Pass Legislation Now to Regulate Data Center Expansion

Pass Legislation Now to Regulate Data Center Expansion We need preventative legislation on data center construction before these facilities become too entrenched to regulate. These are not ordinary office buildings — they draw up to 1,000 megawatts of power, consume millions of gallons of water daily, employ as few as 30 people, and are being fast-tracked through permitting in rural communities with the same playbook used in the fracking boom. The time to act is before the infrastructure is locked in, not after. The convergence of digital identity systems, central bank digital currencies, and behavioral data platforms all depend on this same physical compute infrastructure. Larry Fink has publicly stated the buildout will be funded by "savings accounts and pension accounts" — roughly $10 trillion over ten years — meaning ordinary Americans are financing this expansion through retirement vehicles without meaningful consent. BlackRock's AI Infrastructure Partnership already closed a $40 billion data center acquisition in October 2025, the largest such transaction on record. Legislation should require mandatory water-use and energy disclosure, independent environmental review, full transparency on tax abatement deals, and a prohibition on "data embassy" arrangements that would exempt these facilities from local jurisdiction. Oregon, Arizona, and Utah have already moved on water reporting — federal standards should follow. Communities deserve the right to say no before the razor wire goes up, not after.