Resources for Regulating Data Centers

With the rapid buildout of data centers across the country, states must have strong policies to mitigate their impacts on climate and local communities. While these resource-intensive facilities may support economic development, they also pose significant challenges for states related to ensuring energy affordability, decreasing fossil fuel dependency, bolstering grid reliability, and conserving local land and water resources. It’s important for state policymakers and advocates to consider how they can ensure the rise in data centers fits within their larger clean energy and economic goals, while also protecting communities.

Enacting effective data center regulations is a key priority for climate and energy advocates. Each state faces its own unique landscape of challenges, requiring advocates and policymakers to prioritize different factors in their approaches to regulating these facilities. Climate XChange is working to support state advocates and policymakers to understand the landscape of data center policy tools, build on lessons learned from network members, and ultimately enact robust, enforceable, and comprehensive data center regulations in their states.