Impact Type: Environmental Justice

Policy Matters Ohio Data Center Resources

Ohio’s legislature has given generous incentives to tech companies to build data centers in our state. Ohioans should have a say in whether and how to allow these facilities in our communities.

Community & Social Impacts, Economic Impacts, Environmental Justice, Grid & Infrastructure Impacts
Turning-the-Tide.pdf

Tech companies use selective metrics and efficiency claims to obscure AI's environmental costs despite net-zero pledges. Climate-conscious tech workers shift from internal corporate reform to grassroots coalitions with environmental justice organizations, using insider knowledge to support community resistance against data center expansion and related energy infrastructure siting.

Community & Social Impacts, Environmental Justice
Data Center Moratorium Township, Cumberland, PA

This sample moratorium ordinance is a proactive legal tool that allows local governments to temporarily halt data center development while they assess potential impacts and create appropriate regulations. It frames data centers as high-impact industrial uses that can affect water supplies, energy systems, natural resources, and community character, and argues that existing zoning laws are…

Community & Social Impacts, Environmental Justice, Grid & Infrastructure Impacts
Big Tech Cash for the Backlash

Millions of dollars from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation flow to internationally active anti-rights organizations, funding anti-LGBTQI campaigns in Latin America, anti-abortion litigation in Eastern Europe and "sexual purity" programs in Africa. Noor and the Institute for Journalism and Social Change trace these circuits through case studies from West and East Africa.

Economic Impacts, Environmental Justice
Experts say utilities’ projected data center growth is speculative

Despite utilities in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina requesting roughly 10 GW of new generation capacity, independent modeling puts the most likely data center electricity need at 3.5 to 5.5 GW — a 0.2 percent chance of the full buildout materializing. The approved plan carries an estimated $50-60 billion price tag for ratepayers.

Economic Impacts, Environmental Justice, Grid & Infrastructure Impacts
What Rural Communities Need to Know About AI Data Centers

This webinar from Rural Assembly and Radically Rural, led by Annie Contractor, examines why data center developers target rural areas, the political landscape shaping expansion and disputed claims about jobs and economic benefits. Covers what communities can do through zoning, public comment and local organizing.

Community & Social Impacts, Economic Impacts, Environmental Justice
An Act concerning measures to ensure accountability for large-load data centers. (SB 102, CO)

Directs public utilities commission to determine maximum percentage of large data center energy consumption that is “technically and economically feasible” to be renewable on an hourly matching basis and update at least every 3 years. Requires large data centers to generate or acquire renewable power equal to 100% of annual consumption, and at the maximum…

Community & Social Impacts, Environmental Impacts, Environmental Justice, Grid & Infrastructure Impacts, Human Rights & Labor Exploitation
Springdale says benefits discussions with data center developer to begin soon

Community & Social Impacts, Environmental Justice, Grid & Infrastructure Impacts
Megawatts Over People: The Real Cost of Artificial Intelligence and Why It Is Not Inevitable – NCEJN

Dr. Rania Masri, NCEJN co-director, details how data centers and AI infrastructure burden North Carolina communities through rising electricity costs, water depletion during active drought, PFAS contamination from cooling systems, noise and land conversion. One Stokes County proposal alone covers 1,800 acres. Projects in Edgecombe and Cumberland counties face similar pressures.

Environmental Justice
NY Senate Bill S9144: Data Center Permit Moratorium and Rate Protections

New York Senate Bill S9144 imposes a minimum three-year moratorium on new data center permits statewide. The Department of Environmental Conservation must complete a generic environmental impact statement during the pause. The Public Service Commission must issue orders preventing data center costs from shifting to residential, commercial and industrial ratepayers.

Community & Social Impacts, Economic Impacts, Environmental Impacts, Environmental Justice, Grid & Infrastructure Impacts