Overview:

Data centers pose unique challenges to every level of government here in Pennsylvania. While every new industry brings new concerns, data center facilities are unconstrained by traditional economic factors and can be built at a speed that cannot be matched by decisionmakers. Data centers pose numerous challenges for local communities, from poor siting and local air and noise pollution, to high water usage and grid-scale power impacts.

While PennFuture is working at the local, regional, and statewide level to address these impacts, the basic fact remains that our current laws are ill-equipped to protect Pennsylvanians.

Therefore, PennFuture has called for a statewide moratorium —or pause— on data center development until state lawmakers can adopt strict policies that ensure data centers are sited properly, have regulated water usage, and bring their own clean energy. It’s critical that Pennsylvania sets guardrails in place before a surge of data centers are built so that our electricity grid can be maintained, ratepayer impacts are constrained, and our air, water, and climate pollution problems don’t get worse.

But there is good news! Some state legislators have put forward several bills in response to the needs of municipalities to protect communities and to the concerns regarding energy prices and resource consumption.

As we analyze each data center bill put forward, PennFuture lays out these core principles that legislators must incorporate. These include data center policies that:

1. Provide meaningful protection of our public natural resources and our constitutional right to clean air and pure water as provided under Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania state Constitution.
2. Ensure that existing utility customers are not subsidizing costs associated with data center buildout.
3. Require facilities to demonstrate that they have secured the necessary power to support their operations before these facilities are connected to the grid.
4. Promote the development of new, clean energy sources to increase grid reliability and lower electricity costs for Pennsylvanians.

But let us make ourselves clear: until lawmakers enact policies that achieve these four principles, data center development shouldn’t be allowed in Pennsylvania.

This blog will analyze each data center bill we’ve engaged with, evaluating whether it aligns with our four core data center principles. And as a special bonus, we’ll even tell you about our public comments to the PUC supporting consumer protections against rising electricity costs.

Now Let’s Break Down the Bills:

House Bill 1834 (HB 1834)

Sponsor: Rep Robert Matzie [District 16]

POSITION: ✅Supports with amendment adopted that aligns with our data center principles

STATUS: Passed the state House and makes its way to the state Senate

This bill directs the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) to create regulations around how data centers are developed in Pennsylvania and proposes increased investment in the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and additional investments in community energy projects. Coming in at only 5 pages, the brevity of the original bill was an opportunity for stakeholders' engagement around potential amendments, in which PennFuture was able to provide substantial feedback You can read our written testimony here.

You may remember that PennFuture at one point opposed this bill. Let’s explain why:

The original text included a renewable energy requirement that mandated that at least 25 percent of electricity supplied under a contract between a public utility and a commercial data center must be generated from renewable energy sources, including solar, wind energy, biomass, or hydroelectric power. This, we supported.

Then, an amendment passed while in committee added nuclear energy -a critical component of our energy portfolio but not renewable- to this requirement and PennFuture opposed that addition.

Nuclear energy already makes up roughly 33% of Pennsylvania’s energy portfolio, if it is included in the definition of “renewable” energy, it has the potential to skew the 25% renewable energy requirement, thereby actually resulting in more fracked gas fueled data centers.

At a time when true renewable energy only makes up about 4% of our energy supply, we need to do more now to increase our supply. PennFuture is committed to a clean energy future for Pennsylvania because clean energy sources are cheaper and faster to build, strengthen our electric grid, and bring down costs for consumers. Pennsylvanians are seeing their electricity bills skyrocket because of increased demand from energy-hungry data centers and our overreliance on unreliable fracked gas, which again failed ratepayers during our current cold spell.

We believe sensible data center policy must include solutions to meet the need to diversify our energy portfolio and increase renewable energy generation. And we were thrilled to see that legislators listened to our feedback and amended to make necessary changes to the renewable requirement as well as other areas of concerns.

With the amendment introduced by state Representative Elizabeth Fiedler (Chair of the House Energy Committee), HB 1834 is now one of our first, real opportunities to regulate the extractive data center industry.

Here is what PennFuture President & CEO, Patrick McDonnell, said about the amended legislation in an interview with The Allegheny Front:

“Now we have a bill that actually includes renewable requirements, making sure they’re bringing their own energy, making sure if they’re installing backup generators, those generators are not going to be polluting and aren’t going to be run all the time, that the truly are emergency generators.”

Here is what the bill does:

• Requires large data centers to get significant portions of their electricity from new in-state clean firm energy resources and long-duration storage solutions

• Incentivizes data centers to bring their own new, clean firm capacity to fully meet their electricity needs

• Establishes strong new standards to ensure cleaner, tightly controlled backup power at commercial data centers

PennFuture – along with many other environmental stakeholders – engaged extensively with Reps. Fiedler and Matzie on this critical legislation and we very much appreciate their efforts to ensure that HB 1834 includes strong guardrails to better protect Pennsylvanians from this extractive industry.

In March 2026, thanks to the many of you that reached out to your rep through our action alert, this bill passed the PA state House and moves onto the PA state Senate! We will keep you informed when it’s time to reach out to your state senator!

House Bill 2151 (HB 2151)

Sponsor: Rep Kyle Donahue [District 113]

POSITION: ✅ Supports with PennFuture proposed amendment and aligns with our data center principles

STATUS: This bill is alive and moving, but it’s now under fiscal review before it can proceed to a full House vote.

Since the threat of data centers first turned its eye towards Pennsylvania, PennFuture has recognized the power of local municipalities to dictate where data centers can be built and mitigate the harm. We quickly created a Model Municipal Ordinance for Data Centers and a video series intended to educate local communities of the impacts and make it easy for local government to protect those communities.

House Bill 2151 could provide another important tool to assist in ensuring that data centers are sited responsibly to minimize negative impacts on residents.

Specifically, the bill directs the Center for Local Government Services within the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) to create their own model ordinance that municipalities can leverage when they update their own zoning ordinances to prepare for data center development. While not diminishing the power of PennFuture’s model ordinance, the Center for Local Government Services is an already-trusted municipal partner and one with much greater reach than PennFuture. We’ve been working hard to get our model ordinance in front of municipal officials and community leaders, but we recognize our limitations as an organization. That’s why we see value in the state government developing its own model ordinance—its reach and capacity is greater than our own.

Municipalities that hesitate to proactively draft and pass data center ordinances put themselves at risk of legal challenges, and ultimately, of losing control over where the project can be located within their community. We believe that our ordinances and our advocacy can work in tandem with what HB2151 proposes to protect more communities from the harmful impacts of data center development and to protect municipalities from the threat of litigation.

That is not to say that we don’t have some reservations with handing over this authority in an administration that is so pro-data center and so pro-fracked gas. As we discussed in our 2023 report, “Economic Development Policy IS Environmental Policy,” the DCED has a history of financially smoothing the way for the fossil fuel industry to expand across the state. So, that's why we’ve asked the House Energy Committee to adopt an amendment that requires public participation as the ordinance is drafted and included if the ordinance is updated in the future.

Many opponents of this bill have a fundamental misunderstanding of what it does: it is not mandatory for any municipality to adopt the model ordinance in any way, shape, or form. Nor would this directly insert the model ordinance into Pennsylvania state law under the Municipalities Planning Code (the statute that regulates how municipalities function).

In a state where bans on any type of land use are essentially prohibited, and municipalities risk costly litigation if their ordinances don’t include appropriate consideration of new land uses (like data centers), model ordinances are a useful tool designed to help speed up the process of drafting an ordinance. A municipality can adopt the whole model ordinance, word for word, directly into their existing ordinance, or it can adopt sections of it while keeping the rest of their existing ordinance the same. This bill does not change that freedom. But it does have the potential to give municipalities a head start—just as PennFuture’s model ordinance does.

Watch PennFuture President & CEO Patrick McDonnell testify in front of the PA House Energy Committee on February 2, 2026, on HB 2151 here: Instagram

House Bill 2150 (HB 2150)

Sponsor: Rep Kyle Mullins [District 112]

POSITION: ✅ Supports and aligns with our data center principles

STATUS: This bill is alive and moving, but it’s now under fiscal review before it can proceed to a full House vote.

This bill establishes annual energy and water reporting requirements for data center facilities. This is a commonsense measure to provide policymakers and residents with a better understanding of the impacts of the data entering industry on our water and electric grid.

Currently, Pennsylvania does not have a way to measure and sufficiently understand, let alone plan for, the electricity grid impacts associated with data center operations. By requiring the state to collect and analyze this information, we will be better able to forecast and manage the incoming large loads on the electric grid. It will also provide us with the necessary information on water withdrawal impacts so that we can more closely monitor and mitigate future harms.

Currently, policymakers are making decisions about how to regulate data centers at a significant deficit. Data center developers typically do not share more information than is required by law, and frankly, this bill would expand what is required. Bottom line, this bill increases transparency and improves the ability of decision-makers to make truly informed decisions about how data center development could or should occur in Pennsylvania.

Senate Bill 939 (SB 939)

Sponsor: Senator Greg Rothman [District 34]

POSITION: ❌ Strongly Oppose

SB 939 is a legislative proposal that invites Big Tech to pilot their artificial intelligence (AI) systems in Pennsylvania with minimal or no oversight, all while fast-tracking environmental permits for potential new data centers.

More specifically, this bill:

• Creates a new state-level Office of Transformation and Opportunity within the Governor’s office that would encourage construction around data centers, AI, and emerging technologies. (You may be thinking, doesn’t this office already exist? Yes, it does! It was created by executive order in 2023 and therefore exists at the discretion of the Governor but could theoretically be changed or abolished by a future governor. SB 939 would officially establish this office in statute.)

• Establishes a statewide Commonwealth Opportunity Zone framework intended to attract and coordinate the development of artificial intelligence (AI), data centers, and emerging technologies.

• Sets up an Artificial Intelligence, Data Center, and Emergency Technology Regulatory Sandbox Program, allowing Big Tech to test AI and related products/services that are NOT REQUIRED to adhere to current regulation or be supervised by regulatory institutions.

• Provides a permitting structure for large “high impact” data centers, including fast-track and coordinated approvals.

In short, this bill that encourages fast tracking data center buildout would be a disaster at a time when the state needs to slow down and carefully consider how this new type of development is impacting our environment, communities, and economy.

Bonus Track: PUC Large Load Model Tariff

In addition to pushing for commonsense data center legislation, PennFuture submitted technical comments to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) on their model large load tariff in December 2025.

I know we’ve been hearing a lot about “tariffs” lately, but that’s not what this is. A “large load tariff” is a specialized electric rate structure designed by utilities to manage the high energy consumption of massive, new power users—such as data centers, industrial plants, or AI facilities—ensuring they pay for the specific infrastructure upgrades they trigger.

You can read the comments here.

Typically, the final regulation orders from the PUC come 2-4 months after the closing of the comment period. PennFuture will monitor and let our members know when the final order is released.

In our comments, we called for:

• Increasing Renewable Energy Generation: Data center electricity demand could result in the modernization and expansion of the grid. This requires the development of renewable energy plus storage.
• Fair Fees & Payments: We support placing a fee on data centers that can be used to mitigate rising electricity costs for Pennsylvanians—especially low-income households.
• Consumer Protection from Costs: Exit or early termination fees protect everyday people from paying for stranded assets, should a data center company choose to bail on its investments. It is vital that utilities are also not able to recover the costs of data centers through increasing costs to the average ratepayer.
• More Community Input: The data center economy has been foisted on average Pennsylvanians. This industry is extractive; they use our land, water, and labor to send wealth elsewhere. We didn’t ask for this or the job losses we’re seeing from implementing AI. If Pennsylvania decisionmakers want to build data centers in the Commonwealth, we need to be a part of the process. That means no fast track permitting or expedited siting, but real community engagement and cumulative impact assessments.

Conclusion

Together, the legislative and regulatory opportunities that align with our Data Center Principles could better protect Pennsylvania residents and the Commonwealth’s natural resources from the inherent challenges associated with this data center development. PennFuture is actively engaged on each bill, and we will continue to engage with state lawmakers to seek improvements where necessary to truly prioritize a more sustainable future powered by 21st century energy sources that are cleaner, cheaper, and will help us keep the lights on.