One-Year AI Data Center Moratorium in Wisconsin
A Growing Call for Moratoriums
A rapidly growing list of Wisconsin municipalities and counties, including communities across rural Wisconsin, are implementing data center moratoriums. Conversations on the campaign trail, massive attendance at zoning meetings, and surveys of impacted communities all signal growing frustration with being shut out of a government that should be serving them. We must continue to work to create a Wisconsin that puts residents and families before corporate power and profits.
Dylan supports a one-year moratorium across the state to introduce stronger transparency and accountability around the data center development process.
We must enact a one-year moratorium to immediately protect our communities while we put long-term protections in place. During that year, Wisconsin must pass and implement laws that address public accountability, environmental safety, union labor provisions, and community benefit requirements to protect our communities from this unprecedented corporate pressure and influence.
Bringing Transparency instead of Secrecy
Wisconsin has become increasingly targeted for Data Center development over the past couple of years. These proposed centers have been met with pushback in communities across the state as concerns about the effects on utility grids, water usage, noise pollution, and damage to natural resources continue to rise. Wisconsinites are demanding and deserve more answers about what is at stake with data center developments.
In some cases, data center developers have used Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) to push through agreements without public input. This allows corporations to propose, reach an agreement, and build the data center before community members can understand the impacts. Governments and corporations must not be allowed to create agreements in secret.
Part of the protections against predatory data center development must include an end to local NDA’s. We cannot allow the system to privatize public information to benefit private corporations. Wisconsinites deserve to have a say in the future of their communities, and government must remain in the hands of the people.
As State Treasurer, Dylan will work to improve government transparency, accountability, and accessibility to return power to Wisconsin residents. Enacting a one-year data center moratorium is a necessary step towards these goals and will protect the public from further abuses, give the state time to fix existing NDA loopholes, and pass regulations to strengthen community protections.
These AI data center developments are another example of a broken system that doesn’t put Wisconsinites first. Wisconsinites deserve clear, direct information about the local trade-offs of developments, potential data center legislation, and the financial impacts of tax breaks for data center developers and operators. As with other critical issues, Dylan will be a Treasurer who works to make information related to data centers understandable. He will create a public dashboard of the state budget and “Guides to the System” that outline the physical and financial impacts of data centers in Wisconsin.
It is crucial that the moratorium is viewed as the first step, and followed by the implementation of public regulations that ensure environmental safety, union labor provisions, and community protections.