Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order stripping AI data centres from the state's permit fast-track programme, blocking environmental review until local approval is secured, and barring state agencies from signing NDAs on data centre projects. Branded GRID, the framework forces developers to sign a binding consent order covering energy affordability, transparency, workforce development, and environmental protection. Developers must now pay the full cost of new electricity infrastructure themselves rather than shifting costs to ratepayers, and data centres will lose grid service before other customers during stress events. The move follows Amazon's $20bn Pennsylvania investment and a 76% year-on-year surge in PJM wholesale power prices, and joins New York's hyperscale moratorium and Texas's interconnection pause as states push back against AI-driven power demand.
Questions this post answers
What does Pennsylvania's new executive order require of AI data centre developers?
Governor Josh Shapiro's GRID executive order, signed in August, requires data centre developers to sign a binding consent order with the Department of Environmental Protection before permit review begins, secure all local approvals first, and pay the full cost of new electricity generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure themselves instead of shifting costs to ratepayers. It also removes data centres from the state's permit fast-track programme and bars NDAs on these projects. daily.dev helps engineering and infra teams track how state energy rules like this reshape data centre build plans.
Why are US states like Pennsylvania, New York, and Texas cracking down on data centre construction?
States are responding to surging electricity costs driven by AI data centre demand: PJM wholesale power prices rose 76% year on year to $136.53 per megawatt-hour in early 2026, with data centre load blamed for $7.3bn of a $16.1bn capacity auction total. New York enacted a statewide hyperscale moratorium of up to a year, Texas paused interconnection approvals against roughly 474 gigawatts of pending requests, and Pennsylvania stripped data centres from its permit fast track. developers building on cloud and AI infrastructure can follow this power-cost squeeze on daily.dev.