Alarmed by 'Rapid, Largely Unregulated Rise' of AI Data Centers, 500+ Groups Demand Congress Pass Moratorium

Over 500 organizations representing millions of people across the United States wrote to Congress on Thursday to call for "a national moratorium on the approval and construction of new data centers," warning that "the rapid, largely unregulated rise" of such projects already threatens "Americans' economic, environmental, climate, and water security."

"The rapid expansion of data centers across the United States, driven by the generative artificial intelligence (AI) and crypto boom, presents one of the biggest environmental and social threats of our generation," the groups wrote. "This expansion is rapidly increasing demand for energy, driving more fossil fuel pollution, straining water resources, and raising electricity prices across the country."

"All this compounds the significant and concerning impacts AI is having on society, including lost jobs, social instability, and economic concentration," the letter notes. "We urge you to join our call for a national moratorium on new data centers until adequate regulations can be enacted to fully protect our communities, our families, our environment, and our health from the runaway damage this industry is already inflicting."

While the letter doesn't name any specific legislation, it came just a few months after a pair of progressive powerhouses, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), announced the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act, a first-of-its-kind federal bill that would prohibit new construction until a range of safeguards are in place.

Thursday's letter was facilitated by the advocacy group Food & Water Watch (FWW)—a key backer of that bill—and signed by hundreds of other national, regional, and state organizations, including Americans for Financial Reform, Center for Constitutional Rights, Center for Food Safety, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace USA, Honor the Earth, Oil Change International, Our Revolution, People's Action Institute, Popular Democracy, Third Act, Women's Earth and Climate Action Network, and more.

"The large and surging national movement to rein in runaway data center build-out was born at the grassroots level, with concerned residents in countless communities across the country reacting to the real harms and hazards this industry brings wherever it lands," said FWW organizing director Emily Wurth in a statement. "We are following their lead, working at the local, state, and federal levels to support these fights and halt Big Tech in its tracks."

In addition to unveiling the letter to Congress on Thursday, the groups announced the Stop Data Centers Coalition. Wurth declared that "the time is right for a national coalition to lift up state and local fights, and drive a national agenda that will allow stakeholders to properly consider not how, but if this industry can operate in a responsible, sustainable manner."

Paco Fabián, deputy director at Our Revolution, said that his organization "is proud to help launch this coalition because a moratorium is necessary to ensure transparency, accountability, and community input before more energy-intensive projects move forward and lock us into decades of higher costs and greater climate risks."

The coalition and letter announcements followed US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (EPA) Lee Zeldin's saying at the Politico Energy Summit on Wednesday that he would not set national requirements for data centers.

"Ten times out of 10, I'm not going to sit inside of an agency building in Washington, DC, and that we say that we know that local community in Georgia or Florida or Arizona or elsewhere, better than everyone there locally," Zeldin said, as polling demonstrates the unpopularity of data centers and people in communities across the country—including from Monterey Park, California and Seattle, Washington just this month—come together to block new projects.

Responding to Zeldin's remarks, Clara Vondrich, senior policy counsel with Public Citizen's Climate Program, said in a statement that he "just gave Big Tech the green light to build data centers that will consume massive amounts of power and water without any enforcement by the EPA. He says he won't meddle in community affairs, but his inaction dooms communities to higher asthma rates, noise and light pollution, and new fossil fuel infrastructure the climate can't afford."

"Once again, the administration is dangerously out of touch with the needs and wants of the American people: A majority of registered voters oppose building data centers in their local area, and 6 in 10 think that if a data center opened in their local area, their electricity bills would increase," Vondrich continued. "Yet the administration insists on enabling Big Tech companies in the race to be first and fastest, cosigning their reckless build-out of behemoth AI data centers with a combination of gas, diesel, and even coal."

"Zeldin is right that we should follow what communities want. And that's clear: no dirty data centers near their homes, schools, parks, and playgrounds," she added. "Big Tech executives have lobbied hard to ingratiate themselves into the Trump administration's orbit... Zeldin made clear that their investment was money well spent."