Dear Friends,
For months, I have raised concerns about the rapid expansion of data centers in Pennsylvania and what it could mean for our electric bills, water resources, environment, and local communities. I have worked with my House colleagues to advance legislation that would give consumers, communities, and local governments greater transparency and stronger protections.
The House has acted. The Senate has not.
In June, the House passed House Bill 2650, the Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) plan, as one of nine bills addressing big tech and data center development that have passed the House. At the time, my colleague Rep. Otten noted, GRID would, for the first time, “attach conditions to the sales tax breaks Pennsylvania gives data center developers, setting requirements for clean energy sourcing, grid upgrade costs, transparency, and community input.” As she commented, GRID is not the ceiling, but rather the floor for establishing meaningful protections instead of continuing to allow a current free-for-all for data center developers.
Because of the Senate’s failure to act on this issue, on Tuesday, Governor Shapiro took?an important step?forward by signing?Executive Order 2026-05,?establishing?stronger requirements for data center?development?and directing Commonwealth agencies to put meaningful guardrails in place.?
The Executive Order requires developers meet the Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) standards and requires local approvals before DEP can issue permits. It also removes data center projects from the state’s Permit Fast Track Program. Administered by the Office of Transformation & Opportunity, Fast Track was created to help streamline high-impact economic development projects through a coordinated interagency review process.
The order also provides municipalities with guidance on zoning and community benefit agreements. That is particularly important because communities have different needs. Some, like ours, are deeply concerned about the impact of data centers on their neighborhoods, while others see economic development as an important opportunity for their communities. Local governments need the tools and information to make those decisions for themselves.
There are six data center projects under construction across the state and 10 have received at least one state-level permit approval through the program. Outside of the projects that are underway or that have received permitting, 100 speculative projects remain across the state, which include a portion from real estate developers who are seeking building approvals without disclosing their clients. We are seeing strong local pushback by residents who have significant concerns about noise, water use, electricity demand, traffic, environmental impacts, and quality of life.
These concerns are not theoretical.
The rapidly expanding Artificial Intelligence (AI) industry relies on data centers, but they require enormous amounts of electricity and water. Per the National Conference of State Legislatures, “spending on U.S.?data center construction?surged from $1.6 billion to $41 billion, reflecting the scale and speed of AI’s expansion. At the same time, data centers’ electricity demand is projected to approach 12% of total U.S. energy use by 2030, according to recent estimates.” Nationally, electricity consumption from data centers is expected to nearly double over the next five years.
Water use is another significant concern. Data centers use water for cooling and other operations, yet Pennsylvania currently lacks a comprehensive system for tracking the number of data centers in the Commonwealth or their water and energy consumption. We know they are already here but we do not have the tools to track their impact.
We can see the scale of the issue from the information companies do report. Google’s 2024 environmental reporting, for example, showed that its four data centers collectively withdrew approximately 771.7 million gallons of water, consumed 651.3 million gallons, and discharged 120.4 million gallons.
Beyond requiring greater transparency about energy and water consumption, the Order prohibits nondisclosure agreements involving data center projects, strengthens environmental protections, and directs the Commonwealth to ensure that data center development does not shift infrastructure and reliability costs onto Pennsylvania households and businesses.
If Pennsylvania allows data center development to continue without appropriate safeguards, the costs will not only be borne by the companies building these facilities. If additional generation, transmission, and grid infrastructure costs are shifted to ratepayers, Pennsylvania families and small businesses will end up subsidizing some of the largest and most profitable companies in the world. That is not fair, and it is why I have supported legislation that addresses these concerns directly.
I have voted for, and co-sponsored?legislation,?that is now sitting in the Senate, including:?
- House Bill 1834, the Data Center Act, which would?establish?a framework for responsible data center growth and require data centers to pay for the infrastructure they need rather than shifting those costs onto residential ratepayers. It would also direct the Public Utility Commission to strengthen protections for energy affordability programs such as LIHEAP.?
- House Bill 2150, which would require large data centers to report their annual energy and water consumption to DEP and PUC for publication, giving the public and policymakers data about the industry’s impact on our electric grid and water resources. (A very limited portion of the bill was included in the Fiscal Code requiring data centers with a peak demand of over 10 MW to submit annual energy and water usage reports)
- House Bill 2151, which would give municipalities model ordinances they could use to?establish?reasonable standards for data centers, including requirements related to location, sound, and design. Local governments need tools to respond to development proposals in their communities.?
- House Bill 2198, which would repeal the sales and use tax exemption for data centers. Pennsylvania has already forgone more than $80 million in revenue because of this exemption and could forgo another $235 million by 2030 if it remains in place.
- House Bill 2246, which would require data centers to disclose their actual water consumption to the state and set standards for data centers to make sure the water can be reused without negative impacts.
- House Bill 2333, which would strengthen consumer protections by preventing utilities from shifting unpaid costs onto other customers, expanding protections against utility shutoffs, and?providing more flexible payment options for low-income households.?
- House Bill 2359, which would ban non-disclosure agreements between data center companies and municipalities.
- House Bill 2496, which would allow local governments to place a six-month pause on data center applications and provide enough time and resources to make adequate decisions on data center development in their communities.
- House Bill 2650, which would put the Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) plan into effect by protecting energy affordability, requiring data center developers to provide early disclosure of water and energy demands, engaging with local communities and investing in local jobs, and protecting the environment by monitoring water and energy consumption.
I commend Governor Shapiro for taking action, but an executive order should not have been necessary. Executive authority can provide important protections, but many of the strongest and most lasting solutions belong in the legislative branch.
The House has already done that work. We have passed legislation to protect ratepayers, require transparency, strengthen environmental safeguards, and give local governments a meaningful voice in decisions that will affect their communities for decades.
Those bills are languishing in a Senate that has abdicated responsibility on this issue while data center proposals continue moving across Pennsylvania like wildfire.
Pennsylvania can welcome responsible economic development and technological innovation, but we should not offer blank-check incentives while asking families, small businesses, and communities to absorb the costs and consequences without giving them the tools they need to protect themselves.
We need growth that is responsible, environmentally conscious, transparent, and fair. The House has acted. The Senate should now act, too.