Bernie and AOC search for AI's off switch

THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE DATA CENTER MORATORIUM ACT is, by the admission of virtually everyone tracking it, a bill with no realistic chance of becoming law. Introduced on Wednesday by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, it would impose a blanket federal ban on new data center construction until Congress passes comprehensive AI legislation establishing protections for workers, consumers, civil rights, and the environment. Given that Congress has yet to pass any AI legislation at all, the moratorium could theoretically last for years — or indefinitely.

The timing is not accidental. The four largest hyperscalers — Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft — collectively spent roughly $413 billion on data center capital expenditures in 2025, an 84% increase from $224 billion the year before. For 2026, combined spending is projected to reach $600 to $700 billion. Total spending on U.S. data center construction starts alone hit an estimated $77.7 billion in 2025, a 190% year-over-year increase, according to ConstructConnect. Meta alone is building a data center in Louisiana that Sanders highlighted from the Senate floor on Tuesday night — a facility he said would consume as much electricity as 1.6 million homes. The scale of the buildout has shifted from impressive to genuinely difficult to fathom; JLL estimates the sector could see up to $3 trillion in total expenditures by 2030 when tenant fit-outs are included.

Block party

But treating the Sanders-AOC bill as mere progressive theater misses the more interesting story developing beneath it. According to Good Jobs First, at least 63 local data center moratorium actions have been introduced, considered, or adopted across dozens of U.S. towns and counties, and some 54 have already passed. At the state level, at least 12 states now have data center moratorium bills filed this legislative cycle. These aren't coming exclusively from blue districts. In Oklahoma, a Republican-sponsored bill would impose a three-year moratorium on data centers exceeding 100 megawatts to allow utility regulators to study impacts on water supply, rates, and property values. In Virginia — home to more than 640 data center facilities, more than any other state — a Democratic lawmaker from Loudoun County, the epicenter of "Data Center Alley," introduced a bill to halt new applications until 2028.