A political battle is preparing the data centers

“I think it’s the right politics, for us to take a national standard,” they said.

Although the intent of the moratorium ai may not be to regulate the physical infrastructure, Massie’s reaction illustrates the amount of data center of a hot-batton problem that is becoming across the country.

The rapid growth of the data center number in the United States saw a corresponding increase in local rejection against them. While projects bring dollars of taxes, they often use huge quantities of electricity and water. A recent Bloommergnef analyses He discovered that the demand for Electricity of the AI ​​in the United States should triple by 2035, while in Virginia data centers currently used He tries electricity of 60 percent of families in the state.

A recent relationship From Data Center Watch, a project managed by the 10th Labs Intelligence Company has discovered that the local opposition at the Data Center has blocked or delayed their development in many places throughout the country in the last two years, with the data center that had more than 140 groups of activists who work in 24 states. The report observed that the rejection against the construction of the data center is “bipartisan”, with the republican and democratic politicians who issue public statements opposed to the data centers in their districts.

“From the use of noise and water to the power requests and to the values ​​of the properties, the servers farms have become a new goal in the wider recourse against large -scale development,” observes the report. “The landscape of the local resistance is moving and the data centers are exactly in the sights.”

In Virginia, the data centers have already remodeled the political battle lines: in the county of Prince William in 2023, The President of the County Supervisors It was ousted in 2023 following the opposition of the community to a new data center complex. Also the data centers played a leading role In a recent debate for the republican primaries for the 21st state district of Virginia, with candidates focused on issues relating to tax rates and division into areas for data centers.

Anyone who wins the republican primaries at the end of this month will face the historical operator Josh Thomas, a democrat, in the elections for the seat in November. Thomas states that the data centers have become a question in front and central since it came into office in 2022.

“I wanted to run to help families a place to live and help women maintain their reproductive rights, but it turns out that the data centers have ended up being the number one local problem,” he says. Thomas has presented several pieces of data centers growth since it came into office; one has passed with bipartisan support this spring but it was vetoads By the Governor Glenn Youngkin.

The artificial intelligence of the moratorium in Megabill, sources of Wired, was led in the Energy Committee and the Chamber’s trade by the representative Jay Obernolte, a California Republican. Obernolte is the President of the Task Force of the Bipartisan House on artificial intelligence, who worked during 2024 to form political recommendations on how to sponsor and face the growth of the AI ​​at the federal level. While the group’s final relationship In particular, it did not mention the laws on the state centers at the state level, recognized the “challenges” of the high demand for Energy of the AI ​​and formulated recommendations on energy consumption, including the strengthening of “efforts to trace and design the use of the energy of the Data Center”.

In March, Obernolte described the recommendations in the Task Force report as a “future control list” in a event Hosted in March by the Cato Institute, a right -wing Think Tank. Obernolte, who told the event that he had conferred on the consultants of the White House, including bags on artificial intelligence policy, also stated that the states “act alone” as regards the legislation of artificial intelligence models, a situation, he added, which made the imperative congress to start regulating the IA as soon as possible.

“We have to clarify to the states which are the guardrails,” said Obernolte. “We have to do it all at once.”

It is not clear if the moratorium will survive in the Senate. Friday, Punchbowl News shown That senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, will work with the Democrats to remove the moratorium to the final text of the bill.