1. United States
2. N.J.
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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 energy demand, 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. This pollution often harms communities of color, Tribal Nations, Indigenous Peoples, and poor or working-class communities. * Impact on Tribal Nations and Indigenous Sovereignty: data centers built on Tribal lands are a major strain on physical and governmental resources. In addition, generative AI can harm culture and sovereignty by misrepresenting Tribal languages and history. * Skyrocketing electricity costs: average residential electricity prices in the U.S. soared 31 percent from 2020 to 2025, compared to just 4 percent from 2015 to 2020. This is largely driven by the rapid build-out of data centers, which could continue to accelerate 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. *