Four activists with the Oregon Data Center Defiance coalition testified at Governor Kotek’s July 31st Data Center Advisory Committee meeting. Here is their testimony.
Leslie Kochan, Portland, Multnomah County, for Extinction Rebellion PDX
The number of existing and planned data centers in Oregon is mind-boggling. The explosion of data centers is driven by greed, pure and simple. Large data centers are the physical manifestation of Big Tech’s speculative AI dream – a dream built on shaky financial ground. The tech companies and their allies, including our utility companies – and unfortunately some of our elected officials – are in it for the monetary windfalls.
Continuing down this path without thoughtful consideration will only support the corporate-led enterprise. This enterprise is exploiting our natural resources, driving the climate crisis, exposing residents to public health harms, destroying farmland and water resources, and threatening non-human species. In addition, the desired outcome, very powerful AI, will wreak havoc with our privacy, public safety, labor and military operations.
Evidence shows that data centers produce short-term gains for construction workers but all too often no greater stability for local job seekers. We need tax and funding strategies that move us towards stable schools and funding for services and developments such as affordable housing and solar farms built by union labor.
Our elected leaders and this advisory committee are limiting their focus to the necessary guardrails to data center expansion. Important as guardrails are, we should first ask whether we need more data centers and – if so – where and for what, who benefits, and who pays the price.
Many Oregonians are asking these same questions and we see their answers in resistance across the state. Contrary to the claims of data center and AI boosters that there are always broad community benefits to be gained, there is instead ample evidence of community and environmental harms.
I call on this committee to support a three-year moratorium on data center expansion and new construction in order to consider these and other important questions.
Emily Waldron, North Plains/Helvetia, Washington County, for Friends of Smart Growth North Plains
My name is Emily Waldron, and I am a resident of the North Plains/Helvetia area of Oregon as well as a member of Oregon Data Center Defiance, a state-wide coalition organizing for data center reform and better practices.
I would like to give comment today, and I think after listening to today’s meeting I want to highlight that the conversation around data centers isn’t just about money. We keep hearing the discussion about money, we keep hearing about the cost that they bring, or jobs, but their impact is much greater than economics. And to have this continued idea of an east-west divide in our state is very ignorant about how intertwined we as Oregonians are together.
I live in western Oregon, but my rivers start in eastern Oregon. I live in western Oregon, the air that I breathe that sometimes has smoke pollution is the same as what’s in Eastern Oregon. And to try and split us up like that is not something that is realistic of what our situations are. I also wanted to bring up something we’ve asked in the past, which is for us to have a moratorium.
And when we say a moratorium it doesn’t mean a ban on data centers forever. It means that we need to have time to really pause and look at what – I’m going to bring up the word of the day today – what innovation we can have. We need to be more innovative about how we are regulating data centers. But the only way that we can be innovative is if we have the space to actually be able to research and apply these before more and more applications keep coming in.
In Hillsboro alone, while they were discussing their moratorium, they received two applications. How many more are we going to get while we are discussing regulations, and because they’ve applied before a regulation has been put into place, the regulation doesn’t apply to that building permit. So we need to have a pause so we can be innovative. So we can figure out how to make these companies work for our communities and for the betterment of all of us as Oregonians.
How to make sure that when they’re asking for jobs, we’re requiring them to have Oregon union-based jobs, making sure that they are treating their water correctly for PFAS and nitrates, making sure that our air is clean, they’re not polluting with light, they are not polluting our waterways, they are not taking money from my children’s school because of all the tax abatements. The list goes on and on and on. And even when you take the numbers that people have been giving you inside these meetings it’s not good. For example, Business Oregon told you last meeting that there’s an average of 6 people hired per data center. They said 5600 people across 880 locations. That’s 6 people. So we are doing all this for 6 people to get a long-term job at a data center without looking at the more holistic picture of what is happening in our communities today.
Thank you. I ask that when you’re debating, just recommend a moratorium. Not as a permanent stop, but as a temporary time that we as a state can look together about how to make this best serve our state united.
Deren Ash, La Pine, Deschutes County, for La Pine Data Center Accountability
Hello committee members. My name is Deren Ash from La Pine Data Center Accountability, here to talk about what our rural community in Central Oregon needs for data centers to be good neighbors.
We want neighbors that don’t make loud noise 24/7 and who don’t ruin our dark skies.
We want neighbors who don’t suck up our water or contaminate it with nitrates and PFAS, or make us breathe generator emissions.
We want neighbors who don’t cause our state to be on fire, because Oregon is burning RIGHT NOW. That’s climate change. Data centers are NOT compatible with Oregon’s climate goals. I can’t even buy an incandescent light bulb at the hardware store, and that’s worth spending extra. But while we’re paying for LEDs, adjusting our thermostats, and carpooling, big data centers are sucking power and exploiting us. Even if you think climate change is a Chinese hoax, it’s a huge slap in the face.
Sometimes we’re told it’s okay just because it’s coming from hydro or renewables, but every megawatt that goes from BPA to a data center is a megawatt that can’t displace fossil fuels somewhere else.
To be good neighbors, we care about the IMPACT, and so far data centers aren’t mitigating their impact.
While your presentations today are focused on economic activity with biased inflated numbers – what about those additional considerations that are supposed to be today’s topic? Like the impact on our climate goals, so we’re not drowning in smoke and fire every summer? And the impact on the communities who DO NOT WANT to live next a noise-producing, dark sky-ruining polluter.
It’s cold economic logic versus our BURNING reality.
That’s why we need strict standards, and a moratorium in the meantime. A moratorium is NOT overly simplistic. We need meaningful conditions, without data centers ruining our communities during that implementation time. That’s what a moratorium does. Thank you.
Candice Strange, St. Helens, Columbia County, for Columbia County Resistance
Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity.
Five years ago, Oregon’s data center footprint was between 60 and 80. Today, we host between 123 and 136 operational facilities—a massive surge from years past. To put this into perspective: Oregon now hosts more data centers than most entire nations. Oregon alone has concentrated enough infrastructure to rank among the top states in the nation for power consumption.
We have become a global ‘sacrifice zone’ for digital storage. We do not need more server farms; we need a moratorium on all new approvals to allow our grid and our water tables to recover from the current surplus.
We should not be paving over Oregon’s farmlands or placing industrial-grade diesel generators next to our schools and homes.
In St. Helens where I live they want to build in a contamination zone that is right on the river. Even if you implement stricter siting rules, you cannot mitigate the fundamental math: these facilities require more power and water than our communities can spare.
If you refuse a full moratorium, then at an absolute minimum, the ‘How’ must change immediately:
Zero-Emission Mandate: A total ban on diesel backup generators. If they require massive power, they must fund localized, clean microgrids.
Full Tax Accountability: Closing the loopholes in the Enterprise Zones program so that every facility pays its fair share to support the public infrastructure it depletes.
Members of the Committee, your report should not be a roadmap for ‘managing’ this industry’s expansion—it must be a defense of Oregon’s future. We are not against technology, but we are against a system that forces Oregonians to sacrifice our air, water, and fiscal stability to power speculative AI models.
The question you should ask yourself is ” Do I work for corporations or Oregonians?”
Stop the unchecked growth. Recommend a moratorium
