Oklahoma Senator Kendal Sacchieri has filed legislation that would temporarily halt construction of new data centers in Oklahoma while state regulators study the long-term impacts the facilities may have on infrastructure, utilities, and local communities.
Senate Bill 1488 would establish a moratorium on new data center construction through Nov. 1, 2029, and direct the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to conduct a comprehensive review of how large-scale data centers affect water supplies, utility rates, property values, and site selection practices.
Under the bill, the Corporation Commission would be required to submit its findings and policy recommendations to lawmakers to guide future legislative decisions.
Sacchieri said the rapid growth of data centers across Oklahoma has raised unresolved questions about their cumulative impact on communities and natural resources.
“As data centers continue to grow rapidly across Oklahoma, we are confronting serious unknowns about how these large facilities affect our communities, our utilities, and our natural resources,” Sacchieri said. He said the legislation is intended to address those unknowns before additional facilities are approved.
“There are real, serious concerns around what these data centers will bring to our state negatively,” he said. “We must be sincere in addressing these unknowns and finding the best solutions for the erection of these very large facilities.”
The senator said the proposal is not intended to stop economic development, but to allow time for data-driven policymaking.
“The goal is not to halt progress, but to ensure that progress does not come at the expense of Oklahomans’ quality of life or their utility costs,” Sacchieri said. “We owe it to our communities to understand what we don’t yet know before we make irreversible decisions about where and how these facilities are built.”
Senate Bill 1488 has been filed for consideration during the Second Regular Session of the 60th Oklahoma Legislature and is awaiting committee referral.
This comes as companies such as Google have announced billions of dollars in planned investments for facilities across Oklahoma, while the Coweta Planning Commission recently rejected a rezoning request tied to a separate data center proposal.
