STATEMENT: NYS MORATORIUM ON DATA CENTERS
Statement on NYS Moratorium on Data Centers
The industrial development of data centers represents tech colonization at scale. They requisition land, hike up electricity rates, loot communities of public subsidies, strain their water stores, all while cranking up air and noise pollution with their onsite fossil fueled generators. Hyperscale Data Centers are one of the biggest environmental and social threats of our generation.
The enormous electricity consumption of hyperscale data centers is straining the grid nationwide, resulting in less reliable power delivery, electrical fires, and blackouts. To support the immense power draws, corporations push for public funds to cover transformer and power line upgrades. Upstate New Yorkers saw an extra $80-$160 increase in annual bills in the late 2010s from crypto mining operations that use the same infrastructure as hyperscale data centers. These costs don’t stop at the host community borders. Electricity rates have risen 21% nationally since 2021 - outpacing inflation and driven largely by the rapid build-out of data centers.
We are all on the same grid. The Department of Energy projects that data center electricity consumption could double or triple by 2028, the equivalent of adding 30 million households to our grid. In Georgia, the public service commission’s analysis shows their data center build-out could add $20 per month to residential bills statewide. Data centers are coming to New York. The multi-billion dollar data center proposal in upstate Genesee County is also a New York City problem. This facility will pass on costs to all ratepayers upstate, downstate and beyond. Working class New Yorkers never asked for more data centers, and yet we are forced to foot the bill.
Unsustainable water consumption is at the heart of data center infrastructure. As discovered in The Dalles, Oregon, a Google data center consumed a whopping quarter of the entire city’s water to cool their servers. A tripling of data centers would require as much water as 18.5 million households set aside exclusively to power and cool data centers. We are all living through a global water crisis where our water stores are no longer replenishing at their historic rates. And yet billionaires push to build these facilities knowing there is imminent water scarcity on the horizon.
Data centers are accelerating climate change. 56 percent of the electricity used to power data centers is sourced from fossil fuels. To meet the power demand required by these facilities, coal-fired power plant closures are being delayed, diesel generators and mobile natural gas plants are being installed onsite poisoning the air of their host communities like Memphis, Tennessee. Meanwhile, renewable energy projects are being sidelined and postponed.
Mega corporations like Exxon, OpenAI, X, and Palantir, need these data centers to burn fossil fuels, automate your emails, create nonconsensual AI-generated images, and enable mass surveillance and deportations - all to increase billionaire profits. Data center infrastructure isn’t being built for us, it’s built to be used on us.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has warned that AI could negate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs in the next five years and spike overall unemployment by up to 20 percent. This comes on the heels of Generative AI being trained on the work of artists, musicians and authors, many of whom were never compensated.
DATA CENTERS REPRESENT A MASSIVE TRANSFER OF LAND, WATER, AIR, ENERGY, LABOR AND WEALTH FROM THE WORKING-CLASS TO BILLIONAIRES.
Grassroots opposition to data centers is already driving legislative action at the state level. NY-DSA Socialist in Office, State Senator Kristen Gonzalez has sponsored or co-sponsored three bills to regulate the outsize impact of data centers on communities and working class families:
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NYS Data Center Moratorium (S.9144) which implements a 3 year pause on new data center development so that the Department of Environmental Conservation can complete a comprehensive environmental impact statement, and the Public Service Commission can generate a complete report on ratepayer cost impacts.
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Sustainable Data Centers Act (S.6394A) which requires public disclosure, public hearings, renewables mandate, and a community discount plan for electricity rate hikes.
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AC/DC Act (S.8640) which creates a separate rate class for data centers, and assigns infrastructure costs assigned to developers, not residential rate payers.
These bills are a much needed start. But even if they pass, communities still won’t have the power to say no. There are still no clear water protections, no caps on energy consumption, and no requirement that data centers build new renewable energy capacity. And there’s no guarantee that communities will receive the benefits that data center developers promise. In fact, the track record shows they rarely do.
NYC-DSA Tech Action and EcoSoc are putting forth the following further demands:
- NO FOSSIL FUELS FOR DATA CENTERS: Ban all onsite diesel generators and mobile natural gas plants
- NO STEALING RENEWABLE CAPACITY: Data centers must fund and build additive, new renewable capacity to offset their consumption. Data center energy use should not take away renewables from other projects or industries. If grid stability is threatened or in the case of an emergency, data centers are powered down first, before homes, hospitals, and schools
- NO COST PASS-THROUGH TO RATEPAYERS: All infrastructure upgrades and energy costs stay with developers not ratepayers. Data centers must pay separately for 100 percent of the costs necessary to service them. Data centers should not get sales tax exemptions or give rebates to IDAs.
- BINDING COMMUNITY CONSENT: Must be provided prior to construction via models like a referendum or ballot initiative, CBAs, or escrow deposits to protect the community.
- INSTITUTE OVERSIGHT AND TRANSPARENCY, INCLUDING FULL PUBLIC DISCLOSURE: Require all data centers to fund an independent, public assessment as one of the requirements for approval, including power use, water use, air quality, noise pollution, and impacts to wildlife, subject to public disclosure laws. Require regular, public reporting to a statewide clearinghouse, with the power to withdraw approvals and operational permits if requirements are violated. All data centers above 20MW capacity must conduct an environmental impact study (EIS).
- END CONFIDENTIAL CONTRACTS WITH UTILITY PROVIDERS: Require pre-approval disclosures including full terms of contract and analysis of impact on market rates. Data center build-outs affect all ratepayers on the grid, not just their host communities.
- NET ZERO WATER IMPACT: No drawdowns from municipal water supplies without community approval and oversight.
- BROWNFIELD FIRST LAND-USE: Development should not require the destruction of ecosystems.
- FUNDED TECH APPRENTICESHIPS: Developers must have requirements for local hiring with documented job quality standards and provide job training in host communities to support local labor force.
- PROTECT NEW YORKERS FROM AI-DRIVEN HARMS: If data centers are built, legislators must ensure they cannot do so in service of technology that harms people. Pass bright-line rules that restrict the most harmful AI use cases wholesale.
NYC-DSA stands in solidarity with working-class New Yorkers in opposing the unregulated build-out of hyperscale AI data centers. As of right now, the only legislation that gives us a fighting chance is the NYS Data Center Moratorium (S.9144). A 3 year pause on new data center development will give our state agencies the time to develop comprehensive environmental and ratepayer impact reports. We call on our electeds and legislators to stand with us as we fight for a liveable planet and for the needs of working class New Yorkers’ above tech billionaire profits.