Illinois – Over 600 Illinoisans rallied at the Illinois State Capitol today for the Illinois Environmental Council’s POWER Act Lobby Day and met with their legislators to urge passage of the POWER Act (SB4016/HB5513). This nation-leading legislation would enact guardrails to protect our water, energy, ratepayers, and frontline communities from data center impacts. Despite the bill’s overwhelming bipartisan popularity and voters’ anxiety over data center developments, lawmakers are poised to leave Springfield tomorrow with no solutions in hand.
“I know many of you are frustrated that the POWER Act hasn’t moved faster, because I feel it too,” House Majority Leader Robyn Gabel told the crowd at the rally. “But I want everyone here to remember something: in Illinois, we do big things. And the POWER Act is a big thing; it’s the most comprehensive data center bill in the nation. I’m calling on my colleagues in the House and Senate to join me at a negotiating table next month to move us toward action.”
Illinoisans from around the state are already troubled by escalating costs, and the influx of data centers to the state is exacerbating concerns about Big Tech’s outsized impact on our energy bills, our natural resources, and our communities.
Bill sponsor Sen. Ram Villivalam said, “Families are worried about rising costs. Communities want transparency and accountability. People want to know their drinking water is safe. We need real and meaningful action. That’s what the POWER Act is all about. It’s a big bill for a big problem. But big solutions take work. Big solutions take coalition-building. Big solutions take persistence. We can’t let up.”
Throughout the day, Illinois activists, concerned citizens, and families expressed their frustration with elected officials’ inaction on the POWER Act.
“We are going up against some of the most powerful corporate interests in the world and they have the ear of too many electeds in state legislative leadership, who clearly haven’t gotten the message that Illinois voters want to see Big Tech pay their fair share and not hand out state subsidies to big corporations,” said Christine Nannicelli, Senior Campaign Representative for Sierra Club Illinois. “That’s why we’re here. Because while corporate money talks and is powerful, so are organized people and so are organized voters!”
Data centers are moving to build at an unprecedented speed, often without transparency or community consent. In Joliet, a 795-acre, 1.8 GW data center was approved in March despite a rushed and undemocratic public process.
“Our community rightfully raised questions over the data center’s water and energy use, as well as public health concerns. The project is moving forward even though we still don’t have answers to those questions,” said Griselda Chavez, Joliet resident and environmental justice organizer with Warehouse Workers for Justice. “We are not done demanding accountability and transparency, and that is what the POWER Act delivers. It ends backroom deals, holds data centers accountable, and ensures local communities have a seat at the table in these critical discussions. After all, these conversations are about our water, our power, and our communities.”
On top of community members’ concerns about the lack of transparency and accountability around data center development, these resource-intensive facilities also put a huge strain on the grid, on our wallets, frontline communities, and on our water resources. With parts of Illinois already under a drought, adding data centers to our state is unwise and unconscionable.
“Big Tech CEOs want millions of gallons of our water to run their massive data center facilities,” said Brenda Santoyo of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization. “But they don’t want to have to track or report their consumption, and they definitely don’t want to pay their fair share for this resource that we all share and rely upon.”
Despite glaring inaction at the state level, some cities in Illinois are leading the way on regulation. Guided by the work of citizen-activists, the city of Aurora met the moment and passed strong community protections.
“In March of this year, the City of Aurora passed the strictest regulations on data centers in the entire state of Illinois, requiring water usage limits, water and energy reporting, noise monitoring, and, most importantly, requiring data centers to bring their own renewable energy or battery storage,” said Aurora Mayor John Laesch. “If the City of Aurora can pass strict data center regulations, then the State of Illinois can pass the POWER Act and require data centers to bring their own clean energy and pay their fair share.”
Reactionary whack-a-mole is not a sustainable strategy for addressing data centers. Municipalities across the state are not equipped to react on a dime to sweetheart deals that have secretly been in motion for months, and they do not have the legal resources to repeatedly face down an army of top-dollar corporate lawyers.
“We can’t stop data centers city by city, or community by community,” said United Congregations of Metro East Rev. Darnell Tingle. “We need the Governor and state lawmakers to convene stakeholders immediately to reach an agreement on statewide regulations in the POWER Act that will benefit everyone so that environmental justice communities like mine in Metro East and across the state aren’t sacrificed to industry.”
Speakers were echoed by the chants of over 600 concerned Illinoisans, all aligned around a unifying message to lawmakers: convene a negotiating table as soon as possible to pass the nation-leading data center protections in the POWER Act that Illinoisans deserve. A livestream of today’s rally can be viewed here.
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ABOUT THE ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL
Representing over 150 environmental organizations in the state, IEC carries out its mission to advance public policies that create healthy environments across Illinois through education, advocacy and movement building. Learn more at www.ilenviro.org.