The congressman thinks it’s time to pass a “Data Center Bill of Rights.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) introduced a new resolution calling on the House of Representatives to preserve the ability of local communities to reject data center projects close to their homes. The proposed resolution for a “Data Center Bill of Rights” follows several attempts at the state level to block or suspend data center projects, including a one-year moratorium on data centers in New York.
The idea behind Khanna’s resolution is to protect citizens’ ability to regulate data center development, “without being preempted or overridden by the state,” the measure says. Ideally, communities should be able to reject any data center projects through a “transparent community process” and have the ability to prohibit data center projects in residential areas and “within 2,500 feet of homes, schools, daycares, hospitals or nursing homes.” The measure also says communities should have the ability to demand transparency from data center providers, block changes to their electricity rates, and require data centers to use clean energy.
The resolution is essentially a draft of a bill rather than a law that can be passed now, but it highlights several concerns that warrant continued regulation. These include harmful pollution produced by the generators and turbines that power data centers and the 32 billion gallons of water that AI data centers could consume each year by 2028.
The environmental and financial impacts of rapid data center construction have been the primary concerns motivating data center protests and regulation across the country. It would be one thing if these issues were addressed at the state level, but the federal government has largely tried to make the task more difficult, by exempting data centers from existing environmental laws and pushing to prevent states from regulating them. A bill of rights could be a way to protect citizens’ ability to object to data centers, in the absence of a national moratorium on data centers. The resolution stands in stark contrast to the housing laws in Khanna’s home state of California, which have largely attempted to combat “NIMBY” objections to high-density development.
