Pennsylvania House of Representatives Passes Data Center Bills

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives yesterday passed a suite of bills aimed at addressing mounting concerns around data center development.

Data centers are already affecting Pennsylvanians by using significant quantities of public water resources, increasing electricity bills, and filling communities with noise and harmful air pollution from diesel generators.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) is greatly concerned about the lack of transparency and regulation around the construction of data centers in Pennsylvania. Without proper controls, data centers pose significant risks to Pennsylvania communities, the health of local streams, the Susquehanna River, and the Chesapeake Bay, and the air we breathe.

Measuring and monitoring environmental impacts of these major projects is key to protecting water quality. But many data center sites are currently not required to address these environmental concerns during and after construction.

CBF supported three bills just passed in the House that would increase regulations related to data center water usage and require reporting environmental data. They also empower local communities to regulate data centers by enacting updated zoning laws. Those include:

• HB 2150 requires data centers to report annual water and energy use.
• HB 2151 empowers municipalities to regulate data centers through a guided framework of local zoning and ordinances.
• HB 2246 ensures large data centers cannot move forward without clear guardrails by strengthening water-use permits, monitoring impacts, and protecting local communities’ access to clean water.
• CBF is also supportive of Governor’s Shapiro’s Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) standards, a bill that also just passed in the House.

This may establish strict guardrails to hold data centers accountable to environmental standards.

These measures now move on to the Pennsylvania Senate, where they must be adopted and then signed by Governor Shapiro before becoming law.

CBF Pennsylvania Executive Director Julia Krall issued the following statement:

“Pennsylvania just took a mighty step forward in fighting the mounting threats from data centers. The fact that these data center projects are not required to report their electricity and water usage or environmental impacts is a major concern. We simply cannot understand threats we do not regulate or measure.”

“Pennsylvanians suffer when these data center sites destroy clean water and air. We must empower these communities with legislation that works for them, their families and homes, and their rivers and streams. We urge the Senate to protect Pennsylvania’s people and waterways by swiftly passing these bills.”