Governor\u2019s Responsible Infrastructure Development<\/a>, or GRID, standards in May during a visit to Lackawanna County, stopping in Archbald before meeting with local activists in Blakely. The GRID standards and the recent executive order are testaments to the political potency of the anti-data center movement and stand in stark contrast to Shapiro\u2019s early embrace of data center development as a potential economic driver.<\/p>\n\u201cFrom Archbald to Montgomery County to all across Pennsylvania, to your comments, texts, calls, and letters to my office, I\u2019ve heard you loud and clear: Pennsylvanians do not want AI data centers in their communities that would raise their utility costs and pollute their resources,\u201d Shapiro said Tuesday in a social media post. \u201cIt\u2019s my responsibility as your Governor to listen and take action accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n
His evolving position on data centers, arguably an about-face, shows the myriad voices making up the local data center opposition movement are being heard in Harrisburg, Gaughan said Wednesday. The commissioner who\u2019s emerged as a prominent elected ally of and leader in that movement called the executive order \u201ca significant step\u201d while acknowledging the \u201cfight is far from over.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAn executive order does not erase every proposal currently threatening communities in Lackawanna County,\u201d Gaughan said. \u201cIt\u2019s not going to stop billion-dollar developers from continuing to try to drag council members throughout our county through the mud and intimidate them. It doesn\u2019t answer every question about our air, our water, our electric grid, noise, public health or what happens when dozens of these facilities are concentrated in one region.\u201d<\/p>\n
The health-impact study he called for in June and continues to push for could answer some of those questions by attempting to quantify the cumulative impact of data centers and related infrastructure on residents\u2019 health and the air they breathe. The local opposition movement sees the study as potentially invaluable evidence in future legal fights over data center proposals.<\/p>\n
Welby and Chermak also see value in the study and support the project. But they\u2019ve frustrated Gaughan and other data center critics by not immediately moving forward with a $165,000 proposal for the countywide assessment. Gaughan solicited that proposal from EmPower Analytics Group, the firm behind a similar assessment that served as the foundation of the grassroots Stop Archbald Data Centers movement\u2019s case against the Wildcat Ridge Data Center Campus proposed there.<\/p>\n
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Lackawanna County Commissioner Chris Chermak speaks during the commissioners\u2019 meeting held at the county government center in Scranton Wednesday, August 19, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG \/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)<\/p>\n
Archbald is ground zero for data center proposals locally, but data centers have also been proposed in Clifton Twp., Covington Twp., Dickson City, Jessup, Olyphant, Newton Twp. and Ransom Twp. A data center developer, meanwhile, proposes building a natural gas power plant in Archbald and three more in Dickson City.<\/p>\n
Gaughan\u2019s frustration over his colleagues\u2019 recent decision to solicit additional proposals for the project was clear again Wednesday. He\u2019s skeptical the RFP process will produce a stronger and less-expensive study, as Welby and Chermak contend it might, and instead regards it as an unnecessary delay.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a really important distinction between being deliberate and simply being slow,\u201d Gaughan said.<\/p>\n
Chermak defended the move to solicit additional proposals and rejected the suggestion that he and Welby are dragging their feet. Officials expect responses to the RFP within a \u201cvery short timeline,\u201d he said, describing the RFP as the responsible move and the \u201cright thing to do\u201d since the commissioners are stewards of taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will make a quick decision once we get (proposals) back and analyze everything,\u201d Chermak said. \u201cIt is interesting \u2026 what happened yesterday with Governor Shapiro, so that\u2019s also changing a little bit of what is going on and hopefully will slow some of this stuff down and give the local municipalities a little more control of what they can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Proposals for the health-impact study are due back to the county by 3 p.m. on Sept. 11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON \u2014 Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan credited the pronounced data center opposition movement in Archbald and elsewhere…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2117,201,182,139,28,178,180,179,729],"class_list":["post-268403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-archbald","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268403","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=268403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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