Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Tuesday that "too many" data center developers don't care about the communities where they are building artificial intelligence-sector projects, and he pointed to an executive order he signed on Aug. 18 that strips AI data center projects from a fast-track approval program.
The people living near these projects are the ones expected to absorb the costs. Opponents say AI data centers can boost electricity demand and utility costs and strain local water resources, while developers and elected officials keep talking about investment, permits and growth like the damage lands somewhere else.
Who Pays for the Buildout
"The reality is, I want CEOs that give a damn about the community where they're going to be," Shapiro said while appearing on CNBC with Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya to talk about the Greek yogurt maker's planned $1.2 billion investment in a new Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, dairy manufacturing hub. "Unfortunately, we've seen too many developers who don't care about our communities, who are trying to run roughshod over our communities, and those are the kinds of data center projects we don't want here," he said. "We want to work with people that want to work with local communities."
Shapiro's order requires any proposals for centers to comply with the Governor's Responsible Infrastructure Development, or GRID, Requirements. He said, "This executive order represents the most stringent requirements in the entire country," and added, "And my word to developers is you better follow these requirements. Otherwise you shouldn't plan to do business here."
The governor said the order means developers have to earn local support before seeking permits from the state. "No. 2, you've got to generate your own power, and you got to pay for the power," he said. "You can't saddle local homeowners and businesses with that. No. 3, you've got to protect our water supply and our air quality."
"All of those things are common sense, and you are now legally bound to those standards," he said.
The State Sets the Terms
Shapiro said he is one of several governors who have imposed new restrictions or called for greater scrutiny of data center development amid widespread public opposition to the projects, which has become a political flash point in the upcoming congressional and state elections. That opposition is not abstract. A Gallup survey released in May found that "seven in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area."
Still, the machinery of power keeps moving. In June 2025, Shapiro touted Amazon's announcement that it would spend at least $20 billion to build two data center complexes in Pennsylvania as the biggest private investment in state history. "It's important to note that this is just an initial investment coming from Amazon, so this is going to grow," Shapiro told CNBC's "Squawk Box" that month. "Pennsylvania is going to be better off. I think America is going to be better off because we're going to win the battle of AI supremacy and it's going to be done right here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."
That language says plenty. The promise is always supremacy, growth and a better future, while the costs land on communities asked to accept the infrastructure, the power demand and the water strain as the price of somebody else's expansion.
Election Season, Same Old Pressure
Shapiro said the order came as he seeks reelection as governor against the Republican nominee, state Treasurer Stacy Garrity. He cited the order during his appearance with Ulukaya on Tuesday. "That's why I put those regulations in place through my executive order that says you've got to earn local support before you can even come to the state for permitting," Shapiro said. "We want to frankly knock out the people who don't view the world the way Hamdi and Chobani do, that they're partners with the community."
Garrity called the executive order "damage control" in an August video. "Josh Shapiro spent the last year rolling out the red carpet for massive data center development in Pennsylvania," Garrity said. "He celebrated it, he promoted it, he said he was proud of it." Garrity said that if she is elected, "I will pause data center development in Pennsylvania." But in a radio interview a year earlier, Garrity had said "Ohio is kicking our butt" in having more than double the number of data centers that Pennsylvania has. "We could be doing so much more in that space," she said.
The whole fight sits inside the election trap. One side promises to slow the projects, the other side promises to manage them better, and the underlying structure stays intact: permits, corporate investment, state rules, and communities left to fight for basic protections after the deals are already on the table.
On the same day Shapiro signed his order in August, the National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a memo warning voter backlash to data centers has put Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, at risk of losing a special election to Democratic nominee Sherrod Brown, himself a former senator. "If Husted loses because of data centers, the industry will be blamed, and elected officials of both parties will learn a cautionary lesson," the NRSC said.
What They Call 'Education'
David Sacks, who is co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, offered the familiar sales pitch later Tuesday on "Squawk on the Street." He said that "there is a good deal to be made here between local communities and data centers and the AI companies." He said, "You educate the average residential consumer and voter, that actually there's a way for these data centers to bring down their electricity costs. That actually the data center operators are willing to fund grid upgrades. That actually data centers don't use a lot of water now because the water recirculates."
Sacks said that when people are educated about the issue, "the poll numbers change dramatically, and you'll see that a majority of voters will actually support data centers."
That’s the language of managed consent. First comes the project, then the pitch, then the promise that the public just needs to be educated properly. Meanwhile, the communities asked to live beside the machines are told to trust the same institutions that keep expanding them.
Shapiro's order, the corporate investment, the election-season messaging and the public-relations campaign all point in the same direction. The people at the bottom are expected to carry the load while the people at the top argue over who gets to administer it.