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The rapid growth and impact of massive data centers, especially for AI and cryptocurrency companies, this year has had big economic benefits, especially for construction and design firms and their workers. U.S. spending to build them hit a record $44 billion this year through October, more than double the tally in the same period in 2024.

But there’s increasing blowback to that rapid expansion, with more individual communities opting against new data center projects because of their gargantuan need for electricity and water, which is driving utility rates for residential customers higher. That blowback is getting more coordinated as a coalition of more than 230 environmental, tribal and community groups is calling for a national moratorium on such construction, which they call “one of the biggest environmental and social threats of our generation.”

“This expansion is rapidly increasing demand for energy, driving more fossil fuel pollution, straining water resources and raising electricity prices across the country,” the group, coordinated by Food & Water Watch, said in a letter to Congress. “All this compounds the significant and concerning impacts AI is having on society, including lost jobs, social instability and economic concentration.”

The group estimates that within five years, U.S. data centers will use as much electricity as 30 million homes and as much water as is consumed by 18.5 million households. Because data centers are mainly powered by energy from fossil fuels, this also increases climate pollution. They also blame current data centers for triggering a 21% increase in electricity rates since 2021 and see them driving those prices even higher in the years to come.

The coalition members, “collectively representing millions of people in all 50 states, call on you to support a national moratorium on the approval and construction of new data centers,” they said.

The effort is understandable and may spur even more public awareness of the challenge data centers pose. But given the Trump........

© Forbes