Thank Senators for Investigating Data Center Energy Use

The explosive growth of data centers across the United States is fueling a climate emergency. These massive facilities are driving a surge in electricity demand that is already locking in new fossil fuel infrastructure, increasing carbon pollution, and pushing the electric grid in the wrong direction—at the very moment scientists warn we must rapidly slash emissions to avoid catastrophic climate impacts. As AI-driven data centers multiply, their enormous energy and water demands threaten climate goals, local ecosystems, and frontline communities.

We thank Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen, and Richard Blumenthal, and Senate Democrats, for launching an investigation into Big Tech data centers and their role in driving up families’ utility costs. This investigation is a critical step toward exposing how unchecked data center expansion allows powerful corporations to offload climate, energy, and infrastructure costs onto the public.

By demanding answers from Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and other tech giants, Senate leaders are revealing how secretive utility deals and rushed approvals are shifting costs to ratepayers while accelerating fossil fuel dependence. Families face higher bills, communities absorb pollution and water stress, and the climate crisis deepens—while Big Tech continues to expand with few limits.

Data centers are now one of the fastest-growing sources of electricity demand in the United States. Without strong guardrails, their growth will delay renewable energy deployment, extend the life of polluting power plants, and drive new fossil fuel generation built explicitly to serve corporate data infrastructure. Communities from Virginia to Texas are already seeing the consequences: rising emissions, depleted water supplies, industrial sprawl, and the loss of local control.

Please sign the petition to call on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation—to meet this growing threat with action. 

Congress must pass legislation that freezes new data center construction in areas not properly zoned for heavy industrial energy use until comprehensive climate, water, and utility impact assessments are completed.

Any future data center approvals must include binding requirements for 100% clean energy, additional renewable energy, and an explicit prohibition on building new fossil-fuel power plants or extending existing ones to serve data centers. Corporations must pay the full cost of their grid demands, protect water resources, and respect community decision-making.

This is not a partisan issue—communities around the country are coming together to oppose new data center construction. Please sign the petition to thank these senators for standing up to powerful tech interests and urge these committees to act with the urgency this climate emergency demands—before Big Tech locks in decades of new pollution while families pay the bill.

The petition to the Senate reads: Thank you for investigating the explosive growth of Big Tech data centers and their role in driving up energy demand, utility costs, and climate pollution. We urge the Senate to act by freezing new data center construction in areas not zoned for heavy industrial use, requiring 100% clean energy for all facilities, and prohibiting new fossil-fuel power plants built to serve data centers.

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Sources:

https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senator-warren-lawmakers-open-investigation-into-big-tech-data-centers-role-in-driving-up-families-utility-costs

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/01/06/data-centers-backlash-impact-local-communities-opposition/