The American climate movement is beginning to look a lot like AI doomers versus the techno-optimists. It’s a dynamic that is winning local bans – and very little else for now.
On one side, you’ve got the left-leaning insurgent grassroots movement against data centers. In many cases this push is in the name of climate action and environmental justice, with activists citing the risks of pollution from gas-fired power and the potential for strain on existing electricity supplies. But in many, many other cases, this movement is decidedly not about climate action; instead it’s a movement addressing everything from energy prices and power over large corporations to AI use generally.
Or, perhaps the anti-data center movement’s big tent is best summarized in this quote from comedian and activist Ilana Glazer: “The thing that is genuinely waiting for us on the other side of AI and data centers is the collective.”
On the other end of the spectrum, you have a raft of data center-curious centrists, liberals, and, for lack of a better term, capitalists. This diametrically oppositional political force wants to ensure data centers continue being built as states and the federal government figure out how to make policy surrounding them. Yes, they want regulations, but they’ll have to qualify even supporting the idea of a single full state – any state – pausing data centers.
“I tend to find myself in the middle of all of this AI and data center policy, because I don’t think a heavy-handed approach in either direction is smart or productive,” said Tre Easton, vice president of public affairs for the Searchlight Institute, a policy think tank geared toward pushing Democrats into positions more broadly popular in the general electorate. “If you’re doing moratoria in one state and Meta says, okay, fine, they’ll go to a different state where they’ll run roughshod.” He added: “This buildout is happening. Let’s just make the rules. Put out rules of what this should look like.”
I spent weeks talking to activists fighting data centers to better understand their end goals. Right now what folks want to talk about most is moratoria, until industry-specific regulation is in place governing all things energy, water, noise, and labor.
“Our motto is ban, legislate, regulate,” said Ben Dziobek, founder of Climate Revolution Action Network, which is fighting data center expansion in New Jersey. Dziobek’s organization is one of roughly five dozen in the Garden State that have called on newly-elected Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherill to institute a moratorium on data centers, including state representatives from The Nature Conservancy and ACLU.
When I asked Dziobek what he’d like to see after a moratorium, the answer was clear: he wants to see Big Tech pay for the energy transition. “It would be beneficial if we could get companies who are using more load than entire states to build out the clean energy future. Someone’s gotta pay for this. The largest companies in the world have to come in.”
Undoubtedly this movement is increasingly influential and rooted in a now bipartisan concern about data centers founded in valid concerns about data center impacts and the rise of AI. But at least right now, In New Jersey, and so many other Democrat-controlled states, this movement has won little ground outside the local level and no statewide Democratic leader (e.g. governor) has made a data center moratorium their raison d'être. Neither have I seen the push for a moratorium pick up steam in any state known as a deep blue bastion for climate policy. Its greatest achievements by the numbers are the cancellation rate of projects that have faced local pushback (37%, according to Heatmap Pro), the city-wide moratoria in large left-leaning bastions like Denver, and the sheer existence of a federal data center moratorium bill led by progressive celebrities like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
In fact, what I am seeing is Democratic statewide leaders rejecting efforts to curtail their development or regulate energy and water usage. In California last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill requiring data center developers to report their water use. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul has so far shrugged off a push for her to back a three-year moratorium on new data centers. In Massachusetts, Gov. Maura Healey supports continuing to foster the state’s data center buildout and the state is preserving its data center sales tax exemption at a time when GOP leaders in other states want to repeal similar subsidies. Colorado legislators abandoned a push to regulate data centers earlier this month, after Washington state did the same.
Perhaps infamously in Maine, the Democrat-led state legislature nearly enacted a two-year moratorium on data center development only to be vetoed by Gov. Janet Mills. Democrats then failed to override the veto.
Some Democratic leaders are taking up the light-touch approach. On Wednesday, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro released long-awaited principles for data center developers seeking fast-track permitting processes with state agencies. Under these policies, companies can get permitted more quickly if they abide by a number of energy, water, and labor standards.
On a granular level, even this policy quietly represented a disappointment for climate activists. One of the principles called for data centers to get at least one third of their power from “clean” sources by 2035 – which sounds nice until you realize Shapiro only two years ago was calling for utilities to get at least half of their electricity from carbon-free sources by then. Food & Water Watch, a national group calling for country-wide data center moratoria, blasted a press release going after Shapiro to the media after the principles were released: “[This] is a naive effort to placate widespread data center opposition. It won’t work.”
For climate activists, the best case scenario right now may be blue states taking up bills to regulate the sector as opposed to a blanket moratorium, where the push for a pause functions as leverage. Often these bills are focused on energy costs for consumers, not environmental protection, like in Oregon where last year legislators enacted a measure requiring data center companies to pay for their share of electricity demand. In Vermont this week, the state legislature passed a similar bipartisan data center bill focused on energy affordability, with some restrictions on fossil fuel generation. (Republican Gov. Phil Scott is expected to sign it.)
Indeed, the climate movement’s smartest play could be to push legislation requiring facilities not only pay for their power but ensure it is zero-carbon emissions. So far, Democrat-led bills that would accomplish this goal gained steam this year in other states but struggled to become law before the end of the legislative session too (Washington, for example).
In Illinois, the bill is known as the POWER Act, but despite lots of Democratic support behind it, it’s languishing in committee limbo ahead of the end of legislative session this week. One can imagine Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker getting a bill like the POWER Act into law and then running for president as The Guy Who Made Data Centers Cleaner. Heaven knows that’s why folks like Hannah Flath, climate communications manager for the Illinois Environmental Council, are so bullish on the bill. “I think it’ll eventually become law. Just not this session.”
I asked Flath why her organization was so focused on this bill as opposed to a data center moratorium. “We just don’t think it is politically feasible. Especially given how attractive these things are to our governor and some state lawmakers,” she said. “Currently, I view climate work as harm reduction work. This is perhaps a cynical view to have but that’s unfortunately where we’re at. How can we ensure changes happening in the world bring more benefits than they do harms?”
But Flath said that as a push for moratoria grows, it provides pressure on state policymakers to act: “What we’re offering state legislators now is a middle ground solution.”
I suppose for now, we’ll have to see if this side can come together on any solution – let alone a middle ground.
