Today, the environmental advocacy organization Food & Water Watch released a new, comprehensive, first-of-its-kind report detailing the harms of the AI and data center boom infiltrating communities around the country, making the urgent case for a moratorium on the construction of new AI-driven data centers. The report comes as President Trump today hosts a White House “signing ceremony” with seven Big Tech companies that are supposedly pledging to take measures to lower the impact of their massive AI energy demand on everyday Americans.

The report comes as State Senator Katie Muth has announced an intent to file legislation to establish a 3-year moratorium on proposals and permitting of new hyperscale data centers in Pennsylvania. At least 23 hyperscale data centers have been proposed in Pennsylvania to widespread opposition. 

“Across the country, communities are already feeling the strain of unchecked data center growth. We have learned hard lessons from the past, and Pennsylvania cannot afford to repeat them. Reports like this raise serious red flags about power demand, water use, and local infrastructure impacts. That is why I am introducing a moratorium bill here in Pennsylvania because the health and safety of our residents are on the line, and we must get this right before communities pay the price,” said Senator Katie Muth. 

The highly detailed report lays out the wide range of harms and hazards associated with the sudden explosion of the data center industry in the United States, including: 

• Annual water usage equivalent to 18.5 million households by 2028; annual electricity usage equivalent to 55 million households by 2028.
• Dangerous new demand for fossil fuels, posing heightened risks of air and water pollution for impacted communities and a grave threat to our global climate.
• A host of other societal threats, from national economic catastrophe, to loss of critical farmland, to unrelenting noise pollution, to threats to children and democracy.

“Our state constitution explicitly states that the people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and aesthetic values of the environment. Industry’s race to build hyperscale data centers in our communities is a direct threat to these rights,” said Food & Water Watch Senior Pennsylvania Organizer Ginny Marcille-Kerslake.  “Municipalities across the Commonwealth are scrambling to develop data center ordinances to protect these rights as well as the health, safety and well-being of residents against an onslaught of industry’s attempts to rezone land in their best interests. Pennsylvania needs a moratorium now to afford local governments the time to update their zoning laws for this new use.”

The new report details that 40 percent of energy for data centers comes from natural gas, and that figure is higher for Pennsylvania, the second largest gas producing state next to Texas. As the state ranks 4th nationally for total carbon dioxide emissions, the potential for more pollution is a very viable danger.

In October, Food & Water Watch became the first national group to call for a data center moratorium. Since then, over 250+ organizations have joined the call — including 17 in Pennsylvania.