Call for a moratorium on AI datacentres in the US

More than 230 organisations have signed on to a letter to members of Congress.

PHOTO Credit: Maricopa County, Arizona.

There is no official record of how many data centres are being built in the US. Neither is there a record of where they are, or who owns them. That is, until Business Insider produced a map. More than two new data centres appear every week.

These data centres consume huge amounts of energy and water. Despite this, many data centres are being built in the desert. And the building boom is just getting started. OpenAI, Microsoft, NVDIA, Arm, and Oracle are spending US$500 billion in AI infrastructure in the US over the next four years.

Business Insider published a great series of reports about “The True Cost of Data Centers” earlier this year. And a documentary:

Opposition to this massive data centre expansion is growing. A recent report by Data Center Watch found that between March and June 2025, US$98 billion in data projects were blocked or delayed.

Donald Trump is pushing AI. And Big Tech is cosying up to Trump. Yesterday, Trump signed an executive order “to remove barriers to United States AI leadership”. The order aims to prevent states from regulating AI. The order creates an “AI Litigation Task Force” with the “sole responsibility” of challenging state AI laws.

This week, more than 230 organisations have signed onto a letter demanding a national moratorium on data centres in the US. The letter was organised by Food and Water Watch and is signed by Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Oil Change International and organisations representing citizens from all 50 US states.

The letter points out that the expansion of data centres in the US “presents one of the biggest environmental and social threats of our generation”.

In a press release, Food and Water Watch’s executive director, Wenonah Hauter, says,

“At a time when millions of Americans are already struggling with soaring utility costs, the sudden explosion of the Big Data industry represents an existential threat for communities ill-equipped to handle the massive environmental and economic hardships these data centers inflict. The only prudent action is to halt the unfettered expansion of this dangerous industry in order to properly examine all manner of potential harm before it’s too late.”

Here is the letter to members of Congress — the full list of signatories is available here:

National Data Center Moratorium Now!

December 8, 2025

Dear Members of Congress:

We, the undersigned organizations 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.

The rapid expansion of data centers across the United States, driven by the generative artificial intelligence (AI) and crypto boom, presents 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. All this compounds the significant and concerning impacts AI is having on society, including lost jobs, social instability and economic concentration.

The harms of data center growth are increasingly well-established, and they are massive. They include:

• Enormous electricity consumption: A tripling of data centers in the next five years would result in data centers consuming as much electricity as about 30 million households.

• Unsustainable water consumption: A tripling of data centers would require as much water as is used by 18.5 million households – simply for cooling the computer servers.

• Contribution to climate change: 56 percent of the electricity used to power data centers is sourced from fossil fuels.

• Skyrocketing electricity costs: Electricity rates have increased 21.3 percent from 2021 to 2024 – drastically outpacing inflation – driven largely by the rapid build-out of data centers, something that could continue to escalate over time.

• Job losses: According to an AI executive, AI could negate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs in the next five years and spike overall unemployment by up to 20 percent.

The rapid, largely unregulated rise of data centers to fuel the AI and crypto frenzy is disrupting communities across the country and threatening Americans’ economic, environmental, climate and water security. We urge you to join our call for a national moratorium on new data centers until adequate regulations can be enacted to fully protect our communities, our families, our environment and our health from the runaway damage this industry is already inflicting.

For more information, contact Food & Water Watch Policy Director, Jim Walsh.