Today I take pen in hand to urge you to co-sponsor and champion Rep. Ro Khanna's Data Center Bill of Rights.
This framework would give communities the power to fight back against Big Tech's unchecked data center expansion — and it's long overdue.
An AI data center is very different from the daily business and Internet data centers. The computational power needed to support the multiple AI models and companies might mean big business for a narrow group of companies and people, but resource scarcity and higher prices for the vast majority of communities near one.
As a result, more than 7 in 10 Americans oppose having a data center built near them, according to a May Gallup poll. That opposition cuts across party lines: three-quarters of Democrats and nearly two-thirds of Republicans don't want these facilities in their communities.
The reason is simple — data centers bring soaring utility bills, dwindling water supplies, and pollution, often pushed through by state governments under nondisclosure agreements that keep residents in the dark until it's too late to object.
Khanna's proposal would let communities ban data centers within 2,500 feet of homes, schools, and hospitals; require independent assessments of electricity and water demands; and block developers from raising household electricity rates.
These are basic protections that constituents deserve, just as we do for any type of development of industry. Ot may not be ‘smokestack’ but the side effects are there, just different.
Please get behind this legislation now. Thank you.
First sent on August 6 by Mark
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