The Pennsylvania House Energy Committee voted 14-12 along party lines last week to advance two bills that would impose new reporting requirements on data centers and provide municipalities with a state-authored zoning template. The bills now head to the full House.
HB 2150, sponsored by Rep. Kyle Mullins, would require covered data centers to file annual reports with the Department of Environmental Protection detailing total electricity and water consumption and describing efficiency measures in place.
HB 2151, from Rep. Kyle Donahue, directs the Department of Community and Economic Development to produce a model ordinance that local governments may adopt when reviewing data-center proposals.
Both bills cleared the Democratic-controlled committee over unified Republican opposition. Rep. Martin Causer, the committee's ranking Republican, said the legislation singles out one industry and would make Pennsylvania less competitive for data-center investment.
The committee vote followed a public hearing on February 2 at which environmental groups, municipal advocates, and industry representatives offered competing assessments. PennFuture and the Natural Resources Defense Council endorsed both bills. A separate coalition that includes the Better Path Coalition and No False Climate Solutions PA opposed the model-ordinance measure, warning that a state-endorsed template could weaken stronger local protections and expose municipalities to litigation from developers.
HB 2151 was amended before the vote to specify that municipalities would not be required to adopt the model ordinance.
The two bills join a forecasting statute already in effect. The Load Forecast Accountability Act, enacted as part of the November 2025 budget agreement, empowers the Public Utility Commission to review utility load projections before they are submitted to PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator. Analysis from the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania links the law to concern that speculative forecasts tied to prospective data centers could inflate capacity costs for existing ratepayers. The statute also authorizes the PUC to coordinate with regulators in other PJM states to prevent the same project from being counted in multiple utility forecasts.
New Jersey has since introduced its own load-forecasting legislation modeled on Pennsylvania's law. Todd Snitchler, president of the Electric Power Supply Association, said the New Jersey bills seek to do the same thing — add oversight to ensure forecasts reflect projects that are likely to be built rather than speculative proposals.
Plans for more than fifty data centers across Pennsylvania have drawn organized resistance from community groups in counties from Allegheny to Lackawanna.
Inside Climate News and PublicSource reported that opponents cite electricity demand, water withdrawals, noise, and the industrialization of rural land. Democratic state Sen. Katie Muth has circulated a memo proposing a three-year construction moratorium to give local governments time to update zoning.
Governor Josh Shapiro supports the committee bills and has separately outlined permitting standards he calls GRID, intended to condition expedited state permits on commitments to bring dedicated power generation, engage communities, and meet environmental benchmarks. Those standards remain an executive initiative and do not carry the force of legislation.
Taken together, the reporting bills, the forecasting law, and the governor's permitting framework represent a shift from ad hoc local disputes toward a more structured statewide approach. Whether the House bills survive the Republican-controlled Senate remains an open question. Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee Chair Gene Yaw has not committed to scheduling hearings on data-center regulatory measures originating in the House.
