Pittsburgh, PA  — The Allegheny County Council has unanimously passed a county-wide ban on data centers over 25 megawatts on county-owned property. The ban, approved Tuesday night, extends to data center-related infrastructure, including generators, utility lines, and wastewater treatment facilities in Pennsylvania’s second most populous county. The vote came just under a week after Governor Josh Shapiro headlined the AI Horizons Summit in Pittsburgh, alongside Big Tech and oil and gas industry executives, for the second year in a row. 

Western Pennsylvania has been identified by industry and state leaders as a potential data center hub, despite widespread opposition to projects in the county, including a contentious hyperscale proposal in Springdale Borough. The vote bars development on nearly 30,000 acres of county land.

Megan McDonough, Pennsylvania State Director for Food & Water Watch, issued the following in response: 

“Allegheny County communities have been raising the red flag on destructive data center development. We applaud county council for using their power to make this monumental push, meeting the data center opposition where we’re at to protect our homes. This is yet another domino to fall out of favor with the data center push and an indication that statewide action is necessary.

“Every ordinance, every county ban, every bill introduced is a sign that Pennsylvania needs to halt this development. Decisionmakers can’t continue risking people’s lives like they have in prioritizing the fracking industry. Pennsylvania deserves better, and our lawmakers can give us better. 

“If all of our elected officials took steps to prioritize Pennsylvanians over corporations like Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft, then we’d have a moratorium by now. But industry dollars are speaking louder into our electeds’ ears, and we simply cannot stand for this. Our lawmakers must do better like those in Allegheny County Council.” 

Data center opposition in Pennsylvania has been widespread. Recent polling from Quinnipiac University found that 74 percent of Pennsylvania voters oppose AI data center construction in their community.