On Thursday, December 4, we held a launch event for the North Star Data Center Policy Toolkit—a guide for organizers and policymakers on how to use local and state policy to stop rampant AI data center expansion.

The launch event—“North Star Interventions: Using Policy as an Organizing Tool in Our Data Center Fights”—previewed the toolkit’s local and state policy recommendations and featured a panel with local and state organizers. The panel discussed how to use policy interventions as an organizing tool to both fight individual data center developments and to advance statewide change.

Speakers included:

• Angelantonio Enriquez Breault, a member of the No Desert Data Center coalition and Reconciliación en el Rio Santa Cruz, walked through the coalition’s initial win in the Project Blue fight and how they used that momentum to organize for a local water ordinance to restrict data centers in Tucson.
• Connie Di Cicco, Political Director at Georgia Conservation Voters, shared her strategies for transformative policy change at the state level and debriefed Georgia’s recent policy developments.

Mary Black, The Black Hive Co-Manager at M4BL and former Raleigh City Councilmember, broke down what local policymakers can do to meet this critical moment.

Watch the toolkit launch and panel discussion below and read the toolkit here.

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Our North Star Data Center Policy Toolkit maps local and state policy interventions to stop or restrict rampant AI data center development. The toolkit includes both North Star interventions and scaffolded policies to get there, and is designed to help shape demands for immediate site fights and statewide agendas. Featuring real-life examples, the interventions span moratoriums and bans, zoning and permitting, energy, water, air quality, taxation and subsidies, transparency and NDAs, labor, and more.

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