Resistance to data center construction stopped being a scattered, town-by-town affair in early 2026. A tracking project shared with NBC News counted at least 75 projects blocked or delayed nationwide from January through March, worth roughly $130 billion, the most in any three-month stretch since the count began in 2023.
The study comes from Data Center Watch, the 10a Labs AI-intelligence project that monitors local data center activity, and its authors read the quarter as something deeper than a bad stretch for developers. “The quarter reflected a structural shift rather than a cyclical spike: communities have internalized an opposition playbook, legislative sessions introduced formal regulatory uncertainty, and the number of active opposition groups more than doubled to 833 across 49 states,” they wrote. The value of stalled projects in those three months roughly matched the figure for all of 2025.
The surge in organizing was steep. Active grassroots groups grew from 396 at the close of 2025 to 833 by March, with Maryland, Ohio and Texas home to the most of them. Often the fight started before anything formal existed to fight. “In some cases,” the authors wrote, “opposition mobilized before any project was officially filed, the mere rumor of a data center was enough to trigger organized resistance.”
Lawmakers Pile In
Legislatures moved the same direction. Proposals for data center construction moratoriums ballooned during the first quarter, sponsored by both parties, with bills introduced across 14 states over those three months. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York pitched a federal version. More than 300 data-center-related bills landed in statehouses in the first six weeks of 2026 alone, which the authors called “a clear shift from incentive-focused policies toward regulatory oversight as the scale of energy demands became clearer.”
None of the moratorium proposals had been signed into law when the study published, though one reached Maine Governor Janet Mills, a Democrat, who vetoed it in April.
Two Stories About the Boom
Residents opposed to the developments cite strain on energy consumption, water and the environment, among other effects, and the politics have scrambled usual alignments. Leaders in both parties, who had largely welcomed the investments into their states, spent the spring recalibrating. Industry backers answer that the concerns are overblown or built on faulty data, and point to the economic benefits of the facilities needed to power the AI boom.
The numbers explain both anxieties. A single quarter matching a full previous year of blocked value is not a cyclical dip. And 833 organized groups across 49 states, doubling in three months, is not a fringe.
Sources
- Data center protests: What they mean for your town
- AI Data Centers: 60 Minutes Investigates the Backlash Against America’s AI Boom – 60 Minutes Tonight
- Data center opponents have blocked or delayed projects worth nearly $130 billion in 2026, study finds | NBC News
