Harrisburg, PA — Months after Governor Josh Shapiro announced his Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) plan, designed to guide data center expansion in Pennsylvania, his office released the plan today. The plan fails to regulate data centers’ significant impacts to water, electricity rates, and more, relying instead on voluntary guidelines.

The plan comes as developers have submitted proposals for at least 23 hyper-scale data centers in Pennsylvania to robust community opposition. Right to Know files obtained by the Concerned Citizens of Montour County found the Shapiro Administration offered Amazon Web Services a preview of the GRID plan for feedback, months before its public release.

Food & Water Watch Pennsylvania State Director Megan McDonough issued the follow statement in response:

“It’s unsurprising that Shapiro continues to champion Big Tech, but it’s disappointing nonetheless. Shapiro’s GRID plan reads like a Big Tech wish list. This plan is an admittance that Pennsylvania has a data center problem — but this is no solution. His GRID plan is a naive effort to placate widespread data center opposition. It won’t work. Voluntary half-measures from corporations who want to exploit our state for profit will not protect our water, energy costs, and quality of life.

“Shapiro is Pennsylvania’s governor, not Amazon’s, not Meta’s, not Microsoft’s. He shouldn’t be regulating data center access to state support — he should prohibit data center developers from receiving that support in the first place. That’s why we need a data center moratorium now.”

The announcement comes as a statewide data center moratorium bill is expected to be filed imminently. A 2026 poll found that 68 percent of Pennsylvania voters would oppose a data center being built in their community.

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