Falls Township, Bucks County — 407 Pennsylvania residents — including 30 from Bucks County — organized by Food & Water Watch, submitted comments to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), urging regulators not to approve Amazon’s bid to add 280 fracked gas-fired generators and three diesel-fired generators to its AI data center complex in Falls Township. Amazon has already installed 76 diesel-powered generators at the 250-acre site. The comment period ended yesterday. 

The generators would produce back-up power for the data center complex when the electricity supply is interrupted, as could be the case during heatwaves like those suffered last month. Governor Shapiro’s DEP has indicated plans to approve the fossil fueled generators. The project is part of Amazon’s Shapiro-fast-tracked $20 billion AI data center investment in the state. 

Alex Beauchamp, Northern Regional Director for Food & Water Watch, issued the following statement: 

“AI data centers are not a public good — they’re industrial facilities meant to get Big Tech rich while sacrificing our air, water, and health. Josh Shapiro is Pennsylvania’s governor, not Amazon’s. But throughout his tenure, he has courted the fossil fuel and data center industry and neglected the needs of Pennsylvanians.  

“While Shapiro is keen on rolling out the red carpet for Amazon and its exploitative AI data center plan, our legislators can change the course and meaningfully protect Pennsylvanians by passing a mandatory data center moratorium. Halting this reckless development must be the number one priority for the legislature when they reconvene next month.”  

A recent 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.

Last month, Shapiro signed a 2026-2027 fiscal budget without any data center regulations, despite 74 percent of Pennsylvania voters opposing AI data center construction in their communities.