Ethics and enviro left — 500+ groups from 47 states demand a congressional moratorium.

AI Populists — the moratorium is strategy, not just defense: slowing the buildout is the one people-power lever that opens space for a real regulatory framework.

MAGA populists — blasting their own administration:

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez introduced the AI Data Center Moratorium Act; roughly a dozen states have introduced moratorium bills; New York's executive order is the first statewide pause; Maine's LD 307 passed both chambers and was vetoed; Monterey Park, CA became the first US city to permanently ban data centers by ballot measure.

Tech Right / White House — The AI Action Plan's core pillar is "Build American AI Infrastructure": faster permitting, looser environmental review.

Frontier labs, including the "safety" one — OpenAI wants 250 GW of capacity by 2033, "a gigawatt of new AI infrastructure every week." Anthropic committed $50B to US data centers, asking "do we have what it takes to build AI in America?" (though it pledged to shoulder ratepayer price hikes itself).

The White House Ratepayer Protection Pledge (March 2026) is the industry's answer to the affordability backlash, but it is voluntary and unenforceable, with no interconnection, financing, or supply chain mechanism behind it.

The largest and least organized group: not pro-build, not pro-moratorium, looking for a framework. Most of the 2026 policy activity lives here, with 300+ data center bills filed across 30 states in the first six weeks of the year.

Who pays. Strict cost causation, special rate classes for large loads (18+ states), take-or-pay commitments, and decommissioning bonds.

Tax. Virginia enacted a first-of-its-kind $0.011/kWh data center electricity consumption tax. Others are pausing incentives or conditioning abatements on grid connection and clean power. Federal insider variant: the token tax.

Environment and enforcement. Emissions get decided in rate cases, air permit hearings, and enforcement, not in model design: prohibit new on-site gas, require clean firm power, mandate load flexibility, register large loads with NERC. Climate Power scores the eight hyperscalers on behind-the-meter gas and local grid carbon.

Process and consent. The backlash is driven less by water and noise than by process failure and weak benefits: NDAs, fast tracks, and being blindsided (Jasmine Sun). So: ban NDAs binding public officials (Microsoft has already conceded this), require pre-permit disclosure, and set standard terms of entry. New York's draft floats $1M in community benefits per megawatt.

The grid-leverage case: treating the buildout as yes/no is a strategic error, and there is a narrow, closing window to convert data center demand into transmission, ratepayer relief, and domestic supply chains (Jane Flegal, Searchlight).