Why I support a Data Center Moratorium
I am livid. Once again, Republicans in our state government are putting Big Tech ahead of the health and welfare of New Hampshire residents.
On Tuesday, the Republican majority in the State House Committee on Municipal and County Government voted to recommend a bill infringing on the ability of local governments to regulate the construction of data centers in their towns and cities.
As the Chair of the Hampton Select Board, I watch the Municipal and County Government Committee closely, and I am frequently frustrated by the tendency of state leaders to constrain our ability to act as local leaders in the best interest of our neighbors. I am even more outraged by this effort because the Republican State Representatives are putting the interests of Big Tech giants who spend lavishly to lobby federal and state governments ahead of the needs of the residents in communities like mine.
I support my State Senator, Debra Altschiller, who sponsored the original legislation as Senate Bill 439. In her bill, Senator Altschiller sought to establish statewide requirements for data center development. As introduced, it would have limited data centers to commercial and industrial zones, established requirements such as setbacks and noise pollution limits, and enabled towns to regulate data centers further with their own local zoning rules.
Looking at the version recommended by the House Committee on Municipal and County Government, Senator Altschiller said, “That is not a framework; that’s an abdication.”
AI technology developed by for-profit companies is transforming the labor market and the economy in ways we're only beginning to understand. It is being increasingly employed in warfare and surveillance. In Washington and Concord, our top priority should be safeguarding constituents — not fast-tracking Big Tech's expansion. We can't trust Big Tech to self-regulate when they have continuously prioritized profits over people. Right now, the people making those decisions are a handful of tech billionaires using their massive wealth to strike corrupt deals with the Trump Administration.
Working people need leverage to prevent rampant speculation and unregulated expansion from destroying our ability to support our families. If there are benefits of this technological revolution, then working people deserve a share of those benefits. That's why I support Senator Altschiller, and would go even further and recommend a moratorium on data center construction until we have legislation that requires these companies to address and offset the impact of new data centers on public health, the environment, and energy prices and these corporations are subject to aggressive anti-trust enforcement and robust data privacy protections.
In the last couple months, we have just started to see accountability for social media platforms that have been wreaking havoc on our public health and democracy for decades. These are the same tech companies that designed products to addict children and failed to protect kids from predators on their platforms. I don't want to wait another twenty years for class action lawsuits against AI companies to finally deliver justice for their victims, when we can act now to prevent these harms from occurring in the first place.
