U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross wants Washington to have a bigger say in where data centers go in New Jersey, and how they’re paid for.
Asked Friday whether the federal government should get more involved, he didn’t hedge.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Norcross (D-1st District) said.
It was one of the sharpest answers in a morning full of them at the Southern New Jersey Development Council’s 44th annual Sound Off for South Jersey legislative conference at The Westin Mount Laurel.
Data centers came up with two state senators, Republican Michael Testa and Democrat John Burzichelli, and again with two congressmen, Norcross and fellow Democrat Herb Conaway.
All four agreed data centers are coming and that they’re already part of the electric bill. They didn’t agree on who should be making the rules.
Part of the confusion, Norcross said, is that data centers aren’t new. New Jersey has had the highest density of data centers in the country for the last 20 years, he said. Nobody noticed, because they were small.
“It’s where the pictures on your iPhone are,” he said. “It’s where your healthcare records are.”
What people are noticing now are the mega-centers built for artificial intelligence. Too often, he said, people conflate the two.
***
Let’s start with the confusion around your energy bill.
Testa (R-Vineland) said residents don’t understand that New Jersey is part of PJM, the regional grid operator that covers 13 states and Washington, D.C. Blocking a data center in town doesn’t protect anyone’s rates.
“If they get built in Pennsylvania or any other state that is part of the PJM, guess what? Ultimately, our residents are going to pay for that in higher rates,” he said.
Conaway (D-3rd District) said New Jersey already imports about 40% of its power, and closer to 50% in a heat wave.
“Supply and demand is like gravity,” he said. “It works.”
Norcross noted that New Jersey used to export power. Then the Oyster Creek nuclear facility closed, and the offshore wind projects that would have added 3.7 gigawatts were scrapped, which upended PJM’s planning.
He wants an all-of-the-above approach. He even mentioned small modular reactors from companies such as Camden-based Holtec, which is a whole other discussion.
***
Here’s the issue that needs to be decided now: Who leads on data center policies?
Norcross clearly wants Washington out front.
Conaway took a middle road. Washington, he said, needs to set some ground rules, and states should keep adding protections for their residents, the way the federal system usually works.
Burzichelli (D-Paulsboro) pointed to Trenton. Gov. Mikie Sherrill has signed the state’s first set of guardrails, which give towns a bigger voice before a project moves forward.
“Municipalities’ voice will be more welcomed and more pronounced,” he said.
That local voice matters in Testa’s district, where the largest data center project in South Jersey, in Millville, has drawn fierce opposition from residents.
Testa, a trial lawyer, said the industry has itself to blame. Developers should run a project like a campaign, he said: poll the town and its neighbors, then explain how much power and water a facility will use and whether it will pollute.
“If you don’t give the jury a story, they’ll make one up,” he said.
Conaway offered two examples. He described a Microsoft facility that brought its own power, used little water and paid back the community with schools, playgrounds and parks. Residents were glad to have it. Then he pointed to an Elon Musk facility in Tennessee running on-site generators around the clock, where neighbors had little warning and little say.
***
As is the case with a conference of opinions, nothing definitive was decided.
Burzichelli, however, did offer one unusual take: He thinks the power problem may partly solve itself.
His reasoning is simple. Follow the money.
“There’s very smart people associated with all these projects,” he said. “And the one thing people understand is money and value.”
After the cost of building a data center, he said, the biggest expense is the electricity to run it. That’s a powerful incentive to use less.
“You can expect at some point in our lifetime that there’s going to be a breakthrough,” he said. “It’s going to take less electricity and power to run these places. That’s just because money will dictate that that kind of breakthrough is needed, and these people understand money.”
In other words, he said, New Jersey may be scrambling for power now, only to find that the facilities get upgraded over time and no longer need as much.
“These very smart people understand money, and they understand how they can save money,” he said.
