Francesca Hong, a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly and a gubernatorial candidate, has proposed a state-wide moratorium on AI data center construction.

Hong, a Democrat, issued a press release on January 6 stating her plan to “hit pause on all data center construction until we better understand its consequences and have robust plans to protect Wisconsinites from negative environmental impacts, not to mention the energy costs footed by our taxpayers.”

Comparisons were drawn with the “Foxconn era,” likely referring to the tech manufacturer’s controversial manufacturing plant at the village of Mount Pleasant that experienced serious delays before finally being completed in May 2021.

The gubernatorial candidate also proposes that sales and use tax exemptions for data centers be tied to “concrete ongoing economic activity in the state,” as well as mandating that any of sales and use tax revenues be channeled into “developing emissions-free energy infrastructure owned and operated by the state of local governments.”

Hong joins a growing number of American political figures at the local, state, and federal level who have also called for greater regulation of the AI data center construction boom and its effects.

Last November, several winning candidates in Georgia’s Public Service Commission ran campaigns promising to address electricity rate hikes related to data center power demand.

Data center and electricity costs were also brought up in the gubernatorial campaigns of Mikie Sherrill, the now governor-elect of New Jersey, and Abigail Spanberger, the governor-elect of Virginia.

At the national level, Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, called for a moratorium on data centers in December, stating that the process was “moving very, very quickly, and we need to slow it down.”

Moratoriums on data center developments have also been used by multiple councils across various states, including Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Kansas, Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri, Idaho, and Pennsylvania.