At the federal level, there could be policy movement towards requiring some sort of environmental monitoring at data centers to make sure they’re operating responsibility. Looking at specific water use relative to water availability and what happens when there’s a time of severe, persistent drought. With air quality too — we’ve seen areas where the grid isn’t as reliable so their diesel generators are kicking on more and affecting air quality for residents.

We’re just not seeing all of that right now. We need corporate disclosure.

What do you see as the most important public health impacts from data center development?

It varies by localities. The most discussed obviously is water usage. One thing I’d note about my conversations with folks enthusiastic around emerging tech is, there are still questions that need to be asked about the capacity of localities to support a data center. Like a small town in Kansas may only be using 40% of their water for their utility needs. If a data center came online, how much of that water goes to the data center?

One area underexplored within the public health discipline is energy poverty and energy security. The ability of a household to meet the needs of everything energy provides in our lives. It’s known we have an aging electric grid but we’re not talking enough about large-scale blackouts when the grid is not sufficient to support some of these new data centers.