AMY GOODMAN: Today is Earth Day. Events are being held around the world centered on the theme “Our Power, Our Planet,” with a focus on renewable energy. The first Earth Day was held 56 years ago, on April 22nd, 1970. That date is often considered the start of the modern environmental movement.

Well, today, we begin by looking at a pressing environmental issue facing communities across the United States: the vast expansion of AI data centers being built to fuel artificial intelligence. Critics warn the AI data centers are a threat to local land, energy and water resources. According to the group Food & Water Watch, a single large data center can consume as much energy as 2 million U.S. households.

Last month, Vermont’s independent Senator Bernie Sanders and Democratic Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced legislation to impose a national moratorium on new AI data center construction. The bill would halt all new construction until Congress passes federal laws to protect workers and consumers and ensure the technologies don’t harm the environment. This is Congressmember Ocasio-Cortez.

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: More than 100 local communities across 12 states have already enacted local moratoriums on data centers, and Congress itself has a moral obligation to stand with them and stop Big Tech from ruining their communities. Our legislation in the House and the Senate would hit the brakes on construction of new data centers until we address several of the key areas of harm AI poses.

AMY GOODMAN: In the state of Maine, lawmakers recently approved the nation’s first statewide moratorium on large data centers, but the governor of Maine, Democrat Janet Mills, has yet to say if she’ll sign the legislation. This comes as Mills is in a tough primary race for a U.S. Senate seat against fellow Democrat, Graham Platner.

We go now to Freeport, Maine, where we’re joined by Melanie Sachs, a Democratic Maine state representative who sponsored the statewide moratorium on new data centers.

Welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. Can you explain what this legislation does and the significance of the Maine Legislature being the first in the country to pass a statewide moratorium? We’ll see what happens with whether the governor signs the legislation, but if she doesn’t, and doesn’t veto it, it still will go into effect.

REP. MELANIE SACHS: Correct. And good morning. Thank you so much for having me, Amy.

I put forward the bill because this same governor, our wonderful governor, Janet Mills, actually put together an AI Task Force, full of her own state agency members, as well as business members and a bipartisan set of legislators. In that report, which came out in fall of 2025, it said two things, that Maine residents are concerned about the impacts of data centers on both their electric rates and other utility rates, as well as on our wonderful environment we have here in Maine. When you think of Maine, you think of our wonderful natural resources. So, the second recommendation, not only that called out the fears of Maine residents, but also that we needed a playbook. The recommendation was we need to meet the moment and put together regulations that perhaps look at the opportunities, but certainly the impacts that these have.

And so, that’s why I brought this bill, which is going to put together a collaborative council, full of, again, state agencies, rate payer protectors, environment, tribes, municipalities, all together to say what is the regulatory framework that Maine needs to meet the moment — to meet the moment, and at the same time to putting a temporary, limited, targeted pause on the development of these data centers so that we can make sure that regulatory framework is correct.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about — well, it is a Democrat-controlled Legislature, the governor is a Democrat, she’s running for Senate — whether you’ve gotten any signal about whether she will sign the bill? And what is the deadline here?

REP. MELANIE SACHS: So, she has until April 25th to either sign the legislation, veto it or let it go into law without her signature. I know she’s carefully considering it. We just finished our session here in Maine, so she had several hundred bills go to her desk. I know that this is a bill that she has said she is generally in favor of.

However, there is one project that has surfaced, as several have during the course of this legislation, that we had been told, of course, no data centers are coming to Maine. Both the AI Task Force and my committee — I chair the Energy Committee here in Maine — we’ve been told that, really, there were no data centers here in Maine, but, lo and behold, when I put the bill in, several of them surfaced, which was so interesting, that had been working in secret. One such project actually is closer to fruition than others, and that is the one that she’s concerned about.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about the data center project in Jay, which saw the closure of several paper mills over the last years. Governor Mills and others argue the data centers boost jobs. What is your response? And though we’re talking to you in Freeport, you grew up in Jay. Your father actually worked in one of those paper mills.

REP. MELANIE SACHS: Right. I grew up in New Sharon, Maine, which is a community very close to Jay, and, yes, my dad did work at that very same mill that is slated for development with the data center. So I know the area. I know what economic development means.

One of the reasons I put in this bill, however, is because we have the evidence from all across the country of the harm that these data center projects can potentially do, limited economic opportunity with very few local jobs done. This developer has promised anywhere — it’s gone from 100 to 125 to 150 permanent jobs. Also, they’ve talked about, well, it’s going to be a lesser footprint than that of the former mill. But we actually don’t know that, because the Sentinel Data company, which is sort of a turn-and-burn colocation — they bring somebody in. We don’t know what that design looks like. And we also don’t have the permitting, the emissions, the regulatory framework around the electric load that might need to accommodate a particular project.

The last thing I will say is, it is more — these projects are more than just the locality where they are located. These projects impact the grid, electricity rates, utility rates, water usage for the entire community and sometimes statewide. So we really need to look at something like this. It’s been — it’s been offered as almost a baby data center, soothingly saying, “Look, this won’t have the same impact.” However, the projected load that we’ve been able to get out of the developer actually can be 10% of Maine’s entire load for this one data center. So we really do need to make sure that we meet the moment.

AMY GOODMAN: State Representative Sachs, how has the AI industry responded to your bill? Why are we seeing also this rapid expansion of data centers in states like yours, in Maine?

REP. MELANIE SACHS: Right. I would say that Maine, while we do have a little bit higher electricity rates than maybe other communities, we’re one of the lower in New England. We have an amazing workforce, and we have abundant natural resources with a cool climate. I understand why they might think that we are ripe for opportunity.

My concern is that this project, along like many of the other projects that surfaced during the bill, were done in complete secrecy, without community engagement. AI hasn’t actually come to talk to me, but the problem is they’re also not talking to the communities. We now have had several communities, like your lead-in piece, that have had to put their own local moratorium on data centers because they’re just concerned about the impact of these projects without notable gain for the communities. And that’s really one of the reasons that I’m so excited about this bill, is to make sure that communities have the opportunity to engage and that the framework is correct.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking about what? Almost half a dozen other states are looking at the kind of regulation you proposed and the Legislature passed. And can you talk about who specifically — can you name names? — are the AI lobby, and how they strategized to, how they tried to defeat this bill in Maine?

REP. MELANIE SACHS: Right. So, we did — we do have several lobby firms that have tried to actually write amendments to the bill or have tried to offer other reports on the bill when it came out of committee. I’m not paid by a lobbyist. I don’t read their speeches on the floor, and I don’t think that that’s in the best interest of Maine to just cede our policy to lobbyists. I think that we need to make sure that we are writing the policy that is good for Maine, and not include them on, say, this council or to have that sort of orientation towards our communities and our natural resources. I write my own bills.

I worked very closely, actually, with the administration to write the initial bill, because I think this is important for Maine to be able to take charge and say this is how we protect rate payers, this is how we protect our natural environment, and this is how we look out for our communities. And that is really the important part about this bill. It is not a permanent pause or ban. It is a temporary ban to make sure that we have the work of the council and then the time to put those regulations in place to protect Maine.

AMY GOODMAN: Melanie Sachs, Democratic Maine state representative from Freeport, sponsored the statewide moratorium on new data centers, the first in the nation to be passed by a legislature. Now the governor has until April 25th to sign it, veto it or just let it become law.

Coming up, we go to Memphis, Tennessee, where the NAACP is suing Elon Musk and xAI for pollution from its data center power plants. We’ll speak to Memphis organizer KeShaun Pearson.

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AMY GOODMAN: “The Taker Story” by Chicano Batman.