In a resounding show of multi-partisan support, Vermont’s legislature just passed the Vermont Sustainable Data Centers Act (H.727) in a 26-3 Senate vote. The House followed this vote with a strong majority of its own.
This landmark bill – which establishes clear, strong, and proactive rules for any data centers in Vermont – is a critical step to ensuring that all future growth is managed responsibly and invested back into our communities and climate solutions. While no large-scale data centers, to date, have been proposed or sited in Vermont, VNRC has pushed hard to prevent these projects, when they do come, from shifting costs onto ratepayers or undermining Vermont’s energy and climate commitments.
Rapid Growth and Rising Impacts
As of early 2026, there are estimated to be over 4,000 operational data centers across the United States (though, without a federal registration requirement, estimates vary widely). An additional 3,000 centers are under construction or planned nationwide. This represents trillions of dollars of investment – approximately $7 trillion over the next 10 years – deployed across the country with limited coordinated planning or public oversight. On top of that, data centers are drastically driving up electric bills for people across the country while costing taxpayers billions from their environmental impacts alone.
Amidst this ballooning growth, data centers are fueling concerns over:
- Land and water use
- Air, light, and noise pollution
- Climate impacts
- Electricity affordability
- Grid reliability
- Governance and democracy
It should therefore come as no surprise that a May 13th poll by Gallup found that 71% of Americans are opposed to local data center construction. Meanwhile, only 7% of respondents strongly favored data centers in their locale.
Despite public blowback, the reality is that the data center industry is expanding rapidly with no signs of slowing down. Vermont needs to act now, before data centers ever get here. We’re in a race to ensure that, when these facilities do come to Vermont, they do so on our terms.
What We are Advocating For
To protect our state, Vermont needs strong, sensible guardrails in place before data centers ever get here.
Vermont needs a data center policy that:
1) Protects ratepayers and the grid’s capacity to support Vermonters’ energy needs
2) Ensures data centers don’t damage Vermont’s water supplies or drive up climate pollution
3) Ensures that any data center is operated with enormous amounts of public oversight and transparency
Data Centers and Vermont
Modern data centers, especially those used to support AI, require extraordinary amounts of electricity.
To use an extreme example, Meta’s massive “Hyperion” AI data center project in Louisiana is expected to require up to about 5 GW of electricity (plus 4,000 acres and 10 gas plants) – many, many times more power than Vermont uses at its highest moments of demand.
But even comparatively smaller projects, like the 20 MW centers popping up all over New England, need as much electricity as 35,000 electric vehicles. For context, as of January 2026, Vermont had a little under 21,000 EVs registered.
Concern over even these “smaller” centers led Maine lawmakers to outright pass an 18-month moratorium in April on any data center requiring more than 20 MW. And despite some initial blowback (including a veto by Maine Gov. Janet Mills), other New England states, including Vermont, are now pushing through similar bans and restrictions.
Vermont has a limited electric grid, which makes it especially sensitive to large new energy loads. Even a single 20 MW facility can affect peak demand, long-term infrastructure planning, and electricity costs for existing ratepayers. That’s why H.727 is designed to address this problem directly, before these facilities are built here.
What H.727 Does
H.727 places proactive, protective parameters around large-scale data center deployment in Vermont. To ensure these projects receive appropriate review, it sets a threshold of 20 MW, meaning data centers at or above that size are subject to enhanced review and regulatory requirements.
Additionally, under H.727, data centers would be required to enter into “large load service equity contracts,” designed to ensure they pay their full cost of service, including transmission, generation, and reliability impacts. The specific language in the bill – that ratepayers are insulated from all costs of data center deployment – goes above and beyond existing protections. The intent being to prevent the now familiar occurrence in data center hotspots – like Virginia and Texas – of large load operators shifting their costs onto surrounding residents and small businesses
On the environmental side, H.727 outlines rules around water use and water quality, including requirements for wastewater monitoring plans and PFAS monitoring where applicable. It pushes toward closed-loop cooling systems, limits combustion-based backup generation to emergencies only, and requires detailed reporting of energy and water use once data centers are operational.
Lastly, by mandating on-site renewables and participation in Vermont’s network of utility-run distributed energy resources (Virtual Power Plant program), H.727 ensures that, instead of being a strain on Vermont’s grid, data centers actually benefit its stability, efficiency, and reliability.
To Learn More About Data Centers:
Read H.727 and follow its progress: Bill Status H.727
Listen or read E+E Leader’s coverage of Vermont moving to make data centers pay for their grid impact
See VPIRG’s call for strong protections in H.727:
Vermont’s Data Center Bill Clears Senate Committee 5-0 — Here’s What’s in It
Check out what’s happening on data centers in other states, such as these resources from our peer organization Wisconsin Conservation Voters. And follow along with Mainers’ continued effort to restrict data centers in their state:
Maine state house fails to override Governor’s veto
Local officials look to pause data centers after Governor’s veto
Also, check out the testimony of Jigar Shah – an energy entrepreneur and expert – to the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee.