Johnson regulates Chicago data centers, wants moratorium

Audio By Carbonatix

(The Center Square) – Chicago could soon be one of the largest cities in the U.S. to halt the development of new data centers large tech companies continue to invest heavily into the infrastructure backing artificial intelligence.

As politicians and candidates from both parties have taken aim at data centers for their large footprint on the power grid and environmental impacts, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order Tuesday aimed at data centers within the city’s limits. 

The order Johnson directs city agencies to act on regulating current data centers in the city and established a new task force to create and update rules in the city’s code related to such regulations.

“This order directs the Department of Environment to strengthen and modernize the conditions required to obtain an air pollution control permit and to issue new rules and do it within 90 days,” Johnson said.

While Johnson doesn’t have the authority to outright block the development of new data centers, he also called on the City Council to pass a moratorium on them when they return to regular meetings next month.

“I'm going to continue to partner with city council to ensure that those concerns that community members have are addressed and that's why the city council's authority to place a moratorium on data center development and advancement,” Johnson said.

The order comes just months after the Illinois General Assembly weighed legislation called the Protecting Our Water, Energy, and Ratepayers, or POWER, Act, but didn’t advance it before the end of their spring session.

Johnson said he wants state lawmakers to act on it when they return to Springfield in November.

“I'm calling on Springfield to pass the power act because working families should never be forced to pay higher utility bills to subsidize the massive energy demands of data centers,” Johnson said.

The POWER Act will likely be a top priority for lawmakers during their fall veto session, especially as Gov. J.B. Pritzker has pushed the legislature heavily to pass the law.

Reports widely suggest that as more new data centers come online, electric grids across the country face strain from the hundreds of gigawatts pulled by the facilities.

“We have something called the POWER Act that's being negotiated. And it did not pass in this last session of the legislature. It probably has a little more negotiation that needs to get done, but it very much can pass in the next session,” Pritzker said at a climate summit last month.

The statewide act would expand the required permits to build new centers, the reporting of energy consumption, payments into community funds, and plans to save water while bringing new capacity to the grid.

Denver, Minneapolis and Seattle all passed this year some type of halt to new data centers construction in their cities.