35 Organizations Submit Letter Opposing HB 2151 in Advance of Committee Vote

Bill Amends the MPC to Put DCED in Charge of Creating a Model Ordinance

Pennsylvania: Thirty-five organizations and businesses submitted a letter to state legislators today expressing their opposition to HB 2151, a bill introduced by Rep. Kyle Donahue (D-115) to create community standards for data center developments. The House Energy Committee is set to vote on the bill tomorrow morning.

The Co-sponsorship memorandum describes the bill as one that amends “the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code (MPC), in zoning, providing for data center ordinance assistance; and imposing duties on the Department of Community and Economic Development’s (DCED) Center for Local Government Services.”

The letter states, “The DCED is not an impartial party in decisions regarding data center development. It is the state agency that is actively engaged in not just bringing data centers to Pennsylvania, but in fast-tracking their approval. Giving any model ordinance the agency would develop the MPC’s imprimatur would be a misuse of the MPC.”

“Municipal control has been under attack since the data center boom began in Pennsylvania. Governor Shapiro mentioned his Lightning Plan during his budget address today. The RESET portion of his plan would strip municipal governments of their authority over the siting of the large-scale energy projects that would power data centers. At first blush, HB 2151 appeared to be different, to support local control, but, in the end, it is simply an attempt to get municipalities to enact ordinances written by the state agency working on behalf of data center developers,” said Karen Feridun, Co-Founder, Better Path Coalition

“Attempts by data center developers to get their industry-favorable ordinances passed have repeatedly failed in communities across Pennsylvania because of unprecedented public. So now the industry is making this attempt at the state level” said Food & Water Watch Eastern Pennsylvania Senior Organizer Ginny Marcille-Kerslake. “Allowing DCED, the same agency that actively works to recruit and support this industry to craft statewide guidance on data center ordinances raises questions about transparency, conflicts of interest, and whose interests are truly being served.”

“Let us not repeat the mistakes of the fracking boom in PA that has led to environmental degradation, human health damage, and few local economic benefits. Instead of creating new sacrifice zones without seeking and respecting valid concerns of Pennsylvania residents, we should be creating safe and healthy communities that invite public input and share in the potential economic opportunities of AI,” said Ned Ketyer, President, Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – February 3, 2026

Contact: Karen Feridun, Better Path Coalition, 610-678-7726, betterpathpa@gmail.com

Shapiro Announces Toothless Plan to Address Public’s Data Center Concerns

Joint Statement by the Better Path Coalition and No False Climate Solutions PA

Pennsylvania: The throngs of Pennsylvanians who are filling municipal meetings to standing-room-only capacity across the state are not doing it so the data center operators proposing projects in their communities provide their own energy or offer them community benefits agreements. The tone deaf Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) initiative Governor Shapiro announced today during his budget address also makes a vague requirement for the hiring of local workers and, most preposterously of all, calls on developers to commit to the highest standards of environmental protection. Pennsylvanians do not want to see their communities suffer the environmental, health, economic, and quality of life impacts that communities in so many other states are experiencing. They were never asked their opinions when data center deals were being hammered out behind closed doors. Now that their municipalities are being barraged by data center proposals, they are saying no.

Although Shapiro refers to himself as an all-of-the-above energy governor, the data center boom he is promoting relies heavily on one energy source - natural gas. Whether data center operators power their centers with electricity from gas-fired power plants feeding the grid or plants they build themselves, the data center boom is simply the next generation of fracking at a time when the profound on-the-ground harms of drilling and fracking are irrefutable and the climate crisis is intensifying to the point of no return.

But data centers’ environmental impacts are not limited to those posed by the natural gas that powers them. Data centers are responsible for noise pollution, water shortages, water contamination from the waste stream, and air pollution, among others, that have never been successfully managed in states already inundated with them. Companies may market their data centers as harmless, but we know there are environmental, climate, and human health impacts from them.

Pennsylvanians know that data centers do not create many jobs for local workers. They also know that the Artificial Intelligence driving the demand for data centers will take away far more jobs than data centers claim to create. Shapiro boasted about the deal he struck with Amazon for at least two data centers in Pennsylvania. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, Amazon is the fifth largest employer in the state… for now. In the past four months, Amazon has announced 30,000 immediate job cuts and nearly 600,000 jobs it will replace with robots in the next few years.

Community Benefit Agreements are the insult added to the injury being visited upon Pennsylvanians who have never been given the right of refusal. Every data center will result in unavoidable and irreversible environmental changes through the use of non-renewable resources and the permanent loss of farmland, vegetation, habitat, and natural hydrology.

Although Shapiro did not review last year’s Lightning Plan in detail, he did refer to the siting reforms the public has strongly rejected. The RESET board would strip municipal governments of siting authority over the large-scale energy projects that would power data centers.

We encourage Governor Shapiro to get something done that isn’t shit.

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