Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act
Sponsored By: Senator Bernie Sanders
Introduced
Summary
A nationwide moratorium on building or upgrading large artificial intelligence data centers. This bill would pause construction or major upgrades until Congress enacts laws that require federal AI product review, share AI's gains with workers, and set strict environmental, labor, and subsidy rules for future centers.
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- Communities and the environment: Affected communities would be empowered to approve or reject new or upgraded centers. Future centers must not increase consumer utility bills or worsen climate harms and must report water use, greenhouse gas emissions, wastewater, cooling chemicals, and noise.
- Workers: Any center built after the moratorium ends must create union jobs with strong labor standards, including prevailing wages, registered apprenticeship programs, and project labor agreements. Quarterly reports must list wages, benefits, and the number of temporary and permanent jobs.
- Industry and exports: The bill targets facilities that exceed 20 megawatts or deliver 20 kilowatts or more to a single rack or use liquid cooling. It would also direct export controls to block key computing hardware from countries that lack comparable AI safety, labor, and environmental laws, and it requires the Secretary of Energy to publish quarterly, verifiable reports on each AI data center.
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
3 provisions identified: 0 benefits, 1 costs, 2 mixed.
National pause on AI data centers
If enacted, the bill would impose a national moratorium starting on the date of enactment that stops the start or continuation of construction or upgrading of artificial intelligence data centers. The bill would define an AI data center as a single or connected site under common control that either hosts AI model development or operation at scale, or that exceeds 20 megawatts total power and delivers 20 kilowatts or more to a single rack or uses liquid server cooling. The moratorium would stay until one or more new laws are passed that (1) require Federal review and approval of AI products before release, (2) ensure AI economic gains benefit workers and include job-displacement protections and wealth-sharing policies, and (3) require post-moratorium centers to not raise consumer utility bills, not worsen climate or environment, let affected communities approve builds, prohibit government subsidies, and create union jobs with prevailing wages and registered apprenticeship programs. The moratorium would end only when a later law expressly terminates it.
New export ban on AI hardware
If enacted, the bill would direct the Commerce Secretary to prohibit exports, reexports, or in-country transfers of computing infrastructure hardware when the end-use is in an AI data center or in training or deploying AI models at scale. "Computing infrastructure hardware" would include semiconductors, integrated circuits, and products that contain them, such as computers, networking equipment, and data storage systems. The ban would apply to shipments to any country that does not have statutes or regulations comparable to the law's safety, worker, and environmental requirements, and to any person in such a country. These export restrictions would take effect on and after the date of enactment.
Quarterly public reports on AI centers
If enacted, the bill would require the Energy Secretary to submit quarterly reports to Congress and publish them on the Department of Energy website about every AI data center. Each report would list, for each center during the period covered, financial vehicles, water and energy use and infrastructure needs, on- and off-site greenhouse gas emissions and fenceline air quality monitoring, wastewater discharge and thermal outputs, cooling chemicals, noise levels, wages and benefits, counts of temporary and permanent jobs, land or utility agreements, and a certification that no Federal, State, or local subsidies were used. The Secretary would be able to verify information and moratorium compliance by issuing subpoenas, requiring written interrogatories, conducting inspections, and conditioning future permits on compliance. These reporting and verification powers would take effect upon enactment.
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Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Bernie Sanders
VT • I
Cosponsors
There are no cosponsors for this bill.
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
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