Data center developers will have a tougher time building in Pennsylvania after Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an executive order regulating their construction.
The order “[puts] strict guardrails in place on proposed projects to rein in data center developers who are trying to run over our local communities, and to protect Pennsylvanians from higher costs,” Shapiro said in a Tuesday afternoon press conference.
Shapiro said the order signed Tuesday will force data center developers to abide by several rules, including a requirement to obtain a stamp of approval from local officials, in order to build in the state.
Under the order, no new projects will be considered for expedited permitting, a provision the Shapiro administration previously touted as a fix for slow, red-tape bureaucracy. State agencies will also be blocked from signing non-disclosure agreements about development projects.
Governor Shapiro courted new data centers. Then public opinion shifted.
A shift for Shapiro
For Shapiro, the executive order marks a shift on the contentious data center issue. In recent years, he has aggressively sought investment from artificial intelligence and cloud-computing companies. And as public concern mounted over the environmental impact of the centers, he sought to motivate “responsible” development by offering incentives to developers who were transparent with municipalities about their plans and agreed to environmental standards.
But on Tuesday, Shapiro made such actions mandatory if developers wanted their projects to be approved at all.
“We will not be bullied by these developers, we will not be bulldozed by the lawyers for these big tech companies. That will not happen here in the Commonwealth,” Shapiro said. “We have a long history in Pennsylvania of industry running roughshod over our communities to make a buck. That stops with me.”
The order also requires developers to sign contracts detailing transparency and natural resource protections — once part of the governor’s incentive program — and charge the state Department of Environmental Protection with publicly tracking and mapping data center permits.
The governor’s order now mandates “the highest standards for environmental protection, including strict water conservation requirements,” said DEP secretary Jessica Shirley. “And for that agreement, data center developers will have their permits reviewed — but not issued — until all local land use approvals are in hand.”
Some 100 projects have sought to break ground in Pennsylvania, but only five developments are underway, Shapiro said. No such data centers are currently operating in the state, but Shapiro said the state would apply real scrutiny to those backing “speculative” development proposals.
“These speculators are nevertheless scaring our communities, being aggressive with township officials, bullying our neighbors, our fellow Pennsylvanians, and refusing to listen to the people.”
(Speculators, he said, hadn’t found cloud-computing companies who would use their data, and they haven’t agreed to work with communities during development.)
The executive order comes weeks after Shapiro signed a state budget that largely left the industry unregulated. To the dismay of data center opponents, the spending plan merely imposed energy reporting requirements on developers.
What Pa. lawmakers are doing on data centers
During state budget negotiations, lawmakers had taken several votes on proposed moratoriums for data center construction, but no such development pauses were included in a final fiscal deal. The budget stopped short of meaningful regulation, only including an annual reporting requirement — and yearly estimate — for water and energy use for hyperscale cloud-computing centers.
“That at least was something, [but] from my perspective, it’s simply not enough,” said Pittsburgh Rep. Jessica Benham last month while detailing the reporting measures in the state budget.
Data centers have become a flashpoint in state and national politics. Many lawmakers, including all state House members and half of senators, have leaned into the topic in messaging and campaign ads.
Archbald, a community in Northeastern Pennsylvania, has faced several data center campus proposals, with grassroots groups staunchly opposed. And Shapiro said, after he visited the region, he accounted for local concerns in drafting the order. (Reporters have also noted community pushback shortly after his administration once attracted large projects the state landed last year, totaling more than $20 billion in investments from Amazon.)
“Since then, we have seen an unacceptable number of speculative proposals for data center development that is swamping our Commonwealth, many of them led by developers who have no regard for local communities,” Shapiro said.
“I’ve heard loud and clear from the good people of Pennsylvania as I’ve traveled across our Commonwealth,” Shapiro added, nodding to Archbald, Lackawanna County. “Your input was heard and it was considered. I know you want the right to weigh in on decisions about what your community looks like going forward, and this executive order allows for that.”
What the public thinks about data centers
The issue, a recent topic of a Quinnipiac University poll, is also largely unpopular among voters. The poll released last month found nearly three-quarters of respondents would oppose a data center project in their community.
Some lawmakers have said the issue has become one of only a few uniting factors for voters across the political spectrum.
“It’s not a party-specific thing. In my area, you have far-left liberals and far-right MAGA conservatives … who think that there are serious environmental concerns,” state Rep. Charity Krupa (R-Fayette) told WESA this spring.
A Democratic House candidate for a central Pennsylvania district agreed, saying just last week that opposition to data centers in some rural areas resonates with most voters.
“When we talk about speaking to rural Pennsylvanians, how do you reach across the aisle? Data centers have been one of the biggest door openers,” said John Zangari, who’s running for HD-171, at a town hall event last week in Centre County.
Opposition on such projects even sprang up at a former coal plant in Homer City, Indiana County, which is seen by local lawmakers as a responsible use of an industrial site. Republican House member Jim Struzzi, whose district represents the plant which is slated to power an AI center in the coming years, said the project checks all the boxes.
“[The Homer City Redevelopment Authority], they have grid access, they already have water that was used for the coal-fired electric generation plant that was there for more than 60 years, so they have all the pieces in place to do it the right way,” Struzzi said in an interview this week.
“And I think they’re being good neighbors.”
How data centers are playing out in Pa.’s gubernatorial race
Republican gubernatorial candidate Stacy Garrity has hammered Shapiro for once supporting the industry. Shapiro, in turn, has reminded voters that Garrity, the state treasurer, also championed past investment by data center developers in the state.
On Tuesday, her campaign said Shapiro is “gaslighting” the public by recalibrating after public pushback.
“Last summer, Josh Shapiro was the biggest data center cheerleader in the nation, and he reaped in more than $5 million in campaign donations from out-of-state data center interests in the process,” Garrity said in a statement. “Now that public opinion has turned against him and his donors, Josh Shapiro is playing CYA, and Pennsylvania voters aren’t buying it.”
Senate Majority leader Joe Pittman echoed Garrity’s sentiment, saying Shapiro had simply walked back his views.
“[Shapiro’s] comments today seem aimed at erasing his remarks from last year and underscore how afraid he’s become over his previous record of embracing data centers, only to find out how politically intense the proposals have become,” Pittman wrote in a statement.
Recent reports show the Shapiro administration did collaborate with data developers, including Amazon, ahead of offering incentives. But Shapiro’s campaign also notes that Garrity also celebrated the billions in investments at the time of their announcement, meaning she too has changed her perspective.
“Stacy Garrity is a desperate politician,” said Shapiro campaign spokesman Manuel Bonder. “And her long record of supporting completely unregulated data center development makes it clear that she just can’t be trusted.”
