Protect the Commonwealth of PA and Residents from the Harms of Unregulated Data Centers

Data centers threaten Pennsylvania and its residents by:

• Consuming unsustainable amounts to freshwater for cooling, jeopardizing drinking water supplies, agriculture, and ecosystems, especially during drought and climate instability.
• Drawing enormous amounts of electricity that drive up utility costs, stress power grids, and increase greenhouse gas emissions when powered by fossil fuels.
• Creating constant noise, light pollution, heat islands, and industrial traffic that degrade quality of life, harm wildlife, and reduce property values in nearby neighborhoods.
• Undermining locally adopted comprehensive plans and long-terms land-use priorities, replacing residential, conservation, and agricultural areas with industrial facilities residents never consented to.
• Shifting infrastructure costs, environmental risks, and health burden onto communities while corporate operators capture the profits.

Therefore, we respectfully urge Representative Robert Leadbeter, Senator Lynda Schlegel Culver and Governor Josh Shapiro along with the PA Legislature to:

• Immediately impose a statewide moratorium on the approval, construction, expansion, or operation of large-scale data centers until comprehensive, evidence-based regulations and enforcement mechanisms are in place.
• Prohibit permits, tax incentives, subsidies, or infrastructure support for data centers that rely on fossil fuels or require large-scale freshwater withdrawals.
• Enact binding protections that prevent data centers from significantly increasing greenhouse gas emissions, straining electrical grids, consuming scarce water, or harming surrounding communities, farmland, ecosystems.
• Require robust environmental assessments, transparent public hearings and meaning community consent, to include impacted municipalities, before data centers can be approved.