PRESS RELEASE
Press Contact: press@athenaforall.org

In comments to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, groups warn Administration against backsliding on corporate concentration and worsening the climate crisis.

This morning, in response to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) request for comments on the country’s data center expansion strategy, 20+ groups, including the Athena Coalition, Piedmont Environmental Council, Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR), Public Citizen, Free Press, Good Jobs First, Kairos Action, People’s Action Institute, 350.org, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), submitted a comment highlighting the need for a new trajectory for energy and technology investments in order to serve the public interest. The groups urge the government to reject big tech’s bids for unchecked data center expansion, and instead take action to address urgent climate commitments.

“By green-lighting energy-guzzling data centers, even for computing functions consumers haven’t asked for, Uncle Sam’s left hand is fighting his right. We can’t let Big Tech’s entitled culture cancel out the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act and other green-tech innovations,” stated Greg LeRoy, Executive Director of Good Jobs First.

In addition to sending the NTIA a joint comment, several groups are organizing thousands of comments to the administration with concerns about big tech’s expansion of dirty data centers, from people across the country. Their comments read, “Federal agencies should ensure that we prioritize low-cost, renewable energy for the public, not for wealthy corporations.” Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ) also submitted a comment to the agency, providing their recent analysis on Amazon’s overreliance on low quality renewable energy credits (RECs).

“As the people who work on developing the AI technology driving this era of data center expansion, we see first-hand how senior leadership at our company consistently deprioritizes environmental and climate impact while planning, let alone community impact,” said Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, an independent worker group at Amazon. “For years, Amazon has relied on low quality RECs to paint a picture of sustainability while behind the scenes, it urges speedy expansion that results in expanding fossil-fuel infrastructure. It is critical that federal agencies step in or we will be further locked into decades of fossil fuel infrastructure by the very companies who have the scale & resources to be leading the energy transition.”

In the organizations’ joint comment to the NTIA, they urge the administration to act according to the following principles:

• Prioritize affordable, renewable energy for the public above the speculative needs of technology corporations, and ensure data centers are not extending the life of coal and fracked gas, nor driving the build-out of new fossil fuel infrastructure, directly or indirectly.
• Ensure economic and energy policies related to data centers address corporate concentration, monopolization, and unfair competition in the energy, utility, and tech sectors.
• Guarantee that the public and utility ratepayers are not made to subsidize the wealthiest corporations in the world.
• Bring much-needed transparency into both the data center and utility sectors, so that the public, regulators, and lawmakers can make informed decisions that protect people and the planet.

“In Virginia, the explosive growth of data centers threatens our energy infrastructure, water resources, climate and air quality goals, and communities. With no state or federal review of the regional scale of impacts on energy, water, and air, hundreds of data center development proposals have been approved by localities. Dominion Energy alone has committed to 21GW of electric contracts in their transmission service zone — nearly double its current peak load of approximately 23GW — and that commitment will grow with the steady flow of new proposals in the pipeline. Water consumption by data centers has increased by more than 200%, and thousands of diesel generators have been permitted in northern Virginia alone. This unprecedented demand for resources comes at immense cost to both the environment and ratepayers who will bear a disproportionate share of the expense of building data center infrastructure. Without reasonable oversight, this unsustainable pattern will be duplicated across the state,” stated Julie Bolthouse, Director of Land Use at Piedmont Environmental Council.

In addition to these principles, groups shed a light on the intersecting crises that big tech’s unfettered data center expansion is introducing to communities across the country: derailing global climate progress; increasing utility and energy prices for the public; shrouding data center deals in secrecy; and worsening corporate concentration among utility and big tech companies to the detriment of the public interest.

“The federal government should pump the brakes on the reckless expansion of AI data centers and demand more transparency,” said Ben Inskeep, Program Director at Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana. “Secretive data centers owned by multi-trillion-dollar corporations are causing a massive build out of new gas plants in Indiana, undermining our clean energy transition and putting utility ratepayers and state taxpayers at enormous risk.”

This comment comes on the heels of a coalition of public interest groups sending a letter to the White House demanding a meeting to discuss the costs of constructing the massive, power and water-sucking data centers needed to power AI companies. The demand followed a White House meeting on the subject earlier this month with big tech and energy company executives that concluded with a set of actions suggesting the government would fast-track data center expansion on behalf of some of the wealthiest corporations in the world, as those companies race to cement their own power.

“Many U.S. utility companies have already seized upon projected data center energy use to propose polluting fossil fuel power plants that will harm the climate and enrich their shareholders, at the expense of their captive customers,” stated John Farrell, Co-Director at Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

“It is imperative that federal agencies, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Department of Energy, lead on efforts to ensure that a proposed expansion of energy-hungry data centers do not threaten the reliability, affordability or pollution emissions of the bulk power grid,” said Tyson Slocum, Energy Program Director for Public Citizen.

In their comment to the NTIA, groups wrote, “Right now, corporate profit interests in the tech and energy sectors are driving toward maximum growth at the expense of energy and water resources – all in an effort to “win” the artificial intelligence race and secure their own wealth and power into the future.”

They continued, “We are alarmed by statements from the Department of Energy and White House that suggest the administration is seeking to fast-track this growth at the expense of a more pressing need to expand affordable, renewable energy for the public and advance our climate goals. Government action on behalf of a handful of corporations would be a real threat to progress we have made toward reducing concentrated corporate power in our economy, especially in the tech sector, where the public is concerned about artificial intelligence and wants protections against surveillance-driven business models.”

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