{"id":109694,"date":"2026-02-10T02:51:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T02:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/109694\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T02:51:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T02:51:19","slug":"pennsylvania-lawmakers-show-bipartisan-interest-in-standards-for-data-centers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/109694\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania lawmakers show bipartisan interest in standards for data centers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gov. Josh Shapiro has been a major proponent of data center development in the commonwealth, going so far as to proclaim that Pennsylvania is \u201cAll in on AI\u201d<\/a> when Amazon announced a planned $20 billion investment to build two data centers in the commonwealth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his fourth budget address on Tuesday, however, Shapiro stressed that the state needs to be selective about the projects that get built in Pennsylvania communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Pennsylvanians have real concerns about these data centers and the impact they could have on our communities, our utility bills, and our environment \u2013 and so do I,\u201d the governor said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Shapiro administration officials, the Governor\u2019s Responsible Infrastructure Development standards \u2013 or GRID standards \u2013 that the administration will follow are centered on four main principles that developers must adhere to:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bringing their own power generation to projects
\nCommitting to strict transparency standards and direct community engagement
\nHiring and training local workers
\nCommitting to high standards of environmental protection and water protection<\/p>\n

\u201cIf companies adhere to these principles, they will unlock benefits from the Commonwealth, including speed and certainty in permitting and available tax credits,\u201d Shapiro added.<\/p>\n

Shapiro has largely embraced AI to date, implementing generative AI tools within his administration and championing AI-related investments taking place in the commonwealth.<\/p>\n

Public and private sector officials alike have sought to position Pennsylvania as a major AI hub.<\/a> At U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick\u2019s inaugural summit focused on AI and energy, the state\u2019s junior U.S. senator announced more than $90 billion of private investment in energy and AI-related projects<\/a> across Pennsylvania.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, local communities across the commonwealth have also begun to express concerns about the potential impacts of data center development in their neighborhoods.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shapiro\u2019s GRID principles seemed to generate bipartisan interest among the General Assembly\u2019s top legislative leaders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

House Majority Leader Matt Bradford, a Democrat, said the standards outlined by the governor during his 2026 budget address will \u201cincentivize the right kind of data center growth \u2013 responsible data center growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, data centers are coming, and let\u2019s be honest, we need to tell people this: We\u2019re going to need data centers. The question is, what kind of data centers?\u201d Bradford said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to make sure we\u2019re responsible and respectful to local communities. These need to be environmentally right, aesthetically right,\u201d he added. \u201cAt a time where people are getting energy bills that are too damn high, people need to make sure that it does not drive up energy costs for regular people.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the GOP-controlled state Senate, Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman didn\u2019t come out and endorse the entirety of Shapiro\u2019s GRID standards, but suggested that the idea of data center developers supplying their own energy could be an area of agreement between Republicans and Democrats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have a conversation about data centers,\u201d he said. \u201cNot only how we handle local communities, not only how they pay their fair share, but the conversation has to be rooted in the fundamentals that affordability and availability of electricity go hand-in-hand \u2026The notion that data centers should bring their own supply to the market seems to make a lot of sense.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gov. Josh Shapiro has been a major proponent of data center development in the commonwealth, going so far…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1609,3069,33,28,30,29,18154],"class_list":["post-109694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-data-center","tag-josh-shapiro","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-state-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}