Karlapalem Backs Jones' Call for Data Center Moratorium

From the Karlapalem campaign

July 26

“Alabama families are finding out about massive AI Data Center projects in their own backyard after the decisions have already been made. That’s not how you treat the people who will live with the consequences. Doug Jones is right to call for a moratorium.”

MADISON, Alabama - Hanu Karlapalem, Democratic nominee for Alabama State House District 4, today voiced strong support for gubernatorial candidate Doug Jones’ call for an immediate moratorium on new AI Data Center approvals until Alabama adopts a real statewide plan. Jones’ proposal would also ban non-disclosure agreements between developers and local governments and require independently funded community advisory boards for approved projects.

Karlapalem said the contrast with his opponent is stark. This week, Parker Moore told the Decatur-Morgan County Chamber of Commerce that public opposition to data centers has been driven by “foreign disinformation,” a comment Karlapalem called an insult to the very constituents Moore is supposed to represent.

Karlapalem pointed to what he calls “AI Coal” — a pattern he says echoes the broken promises coal companies made to Appalachian communities for generations: heavy promotion of jobs and prosperity, followed eventually by pollution and diminished returns. But Karlapalem says AI data centers are, in some ways, worse. Coal’s damage to a community built up over decades. With data centers, the noise, energy strain, and air and water quality impacts start from day one of construction, not after the boom fades.

Nationally, researchers at the University of California, Riverside have estimated that data centers could contribute to roughly 600,000 asthma cases a year by 2028, largely from diesel backup generators and fossil-fuel power plants running to meet their electricity demand. In Pennsylvania, a coal plant that was once the largest in the state is currently being converted into a gas-powered data center campus rather than retired.

Karlapalem, a Life Member of the Limestone County NAACP, noted that these concerns are part of a growing national movement. The NAACP has launched a “Stop Dirty Data Centers” campaign, warning that data center pollution, water overuse, and rising utility costs fall hardest on frontline and low-income communities, and calling for enforceable community benefit agreements before new facilities are approved. “This isn’t a fringe concern,” Karlapalem said. “Civil rights organizations, environmental groups, and now local governments across Alabama are all saying the same thing: these projects need real guardrails before they get built, not apologies after.”

Karlapalem said the concern spans the political spectrum. “This isn’t a Democrat issue or a Republican issue,” Karlapalem said. “I’m hearing the same worry from families across this state, regardless of party: rising power bills, strained water systems, and a process that leaves communities finding out after the deal is already signed. Republican-led counties and Democratic-led counties have both moved to put local controls in place because the concern is real everywhere. This is not about being for or against technology. It is about transparency versus secrecy, and Alabama families deserve transparency no matter how they vote.”

A new BloombergNEF report with a headline “Data Centers on Track To Suck Up a Fifth of U.S. Power by 2035” released July 21, 2026, found that, within the next 9 years, U.S. data centers will consume roughly 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, up from about 5.9 percent today, with demand reaching 194 gigawatts, an amount equal to the output of 194 traditional nuclear reactors. That is the bill Alabama families could be left holding for a boom they never voted on and a plan the legislature never wrote.

“It’s going to have a devastating effect on the quality of life of everyday Alabamians, ” Karlapalem said.

“These facilities are built on brute force, not efficiency,” Karlapalem said. “The industry’s answer to every new demand has been to build bigger, add more chips, more hardware, more power, instead of doing more with less. Alabama families are the ones left holding the bag for that choice, through their power bills, water quality, and their air quality, while the profits go somewhere else.”

In Alabama, current law allows a data center that invests at least $400 million to qualify for both sales and property tax abatements while creating as few as 20 jobs. By comparison, Meta’s data center campus in Huntsville represents an investment of more than $1.5 billion and is expected to support roughly 300 permanent jobs, or about $5 million in investment for every operational position.

Karlapalem also warned that the same lack of oversight extends to what these facilities put into Alabama’s water. Data center cooling systems can use chemical additives, including PFAS, so-called “forever chemicals” linked to cancer, kidney disease, and reproductive harm, and federal reporting requirements meant to track PFAS use by data center operators have already been delayed to January 2027. Without the disclosure rules Jones has proposed, Karlapalem said, Alabama communities could go years without knowing what is in the water near a new facility.

“This Republican supermajority told us AI regulation was too complicated and needed ‘baby steps’ when it came to protecting kids from AI chatbots,” Karlapalem said. “But when it comes to handing out decades of tax breaks with almost no public reporting on what taxpayers give up, or what’s going into our water, they moved fast. That’s not caution. That’s arrogant ignorance.”

Karlapalem has pledged that, if elected, he will introduce legislation adopting the transparency and accountability measures Jones has proposed.

Hanu Karlapalem is a Madison, Alabama resident of 26 years, small technology business owner, UAH M.S. graduate, and Life Member and former Second Vice President of the Limestone County NAACP. He has been on the frontlines fighting against hate and bigotry, for voting rights and freedoms, and to protect our democracy and the Constitution. He has been married for 31 years and has deep roots in the North Alabama community through civic, professional, and community service.

For more information, visit https://www.hanu4alabama.com.