SEATTLE — After two hours of near-unanimous testimony from residents in support, all Seattle City Council Members voted to create a one-year moratorium on the creation or expansion of any large data centers within city limits, becoming the largest city in the country to pause facilities that are drawing controversy across the country.
“Governments across the country are really playing catch-up and figuring out how do we make sure these work for everybody and not just the companies that are proposing,” Lin said.
A resolution and ordinance were both passed to pause any processing, acceptance, or approval for data centers that would demand more than 20 Megavolt-amperes of electricity, or roughly the demand of around 16,000 homes.
Council Member Eddie Lin, who represents District 2 in southeast Seattle and sponsored the bill, says that the electricity limit is above what most existing data centers use to support companies, first responder networks, and medical systems.
“We didn’t even have a definition of data centers in our zoning, in our land use, so it’s sort of the Wild West. We need to have appropriate regulations and controls to figure out, you know, where data centers can or should be located, how do we address noise impacts, the energy impacts, things like heat islands. So this gives us the time to develop those regulations.” Lin said.
Lin said he was spurred to action by the news that several large data centers approached Seattle City Light about new data centers that would have soaked up a significant amount of the current demand, though Councilmember Deborah Suarez said she had been working on a bill since before then.
The legislation notes Seattle has become “desirable” because of relatively cheap energy and access to water and that the centers can require 300,000 gallons of water a day.
All of the testimony Tuesday was in support of the pause, many citing concern over data centers depleting resources for residents of the city.
“We are already struggling to electrify our buildings, to electrified our homes, to electrifying our transport. We really need all of our effort right now to be going towards the electrification of just everyday living and not towards, and not use our energy systems to go to work." Lauren Redfield said, who is with Washington AI resistance and also testified to City Council.
In a statement, Mayor Katie Wilson said she looked forward to signing the ordinance. Over the next 365 days, Lin says meetings with communities, utilities, and companies to form permanent regulations. Following the vote, Washington AI resistance announced a “People’s AI Bill of Rights” they hope inspires more regulations or moritoriums at the county and state level.
“We need to pass this at the county level and then we need to make sure that our legislators represent us and not tech in the next session.” Redfield said.voted
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