Senator Padilla Calls for Public Input and Review After Data Center Project Granted Exemption from Environmental Review and Previews Plans to Introduce Legislation Setting Data Center Energy Standards
SACRAMENTO – This week, State Senator Steve Padilla (D-San Diego) sent a letter (attached) to the members of the Imperial County Board of Supervisors to request further information on the rationale for the approval of the first stages of a data center application to be developed in the County.
In the County’s official notice, it came to light that the project was granted an exemption from a California Environmental Quality Act environmental review. Given the growing national concerns about the energy and water needs of data centers, this permit approval has raised questions as to what mitigation will be undertaken to avoid negative impacts on the community. “…the potential of data centers should not come at the cost of environmental and public health,” said Senator Padilla in the letter. “Before any data center projects are approved by the County, a complete picture of the water usage and energy demands must be clarified, and area residents must be given a full picture of how the energy and water costs will affect them.”
The AI boom is powered by massive data centers. Those data centers, while driving the AI revolution, also consume massive amounts of energy and water, and requiring expensive upgrades to the electrical grid. The cost of these upgrades are frequently not fully paid for by the data center developer, shifting those costs to local residents. Data centers consumed about 4.4% of total U.S. electricity in 2023 and that number is expected to triple in the next three years, according to the 2024 Report on U.S. Data Center Energy Use produced by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The massive energy demands of these data centers means that utility prices increase as the grid struggles to keep pace with need. The Mid-Atlantic regional grid where several data centers are housed is projected to see rate increases of up to 20 percent by this year, with the grid operator now paying $14.7 billion for power in the 2025/26 delivery year, compared to $2.2 billion in the previous year.
The increase in energy generation to power these data centers also comes with an environmental and public health cost. In Northern Virginia, the region with the highest concentration of data centers in the world, face projected electricity cost increases of 25%, and aging fossil fuel plants are delaying retirement due to the increased energy demand. These data centers using fossil fuels such as coal and diesel are estimated to create public health costs more than 5.4 billion dollars from air pollution, linking these facilities to cancer, asthma, and other health issues.
A major concern of particular importance to desert communities is the amount of water data centers consume. According to a study by APM Research Lab, in 2021, Google’s 15 U.S. data centers withdrew around 4.2 billion gallons of water. Over 3.3 billion of those gallons were consumed, meaning that they weren’t returned to their original source. That’s about as much water consumption as 35,486 U.S. households. In the same year, Meta’s data centers withdrew 1.3 billion gallons of water in 2021, 367 million of which were from areas with high or extremely high water stress.
There has been significant community concern about the potential impacts that the data center could pose on public health, energy costs, and water use. In response to these concerns, the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) announced it has launched a new public information initiative to help the community understand the growing interest from data center developers seeking to locate in the District's service territory.
“I applaud IDD’s commitment to informing the public and searching for the answers to questions that our community has about the impacts of these projects,” said Senator Padilla. “I urge the County of Imperial to partner closely with IID efforts so we can ensure transparency on these planning decisions. These projects can be the gateway to incredible innovation, but ordinary ratepayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for that innovation.”
“I plan to introduce legislation this January that will develop energy and resource efficiency standards for data centers,” said Senator Padilla. “We need to set guidelines for these companies or we will end up making the same mistakes made in other states where data centers have raised costs on ordinary ratepayers, polluted their air, and degraded their water supply.”
Senator Padilla is the author of several bills designed to protect the public from rising energy costs related to data centers and ensuring they adhere to California’s critical climate goals. Earlier this year, his legislation Senate Bill 57 was signed into law. The law authorizes the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to conduct a study on the extent load growth from data centers results in cost shifts to other ratepayers by 2027. This study is critical to ensure ratepayers do not have skyrocketing energy costs while not increasing the state’s reliance on fossil fuels.
To learn more about SB 57 and Senator Padilla’s efforts to protect California ratepayers from increasing energy costs, click here and here.
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Steve Padilla represents the 18th Senate District, which includes the communities of Chula Vista, the Coachella Valley, Imperial Beach, the Imperial Valley, National City, and San Diego. Prior to his election to the Senate in 2022, Senator Padilla was the first person of color ever elected to city office in Chula Vista, the first Latino Mayor, and the first openly LGBT person to serve or be elected to city office. Website of Senator Steve Padilla: https://sd18.senate.ca.gov/