Sanders and DeSantis Unite Against Data Centers: The Bipartisan Revolt That Could Reshape AI Infrastructure

Sixty-four billion dollars in data center projects faced delays or cancellations in 2025 due to community opposition, grid constraints, and political resistance.¹ The backlash has now reached the highest levels of American politics, with Senator Bernie Sanders and Governor Ron DeSantis leading the charge from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.

TL;DR

Bernie Sanders (I-VT) demands a national moratorium on data center construction, warning that "oligarchs" controlling AI development must slow down.² Ron DeSantis unveiled Florida's comprehensive "AI Bill of Rights" on December 4, empowering local governments to block data center projects and prohibiting utilities from passing hyperscale facility costs to residential ratepayers.³ With data centers projected to consume 12% of U.S. electricity by 2028 and residential rates already climbing 5% annually, the bipartisan opposition has captured a political moment that transcends traditional left-right divisions.⁴⁵ Infrastructure planners now face a dual-front challenge: satisfying AI compute demand while navigating communities increasingly organized against large-scale facilities.

The Rise of Data Center Opposition

The current backlash did not emerge overnight. Community opposition to data centers has intensified steadily since 2022, driven by three converging factors: electricity price increases, water scarcity concerns, and the visible scale of hyperscale construction.⁶

Early opposition focused on aesthetics and noise. Residents near data center campuses complained about industrial architecture disrupting suburban landscapes and the constant hum of cooling systems.⁷ By 2024, concerns had evolved. Communities began connecting data center expansion to tangible impacts on their monthly utility bills and local water supplies.

The transformation accelerated when AI training workloads drove unprecedented power demand. A single large language model training run can consume 1,287 MWh of electricity.⁸ When ChatGPT launched in November 2022, data center power consumption in the United States stood at approximately 4.4% of total grid demand.⁹ By late 2025, projections for 2028 reached 12% of national electricity consumption.¹⁰

Opposition Movement Timeline

The 142 community advocacy groups now tracking data center proposals represent a tenfold increase from 2022.¹¹ Opposition has become professionalized, with shared legal resources, coordinated media strategies, and established playbooks for challenging permits.

Sanders Calls for National Moratorium

Senator Bernie Sanders has consistently framed technology issues through the lens of economic inequality, and data centers fit naturally into his critique of concentrated corporate power.¹²

In a December 28, 2025 CNN interview, Sanders escalated from general skepticism to an explicit policy demand: a complete pause on new data center construction.¹³ "Frankly, I think you've got to slow this process down," Sanders stated. "It's not good enough for the oligarchs to tell us it's coming; you adapt."¹⁴

The Vermont senator positions AI as "the most consequential technology in the history of humanity" while warning that unchecked expansion threatens both electricity affordability and grid stability.¹⁵ Sanders directly connected data center growth to residential electricity costs: "We're seeing data centers sprouting all over the country, raising electric bills for people in the communities."¹⁶

Sanders's moratorium proposal lacks a specific legislative vehicle in the current Congress. Republican majorities in both chambers make federal data center restrictions unlikely before 2027 at the earliest.¹⁷ The proposal's political significance lies not in its immediate legislative prospects but in the legitimacy Sanders provides to local opposition movements.

When a nationally prominent senator calls for pausing data center construction, local officials gain political cover to slow permitting processes, demand additional environmental reviews, or impose restrictive conditions on approvals.¹⁸

Sanders's Key Arguments

The Sanders critique resonates particularly in states with deregulated electricity markets, where capacity price increases translate directly to consumer bills. PJM Interconnection, which coordinates the grid across 13 states, saw capacity auction prices increase from $28.92/MW-day in 2023 to $269.92/MW-day in 2025.¹⁹ D.C. residents now pay approximately $10 more monthly due to capacity market price increases, according to utility commission filings.²⁰

DeSantis Proposes AI Bill of Rights

While Sanders issued rhetorical demands, Governor Ron DeSantis took concrete legislative action. On December 4, 2025, DeSantis announced a comprehensive "Citizen Bill of Rights for Artificial Intelligence" in The Villages, Florida.²¹

The DeSantis proposal combines consumer protections with infrastructure restrictions, creating a package that appeals to both privacy-conscious conservatives and growth-skeptical communities.²² DeSantis framed AI as potentially ushering in "an age of darkness and deceit" if left unregulated.²³

Consumer Protection Provisions

The consumer-facing elements of the DeSantis proposal establish new requirements for AI disclosure and data handling:

The mental health prohibition reflects conservative concerns about technology replacing human judgment in sensitive domains. The parental control provisions align with DeSantis's broader campaign against tech platforms' influence on children.²⁴

Infrastructure Restrictions

The data center provisions of the DeSantis proposal directly address resource consumption concerns that unite left and right opposition:

Utility Rate Protection: Utilities cannot charge residential ratepayers for hyperscale data center infrastructure investments.²⁵ The provision responds to utility commission proceedings where residential advocates have challenged data center interconnection costs.

Subsidy Prohibition: No taxpayer subsidies for Big Tech data center development.²⁶ Florida has not pursued aggressive data center incentive programs, but the provision signals a policy direction as other states offer substantial tax breaks.

Local Control: Local governments can prohibit data center construction in their jurisdictions.²⁷ The provision empowers counties and municipalities to exclude data centers entirely, going beyond zoning restrictions to enable outright bans.

Land Use Restrictions: Data centers cannot operate on agricultural land or greenbelt-exempt properties.²⁸ Florida's agricultural preservation advocates have raised concerns about data centers consuming farmland and aquifer recharge areas.

Water Protection: Water resources protected from data center consumption that harms the public.²⁹ Florida faces unique water challenges, with aquifer depletion threatening both agriculture and residential supplies.

Foreign Ownership Ban: Foreign principals prohibited from constructing or operating data centers in Florida.³⁰ The provision extends DeSantis's broader campaign against Chinese investment in Florida real estate and critical infrastructure.

The Water Consumption Challenge

Water consumption has emerged as the flashpoint issue for data center opposition in water-stressed regions. Cooling systems for hyperscale facilities require substantial water resources, and local communities have begun scrutinizing consumption data with increasing sophistication.³¹

A typical hyperscale data center consumes between 300,000 and 5 million gallons of water daily, depending on cooling technology, climate, and capacity utilization.³² In 2023, U.S. data centers consumed approximately 17 billion gallons of water.³³ Projections suggest consumption could quadruple by 2028 as AI workloads proliferate.³⁴

Water Consumption Comparison

Data centers represent a small fraction of total U.S. water consumption, but their concentration in specific regions amplifies local impact. Northern Virginia, which hosts approximately 70% of global internet traffic through its data center corridor, draws from the Potomac River watershed that also supplies Washington, D.C.³⁵

In Arizona, a single proposed data center near Chandler would have consumed 1.5 billion gallons annually. Community opposition, organized around water scarcity concerns during historic drought conditions, contributed to project modifications.³⁶

Microsoft disclosed in its 2023 sustainability report that global water consumption increased 34% year-over-year, driven substantially by AI training workloads.³⁷ Google's water consumption rose 20% in the same period.³⁸ The disclosures, intended to demonstrate transparency, provided concrete data for opposition campaigns.

Electricity Price Politics

Residential electricity prices increased approximately 5% in 2025, following similar increases in 2023 and 2024.³⁹ The Energy Information Administration forecasts another 4% rise in 2026.⁴⁰ For median-income households, the cumulative impact represents hundreds of dollars annually in additional utility costs.

The connection between data center growth and residential electricity prices operates through multiple mechanisms:

Capacity Market Impact: In regions with capacity markets, data center demand increases prices for generation capacity that all customers pay for.⁴¹ The PJM capacity price increase from $28.92 to $269.92 per MW-day translates directly to residential bills.

Infrastructure Investment: Transmission and distribution upgrades required to serve data centers enter utility rate bases, spreading costs across customer classes.⁴² DeSantis's proposal to prohibit residential allocation of data center infrastructure costs addresses concerns about cost-shifting directly.

Generation Investment: Utilities building new power plants to serve data center load include those costs in rate cases affecting all customers.⁴³ The distinction between load growth from data centers versus other sources becomes contested territory in regulatory proceedings.

Fuel Price Transmission: Natural gas prices affect electricity rates, and additional data center demand contributes to overall natural gas consumption for power generation.⁴⁴

Electricity Rate Impacts by Region

Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) opened an investigation in December 2025 into ties between data center energy usage and rising consumer electricity bills.⁴⁵ The probe examines whether costs from AI infrastructure investments pass disproportionately to residential customers.

Community Opposition Case Studies

Community opposition has delayed or stopped projects representing billions of dollars in planned investment. The opposition patterns reveal common concerns and successful organizing strategies that infrastructure planners must now anticipate.

Prince George's County, Maryland

Amazon's proposed data center at the former Landover Mall site encountered organized community resistance focused on environmental justice concerns.⁴⁶ The predominantly Black community surrounding the site has experienced decades of industrial siting decisions that concentrated pollution and nuisance uses in minority neighborhoods.

The Prince George's County Council passed a resolution in late 2025 pausing new data center permits pending environmental impact studies.⁴⁷ The pause affects multiple proposed projects beyond the Amazon facility.

Culpeper County, Virginia

Microsoft's proposed 800-acre data center campus in rural Culpeper County faced opposition from agricultural preservation advocates and residents concerned about industrial development in a historically rural area.⁴⁸ The project would consume significant water resources and require substantial grid infrastructure investments.

Community opposition organized under the banner of preserving the county's agricultural character. The debate highlighted tensions between economic development opportunities and community identity.

Mesa, Arizona

Google's planned $1 billion data center expansion in Mesa encountered water consumption concerns during Arizona's historic drought.⁴⁹ The project required guaranteed water allocations that critics argued should serve residential growth instead.

Google modified project plans to incorporate advanced cooling technologies reducing water consumption, demonstrating that opposition can drive efficiency improvements rather than outright project cancellation.

Chisago County, Minnesota

Meta's proposed data center in rural Minnesota faced opposition focused on agricultural land conversion and property tax implications.⁵⁰ Residents questioned whether data center tax revenues would offset service demands and community character impacts.

The project ultimately proceeded after Meta agreed to enhanced community benefit provisions, but the extended approval process added years to development timelines.

Public Opinion Data

Data centers poll below natural gas power plants in community acceptance surveys. The finding surprises industry observers who expected data centers' relatively clean operational profile to generate more favorable responses than fossil fuel facilities.

The Economic Counterweight

Opposition to data centers collides with substantial economic benefits. A Harvard economist's October 2025 analysis found AI infrastructure responsible for 92% of U.S. GDP growth in the first half of the year.⁵¹ The finding complicates political opposition but does not eliminate community concerns about cost distribution.

Data center construction generates significant employment. A typical hyperscale facility creates 1,000-3,000 construction jobs over 18-24 months.⁵² Operations employ 50-150 permanent workers at above-median wages.⁵³

Property tax revenues attract local governments struggling with education and infrastructure funding. A large data center campus can generate $20-50 million annually in property taxes.⁵⁴ The revenue often exceeds costs for public services, creating fiscal incentives for approval even when residents express concerns.

Tech companies increasingly structure community benefit agreements to address opposition. Common elements include:

• Direct payments to local governments beyond property taxes
• Utility rate credits for residential customers
• Renewable energy investments benefiting the broader grid
• Water efficiency commitments with public reporting
• Local hiring preferences for construction and operations
• Educational partnerships with community colleges and universities

The economic arguments struggle to overcome localized concerns when benefits diffuse across regions while impacts concentrate in specific communities. A data center generating $30 million in property taxes for a county still imposes noise, traffic, and visual impacts on immediate neighbors who receive no direct compensation.

Political Implications for 2026

The 2026 midterm elections will test whether data center opposition translates to votes. Infrastructure siting decisions often galvanize local communities more effectively than national policy debates.⁵⁵

Florida's legislature convenes January 13 and adjourns March 13, 2026.⁵⁶ The DeSantis proposals represent the first major AI legislation push of the session. Republican majorities in both chambers suggest the package will advance, though specific provisions may face modification during committee review.

If enacted, Florida would become the most restrictive state for hyperscale data center development. The local veto provision alone would fundamentally alter the development landscape, requiring project-by-project community approval rather than reliance on state-level permitting frameworks.⁵⁷

Sanders's moratorium call lacks immediate legislative prospects but creates political cover for state and local officials seeking to slow data center approvals. Democratic candidates in competitive districts may adopt data center skepticism as a populist economic issue connecting kitchen-table electricity costs to distant corporate decisions.⁵⁸

Organizations navigating complex infrastructure permitting across jurisdictions can consult Introl for deployment strategies that anticipate regulatory requirements across 257 locations globally.

The political landscape demands proactive community engagement. Projects that proceed without addressing electricity pricing, water consumption, and local economic impact face mounting opposition from both ends of the political spectrum. The Sanders-DeSantis alignment signals that data center skepticism has achieved mainstream political legitimacy.

Historical Parallels

Bipartisan tech skepticism has precedent. The 2020-2021 antitrust push against major technology platforms united senators from Ted Cruz to Elizabeth Warren.⁵⁹ The alliance ultimately fragmented over remedy specifics, but demonstrated that technology issues can transcend traditional partisan alignments.

Data center opposition shares characteristics with historical infrastructure siting debates:

Nuclear Power (1970s-1980s): Environmental and safety concerns created durable opposition coalitions that blocked new construction for decades.⁶⁰

Waste Facilities (1980s-1990s): Environmental justice movements organized against concentrated siting of landfills and incinerators in minority communities.⁶¹

Cell Towers (1990s-2000s): Aesthetic and health concerns prompted restrictive local zoning before federal preemption addressed coverage gaps.⁶²

Wind Farms (2010s-Present): Visual impact and noise concerns have created persistent local opposition despite broad public support for renewable energy.⁶³

Each parallel suggests that opposition movements can achieve lasting policy impacts when they successfully connect local concerns to broader political narratives. The data center opposition movement benefits from multiple narratives: economic populism (electricity costs), environmental justice (community impacts), resource conservation (water), and anti-corporate sentiment (Big Tech).

Key Takeaways

For infrastructure planners: - Budget for 18-36 month permitting extensions in politically contested jurisdictions - Develop comprehensive community benefit agreements before project announcements - Prioritize sites with existing grid capacity, minimal residential proximity, and secure water supplies - Engage local officials early to assess political appetite for data center development - Consider smaller distributed facilities rather than hyperscale campuses in sensitive regions

For operations teams: - Document and publicize efficiency metrics (PUE, WUE) to counter resource consumption narratives - Prepare responses to local utility rate case interventions - Track state and local moratorium proposals that could affect expansion plans - Develop community communication strategies emphasizing local benefits and operational transparency - Monitor water consumption closely and implement efficiency improvements proactively

For strategic planning: - Diversify geographic footprint to reduce exposure to single-state regulatory changes - Engage with utility planning processes before rate impacts reach residential customers - Model scenarios where Florida-style restrictions spread to additional states - Assess political risk in site selection alongside technical and economic factors - Build relationships with community organizations before opposition crystallizes

For policy teams: - Track state legislative calendars for data center-related proposals - Prepare testimony and public comments addressing community concerns directly - Develop industry coalitions to present coordinated economic benefit messaging - Engage with environmental justice organizations on siting and impact mitigation - Monitor federal preemption discussions that could override state restrictions

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