250 Environmental Orgs Ask Congress for Moratorium on New Data Centers

A group of more than 250 environmental organizations is asking Congress to stop building new energy-hungry data centers.

In a letter to Congress, environmental organizations, including Greenpeace USA and Friends of the Earth US, called for a national moratorium on the approval and construction of new data centers.

“The rapid, largely unregulated rise of data centers to fuel the AI and crypto frenzy is disrupting communities across the country and threatening Americans’ economic, environmental, climate and water security,†the letter penned by the Food & Water Watch said. “We urge you to join our call for a national moratorium on new data centers until adequate regulations can be enacted to fully protect our communities, our families, our environment and our health from the runaway damage this industry is already inflicting.â€

With the advent of crypto and AI, the world has become increasingly reliant on data. To accommodate the demand, tech companies and the U.S. government have been engrossed in an unprecedented data center infrastructure buildout. The infrastructure investments are so massive that they have been propping up the U.S. economy, spurring concerns over a catastrophic breakdown if indeed a feared AI bubble burst becomes reality.

The data centers are often welcomed with open arms by small-town governments where the investments create modern boomtowns. But along with the short-term investment boom comes longer-term headwinds.

These data centers have monstrous energy demand. People living in close proximity to these data centers have reported water shortages and soaring electricity prices. According to a Bloomberg report from September, people living in areas near data centers saw their electricity bill jump 267% compared to five years before.

A tripling of data centers in the next five years would cause data centers to consume as much water as 18.5 million households and as much electricity as about 30 million households, the letter claims.

The pressure data centers put on the local grid can also cause it to exceed load capacity, reports say, potentially leading to winter blackouts in places with a high concentration of server farms, like Texas, where power shortages have proven to be deadly. An estimated 246 Texans died in 2021 due to a winter power shortage.

Adding even more strain on the environment are reports of an impending natural gas boom in the U.S. as the power grid opts to rely on the carbon-intensive energy source and notorious air polluter to accommodate the demand spurred by AI.

The job opportunities created by these data center buildouts are also contested. While a data center project can create a bevy of short-term construction jobs, once it’s up and running, it requires much fewer permanent positions.

The compounding effects and an absence of federal regulation have led some states and counties to take matters into their own hands. According to a report from Data Center Watch, $64 billion in data center projects were blocked or delayed between May 2024 and March 2025 due to local opposition.

Minnesota recently passed laws that would introduce guardrails over the energy and water consumption of the data center industry. And in last month’s election, a Democrat flipped a reliably Republican seat in the Virginia legislature with a campaign that focused on the burden of data centers.

President Trump and many Republicans in Washington, D.C., however, have been gunning for a moratorium on state AI laws. Reports came out last month that Trump was also working on an executive order that would sue states over laws that were deemed to obstruct the progress of AI development. On Monday, Trump shared on his Truth Social account that he will be signing a “ONE RULE Executive Order this week.â€