The Seattle City Council is set to vote on Tuesday on a proposal to enact a one-year moratorium on new data centers. This comes just two months after several companies submitted plans for five large-scale data facilities within the city. Among the most vocal proponents of this temporary ban are current employees of Amazon, Seattle's largest tech giant, who joined numerous others last week to testify in support of the measure.
Data centers have become a focal point for protests nationwide, driven by concerns over substantial water consumption, rising local electricity prices, and noise pollution. In Seattle and the wider King County area, these concerns have reached a critical juncture. If the city council approves the moratorium on June 9th, all new large-scale data center proposals in Seattle will be paused for a year, providing time for the city to deliberate on legislation that could reassert control over these developments.
During two city council hearings, residents overwhelmingly expressed support for the moratorium, including engineers, software developers, and other tech industry professionals. Liesl Wigand, a senior software engineer at Amazon, testified at a Seattle Land Use and Sustainability committee hearing last Wednesday, stating, “In my job, I see the consequences of the all-costs-justified AI buildout.” She added, “The biggest issue is a belief that AI should be how we solve everything, while ignoring the resources that it costs. This culture is omnipresent across tech.”
Wigand is an active member of Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, a collective of current and former employees dedicated to addressing the climate crisis. Last year, over 1,000 Amazon employees signed an open letter accusing the company of "casting aside its climate goals to build AI," urging it to power all its data centers with 100 percent additional, local renewable energy. Sarah Tracy, a former Amazon software engineer and fellow group member, noted that they have been awaiting an opportunity like this moratorium to voice their concerns.
The proposed new data centers in Seattle, put forward by four undisclosed companies, would collectively demand a maximum of 369 megawatts. This represents approximately one-third of Seattle’s average daily electricity consumption and would lead to 10 times the power usage of the city’s existing 30 data centers, as reported by The Seattle Times.
Expressing pride in Seattle's legal protections for employees speaking out politically, Wigand urged lawmakers to proactively "set the terms" for data centers in the city. She highlighted that she and other tech workers have witnessed examples of responsibly built data centers elsewhere, incorporating safeguards like climate mitigation strategies and AI safety committees. However, Seattle currently lacks such standards for tech companies. Wigand concluded with a stark warning: “Let’s not let Big Tech burn Seattle to win the AI race.”
The proposed emergency moratorium is complemented by a resolution calling for further research into the impacts of data centers on city infrastructure, utility rates, water and land use, employment, and public health. However, some critics argue the plan does not go far enough. A key concern, highlighted by local news outlets, is that if all necessary paperwork for a new data center is submitted before the moratorium is voted upon, construction could still proceed.
Patrick Schloesser, an Amazon software engineer, appealed to the committee to mandate greater transparency from developers, urging them not to conceal their identities behind non-disclosure agreements and shell companies, which often obscure ownership. He proposed that each developer should be required to provide 100 percent additional renewable energy to the local grid and face a tax for every layoff. Schloesser also advocated for worker-led safety committees that report directly to the city, ensuring that “if any AI developed in your facilities is becoming a risk to the city, the city can prepare and intervene if necessary.”
In a separate Parks and City Light committee hearing, Darius Irani, another Amazon software engineer, called for companies to also contribute additional energy transmission and storage capacity, alongside public reporting of water and electricity usage. He asserted, “We can’t rely on these companies to regulate themselves — Seattle needs to set the terms so the way any new data centers get built here actually moves us closer to the future we want.”
Beyond Amazon employees, dozens of others voiced their support for the moratorium, including electrical engineers and tech workers from various companies, some of whom shared experiences of job loss due to AI. Speakers raised concerns about Seattle's housing affordability crisis and a notable increase in homelessness since 2024. Others highlighted rising electricity bills attributed to data centers, the potential displacement of single-family homes, and even played recordings of data center noise audible miles away.
Several comments reflected a broader skepticism towards the AI industry. One speaker, an AI startup worker, suggested that data centers primarily benefit corporations and that AI itself "doesn’t need more megawatts — it needs more mega-resolution," a remark that drew an audible "Dang!" from the audience.
Disillusionment was a common theme among speakers. One individual stated, “If you’d asked me a year ago if I supported a data center moratorium, I would’ve said no.” They explained that tech companies had previously promised sustainable practices, including massive renewable energy buildouts, utility-scale battery storage, demand-response capabilities for grid stability, closed-loop cooling systems to conserve water, and even free heating for nearby buildings. “But is that what they did? No,” the speaker concluded.
A former Amazon software engineer, who lived in Seattle for years and requested anonymity due to fears of retaliation, informed The Verge that companies are "barreling ahead" with data center construction without meaningful input from either their workforce or the communities in which they build.
“We have a real opportunity here to use the pause, the moratorium, to say ‘Okay, if this is a technology that we’re gonna live with, how can we really make it so that the infrastructure and the technology itself are benefiting people rather than just consolidating wealth in the hands of some tech billionaires?’” the former employee elaborated.
Despite the formidable opposition they face, supporters of the moratorium are not without influence. Individual data center proposals have been canceled or scaled back following local protests, and similar moratoriums have been proposed at various governmental levels. Notably, New York’s state legislature recently passed a one-year ban on new large-scale data centers, which now awaits the governor’s signature.
In his testimony, Schloesser cited reports indicating that Amazon is projected to spend $200 billion on capital this year, with Microsoft allocating $190 billion, much of which is designated for AI and data centers. Concurrently, he pointed out that Amazon has laid off 30,000 corporate employees over the past eight months.
“What that tells me is that Big Tech is desperate to build as much compute capacity as it can, as fast as it can,” Schloesser asserted. “That desperation gives our city leverage.”
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