(NOTE: ALL Virginia state senators and delegates, as well as our governor and lieutenant governor, are receiving this email — along with concerned Virginia residents.)
Dear Virginia Delegates and Senators,
As your constituents collectively advocate for oversight and common-sense guardrails on the data center industry, there is an effort afoot to prevent ANY controls over the growing threat of AI and the infrastructure needed to breathe life into this ever-growing dark digital underworld.
Can you imagine a federal moratorium preventing ANY local or state oversight for a decade? As we fight to protect our homes, our energy grid, and our natural and cultural resources, just imagine the damage that will be done if our elected state and local leaders are prevented from providing ANY mitigation.
A Political Battle Is Brewing Over Data Centers | WIRED
“A 10-year moratorium on state-level AI regulation included in President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” has brushed up against a mounting battle over the growth of data centers.”
“On Thursday, Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, posted on X that the megabill’s 10-year block on states regulating artificial intelligence could “make it easier for corporations to get zoning variances, so massive AI data centers could be built in close proximity to residential areas.” Massie, who did not vote for the bill, followed up his initial tweet with a screenshot of a story on a proposed data center in Oldham County, Kentucky, which downsized and changed locations following local pushback.”
It is critical to remember: The efforts to allow the Data Center industry, and in particular AI, to work around community ‘interference,’ or what we like to call it – protecting our very quality of life – is not partisan. Money and influence have infiltrated both parties.
In January 2024, days before leaving office, President Biden signed an Executive Order focused on AI.
Biden opens federal land for AI data centers, sets developer rules
Then, days after being sworn into office, President Trump signed this Executive Order and declared a National Emergency for our grid.
Federal Register :: Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence
AND NOW – Here we ALL are, wondering is there ANYONE looking out for US?
Are we all trapped on a proverbial train, speeding towards a cliff, with those in positions of power, stepping on the accelerator giving no thought to the dangers ahead?
Virginia has the most to lose right now if ALL oversight is removed. Virginia has the highest concentration of data centers in the world.
With so much at stake and so many existential threats, we need MORE accountability, not LESS.
Virginians are relying on YOU, as our elected state leaders tasked with implementing policy that protects our health and welfare first and foremost, to ensure a fair and just policy.
As your constituents, we are asking you to reach out to members of Congress and ask them to vote NO on giving AI permission to run wild for TEN years with no oversight, by using the “big beautiful bill” as its vehicle to bring mayhem into our communities, into our grid, and INTO our pocketbooks.
Data Centers Added $9.4 Billion in Costs on Biggest US Grid
(Bloomberg) — The rapid development of data centers connected to the largest US electric grid raised costs by $9.4 billion, an expense that consumers from Illinois to Washington, D.C., will see reflected in their utility bills starting this month.
Overall costs rose by 180%, with the growing energy needs of data centers being the primary cause of tight supply-and-demand conditions, as well as high prices, in the PJM Interconnection capacity market, which serves customers from Illinois to Washington D.C., according to a report Tuesday by Monitoring Analytics, the grid’s independent market monitor.
The analysis from PJM’s watchdog asserts that households and businesses are subsidizing the data center boom being carried out by some of the richest tech companies in the world.
Generative AI‘s impact on the environment is still deeply understudied, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and its human effects are just as unclear.
In the latest of several AI technology assessments conducted by the GAO — a nonpartisan agency that provides audits and evaluations to Congress, executive agency leaders, and the general public upon request — the legislative office outlined multiple human and environmental risks posed by the tech’s unhampered development and widespread use. “Generative AI may displace workers, help spread false information, and create or elevate risks to national security,” the report reads. Threats to data privacy and cybersecurity, the use of biased systems, and a lack of accountability could have unintended effects on society, culture, and people, writes the GAO.
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