Why this matters
Artificial intelligence technology and the rapid expansion of data centers require vast energy and water resources, driving up costs and causing public health concerns for communities nationwide.
A day after President Donald Trump declared, “I never want Americans to pay higher Electricity bills because of Data Centers,” state Sen. Steve Padilla introduced legislation to shield Californians from paying unfair shares for the giant server warehouses fueling the artificial intelligence boom.
While Trump’s Truth Social post lacked specificity or substance, Padilla’s two bills are an attempt to seriously balance competing needs and growing concerns on an issue that has now elevated to the president. Padilla has been focused on the issue for years amid a public outcry.
Padilla, a Democrat whose district includes San Diego and Imperial counties, introduced Senate Bills 886 and 887 on Tuesday. One would require the state Public Utilities Commission to establish a tariff that data center customers would have to pay. The other would assert that data centers are not exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act while also providing an avenue to fast-track construction of centers that require large amounts of water and energy.
In a press release, Sen. Padilla said data centers should “support the grid and local communities.”
“California families are already struggling with rising utility bills as it is, and we need to ensure they aren’t forced to foot the bill for Big Tech data centers,” he said. “Even President Trump agrees, Big Tech needs to ‘pay their own way.’”
Trump weighed in on growing concerns over data centers on his Truth Social account on Tuesday, saying, “We are the ‘HOTTEST’ Country in the World, and Number One in AI. Data Centers are key to that boom, and keeping Americans FREE and SECURE but the big Technology Companies who build them must ‘pay their own way.’”
Trump’s post signals a sharp pivot following his December position on AI proliferation, when his administration issued an executive order calling on eliminating “cumbersome regulation.”
There are at least 23 data centers in the San Diego region, according to a listing on the website datacenters.com. Twenty-one are in the city of San Diego, one is in Chula Vista and another is in Tijuana, Mexico.
This week San Diego County supervisors requested a report on the state of data centers in the county with the eventual goal of creating safeguards to protect San Diegan’s from bearing data center costs.
“Our message is simple,” County Supervisor Jim Desmond said. “Innovation is welcome — but San Diegans should not be left holding the bill.”
Data centers are proliferating because the companies that provide the hardware and software to power the push for AI require complex data management, high security and massive computing power.
But they come at a cost, and communities nationwide are reckoning with the economic, environmental, energy and public health impacts of the large air-conditioned data centers.
Just last Saturday, dozens of residents in an unincorporated part of Imperial County gathered to protest potential noise pollution, public health impacts and higher electric bills that might result from a proposed 950,000-square-foot data center on several parcels of land totaling 75 acres.
The planned center is embroiled in a legal dispute. If built, it would be one of the state’s largest.
“It’s going to harm us,” said Francisco Leal, a resident of Imperial and a member of NIMBY Imperial, a group of residents opposing the project. “It’s going to affect and degrade the quality of life of the people that live nearby, and I haven’t mentioned the topic about property value.”
NIMBY Imperial, which organized last week’s protest in El Centro has gathered more than 4,000 signatures against the data center since last December.
The county greenlit the project proposed by Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing in November, saying it was exempt from CEQA. Imperial city officials disputed the claim and sued, alleging that some of the parcels would have to be rezoned to allow for a data center. The company responded with a lawsuit of its own, claiming that the city is unlawfully obstructing the project.
Sen. Padilla began calling for a greater public review of the data center project in December.
Senate Bill 887 is his attempt to balance industry needs and community concerns about proper oversight and long-term impacts. The bill would require the leading government agency to carry out an environmental review or declare how the project would not impact the environment and surrounding communities. It would provide a path to fast-tracking construction so long as the project meets certain criteria regarding water use, clean energy and infrastructure costs.
The bill does not specify those requirements.
Imperial Valley resident Gilberto Manzanerez, a member of NIMBY Imperial and the founder of Valle Imperial Resiste, a grassroots environmental collective, supports the bills and said that their goals are aligned with community needs.
“The fact that this is even moving at the Senate level means there is a true worry about these centers being built as fast as they are,” Manzanerez said. “It shows a clear contrast to local officials who seemingly are eager to accept these types of projects without any proper protection policies in place.”
He added, though, that legislation can take time, time Imperial residents may not have.
“I worry this will not move fast enough to protect communities like ours.”
