With a few dozen data centers already up and running in Pennsylvania and proposals on the table for over 100 more, public opposition is growing — especially to the new hyperscale projects intended to support AI. Like his counterparts across the Chesapeake Bay region, Gov. Josh Shapiro is reading the room.
According to a Quinnipiac University poll released in July, 74% of Pennsylvania voters say they would be against building an AI data center in their community. And on Aug. 18, Shapiro signed an executive order intended to give municipalities more control over data center development and to establish stricter guardrails for those projects. Governors in Maryland and Virginia have since followed suit.
Shapiro’s order is “an important way to address concerns about consumer impacts, environmental impacts and public health impacts from data centers,” said Robert Routh, the state’s policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council…