Josh Shapiro Finds the Sensible Middle on Data Centers

His bid to land AI jobs and investment while protecting ratepayers and communities is a model for Democrats.

By Patrick J. Murphy for the Wall Street Journal

Democrats have arrived at a strange place in the debate over artificial intelligence. We warn, correctly, that the U.S. is locked in a technological competition with China and talk about AI as a national-security imperative. Yet when it comes to building the infrastructure that AI requires, we hesitate. Some hesitation is understandable. Data centers can consume enormous amounts of water and electricity, and communities are right to worry about being asked to absorb higher utility costs or infrastructure burdens for projects that may offer them little in return. According to Gallup, 7 in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers in their local areas.

In 2023, data centers used roughly 17 billion gallons of water for cooling, enough to supply about 160,000 American households for a year. That sounds staggering until you put it in context: Agriculture uses vastly more water—81 million acre-feet, or 26 trillion gallons, of irrigation water in 2023. In 2024 golf courses nationwide consumed roughly 1.6 million acre-feet, or 521 billion gallons. Yet no one is proposing a national moratorium on country clubs.

The more serious concern is electricity. A single hyperscale facility can require as much power as a small city, and communities are right to resist when the cost of new generation or grid upgrades is shifted onto ordinary ratepayers. But there is a crucial difference between regulating data centers and stopping them from being built. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is trying to occupy that middle ground.

Last week Mr. Shapiro tightened the rules governing data-center development in his state. His executive order requires developers to secure local approval and increase transparency, making compliance with Pennsylvania’s standards legally binding. It also removes data centers from the state’s fast-track permitting program. His approach gets at the choice Democrats now face: whether to govern the AI build-out or simply slow it down.

Mr. Shapiro has made clear that Pennsylvania wants the investment and jobs that can come with AI, but on terms that protect ratepayers and ensure local communities share in the benefits. The Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development standards were designed around precisely that principle. That approach offers Democrats a useful model at a moment when opposition to data centers is growing across the country.

In July, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the nation’s first statewide moratorium on new hyperscale data centers, pausing certain environmental permits for up to one year. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez propose a federal moratorium that would halt new AI data-center construction until Congress enacts sweeping national safeguards. Acknowledging those concerns can’t become an argument for paralysis, particularly as developers increasingly rely on dedicated clean-energy generation, storage, and power-purchase agreements to reduce pressure on the grid.

AI is poised to become one of the defining economic forces of this century. PwC estimates that AI could contribute nearly $16 trillion to the global economy by 2030. The International Energy Agency projects that electricity demand from AI-related computing will roughly double by the end of this decade. If the U.S. makes it too difficult to build the infrastructure AI requires, investment will go elsewhere. China will leap ahead in the AI race and attract the investments that shape this sector of technology for decades.

That should force us to ask an uncomfortable question: Are Democrats still the party that builds America? Democrats helped electrify rural America, invested in the interstate highway system, expanded public universities, and supported research that gave rise to everything from the internet to modern biotechnology. Those investments reflected a belief that America could shape its own future while ensuring that working families shared in the prosperity that followed.

During my years in uniform and later as undersecretary of the Army, I came to understand that national security depends on far more than military strength. It depends just as much on industrial capacity, resilient supply chains and abundant energy. China understands this too.

Our competitive advantage involves building and powering them with clean energy while protecting workers and communities. That is why Democrats should lead this conversation instead of reacting to it. Critics are right to demand that communities receive more from these projects. But demanding more should lead us to negotiate better projects, not abandon them altogether.

The labor movement understands what is at stake. North America’s Building Trades Unions have embraced responsible AI infrastructure because they recognize it as a generational opportunity to create thousands of skilled construction jobs. America’s greatest achievements have always required us to confront difficult problems without letting them become excuses for inaction. AI will transform the global economy whether we are ready or not. We can build the infrastructure here, under our standards and for our workers, or watch other countries build it and reap the economic and strategic rewards.