Governor Shapiro’s Executive Order puts meaningful protections in place that ensure transparency, local control, and ratepayer safeguards as data center proposals continue to grow across our Commonwealth.
Under the Governor’s directive, your township’s zoning decision now comes before any state permit. DEP cannot issue a permit until a municipality has completed its review and granted local approval. Developers must also sign a legally enforceable agreement committing to the GRID Requirements before DEP will begin evaluating their applications. Data centers have driven record high-capacity prices across PJM, responsible for nearly half of recent auction costs. Going forward, these companies must bring their own power. They cannot plug into the grid and leave Pennsylvania families and businesses to absorb the cost.
Every data center in Pennsylvania will be required to publicly report its annual water and energy use, including peak load, natural gas consumption, cooling demand, and environmental protection measures. And residents will be able to see every proposed data center on a public map, updated regularly by DEP.
This affirms so much of the work my colleagues and I have been advancing in the PA House. We advanced bipartisan legislation to put strong, enforceable standards in place and proposed to give municipalities tools to manage data center proposals, and increase transparency, while protecting local community control. But Senate leadership refused to act, and Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman even said he had no intention of taking action to regulate data center development. In the absence of state Senate action, the Governor stepped in, taking executive action.
I am grateful to Governor Shapiro for taking decisive, substantive action that directly addresses the concerns echoed by our communities. There is still legislative work to be done. I’ve introduced the following data-center related bills that I hope to see move this fall:
The Pennsylvania Water Resource Act: Hyperscale data centers withdraw up to five million gallons of water a day. My bill would assess a fee on extraordinary water users like data center operators. The fees collected would be used for the protection, conservation, and remediation of our watersheds and freshwater sources.
The Data Center Electronic Waste Management Act: Data centers generate enormous volumes of electronic waste, but there is no existing state law requiring operators to maintain disposal records or report to any state agency. My legislation would protect communities and municipalities across Pennsylvania by establishing a regulatory framework for commercial IT e-waste, with oversight by the Department of Environmental Protection.
Requiring Consideration of the Public Interest in PUC Proceedings: This legislation would define “public interest” in our state law and require the Public Utility Commission to explicitly weigh the needs of everyday ratepayers in utility proceedings, not just balance the interests of utilities and their largest customers, like data centers.