Lawmakers in a number of states are exploring passing legal guidelines that will put statewide bans in place on constructing new datacenters as the difficulty of the power-hungry amenities has moved to the middle of financial and environmental issues within the US.
In Georgia a state lawmaker has launched a invoice proposing what may change into the primary statewide moratorium on new datacenters in America. The invoice is one in every of a minimum of three statewide moratoriums on datacenters launched in state legislatures within the final week as Maryland and Oklahoma lawmakers are additionally contemplating related measures.
However it’s Georgia that’s shortly changing into floor zero within the combat towards untrammelled development of datacenters – that are infamous for utilizing enormous quantities of vitality and water – as they energy the rising business of synthetic intelligence.
The Georgia invoice seeks to halt all such initiatives till March of subsequent yr “to permit state, county and municipal-level officers time to set essential insurance policies for regulating datacenters … which completely alter the panorama of our state”, mentioned invoice sponsor state Democratic legislator Ruwa Romman.
It comes at a time when Georgia’s public service fee – the company that oversees utility firm Georgia Energy – simply final month authorised a plan to offer 10 further gigawatts of vitality within the coming years. It was the most important quantity of electrical energy hunted for a multi-year plan within the fee’s historical past, was pushed by datacenters and can principally be equipped by fossil fuels.
The ten-gigawatt plan – sufficient to energy about 8.3m properties – in flip comes because the Atlanta metro space led the nation in datacenter development in 2024.
This accelerated development has already led a minimum of 10 Georgia municipalities to cross their very own moratoriums on datacenter development, with Atlanta suburb Roswell changing into the latest earlier this month. Municipalities in a minimum of 14 states have completed the identical, in line with Tech Coverage Press.
Bernie Sanders, the Vermont impartial democratic socialist senator, proposed a nationwide moratorium final month.
“What we’re seeing is, as communities are studying extra about this aggressive business’s presence … [they] need to have time to totally examine all potential harms,” mentioned Seth Gladstone, spokesperson for Meals and Water Watch.
The rampant improvement of datacenters to energy AI raises a number of issues for residents and activists alike. One is their impression on the price of electrical energy. “Within the public’s thoughts, datacenters and utility payments are inextricably linked,” mentioned Charles Hua, founder and govt director of PowerLines, a corporation that works on decreasing utility payments and involving communities in choices about vitality.
Hua famous that the connection between the 2 varies, relying on every state’s market and regulatory system. In Georgia, he mentioned, the Georgia Energy utility firm makes revenue off new capital investments – so it has incentive to maintain constructing new energy crops. This strategy has led Georgia’s charges to go up by a 3rd within the final a number of years alone. In the meantime, he mentioned, the facility firm doesn’t have incentive to make {the electrical} grid extra environment friendly – which “may truly decrease costs”, Hua mentioned.
However datacenter issues in Georgia additionally embody water use and misplaced tax income. Republicans within the state legislature have launched payments this yr to guard shoppers from will increase of their utility payments and to finish tax breaks for the facilities. A Democrat has proposed that datacenters make public how a lot vitality and water they use every year.
Romman can also be operating for governor. If elected, she would change into the primary Palestinian American elected to statewide workplace in Georgia and break the close to quarter-century maintain Republicans have on the workplace.
Her invoice, HB 1012, has a Republican co-sponsor in state consultant Jordan Ridley, who mentioned he signed onto the measure as a result of he wished to present native governments time to develop zoning rules on datacenters, since “it looks like they’re being constructed throughout the state”.
“Each native authorities has zoning codes and … they want public enter. That takes time,” Ridley mentioned. On the similar time, Ridley added, “datacenters … present tax income and high-paying jobs. I’m not towards datacenters.”
Romman’s invoice is not only a coverage proposal; it’s additionally a political one. In a press release, she wrote that the moratorium “would offer time for Georgians to vote on nearly all of the Public Service Fee seats who make remaining choices on energy-related initiatives”.
Georgia is one in every of 10 states that elect their utility regulators. Voters within the state elected progressive Democrats Alicia Johnson and Peter Hubbard to the five-member fee in November, main the company to lose its all-Republican make-up for the primary time in almost 20 years. One other seat is up for a vote this November.
The calculus: if the fee turns into majority-Democratic, it is going to now not give a rubber stamp to electrical energy calls for from Georgia Energy pushed by tech firms searching for to construct datacenters.
Hubbard, now in his new place, lately wrote an editorial asserting that Georgia voters “see information facilities receiving tax breaks as their energy payments go up. They see native communities wrestle with competitors for water provides and excessive voltage transmission strains that scale back property values. And so they see how the PSC authorised each request positioned earlier than it by the monopoly electrical utility.
“This is the reason opposition to information facilities is rising in Georgia; as a result of Georgians oppose being handled as collateral injury by the unregulated development of knowledge facilities that can push their energy payments even greater.”
There’s one other political implication to Romman’s invoice. Paul Glaze, spokesperson for Georgia Conservation Voters, mentioned if the invoice crosses from the Home to the Senate, “it could be a preview of the potential normal election” later this yr.
“The query is, in communities the place datacenters are coming, who’re voters going to belief to have their again?” Glaze mentioned. “Anybody critical about statewide workplace ought to have a transparent place on this.”