Data centers
Your running dishwasher registers around 65-70 decibels. Imagine that dishwater is nearly the size of 2 two football fields. It uses the power of 60,000 homes and consumes up to 5,000,000 gallons of water – the amount used by a town of 40,000 people. Wildlife will not approach within 2 miles of it. Now imagine that dishwasher next to your neighborhood, running 24/7. And by the way, it doesn’t clean your dishes. Congratulations, you’ve just imagined a data center.
South Central Pennsylvania is a target for the construction of new data centers. Senator Greg Rothman’s real estate company made big money from the sale of a farm to the PAX-1 facility in Middlesex township, from which he made considerable profit. Is it a coincidence that he also proposed SB939, which seeks to fast track data center construction? You decide.
As a senior adviser at the Progressive Policy Institute observed, we need to approve new data centers conditional on a robust civic compact. Until that compact has been established, I believe we should pump the brakes on data centers rather than fast-track them. If data centers are an issue you want to be handled cautiously and without personal bias, then I urge you to support me in November - I’m the only candidate in this race who opposes their proliferation.
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Data Centers are wildly unpopular – Quinnipac polling found 68% of Pennsylvanians oppose their construction. Despite this, SB939 by Senator Rothman initially included language denying municipal authorities’ right to zone against construction of high impact data centers.
I hear you loud and clear, and I share your concerns. The impacts of data centers on our environment and our energy grid have me worried, to say nothing of the immoral theft of data perpetrated in the training of the AI models for which these centers will play host.I support a moratorium on data center construction until we are better informed and better prepared. Pennsylvania is neither ready or willing to broadly sanction their development.
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Local governments all across the Commonwealth are being swamped with data center proposals, but many municipalities lack robust ordinances and information to protect their constituencies. HB2496 creates an optional 180 day window for local municipalities to pause data center applications while they inform and update their ordinances. This appears absolutely in the best interest of our citizenry, and I’d support this any legislation like it.
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I support legislation such as House Bill 1834 by Robert Matzie, which ensures that the energy costs associated with data centers are not passed on to consumers.
“The U.S. needs data centers... But communities don’t need to accept every project on whatever terms developers offer.”