Tell Congress to pause the data center boom

Data centers are arriving in Oregon fast enough that the state keeps having to react to them. The strain shows up in ordinary places. In The Dalles, data centers use close to 40 percent of the city's municipal water supply, according to Oregon Capital Chronicle reporting in August 2026 on Governor Kotek's data center advisory committee.

That committee decided a statewide moratorium was not its charge. The Governor moved in a narrower way instead. On September 8, 2026 she directed state agencies to stop unapproved easements, rights-of-way, leases, land-use permits, and sales of state-owned property for data center projects, through July 1, 2027 or until her office or the Legislature says otherwise. She had already halted the sale of about 32 acres at the Mill Creek Corporate Center in Salem for one.

That order reaches land the state owns. It does not reach a data center built on private ground, and it does not settle who pays for the power. Those questions sit with Congress, where Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act (S. 4214) on March 25, 2026 and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced the House companion, H.R. 9442, on June 24. It would pause construction and expansion of AI data centers, a category the bill defines to cover facilities that develop or operate AI models at scale along with high-density facilities drawing more than 20 megawatts. The pause holds until Congress passes protections: no higher utility bills for consumers, no climate harm, a real say for the communities these facilities are built in, no public subsidies, and union jobs at prevailing wages.

The Lever is running a letter campaign asking members of Congress to back the bill, and ECC is amplifying their action. The power and water these facilities use come off a grid and out of watersheds the whole state shares, coast included. Oregon's delegation should hear from people here about where it goes.