Seattle’s city government is on the verge of passing a year-long ban on the construction of new datacenters, the largest city yet in the US to consider such a moratorium as nationwide backlash grows.
Four companies sought to build five large datacenters in areas serviced by Seattle’s public utility; if approved, they would have consumed approximately a third of the city’s current daily demand for electricity.
On Wednesday, city council committees unanimously passed the moratorium and an accompanying resolution. A full council vote on both measures is expected on Tuesday, which activists see as a formality after weeks of engagement with city officials on the topic. Lawmakers cited the two measures as an effort to protect residents from rising utility costs and environmental hazards. They said they plan to spend the duration of the moratorium drafting regulations tailored to the AI industry’s massive facilities.
The swift response to the proposed datacenters represents a major rebuke in tech’s own backyard. A hub for the technology sector, Seattle’s metro area serves as the headquarters for Microsoft and Amazon, which have laid off thousands of local workers over the past year as they spend a projected $390bn on AI investments in 2026. Seattle’s tech workers have shown up in large numbers to organize against the proposed datacenters.
Lawmakers and advocates hope Seattle’s status as a tech city can encourage more jurisdictions to join the dozens of other local governments moving to regulate datacenters, which are bipartisanly unpopular.
A strategic pause
Seattle mayor Katie Wilson was alarmed by developers’ ambitions to build five large datacenters when the Seattle Times broke the news in April.
“That was the first that I, as the mayor, had heard about this,” she said. “Both I and many of the councilmembers were happy to move toward a moratorium, especially knowing that there was really strong public support out there for that course of action.”
Climate activists, progressive activists, an Amazon employee group and others participated in an email-writing campaign to Seattle lawmakers in protest of the proposed datacenters, and scheduled direct meetings and information sessions with city politicians. Eddie Lin, who chairs city council’s land use and sustainability committee, received more than 10,000 emails from local residents in favor of the moratorium, according to his office.
During a moratorium, officials may establish pollution standards, energy connection requirements and contract terms, labor standards, and other rules specific to datacenters. The moratorium and accompanying resolution enable Seattle’s public utility to establish separate rates for new “large load” customers, a category that includes large datacenters. An amendment allows existing datacenters in Seattle to apply for expansions requiring up to 20 megawatts of additional power during the moratorium.
Activists are calling for tighter language to be…
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