During a House Oversight Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA) slammed data centers for increasing customers’ bills, negative environmental impacts, and security risks.
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00:02I now recognize Mr. Subramanian from Virginia for five minutes of questions.
00:09Thank you, Mr. Chair.
00:11I appreciate some of the discussion today, and I think I understand it that data storage
00:17is more important than ever as we have AI and blockchain becoming more prevalent and accessible.
00:23But I want to tell you a cautionary tale about my community.
00:27My district is home to more data centers than any other district in the country.
00:32In fact, if my district were a country, it would have more data centers than almost every other country in the world.
00:37And if you look at this, 10 data centers usually use more power than all of D.C.
00:44And we have more than 200 with another 100 planned.
00:48And many years ago when these data centers were approved, they seemed like a great idea at the time.
00:53We talk about lower property taxes and revenue for the counties.
00:57But our community is paying the price now.
01:00And we're a cautionary tale for the rest of the country.
01:03The power needed for these data centers is creating a huge problem for a community.
01:07We have power lines right now in Ashburn and Leesburg and all over Loudoun County.
01:12Leesburg, Lovettsville, Fauquier, Rappahannock counties are facing similar proposals of building transmission lines or data centers that are quite frankly invasive and not great for the communities.
01:23And we are paying the price now for many of these data centers.
01:27And in the next five years alone, data centers could increase customers' bills by up to $276 a year.
01:34And people's utility bills may double in the next seven to 10 years just to power data centers.
01:39And the environmental impact is real as well.
01:41These green spaces are disappearing.
01:43Pollution is rising.
01:44And water supplies are being stretched thin.
01:46It's making reaching our clean energy goals in Virginia nearly impossible.
01:50We set those in place.
01:51And even historic places like Manassas Battlefield are under threat as well.
01:55And it's also security risk.
01:57Putting all the nation's data centers in one place is a huge problem.
02:01You just look at the Ukraine war, right, when Russia failed to hack Ukraine's telecom networks.
02:06What did they target?
02:07They targeted the data centers.
02:08And so Northern Virginia is becoming more of a target than Washington, D.C. itself.
02:12And that's why we have a lot of people in our community standing up and fighting back.
02:17The Digital Gateway in Prince William County, for instance, was blocked from moving forward by passionate citizens standing up for the health of their communities.
02:25And equally passionate citizens are fighting proposals in Fauquier counties, Rappahannock counties, and other parts of Loudoun.
02:30And, you know, there's one local high school student that started a petition about a power line going through Ashburn.
02:35And she said, our county is meant to be a place where families can thrive, where kids can be happy and healthy, and where communities can grow.
02:42Not an industrial zone filled with data centers and high voltage power lines.
02:46So what I'm asking today is let's be smart about how we're deploying data storage as AI and blockchain becomes the norm.
02:54And I'm calling for a national strategic plan on how we deploy more data storage that takes into account the impact on communities.
03:02It needs to be thoughtful.
03:03We need to be thoughtful about how we handle the unintended consequences on communities, like how it will affect costs and people's utility bills.
03:10How will it impact our environment?
03:12And how do we ensure that the security of these data centers is sufficient?
03:16We need to be thoughtful about data centers and data storage and their long-term impacts.
03:20And one can support an innovation, but it doesn't have to come at the cost of our community.
03:25So I yield back.
03:26Thank you, Mr. Chair.
03:27Would you yield to me, Mr. Silverado?
03:30Would you yield to me, Mr. Silverado?