Shapiro sides with public on data centers but some say he is late

(The Center Square) - Fifty-eight years in her house, three kids raised, and at age 83 hating the idea of nearby woods being replaced by a noisy monstrosity, she had an anti-data center sign in her front yard.

Somebody didn't like it.

On April 20, the Montgomery County woman - whose name is being withheld by The Center Square - got a letter from "Don't Believe Data Center Lies" about the sign. The letter said "saying AI data centers are harmful is a lie" and "you are making a mistake" and not only the president and two U.S. senators want them but "the governor wants them."

The last statement appeared to implode in the state Capitol on Tuesday as Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who previously embraced the data center industry, slammed its developers as greedy miscreants. He suddenly acknowledged the worry, fear, accusations, and lawsuits it had been bringing to communities statewide for many months. He signed an executive order intended to corral the mess.

The woman who received what she considered "a threatening letter" lives very close to a proposed data center site in Limerick Township, Montgomery County. On Thursday afternoon, after listening to a recording of some of Shapiro's comments, she was lukewarm to it.

"I am glad he did it, but he is late to the game," she said."

Shapiro's action continued to reverberate on Friday. He followed up on the executive order with the announcement of a state portal for feedback on data centers, along with a map. His opponent n his bid for re-election, Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity, attacked his handling of the issue.

In September at an AI summit, Shapiro said the state was "leading the way" in AI and protecting the public at the same time. Recently, nine of the 17 projects on a "fast track" state permitting list were data centers.

Meanwhile, chaotic meetings played out in municipalities across the state as local officials tried to deal with complex development proposals and an agitated public.

Six hundred people showed up at one meeting in Lehigh County. Neighbors of the marquee proposal on Shapiro's "fast track" list called $10,000 household grants being offered by the developer "bribes." A onetime township supervisor in Wayne County filed a lawsuit when his data center-targeted municipality hired as its solicitor a personal friend of the data center company president.

Such venom has been rare in Pennsylvania public life, according to Jim Lee, president of Susquehanna Polling and Research. Similar outcries, he said, happened in 2005 after a 2 a.m. vote by lawmakers to give themselves a pay raise, and in 2009 when President Barack Obama's health care reform proposals were aired.

The anti-data center uprising was "an organic, grassroots response," Lee said.

By Tuesday, the mood of the public was obvious. Shapiro was "six months behind the polling" that showed "a huge percentage of the public against data centers," Lee said.

But much of elected state government appeared to be in a disconnect, as well.

When the Legislature on July 12 concluded the budget process virtually nothing was done about the public concerns on data centers. Democratic state Sen. Katie Muth of Chester County said at the time lawmakers "should be ashamed of themselves" and "I feel so bad for the public."

Thirty-seven days later, Shapiro acted.

"There are more than a hundred speculative projects that are out there right now. And only five even have permits to move forward, and none are actually operational," Shapiro said that day. His executive order, which will require data center developers to meet safeguard developed by his administration, was a response to the public outcry.

In a statement to The Center Square on Thursday, Shapiro spokesperson Rosie Lapowsky said data center development had moved rapidly and the governor had kept his focus on balancing the concerns of communities with the chance to create jobs. More than six months had passed, she said, since the Democratic governor had laid out his concept for safeguards, and the Republican-led Senate had failed to act on them.

"The governor wasn't willing to wait any longer," Lapowsky said.

Republican Sen. Dawn Keefer of York County said Shapiro's "epiphany" appeared to be completely reactionary. "He is going to say what is popular," Keefer said.

Another Republican, Sen. Kristin Phillips-Hill of York County, said Shapiro "was backed into a corner and chose political expediency."

What is needed, she said, is state "leadership that understands this is a difficult issue, understands what people want, and takes leadership on the issue rather than a knee-jerk approach."

Republican Sen. President Pro Tempore Kim Ward of Westmoreland County, appearing in an online press conference with Garrity, said Shapiro had "changed his tune" and was merely "following the polls."

Near the Limerick Township data center proposal site, 68-year-old John Roetling, a retired mechanic, said the whole data center debate to date made it seem "they are taking the approach, 'We'll build it and then we'll figure it out.' That's never the right approach."