Protesters are planning to gather outside the Brooklyn home of US Sen. Chuck Schumer on Friday morning, demanding he block what they’ve dubbed a “dirty data center deal” from passing through the Senate.
The bill, known as the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA), is aimed at speeding the permitting process for energy infrastructure, including renewable energy projects, transmission lines, oil and gas pipelines, and other major industrial developments.
The Senate is preparing for a procedural vote on Monday to advance the bill, which will require Democratic support. Schumer (D-NY)—who is hoping to be reelected as Senate majority leader by his party next month—has not publicly taken a position on the legislation, according to Heatmap.
The bill has faced opposition from environmental justice and Indigenous rights groups who warn it will gut long-standing environmental protections, undermine tribal sovereignty, and fast-track fossil fuel and other polluting projects, while restricting the public’s ability to challenge harmful developments in court.
They warn that the legislation would also accelerate the expansion of energy-hungry artificial intelligence data centers and the gas-fired power plants and pipelines needed to power them, while making it harder for state and local communities to block or challenge their development.
Specifically, the bill would expand the authority of the Republican-controlled Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which is chaired by an appointee of President Donald Trump, to approve permits for interstate transmission lines.
Jeremy Symons of the Environmental Protection Network has warned that under the BAAJA, the commission could hypothetically issue permits to Elon Musk to build a coal-powered data center in the Grand Canyon and “no one can do anything” about it.
The bill was introduced in September in the Senate by Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Martin Heinrich (D-NM), and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Whitehouse, the bill’s lead Democratic sponsor and the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, holds the most investments of any US senator in data center-related holdings—between $2.1 million and $8.6 million, according to Forbes. According to Sludge, he and his wife hold up to $12.3 million in AI-related stocks, including major tech companies and data center operators.
In a letter sent Thursday, Food & Water Watch and more than 160 other environmental, health, consumer, and religious groups urged Congress to reject the BAAJA.
“Data centers can have impacts beyond the lands they occupy, driving significant energy demand and need for grid infrastructure, which can increase cost for the public, as well as create new sources of air and waterpollution, which can adversely impact public health and the climate crisis,” they wrote. “This push to expand data centers comes as lawmakers in Washington, DC, are considering a backroom deal that will drive forward a massive buildout of AI data centers and the fossil fuel infrastructure to power them.”
Activists with Food & Water Watch, New York Communities for Change, 350Brooklyn, Climate Families NYC, and Indivisible Brooklyn plan to gather outside Schumer’s Park Slope apartment on Friday with a large, smoking AI data center prop and a giant “blank check.”
With signs that read “No blank checks for Big Tech” and “stop the dirty data center deal,” they plan to continue the protest afterward at the Fort Greene office of Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who is currently the front-runner to become the next speaker of the House.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who has proposed banning data centers on federal lands and vocally opposed the BAAJA, noted that the bill would be brought to the floor just days after voters across the country sent “a clear message that Americans want their representatives to protect their health and environment, not sell them out to Big Tech and Big Oil.”
On Tuesday, communities across 10 US states passed 43 out of 44 initiatives that proposed banning or pausing construction on data centers or infrastructure of a certain size. Meanwhile, candidates who made opposition to data centers central to their campaigns, including Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, and Troy Jackson in Maine, won convincingly over their Republican opponents.
“People across the country are rightfully chasing data centers out of their communities, and the industry is eyeing public lands as a way around this growing opposition,” said Jim Walsh, policy director at Food & Water Watch.
He said that the lawmakers pushing for the BAAJA were doing so “in blatant disregard for the overwhelming public backlash to Big Tech that helped drive voters to the polls.”