Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed what he calls the nation's strictest guardrails on AI data centers, requiring developers to pay their full electricity costs and win local approval before the state issues permits.
He is part of a wider revolt: New York and Texas have frozen projects, 70% of Americans oppose a data center in their area, and AI executives and top Republicans tell Axios that internal polls show the facilities are now "as popular as spent nuclear waste."
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order he says puts the nation's strictest guardrails on AI data centers. Developers must now pay the full electricity costs tied to their facilities, meet strict environmental and transparency standards, and win approval from the local community before the state will issue permits. The order also excludes data center projects from Pennsylvania's fast-track permitting program, the process that speeds up government approval to build, and bars state agencies from signing nondisclosure agreements with developers. Announcing the move on X, Shapiro wrote: "I will not allow Pennsylvanians to be bullied by greedy developers and bulldozed by the lawyers working for these big tech companies."
Pennsylvania is part of a wider wave. As Bloomberg reports, New York Governor Kathy Hochul paused permits for large new data centers for up to a year in July; Texas Governor Greg Abbott froze new projects pending a grid audit (a review of whether the electric grid can handle the added demand); and local opposition blocked or delayed at least 75 U.S. projects worth roughly $130 billion in the first three months of 2026. Axios reports that Gallup polling finds 70% of Americans oppose an AI data center being built in their area, and AI CEOs and top Republicans tell Axios their internal polls show data centers are "as popular as spent nuclear waste." A leaked memo from the Senate Republicans' campaign arm, obtained by Axios, warned that the issue could cost Ohio Senator Jon Husted his seat in this fall's midterms.
Big Tech is responding with a charm offensive, according to The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. OpenAI is holding community meetings around a planned facility worth more than $30 billion near Savannah, Georgia. Meta is running TV ads featuring local workers at its Iowa data center. Microsoft is pledging to cover its own power costs, and Oracle is sponsoring food pantries and youth groups near a project in New Mexico.
On Episode 233 of The Artificial Intelligence Show, SmarterX founder and CEO Paul Roetzer explores why the backlash now threatens the entire AI buildout.
70% - Americans opposed to an AI data center in their area
$130 billion - Value of the 75+ U.S. data center projects blocked or delayed in early 2026
4,000+ - Data centers already online across the United States
3,000+ - Additional data centers proposed or in progress
11 million+ - Views on the Liquid Death and Garage Beer data center ad on X
As the show has covered for well over a year, the November midterm elections are the deadline pushing every politician to pick a side on data centers. Now the collision is arriving.
Data Centers are holding up the economy. By Roetzer's estimate, companies including Meta, Google, and OpenAI are spending more than half a trillion dollars combined on data centers and the CapEx behind them (capital expenditures, the money companies spend on physical assets like land, buildings, and chips). "Without that spend and the jobs that come with it, the economy stalls or crashes," says Roetzer. "If we don't have that money being spent right now, the economy looks nothing like people think it does. It is holding up the economy basically."
Republicans are caught in the middle. "The Republicans are in a very tough position because voters don't want data centers, but the data centers are needed to drive GDP economic growth and to compete with China," Roetzer says. The leaked GOP memo makes the stakes explicit, calling data centers "a sleeper issue for the entire election cycle" and telling AI companies it is on them to explain "who benefits, who pays, and why a community should want one."
A slowdown now sets up a bigger reckoning in 2028. Roetzer walked through the scenario: if Republicans hold the House by promising to ease up on data centers, and that promise becomes actual policy, the reduced spending drags down GDP (gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the economy), jobs, and the race with China. All of that lands as an even larger issue in the 2028 election cycle.
The charm offensive cannot move opinion fast enough. The Journal describes tech companies "putting on a full court press to solve a public relations crisis that has been derailing projects and scaring off political allies." Chris Lehane, OpenAI's chief global affairs officer, told the Journal that open houses matter because "People really do want to know, are my electricity bills going to go up or not? Is this going to impact my water supply? Am I going to pay more or less in taxes?" Roetzer's doesn't think they can move fast enough to change the politics. "The labs need very, very quickly a massive breakthrough that'll have broad appeal and benefit fast enough in order to change the narrative," he says, something on the scale of a cure for a major disease. In the meantime, expect a flood of optimistic essays, op-eds, and interviews from AI lab leaders.
"I would not trust the stuff that you're going to be hearing out of most of these AI labs in the coming months because they're just trying to win people over."
— Paul Roetzer, founder and CEO of SmarterX, Episode 233 of The Artificial Intelligence Show
Every business AI roadmap quietly depends on this infrastructure getting built. The models you are piloting, the agents you are scaling, every AI query your teams run each day all depend on data centers, and the political fight over where they get built is now a real constraint on supply. If states keep pulling permits, the cost and availability of AI capacity becomes a business planning question.
The other takeaway is about credibility. If Roetzer is right that a charm narrative is coming, leaders should discount the wave of feel-good AI messaging ahead and anchor their adoption decisions in their own pilots, their own data, and their own results, and not in what the labs say about themselves during an election year.
The Ohio Senate race is the test case. Husted's opponent, former Senator Sherrod Brown, has spent millions on a summer ad campaign calling him "the face of data centers in Ohio." The GOP memo warns that if Husted loses and data centers get the blame, "politicians across the country will take notice, and they will not go near the next one."
The backlash is crossing into pop culture. Liquid Death and Garage Beer released a "We Want Your Pee" ad starring Jason Kelce, spoofing data center water use, that has more than 11 million views on X. Roetzer expects more of these pop culture messages as the backlash spreads.
Only 52% of professionals describe their overall sentiment toward AI as positive, according to the 2026 State of AI for Business Report. The other 48% are neutral, negative, or unsure, and that is in an audience that skews AI-forward. These views inside the workplace mirror the highly visible public skepticism we are seeing unfold in local battles over data centers in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
The full report, built on 2,100+ responses from professionals across roles, functions, and industries, maps where organizations actually stand on adoption, sentiment, governance, and readiness, and what leaders can do to earn buy-in rather than assume it. Read the full report →