SCC Greens oppose unregulated hyperscale data centers
SCC Greens call for moratorium and regulations of hyperscale data centers
In August 2026, the Green Party of Santa Clara County Council approved the following statement on SCC Greens’ position on data centers, which was sent to the City of San José in response to the city’s request for community input on data centers.
SCC Greens have also endorsed an August 4th statement by the Green Party of California opposing the construction and expansion of hyperscale data centers.
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Green Party of Santa Clara County Opposes Unregulated Data Centers
Across California an alarming and widely unregulated growth of Hyperscale and Large-scale data centers is jeopardizing communities’ health and well-being, overwhelming utilities, and putting our precious air and water resources at risk.
A number of California municipalities are scrambling to attract high-tech and venture capitalists with tax breaks and expedited construction permits to build and deploy Hyperscale and Large-scale data centers while lobbyists invest millions of dollars in advancing AI-promoting policies.
Large and Hyperscale data centers impact all our community, however, low income and underserved residents bear the overwhelming burden of increased costs for utilities and suffer the greatest from air and noise pollution associated with data center operations.
As the “Capital of Silicon Valley”, the city of San José has a responsibility to lead on creating regulations on data centers planning and permitting that mitigate the harm of data center expansion and construction. We urge the city of San José to utilize the many lessons learned from other jurisdictions and not chase the promise of tax revenues at the expense of its residents.
To protect our communities in and around San José and in support of the Green Party platform and principles, we call on the city of San José to:
- Enact a one-year moratorium on the construction and expansion of Hyperscale data centers to allow for citizen engagement.
- Ban tax credits to Hyperscale data centers.
- Ensure that Large-Scale data center projects do not destabilize the power grid.
- Ban primary onsite combustion power generation for all data centers.
- Ban open loop cooling systems.
- Enact strong noise ordinances to limit both audible and low frequency sound.
- Mitigate data center’s heat island effect on the local environment.
- Provide full transparency and ongoing community input on all data center construction, expansion and upgrade plans.
Thank you for considering these critical steps in protecting the residents of San José and prioritizing the safety and wellbeing of our communities.
Nassim Nouri
she/her
Council member,
The Green Party of Santa Clara County
