Ongoing Data Centers Debate Impacts City and State Legislation

Proposed in the Illinois House of Representatives Feb. 6, the Protecting Our Water, Energy and Ratepayers Act — the POWER Act — is a piece of legislation which aims to introduce greater regulations for data centers and increase transparency on their potential environmental impacts. 

One of its provisions, called Bring Your Own New Clean Capacity and Energy (BYONCCE), would require data centers to work to obtain their own sustainable energy source, rather than relying primarily on the preexisting energy grid.

“We are hearing concerns from folks in communities that currently have day centers or have data centers that have been proposed really across the state about noise pollution and air pollution from backup,” advocate Hannah Flath said. 

Flath is a member of the Illinois Coalition of Clean Jobs, the organization that helped produce the POWER Act. She explained that the POWER ACT was written to be as “robust as possible” to address these concerns.

Majority Leader of the Illinois House of Representatives Robyn Gabel, who introduced the act to the assembly, explained the provision works to address one of the major concerns she’s received from her constituents: the potential for increased energy costs due to data centers taking large amounts of energy off the grid.

“I think that’s the one that will most immediately affect consumers,” she said. “There have been a couple of auctions in PJM and the cost of energy has already gone up. Some people blame data centers.” 

Unfortunately for proponents of the bill, the POWER Act wasn’t passed before the May 31 General Assembly deadline. Lawmakers and advocates for the bill, such as Gabel, remain hopeful it will appear in the fall veto sessions in November and December. 

Gabel said her goal is to have a bill for the veto session. Although, she said that if there seems to be more votes for it in early January it may appear then. 

Flath said she is also hopeful for the bill’s appearance in the fall veto session. 

“We are actively working on the bill this summer,” Flath said. “We’re negotiating with stakeholders in the General Assembly and with the governor’s office and very excitedly the governor has voiced support for trying to get this bill across the finish line.”

Within the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, Flath said she and other advocates are “crossing their fingers” the bill will get through the state legislature in the next couple of months.

Other New Legislation Surrounding Data Centers

Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order Aug. 11 which will increase regulations on air pollution and institute noise control measures on data centers. The order will also establish an Interdepartmental Data Center Environment and Community Protection Task Force.

The goals described in the executive order are to “ensure that future data centers are planned, constructed, and operated in ways that protect affordability, public health, and the environment.” 

In conjunction with his executive order, Johnson also called for City Council to enact a temporary 12-month moratorium on the development of new data centers to allow new regulations to be passed. 

The City Council Committee on Environment recently amended a municipal code which previously excluded data centers from being mandated to report their water and electricity usage. The proposed amendment will go before City Council Sept. 23. 

Legislative Action regarding data centers

After all, as Aaron Durnbaugh, the Loyola Director of Sustainability, said, data centers have been around for a long time. 

“Historically, places that had to do a lot of computing, that could be corporate settings or certain institutions like Loyola, would have their own data centers,” Durnbaugh said. “They would be in a basement or a closet. It’d be just a set of servers.”

But now, Durnbaugh explains that companies, instead of having their own servers onsite, have begun outsourcing to dedicated facilities. 

As data centers have exploded in size and quantity, current regulations aren’t comprehensive enough to address all the concerns surrounding them, according to  Project Manager for the Chicago Department of Environment Jarred Patton.

Patton said new regulations such as Johnson’s executive order aren’t sudden. Patton said he took part in the City of Chicago Sustainable Data Centers Working Group, which worked for 18 months researching the approximately 39 data centers in Chicago to issue recommendations that are being addressed in the executive order.

People are becoming increasingly aware of potential effects of data centers effects such as increased energy usage, high water usage, the potential for increased energy bills and potential environmental harm. This has led to an increased number of Illinoisans voicing concerns to representatives like Gabel, who described receiving letters from constituents concerned about the issue. 

Loyola’s Response to the Issue

Durnbaugh said Loyola will be launching its own taskforce on AI and the Environment, although there is no official timeline for it to begin operations. 

Second-year environmental engineering major Evalyn Green said she thinks  AI can be used positively, but can negatively impact the environment. Green said the results of water usage and other environmental factors need to be taken into consideration, and there should be new legislation to address these issues. 

“They were considering building one next to my hometown, and I was worried about it just because I know that it very much impacts the surrounding areas,” Green said. 

An Oct. 2025 NPR article reported concerns raised by communities with nearby data centers such as increased energy bills, high water usage and climate change. The article reported  that after a data center was built nearby, some in surrounding communities could no longer get water from their wells.  

Second-year law student and President of the Environmental Law Society Michelle Smith said her family is from a part of Louisiana referred to as “Cancer Alley,” a stretch of land where communities are intermingled with fossil fuel and petrochemical plants, resulting in dangerous air pollution that can lead to health risks like cancer and respiratory issues. 

The experience has made Smith familiar with how the presence of industrial facilities can be harmful to nearby communities. 

“We really don’t want these data centers,” Smith said. “There are just so many cons to it, and also these companies don’t necessarily pay the cost of what they’re putting onto everyone else.” 

In a report conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists, they found “utilities in seven PJM states passed more than $4.3 billion in additional costs on to customers, with billions more still to come. These costs come from local transmission upgrades made to provide transmission level service directly to data centers.” 

One of those states included Illinois, which had three transmission projects with a cost of $239 million.

Although Smith believes it’s difficult to stop data centers from coming to Illinois, she said placing regulations on them is a good idea.

Durnbaugh said data centers won’t be going away and lawmakers will need to set boundaries moving forward. Durnbaugh believes, if erecting a data center would increase energy costs, they should be borne by the AI companies’ developers and users.