The number of data center projects proposed in the Ohio River Valley and nationwide is growing quickly. But public opposition appears to be growing even faster:
- 74% of Pennsylvanians said they would oppose building an AI data center in their community in July, up from 68% in February.[1]
- 71% of Ohio voters favor a moratorium on data center construction.[2]
- Thirty Kentucky counties have already put in place ordinances or moratoria on new data centers.
- West Virginia residents have packed town halls and organized roadside protests to demonstrate their contempt.
It’s a story that’s playing out across the country. Remarkably, as Heatmap points out, the percentage of Americans opposed to local data center development has surged by more than thirty percentage points in a year, growing from 42% in August 2025 to 75% in August 2026. Now, seven in ten Americans say they would somewhat (23%) or strongly (48%) oppose a data center in their area to support AI technology, including 75% of Democrats, 74% of independents, and 63% of Republicans, per a March Gallup poll. Recent national surveys from Reuters/Ipsos and the University of Pennsylvania show similarly decisive margins of opposition.
Cause for concern and support for regulation
There are a number of reasons why people have soured on data center development, from water impacts and energy use to traffic and light pollution. Seven in ten Americans worry about environmental impacts a fair amount (24%) or a great deal (46%). Overwhelming majorities point to industrial noise (73%), heavy water use (74%), hidden taxpayer subsidies (77%), and deals cut without public input (75%), according to a July poll from Morning Consult and Americans for Responsible Innovation. And while much of the country has experienced rising utility rates for years, nearly eight in ten (77%) Americans believe that AI data centers will make electricity even more expensive.
Accordingly, many say they’d support policies that would enhance transparency and tighten regulations around incoming data center projects. Over three-quarters of Americans (77%), including large majorities of Republicans (77%), Democrats (77%), and independents (71%), favor repealing or limiting tax incentives so that data centers don’t strip funding away from local services. Voters also support establishing regulations to protect nearby water sources (82%) and requiring data center companies to disclose water and energy use (82%).
At the local level, sentiment has started translating into action. The number of eligible counties and municipalities advancing pauses on data center development in Ohio River Valley states has grown swiftly, even in the last few months. But statewide policy action in the region still lags well behind public sentiment.
Ohio
Ohio is home to more than 200 planned or currently operating data centers, the sixth-highest total in the country.
So far, Ohio hasn’t passed any statewide regulations on data center development. In May, though, Governor Mike DeWine directed the Ohio Tax Credit Authority to pause new data center tax exemption considerations after the state handed out over $1.5 billion in sales tax exemptions on purchases of data center equipment and construction materials last year.
Ohio voters will soon elect a new governor who could substantially reshape the state’s data center landscape. The winner of the gubernatorial race will appoint the five members of the Ohio Public Utility Commission, which sets utility rates and statewide parameters for data center development.
The candidates are split on their data center views.
Democrat Amy Acton announced last month that she would support a conditional moratorium on data centers “if requirements on costs, union labor, transparency, environmental standards, community benefit agreements, and development are not met.”
Republican Vivek Ramaswamy welcomed data center expansion during an address in Jefferson County last March, suggesting it would require “an unshackling of energy production in Ohio, from fossil fuels to nuclear energy.” His data center proposal, released this month, acknowledges growing concerns around data center expansion and outlines a set of conditions for new projects:
If a data center is built in your community, then (i) you will no longer have to pay for your home’s electricity, (ii) you will pay lower property taxes, and (iii) the data center will be required to abide by all air and water quality standards without exception, and we will take the necessary steps to protect Ohio’s fertile farmland. If any one of these three conditions is not met, the data center won’t be built.
Ramaswamy stands to personally benefit from data center development, according to an investigation from Innovation Ohio. Ramaswamy’s 2025 financial disclosure, filed with the Ohio Ethics Commission, reveals millions of dollars worth of personal investments in chip manufacturers, tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon, real estate investment trusts, and companies throughout the data center supply chain.
Polls suggest the race could come down to the wire. But in the lead-up to the November election, dozens of Ohio towns and cities have advanced municipal data center moratoriums to stave off new development proposals.
Pennsylvania
In August, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order embedding enforcement mechanisms into his previously announced Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) Standards, a set of requirements around energy costs, transparency and community engagement, economic development, and environmental protection for new data center projects.
The GRID standards direct data centers to provide their own electricity without imposing additional costs on ratepayers, including modest standards for new clean energy generation that ramp up from 10% of capacity to 32% by 2035. The standards also require submission of a community outreach and disclosure plan, “good faith” efforts to mitigate air pollution and land and water impacts, and a community benefit plan with a commitment to at least $250 million in new investment, 200 construction jobs, and 50 long-term jobs, prioritizing local labor.
Shapiro’s order incorporates the GRID requirements into the state’s review process, rolling back “Fast Track” expedited permitting for new and existing projects and holding the Department of Environmental Protection’s permit review process until all local approvals are received. The order restricts access to the state’s sales tax exemption on data center equipment to developers that agree to comply with GRID requirements.
The order also prohibits the use of nondisclosure agreements with state executive agencies, requires data center operators to submit information on real and projected energy use and water consumption, and establishes a public map of statewide data center proposals and permitting information.
However, community advocates say the order fails to adequately protect Pennsylvanians from the direst consequences of data center development—or even grant residents a meaningful say in whether or not projects are approved. The majority of the Commonwealth’s projected data center electricity demand is expected to be met with gas-fired power, which can spike residential electricity prices and dial up climate-warming pollution, even when developers build their own dedicated, “behind the meter” power plants. And permitted data centers will still be eligible for the state’s generous sales tax exemption, previously estimated to cost Pennsylvanians hundreds of millions of dollars annually through 2031.
Shapiro has championed AI and data center development throughout his first term, establishing a pilot program for government workers to use ChatGPT, pledging to fast-track permits for a $20 billion Amazon data center investment, and endorsing $90 billion in private investment for data center infrastructure at the March 2025 Energy and Innovation Summit in Pittsburgh.
Republican Stacy Garrity, who will challenge Shapiro for the governor’s office in November, has criticized the GRID standards for incorporating a “clean energy mandate.” She has said she would support a temporary data center “pause” and repeal of special tax incentives for data centers.
Legislation to regulate data center development has struggled to cross the finish line in Pennsylvania. Bills that would repeal the state’s uncapped sales and use tax exemption for computer equipment have moved through the state House and Senate, though neither has passed both chambers. State lawmakers have introduced a number of bills establishing stricter baseline requirements for utility contracts and outlining moratorium plans, from empowering municipalities to enact months-long pauses to establishing a three-year, statewide blanket moratorium, though none have advanced through the Statehouse.
Pennsylvania communities can’t legally ban data centers. However, dozens of boroughs and townships have enacted de facto pauses on data center development with a zoning amendment outlined in the state’s Municipalities Planning Code. The “curative amendment” process allows municipalities to freeze consideration of any landowner proposals to amend local zoning ordinances for 180 days, granting officials “time to write zoning rules in peace.”
Kentucky
Gov. Andy Beshear issued an executive order this month aimed at guaranteeing community benefits and mitigating harmful impacts from data centers. The order requires developers to submit an energy plan to ensure no “detrimental impacts” to ratepayers, bars state regulators from allowing utilities to increase rates, and instructs the cabinet to deny permit applications that would harm air or water quality or Kentucky’s natural resources, Louisville Public Media reports. It also restricts data centers from local or school tax exemptions and encourages public engagement with local communities.
However, the order doesn’t include enforcement mechanisms or stipulate penalties developers may face for failing to meet the outlined requirements, House Speaker David Osborne told LPM.
In 2025, the Kentucky General Assembly expanded a statewide sales tax exemption on data center equipment that can last for up to 50 years for large projects. The Kentucky Center for Economic Policy estimates the exemption, which analysts rank among the most generous in the country, could forgo over $1 billion in sales tax revenue if awarded to just a few large data centers, potentially becoming the state’s largest tax expenditure.
So far, legislation introduced by state lawmakers to establish statewide data center regulations has failed to move through the Statehouse. However, more than a dozen counties and a number of major municipalities, including Lexington, Louisville, and Ashland, have adopted data center moratoriums lasting up to two years.
West Virginia
Governor Patrick Morrisey, a longtime data center cheerleader, announced this month a ten-page plan detailing a new set of “responsible data center principles” addressing local benefits, water use, grid reliability, rising electricity prices, and national security.
But the plan offers “no new environmental or ratepayer protections,” Mike Tony reports for the Charleston Gazette-Mail, and many of its principles are contradicted by the controversial House Bill 2014, sweeping legislation designed to fast-track data center development by stripping local control and shielding developers from commonsense disclosure requirements.
H.B. 2014, signed into law by Morrisey last year, severely limits local zoning or regulatory control, preventing communities subject to data center development from introducing any sort of ordinances, regulations, or rules that would limit in any way the creation and operation of data center projects. At the same time, it unconstitutionally diverts up to 70% of revenue generated from data center property taxes away from host counties — millions in locally levied tax dollars that would have otherwise gone to school districts and other public services — and reallocates the lion’s share to a state fund for reducing personal income tax and a smaller portion to a fund that would help maintain utility-owned coal and gas generation.
H.B. 2014 hands developers license to designate project details, water withdrawals, air emissions, and other critical information as confidential, shielding companies from public disclosure obligations and keeping West Virginians in the dark about data center impacts.
The bill also opened the door to West Virginia Public Service Commission rulemaking that would further raise electricity rates by ramping up coal-fired power generation capacity and approving a new $2.47 billion gas-fired power plant to help meet data center power demand. House Bill 2014 doesn’t require developers to disclose water withdrawal information.
Morrisey’s new plan calls for a data center advisory council composed of academics, local government representatives, conservation group members, industry representatives, and utility providers that would meet to develop statewide standards for noise mitigation and minimum setbacks from properties, residential neighborhoods, schools, and places of worship. The plan also references ratepayer protections and nods to water safeguards, principles that “aim to blunt growing criticism of the sector,” Adam Aton reports for E&E News.
Still, “there remains a need to see concrete, specific, and legally binding details” for how data center standards laid out in Morrisey’s plan will be set and enforced, Amy Margolies, executive director of community group Tucker United, told the Gazette-Mail.
West Virginia has exempted data centers and other high-tech business services from the state’s 6% sales and use tax since 2009. Analysis from the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy shows the exemption could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars of foregone revenue per hyperscale data center project. West Virginia law also appraises the tangible personal property of data centers and other high-tech businesses at “salvage value,” or 5% of the original cost, for the purposes of property tax collection, an effective tax break that can amount to additional tens or hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Will policymakers catch up with the public’s demands?
The polling couldn’t be clearer: data centers are deeply unpopular across states and counties, partisan affiliations, and even traditional urbanicity divides. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, a record 75 data center projects — representing over $130 billion — were blocked or delayed nationwide. From Cleveland to Bullitt County, residents are pushing policymakers to pump the brakes on accelerating development plans.
But some state and local leaders are tuning out their constituents’ outcry, carving out generous subsidies to lure projects or slapdashing feeble, voluntary standards that may ultimately do little to address community concerns.
One of the most meaningful levers at the fingertips of state-level elected officials is public funding. Incentive packages like sales tax exemptions for data center equipment can amount to billions of dollars in functional subsidies—money that would go straight from taxpayers’ pocketbooks to the coffers of the wealthiest companies in the history of the world. Some say these programs can ignite business growth and boost employment. But like the fracking boom, the fizzled petrochemical renaissance, and the hydrogen hub hype before it, research shows data center development is polluting and highly capital-intensive, incapable of translating weighty investment figures into meaningful job growth and lasting economic development. In other words, a bad bet.
As election season approaches, decision-makers new and old will have to decide whether to continue the race to attract new data center projects with public funds — or to heed the growing concern of those they’re elected to represent.
[1] Quinnipiac University, July 2026.
[2] Bowling Green State University, April 2026.