HARRISBURG — Steve Hacker’s well ran dry in October 2024 for the first time since he moved to Chester County in 1983.

Hacker, now retired and working part-time at the local Colonial Theatre, says he went 39 days without running water in his house. He showered at his workplace or the local YMCA during that time. The well ran dry due to a drought, Hacker said, but he’s worried that it’s a sign of things to come.

Hacker’s township of East Vincent is considering plans to build a data center campus, which would house computer servers and equipment. These facilities require huge amounts of energy and millions of gallons of clean water annually to cool their servers.

“They want to pull millions of gallons [of water] out — I don’t see how that can work,” Hacker told Spotlight PA. “Who is responsible if all the wells in my town dry out? Who’s going to compensate us?”

Pennsylvania residents across the state, from Allegheny to Lackawanna Counties, have expressed concerns about planned data centers and their impacts on energy prices, water usage, and pollution. In a recent poll, 42% of Pennsylvanians said they do not want one built in or near their community. Yet many state and local lawmakers — even skeptics — have accepted the proliferation of data centers in Pennsylvania as a fact of life.

“I’ve had people tell me, ‘Well, just let’s bar them. We’ll prohibit them,’” state Sen. Gene Yaw (R., Lycoming) told Spotlight PA. “Then let’s go to the library and burn all the books too while we’re at it.”

Companies such as Amazon Web Services and Blackstone have announced tens of billions of dollars in private investments to build data centers across the state. Legislative supporters say the projects will create thousands of temporary construction jobs and hundreds of permanent ones, attract more workers to the state, and enable the U.S. to compete with China in technological development.

Even lawmakers who are concerned about the spread of data centers say that the number is likely to increase, and that the legislature should create regulatory bodies or economic incentives for developers to prioritize environmental safety.

Hacker wants to see elected officials push back against data centers but fears that most, from township supervisors to Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, are “gung-ho” on the prospect of private investment.

“They want to go full speed ahead. But I want them to slow down,” Hacker said. “That’s the number one thing I want from the state government: I want to slow down. I would want a moratorium on building these things.”

What’s on the table?

State lawmakers have offered a range of proposals regarding data centers, including making them easier to build and adding checks.

Some legislation focuses on speeding up the permitting process, which often requires government permission to excavate and dig under land, manage stormwater drainage, mitigate air pollution, and begin construction. Two such bills, both from Republicans, would tie speedier permitting to a commitment “to improved environmental outcomes.”

Other bills are aimed at ensuring that increased energy demand from data centers does not impact consumer energy costs and at creating a regulatory framework.

A bill from state Rep. Rob Matzie (D., Beaver) would allow the Public Utility Commission to regulate data centers, including implementing fees for building out transmission lines and deposits to begin construction.

Other proposals would amend an existing tax exemption to incentivize data centers to use clean energy when powering their campuses or mandate that developers request a meeting with local officials, including zoning and planning officials.

State Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler (D., Philadelphia) chairs her chamber’s Energy Committee, which would likely consider many of these proposals before they became law. Fiedler told Spotlight PA that Matzie’s oversight bill, and a proposal to mandate data centers report energy and water usage to the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, are among the measures she expects to review.

“Right now, there’s a real lack of regulation,” Fiedler told Spotlight PA. “So if we’re able to get any of these bills through … that would make a real difference.”

Pushback from lawmakers

Positions on data centers are not cleanly divided by party affiliation. Some of the most vocal legislative opponents represent districts where they will be located.

State Rep. Jamie Walsh (R., Luzerne) opposes a data center that is planned in his district, saying he’s seen “corporate bullying” on the part of developers.

“The Pennsylvania taxpayer, quite frankly, has had enough,” Walsh told Spotlight PA.

Walsh said that residents are concerned about water and electricity costs and closeness to residential housing. He said he’s not opposed to all data centers, but argued they need to respect the desires of the community.

“If a municipality feels that it can support a data center with water [usage], electricity isn’t going to shoot through the roof … and the community is OK with the zone it’s going in, then it should be left up to that community,” Walsh said.

Walsh intends to introduce legislation that would establish standards to ensure data center development in the state “occurs responsibly, transparently, and with real community involvement.” A memo seeking support for the proposal did not detail what those standards would look like, but Walsh told Spotlight PA there would be measures to protect consumers against AI deepfakes and prevent them from “footing the bill for these AI data centers.”

State Sen. Katie Muth (D., Montgomery) has also pushed back against data center development. Her district includes the planned data center that Hacker is concerned about.

Muth told Spotlight PA that the bills to regulate costs for ratepayers are the bare minimum.

Increased energy demand from data centers in other states connected to the same massive regional grid already affects costs in Pennsylvania, she said.

She has criticized the lack of attention being paid to emergency planning and the long-term health impacts on residents. If a battery fire or other emergency broke out on the planned campus in her district, for example, Muth wants developers to have a plan to stop it from spreading to a nearby nuclear power plant.

She says she plans to introduce another bill that would create a two-year moratorium on data center development. The hope, she says, is to give local officials enough time to properly investigate the plans for data centers.

“Who has control about the information of these projects is really key,” Muth said. “These decisions are being made in vacuums.”

Leadership on data centers

Party leaders largely support building more data centers, citing the potential to create jobs and bring private investment into the state.

State Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana) said he wants to see the “responsible growth of data centers,” though he hasn’t been specific about what type of legislation he would support.

“To me, the biggest concern is data centers coming online without commensurate supply,” Pittman said at a news conference last November. “At the end of the day, these data centers are coming. It’s the reality of technology. We’ve got to be prepared to match the supply [of energy.]”

Democrats who control the state House didn’t commit to backing specific data center legislation when asked by Spotlight PA. A spokesperson said lawmakers “must take a balanced, responsible approach to data centers” and the caucus is exploring legislative solutions that “provide reasonable oversight, protect energy and natural resources, and help keep utility costs affordable for consumers.”

Shapiro has thrown his support behind data centers, celebrating a planned $20 billion investment from Amazon Web Services for the buildout of two in eastern Pennsylvania last summer.

“I announced the largest private sector investment in the history of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania just a few months ago, right here in northeastern Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said last October. “A deal with AWS, Amazon, that’s going to create 10,000 construction jobs, and it’s also, at the same time going to create over 1,000 permanent jobs.”

Shapiro has also said he views AI development as inevitable. The question, he says, is whether the U.S. will be able to outpace China.

“I do not want China to beat America in this,” he said at a news conference last August. “There are just less than a handful of states in the entire country that are poised the way we are to be leaders on this data center development, leaders on AI development … and I believe Pennsylvania is poised to do that.”

When asked about resident concerns regarding data center deals, Shapiro said in October that “with any of these deals, you’ve got to work with the local community.”

In Chester County, the fight over data centers continues to play out.

Pennhurst Holdings LLC, the company that owns the land where the data center is slated to be built, is currently applying for conditional use permitting — wherein a local government can approve land use that is not explicitly permitted under its zoning code — from the township. This comes after township supervisors declined to vote on a proposed ordinance that would create more restrictions over the planned data center.

Matt McHugh, an attorney for the company, says that the hearings will address many of the public’s concerns over water and electricity usage, among other issues.

“Ultimately, the township can impose conditions on an approval if they so choose, to which we would be obligated to adhere to as part of moving forward with the development,” McHugh told Spotlight PA.

East Vincent Township’s supervisors have remained quiet on the issue. Messages from Spotlight PA to Township Manager Bob Zienkowski were not returned.

“We have to keep an open mind,” said Township Supervisor Craig A. Damon II. “The board cannot prejudice itself for or against a data center.”

And residents like Hacker have gotten involved, attending local zoning meetings and reaching out to local elected officials and state lawmakers.

But Hacker worries his efforts won’t make a difference. He compared the spread of data centers to the rise of the oil and gas industry in the past decades. The oil and gas wells drilled were later revealed to be correlated with negative health impacts, like increased risk of cancer.

“To let industry do whatever they want and deal with the consequences later, we should know better,” Hacker said. “I absolutely want our state legislators as a whole, right up to Shapiro, to listen to the people.”