-News Release-
Last week, U.S. Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) called for a statewide moratorium on all data center construction after visiting the proposed site of OpenAI’s new 3.2-gigawatt data center in Effingham County. Ahead of this announcement, the Senator met with several residents who raised serious concerns about the impact of OpenAI’s massive data center on their community, specifically higher utility costs and more water, light and noise pollution.
Under Senator Warnock’s proposal, the moratorium can be lifted for a specific project only if:
- There are no water or electric bill increases because of the data center
- There are no sweetheart tax giveaways to data center developers
- There are no NDAs
- The data center will not cause air and water pollution
- There is no ambiguity around noise and light pollution
“The lack of transparency here in Effingham County and in counties across our state and across the country is unacceptable, and that’s why today I’m calling for a moratorium on data centers,” said Senator Warnock.
Earlier this year, Senator Warnock sent a letter calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to provide local communities with tools, resources, best practices, and protections as they negotiate with multi-billion-dollar data center corporations. Specifically, this letter focused on concerns about data centers straining community water supplies, especially while Georgia experiences a historic drought.
