Environmental groups to Congress: Take a timeout on AI data centers

Environmental groups across the country are urging Congress to enact a nationwide pause on the approval and construction of data centers, writing in a letter to lawmakers Monday that a moratorium is needed to address the “massive” harms linked to building and operating the facilities. 

The letter, which was led by Food & Water Watch and signed by more than 230 organizations, rails against the expansion of data centers across the country, fueled by a corporate-backed push for generative artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency products. 

The organizations make the case that the “well-established” downsides of data-center expansion amount to “one of the biggest environmental and social threats of our generation,” demanding immediate regulatory action.

“This expansion is rapidly increasing demand for energy, driving more fossil fuel pollution, straining water resources and raising electricity prices across the country,” it continues. “All this compounds the significant and concerning impacts AI is having on society, including lost jobs, social instability and economic concentration.”

The letter lists a litany of staggering environmental statistics linked to the U.S. data-center buildout, including skyrocketing electricity costs, the exacerbation of climate change and the “enormous” and “unsustainable” consumption of electricity and water.

According to the groups, a tripling of data centers over the next five years could lead to the equivalent electricity usage of 30 million households and as much water as 18.5 million households consume. 

The letter also nods to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s prediction in an Axios interview that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs in the next five years, and lead to a 10-20% jump in unemployment levels.

“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 concludes. “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.”

Congress has made some recent moves to address what appears to be a brewing public rejection of data centers due to surging energy demand and rising electricity bills. Last month, Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Dave McCormick, R-Pa., introduced a bill that would task the Government Accountability Office with assessing the efficacy of liquid cooling systems for AI compute clusters and high-performance computing facilities. A bipartisan House bill, meanwhile, calls for a study from the departments of Energy, Interior and Agriculture into the impact AI data centers are having on rural areas.

Still, the modest progress Congress has taken to get a handle on the data-center movement pales in comparison to the Trump administration’s full-throated embrace of the facilities. The energy-focused agenda of the White House’s AI Action Plan focuses on cutting clean air and water regulations to accelerate permitting for the construction of data centers. 

Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, said in a press release that the “sudden explosion of the Big Data industry” poses an “existential threat” to communities already grappling with “soaring utility costs.” 

“The only prudent action,” she continued, “is to halt the unfettered expansion of this dangerous industry in order to properly examine all manner of potential harm before it’s too late.”