Harrisburg, PA — This morning, the Pennsylvania Senate Local Government Committee will hear Representative Paul Friel’s HB2496, to allow municipalities to enact a six month data center pause — an ability communities with zoning already have under the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code. 

The vote comes one week after 180+ impacted residents organized by Food & Water Watch rallied in the Capitol Rotunda to urge the legislature to support Senator Katie Muth’s bipartisan three-year data center moratorium (SB1359).

Ginny Marcille-Kerslake, Senior Eastern Pennsylvania Organizer with Food & Water Watch, issued the follow statement: 

“While residents are clamoring for real action in Harrisburg, the Senate is promoting this insulting farce. Friel’s bill is a performative baby-step that doesn’t address Pennsylvanians’ real needs. The only thing HB2496 is pausing is movement on Pennsylvania’s one true moratorium — Senator Muth’s SB1359.

“As Chair of the Senate Local Government Committee, Senator Dawn Keefer must bring SB1359 to the committee floor for a vote as fast as she brought Friel’s. It’s what residents want and Pennsylvania needs to stop the sale of our state to greedy Big Tech giants.”

Scores of communities around the state have already proposed and/or passed municipal curative amendments allowing a six-month pause on data center development. Food & Water Watch has directly assisted four communities in passing curative amendments, pausing data center development for six months in: 

• West Whiteland, Chester County
• Butler Township, Luzerne County
• West Hazleton, Luzerne County
• Hazle Township, Luzerne County

A Food & Water Watch 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.