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food & water watch
230+ Environmental Groups Call On Congress to Impose Moratorium on New AI Data Centers
“The rapid, largely unregulated rise of data centers to fuel the AI and crypto frenzy is disrupting communities across the country and threatening Americans’ economic, environmental, climate, and water security.”
Dec 08, 2025
Environmental and economic justice advocates alike have been sounding the alarm for months regarding the Trump administration's push to built massive data centers to support artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency in communities across the United States—regardless of local opposition—and on Monday Congress heard from a coalition of more than 200 groups demanding action to stop what they called "one of the biggest environmental and social threats of our generation."
Led by Food and Water Watch (FWW), which originally demanded a moratorium on new AI data centers in October, more than 230 organizations have signed a letter warning that thus far, Congress has failed to take action to stop the rapid expansion despite the fact that "the harms of data center growth are increasingly well-established, and they are massive."
The national and state groups, including Greenpeace USA, Oil Change International, and the Nebraska-based Save Rural America, pointed to a number of harms associated with the expansion of data centers in places including rural Michigan, Wisconsin, and northern Virginia.
They warned that pushing the build-out onto communities—many of which have protested the approval of the centers to no avail—will lead to:
- Enormous electricity consumption, with a tripling of data centers in the next five years projected to result in the facilities consuming as much electricity as about 30 million households;
- Unsustainable water consumption, with those data centers requiring the amount of water normally used by 18.5 million households, just for cooling the computer servers;
- The worsening of the climate emergency, with 56% of the energy used to power data centers sourced from planet-heating fossil fuels;
- Surging electricity costs for people living in the vicinity of energy-sucking data centers; and
- Skyrocketing job losses as half of all entry-level white-collar jobs are projected to become obsolete due to the growth of AI and companies' investments in the technology, even as corporations report they're not seeing a significant positive impact on their bottom lines.
"The rapid, largely unregulated rise of data centers to fuel the AI and crypto frenzy is disrupting communities across the country and threatening Americans’ economic, environmental, climate, and water security," the groups told Congress. "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."
The groups noted that electricity costs have risen 21.3% since 2021, a rate that "drastically" outpaces inflation, driven by the "rapid build-out of data centers."
As CNBC reported last month, residential utility bills rose 6% in August compared with last summer, and though price increases can be due to a host of reasons, electricity prices rose "much faster than the national average" this year in states with high concentrations of data centers. Consumers in Virginia paid 13% more, while those in Illinois paid 16% more and people in Ohio saw their costs go up 12%.
Emily Wurth, managing director of organizing at FWW, told the Guardian that rising utility costs are driving much of the grassroots action against data centers in places like Wisconsin—where a woman was violently dragged out of a community meeting by police last week after speaking out against plans for a new facility in her town—and Tucson, Arizona, where residents successfully pushed the City Council this year to block a data center project linked to Amazon.
“I’ve been amazed by the groundswell of grassroots, bipartisan opposition to this, in all types of communities across the US,” Wurth told the Guardian. “Everyone is affected by this, the opposition has been across the political spectrum. A lot of people don’t see the benefits coming from AI and feel they will be paying for it with their energy bills and water... We’ve seen outrageous utility price rises across the country and we are going to lean into this. Prices are going up across the board and this is something Americans really do care about.”
Data center projects worth a total of $64 billion have been blocked or delayed in states including Texas, Oregon, and Tennessee, and Reuters reported last week that a sizable portion of the opposition is coming from parts of the country that heavily supported President Donald Trump in last year's election.
Hundreds of people attended a recent meeting in Montour County, Pennsylvania, where Trump won by 20 points last year, raising alarm over plans to rezone 1,300 acres for Talen Energy to build a data center.
While raising prices for households that are already coping with high grocery and healthcare bills, the unregulated growth in AI data centers is also expected to add up to 44 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in just the next five years—the equivalent of putting 10 million new fossil fuel-powered cars on the road at a time when planetary heating has already been linked to recent US weather disasters like Hurricane Helene and deadly heatwaves.
The groups appealed to Congress as Trump said he plans to sign an executive order preempting state-level AI regulations, saying that states, "many of them bad actors," should not be "involved in RULES and the APPROVAL PROCESS.”
Republicans in Congress have also recently suggested they could try to ban state-level AI regulations in the National Defense Authorization Act.
The Trump administration and its allies in the industry have issued warnings to communities that oppose the construction of AI data centers, with the White House's AI Action Plan demanding the fast-tracking of permits for building the facilities and former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) lobbying for the industry and recently telling local officials in Chandler, Arizona that "federal preemption is coming" and they must approve plans for a 20,000-square foot data center in the city.
A Morning Consult poll taken last month found that public support for the centers is falling as rapidly as companies try to take over rural and suburban communities with new data centers. More than 40% said they supported a ban on the construction of new facilities, up from 37% just a month prior.
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Has Sen Schumer Learned Costly Lessons in the Federal Spending Fight?
With very few opportunities for the minority party to make a difference, Schumer and Senate Democrats now must hold strong to stand up for everyday Americans and their access to the most basic essentials.
Sep 26, 2025
In March, Food & Water Watch joined a chorus of organizations calling on New York Sen. Chuck Schumer to step aside as Democratic minority leader after his disastrous capitulation during the last federal appropriations fight. At the time, President Donald Trump and Elon Musk were running rampant, defunding and destroying critical climate, food, and water programs. But instead of fighting to mitigate the harms, Schumer led fellow Senate Democrats in ceding any leverage they had by capitulating to Republicans’ six-month spending bill without demanding any concessions or procedural backstops.
Now the opportunity has returned to leverage the significant power Senate Democrats have ahead of the latest spending deadline. For the moment it seems that Schumer has learned some lessons from the earlier debacle. He led his caucus to reject a House spending proposal and support an alternative plan to protect critical food, water, and health programs from Trump’s dangerous cuts. He must continue to demonstrate this leadership as the September 30 spending deadline draws near.
Trump and congressional Republicans are playing a dangerous game of chicken, running headfirst into a government shutdown on October 1 with no off-ramp. Trump has refused to even meet with Democratic leadership, and House Republicans are refusing to come back to work until after the funding deadline. They are following the same playbook they used in March to force the hands of Schumer and Senate Democrats. It worked then, and it will work again if Schumer doesn’t stand strong.
After all, the stakes couldn’t be higher: Access to safe, affordable food, clean water, basic healthcare, and so much more.
A Democratic counter proposal from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) includes a key protection against partisan rescissions. We are encouraged that Schumer claims to support this plan.
Though congressional Republicans tout their spending bill as a “clean” extension of current funding levels, this commitment is belied by their threatened use of partisan rescissions to enact Trump’s dangerous cuts later on. This backdoor process fast-tracks the elimination of previously agreed upon funding. While the spending bill needs the support of Senate Democrats to reach the 60-vote threshold to avoid the filibuster, with partisan rescissions Trump can later send Congress a list of programs to eliminate through a simple majority vote—without requiring any Democratic support.
Case in point: Congressional Republicans slashed funding for public television and radio—long an aim of the right—through this partisan rescission process earlier in the year. Trump has further abused this tool to illegally withhold funding through a so-called “pocket rescission,” issuing a last-minute request to freeze funds, run out the clock on the fiscal year, and unilaterally cut congressionally-approved funds. This is unconstitutional.
Further backdoor cuts threaten everything from the environment to education to healthcare. On clean water specifically, Trump and congressional Republicans have proposed slashing funding for the Environmental Protection Agency, which sets limits on contaminants in water, develops methods to test for and removes toxic substances, and establishes regulations that prevent water pollution in the first place. Slashing the EPA will imperil the ability of regulators to enforce clean water standards, making our water less safe and Americans more sick.
Republicans have also proposed slashing funding for water infrastructure. In fact, Trump’s spending proposal calls for virtually eliminating funding for the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds—the primary source of federal funding for water infrastructure in the country. Our water infrastructure is already dramatically underfunded. Federal cuts will make it even more difficult for municipalities to respond to acute threats to water safety, including toxic PFAS “forever chemicals,” lead, and climate change-induced storms and flooding. The result will be higher water bills for households and business, and dirtier, dangerous water.
Senate Democrats must reject the House spending bill for these and many other reasons. Fortunately, a Democratic counter proposal from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) includes a key protection against partisan rescissions. We are encouraged that Schumer claims to support this plan.
Recently we facilitated a letter from more than 200 groups across the country that was sent to Sen. Schumer, demanding just this. The letter was signed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Oxfam America, Popular Democracy, and Public Citizen, among many others. It seems that Sen. Schumer is finally listening.
With very few opportunities for the minority party to make a difference, Schumer and Senate Democrats now must hold strong to stand up for everyday Americans and their access to the most basic essentials, including clean water. No budget deal that allows for future partisan rescissions can be allowed to pass.
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Trump's MAHA Report Reads Like a Big Ag Wish List
Making Americans healthy will require confronting the very corporate polluters who got us in this mess—not capitulating to more of their demands.
Sep 13, 2025
US President Donald Trump’s “Make America Healthy Again” ploy is more sinister than we have been led to believe. More than disingenuous lip service to a legitimately concerned—and powerful—voting bloc, Trump’s MAHA is a dangerous smokescreen designed to consolidate power with the corporations responsible for harming us all. The release of the White House MAHA Commission strategy report this week put this on full display.
The report, written by a commission chaired by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is designed to convey the Trump administration’s priorities on food and childhood chronic disease. In truth, its deregulatory proposals read like an agriculture industry wish list—Big Ag corporations and trade groups were among the few voices of support.
Making Americans healthy will require confronting the very corporate polluters who got us in this mess—not capitulating to more of their demands. Trump is doing just the opposite, letting some of the nation’s biggest corporations off the hook: pesticide manufacturers, livestock producers, and big chemical companies.
The MAHA Commission report is most notable for what it lacks, including any recommendations to regulate toxic pesticides. An abundance of research links these ubiquitous agricultural chemicals to everything from cancers and Parkinson’s disease, to birth defects and developmental disorders.
In May, Kennedy’s team identified concerns about children’s exposure to pesticides. The backlash from food and farm industry groups was swift. The administration consequently hosted a parade of industry groups including CropLife America, Walmart, and Coca-Cola. In fact, Kennedy testified in a recent Senate hearing that he had entertained 140 farm interest groups since May.
In keeping with White House promises to industry lobbyists, the MAHA strategy report lacks any mention of concern for pesticide exposure, parrots pesticide industry talking points, and pulls punches on pesticide regulation. It even promotes the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) pesticide review process as robust and sufficient, which couldn’t be further from the truth. This review process has routinely been proven vulnerable to corporate influence.
This report is yet another step in Trump’s dangerous deregulatory agenda that will make America very, very sick.
This unwillingness to tackle toxic pesticides goes directly against the demands of voters and Kennedy’s own promises: Fully 71% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans support increasing restrictions on the use of pesticides in agriculture.
Meanwhile, Trump’s congressional allies are plotting with pesticide corporations to hamper EPA's ability to better regulate these toxic chemicals and shield pesticide manufacturers from health related lawsuits.
Food & Water Watch research catalogues the multimillion dollar push to pass Cancer Gag Acts in statehouses and Congress. Bayer has spent over $11 billion settling more than 100,000 cancer lawsuits related to its Roundup pesticide, whose key ingredient glyphosate the World Health Organization defines as a probable carcinogen. The federal Cancer Gag Act, expected to be reintroduced this fall as the “Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act,” is reportedly a House Farm Bill priority; House Republicans included related language in a July appropriations vote to prevent EPA from improving pesticide warning labels.
In another capitulation to industry, the MAHA strategy report also fails to address factory farms’ public health impacts. America has become a factory farming nation, with these industrial animal warehouses pockmarking rural communities from coast to coast. These facilities are often sited right next to homes and schools, releasing a cocktail of dangerous air pollution, including particulate matter, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide. These pollutants are linked to asthma and respiratory disease that gravely impact children’s health.
HHS agencies like the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) have the authority to study this pollution and recommend enforceable exposure limits for hazardous air emissions. This would help force factory farms to clean up their act and protect communities from dangerous health impacts. Any report serious about improving children's health must embrace these reforms.
Factory farms are also known drinking water polluters. Food & Water Watch analysis finds that factory farms produce a whopping 941 billion pounds of untreated waste annually. Much of it finds its way into the water we drink, carrying pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, E. coli bacteria, nitrates, and more into drinking water. These pollutants are linked to everything from cancers to antibiotic resistance. Faced with industry pressure, the MAHA report recommends weakening EPA’s already lax regulation of factory farm waste. Congressional Republicans have also introduced dangerous legislation to further deregulate the sector.
In yet another giveaway, the MAHA strategy report fails to adequately address the crisis that Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) contamination is wreaking on our health. These lab-made “forever chemicals,” found in drinking water nationwide, are linked to a large range of health problems including various cancers, altered hormone levels, decreased birth weights, digestive inflammation, and reduced vaccine response.
A full 97% of US residents have PFAS in their blood. Even still, the report makes only a passing mention of this rampant health concern, while simultaneously disregarding the Trump administration’s plan to gut recently-established common-sense PFAS drinking water safety rules. Food & Water Watch research tracks the tens of millions of dollars chemical corporations have spent on a campaign to conceal the health concerns of these forever chemicals—a concealment in which it appears the MAHA Commission is complicit.
The MAHA strategy report is, at best, a reckless industry giveaway. But a close reading belies the truth: This report is yet another step in Trump’s dangerous deregulatory agenda that will make America very, very sick. Trump’s budget cuts, which have gutted food safety oversight and closed food safety labs, stand in stark contrast to the few report takeaways where we agree. Take food chemicals and ultra processed foods for example.
Food & Water Watch has repeatedly called for overhaul of the federal Generally Recognized as Safe Loophole (GRAS) loophole—this report is right to endorse that reform. For years, food companies have self policed which chemicals make it into the food we eat, through this Food and Drug Administration (FDA) loophole. Today, hundreds if not thousands of chemicals are in our food because of this lack of oversight.
Food chemicals like titanium dioxide, potassium bromate, certain food dyes, and meat curing agents are part of a long list of chemicals that advocacy groups have been watching for years enter our food system. Critically, many of these chemicals are banned in other countries, yet still exist today on America’s grocery shelves.
It’s hard to believe Trump is serious about GRAS reform, when he’s busy gutting the very agency that would carry it out. His elimination of 3,500 FDA staff will leave the agency hamstrung, unable to implement even the few positive aspects of the MAHA strategy report.
Ultimately, the White House’s MAHA strategy will only deepen America’s industrial agriculture-driven health crisis. Any administration serious about public health must strictly regulate the corporations putting our food and water supplies at risk. Instead, Trump appears poised to do the very opposite.
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