Pa. data centers: How lawmakers are responding, from electricity and water use to tax breaks

What data centers think of Matzie’s bill

The Data Center Coalition is watching bills like Matzie’s closely. The coalition represents companies including Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, Anthropic, CoreWeave and OpenAI.

Dan Diorio, vice president of state policy with the group, said the coalition is open to special utility rates for large electricity users that force these customers to pay for any grid upgrades their operations require while insulating other ratepayers from these costs. But the group opposes bills like Matzie’s that apply specifically to data centers, rather than to all electricity users over a certain size.

“If it’s a transmission line or if it’s a substation, if it’s a generating asset, of course, data centers should pay for that and will pay for that,” Diorio said.

But “no specific end user should be singled out for disparate treatment,” he said.

The coalition also opposes mandating data centers to curtail energy use during times of peak demand or bring their own new, clean power, preferring instead incentives that reward data centers for voluntarily doing so, Diorio said.

“Things like having to take interruptible service … you could see projects move across to a different state line where they didn’t have that requirement, while doing nothing to solve the ultimate shortfall within [the regional grid],” he said.

Pennsylvania lobbying records show the Data Center Coalition spent $19,632 on lobbying at the state level on the topic of “energy, information technology and utilities” during the last three months of 2025.

“Pennsylvania is a very strong, growing and important market for the data center industry,” Diorio said. “We understand concerns, and we want to be an engaged stakeholder to address those concerns, but also keep the state strong for development. And I think we can do that — I think we can find a good middle ground.”