Sen. Bernie Sanders wants a nationwide pause on AI data center construction. Few of his colleagues are willing to go there yet.
“In terms of the actual policy prescription, it’s something that I haven’t made a determination yet on,” Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York told Business Insider.
The Vermont senator and two-time presidential candidate first made the call in December, saying in a video posted to X that a national moratorium would “give democracy a chance to catch up with the transformative changes” that the technology is bringing.
Sanders told Business Insider last week that he plans to introduce legislation to back up his call soon.
“There’s enormous issues for our economy and for our democracy that have got to be dealt with,” Sanders said. “And I feel we’re not ready to do that.”
But his proposal is unlikely to become reality, given GOP control of Washington.
“I mean, this Congress isn’t going to do that,” Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin told Business Insider. “He’s pointing out the right problems.”
Republicans have been generally dismissive of Sanders’s idea. Even Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a major critic of the AI industry, signaled he wouldn’t go as far.
“If these AI companies want to build these data centers and local folks want to give them permits for it, I mean, that’s up to local voters,” Hawley told Business Insider.
A handful of Sanders’s progressive allies are backing him up. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota told Business Insider that a moratorium “would be a good idea,” while Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan issued a full-throated endorsement in a post on X.
“I fully support the call for a national AI data center moratorium,” Tlaib wrote.
And while few Democrats have fully endorsed the idea, it’s spurring a conversation within the party about the impact of data centers and AI.
“I don’t want a moratorium on data centers but Bernie is right that we are sleepwalking past risks which alarm even the optimists,” Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii wrote on X last month.
“What we do know is that these AI data centers are just uncontrollably jacking up people’s energy costs,” Ocasio-Cortez told Business Insider. “There are a lot of problems that arise from these data centers, and I think that they certainly should not be getting the blank check from Congress.”
By contrast, the Trump administration has been broadly supportive of the AI industry and the associated data center boom, including taking steps to limit states’ ability to enact AI regulation.
“Bernie makes clear that the debate over AI is not about states rights or affordability,” White House Crypto and AI Czar David Sacks wrote on X in December. “He would block new data centers even if states want them & they generate their own power. It’s about stopping progress completely so China wins the AI race.”
Yet even the administration has come to recognize that data centers are engendering local resistance, in large part due to rising electricity costs.
Last week, President Donald Trump declared that he wanted Big Tech firms to “pay their own way” on data centers, with AI companies footing more of the bill for the electricity their facilities consume.
“I never want Americans to pay higher Electricity bills because of Data Centers,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
And on Friday, the administration and a group of governors called on a major power grid operator to hold a new emergency power auction amid rising costs driven by AI data centers.
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