Pa. election 2026: Where governor candidates Garrity and Shapiro stand on data centers

HARRISBURG — Incumbent Gov. Josh Shapiro and Republican Stacy Garrity have both adjusted their positions on data center development as public opinion has shifted against the massive projects this year.

Shapiro signed a sweeping executive order setting much stricter environmental and transparency standards for new data center developments in Pennsylvania. Garrity says she favors mandatory rules not tied to climate and a pause on data center development.

At the same time, both candidates have also accused each other of flip-flopping on their support for data centers.

Garrity has said Shapiro was data centers’ “biggest cheerleader” until recently.

“He claims to be putting guardrails on an industry he was championing just a few months ago,” Garrity said at a data center listening session in Montgomery County in June. “It's really a massive flip-flop, plain and simple.”

A spokesperson for Shapiro said Garrity has a “long record of supporting completely unregulated data center development.”

Pennsylvanians across the state are fighting against proposed data centers, citing their impacts on energy prices, water availability, and property values. A poll of Pennsylvania adults conducted this spring found 64% view data centers as a crisis or a problem.

Chris Borick, the director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, which conducted the polling, said that the number of people concerned about data centers is “significant,” especially in a swing state such as Pennsylvania.

The governor can pursue private investment and shepherd projects through the state permitting system, as Shapiro did with nine data center projects in his Fast Track program. They can also sign or veto legislation sent to them by the legislature, which is scrambling to address growing concerns over data center development.

Both the state House and Senate have passed bills that would repeal a sales tax exemption for data centers’ purchases of computer equipment. The state Senate bill also would prevent data centers from receiving tax benefits for building in “opportunity zones”— designated parcels of land where the state encourages private investment through tax breaks.

Governors can also sign executive orders affecting data centers, as Shapiro also did.

Here’s what we know about where the candidates stand on the issues:

Josh Shapiro and Stacy Garrity’s data center history

Both Shapiro and Garrity were initially enthusiastic about data centers and the private investment they attract, but have seemingly tempered those positions as communities raise concerns about their economic and environmental impacts.

Throughout his first term, Shapiro pursued partnerships with major tech and AI companies. He partnered with OpenAI to create a pilot program for government workers to use ChatGPT and attended an AI summit with U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.), where $90 billion of private investment in data centers and auxiliary industries, such as energy generation and workforce development projects, was announced.

In June 2025, Shapiro touted a $20 billion Amazon Web Services investment to build data centers in Pennsylvania and provided these projects with “fast-tracked” permitting.

“Right now there is a battle for supremacy when it comes to AI, a battle that will be won by either the United States or China,” Shapiro said at the announcement. “I’m comforted by the fact that thanks to Amazon, the future of AI is going to run right here through the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

Fast forward to February 2026, when Shapiro announced his plan to incentivize data centers to meet environmental and economic development standards.

“We need to be selective about the projects that get built here,” Shapiro said at his budget address, where he first unveiled his plan.

In June, he released more details about those standards, which he called GRID. Initially, he laid out a vision in which following those standards would qualify data centers for access to existing tax breaks.

Shapiro followed that plan up with a stricter set of data center rules via executive order in August, this time requiring developers to follow his GRID standards if they wanted permits on a workable timeline.

As state treasurer, Garrity is not involved in attracting big tech investors into the state. But her early comments on AI were largely positive. She lauded Amazon’s $20 billion investment when it was announced. The following August, she said that Pennsylvania could be “doing more” to encourage data center development.

“We have 88 data centers. Ohio is kicking our butt. They have over 192. And so, you know, we could just be doing so much more in that space,” Garrity said on a radio show.

But her tone began to shift in early 2026. In January, Garrity told reporters that there are a lot of areas in the state where communities would welcome data centers, but “you have to engage with them.”

“You have to talk to them. You can’t just jam it down their throats,” Garrity said.

Then in June, Garrity began hosting data center listening sessions across Pennsylvania, where she has criticized Shapiro for “doing nothing to address the concerns that were raised by communities about data center development” and letting such developers benefit from “sweetheart tax deals.”

Garrity has told reporters she supports more restrictions on the industry, criticizing Shapiro’s GRID proposal for being voluntary, but her campaign did not answer Spotlight PA’s questions about specifics. She also proposed locating data centers in brownfields or industrial sites, away from residential communities.

“I’m not opposed to data centers, but we have to do them the right way,” Garrity said at a listening session in Montgomery County.

Regulating data centers

Data centers must follow the same state and local regulations as other developments, including obtaining proper zoning status and construction permits. Lawmakers also passed a law this year requiring them to annually report their water and power usage.

Many other regulation bills have stalled, including measures passed by the state House or Senate that would ban developers from accessing a program that gives tax breaks to those who invest in certain “opportunity zone” areas and allow local governments to temporarily pause development.

One of the more stringent bills would direct the Public Utility Commission to establish baseline requirements for contracts between data centers and utility companies that would apply to most of the newly proposed facilities in Pennsylvania. It also mandates that data centers use at least 32% clean energy by 2035 to power their campuses and directs them to contribute to state programs that help low-income Pennsylvanians pay their heating or cooling bills.

In a press release, a Shapiro spokesperson said the administration “worked closely” with the prime sponsor of the bill to “establish baseline standards for how data centers should operate,” but stopped short of endorsing the bill.

Initially, Shapiro’s signature data center proposal took a different approach, seeking to tie an existing economic incentive — a sales and use tax exemption for data centers’ purchases of computer equipment and tax breaks associated with designated parcels of land — to meeting environmental, economic, and energy standards.

Those GRID standards include creating at least 200 construction jobs, paying $1.5 million annually in total wages, and bringing or paying for the energy they use. Data centers that meet these standards would also have access to fast-tracked permitting.

In August, Shapiro went a step further, signing an executive order that required data center developers to sign an agreement saying they will follow the GRID standards in order to be issued necessary permits on a rolling basis — an important part of long-term projects.

Developers who do not sign such an agreement must first obtain all local permits and approvals before they can go through the state permitting process.

The aim, Shapiro said, is to weed out speculative data center developers and give communities a greater say in whether data centers are built in their neighborhoods.

“If you can’t agree to our strict requirements and get the community where you want to build to say ‘yes,’ you’re not going to have the commonwealth’s support either,” Shapiro said when he signed the order. “These are some of the biggest companies in the world — they can afford to be good neighbors, follow the rules, and do this right.”

The executive order also kicked data centers out of Shapiro’s Fast Track program for permitting — including the Amazon projects that Shapiro had previously lauded — and banned state agencies under the governor’s administration from signing NDAs relating to data center projects.

In a statement to Spotlight PA, Garrity said that while she wants a framework to address data center development, she does not support the “clean energy mandate” included in Shapiro’s GRID standards.

“We need to be utilizing the abundant natural gas resources under our feet that currently accounts for 60% of Commonwealth’s electricity generation,” Garrity said.

Garrity pointed to a development in Homer City, where a former coal plant is being converted to provide energy for data centers, as a positive example. She added there are many rural sites, including brownfields, that would benefit from data center developers’ investments.

“It really is improving in the community. It's going to add housing, it's going to add jobs,” Garrity said. “Not everybody's happy with it, but there's a lot less contention.”

Garrity has also laid out her own set of standards for data centers.

She wants all data centers to bring their own energy to the grid; they should recycle water and treat it so contaminated water doesn’t end up in the environment; they shouldn’t be located on farmland; they should have community engagement agreements; and they should not get special tax incentives.

Economic incentives

Data centers have access to a few major economic incentive programs in Pennsylvania, and there’s growing support in the legislature to restrict access to some of them.

In 2021, the state legislature amended an existing sales and use tax exemption for data centers, allowing them to claim an unlimited refund on the sales tax of computer equipment purchases.

Data centers aren’t mandated to disclose their spending, so it’s unclear how much the state has lost in tax revenue due to the exemption. But in Shapiro’s latest budget projections, he estimates that the exemption will have cost the state $2 billion by 2031.

Both the state House and state Senate passed separate legislation that would repeal the exemption, but neither bill has passed the other chamber.

Garrity said she would support appealing the exemption.

“Yes, my goodness, even Ohio has paused that,” Garrity told reporters at the same listening session in Montgomery County.

When Shapiro first unveiled his full GRID standards in June, he asked lawmakers to pass legislation that would put conditions on the sales and use tax exemption. That legislation never passed.

Instead, in August, Shapiro included those conditions unilaterally in his executive order.

The order stipulates that if developers don’t follow the GRID standards, the state Department of Revenue won’t acknowledge applications for the tax credit.

Shapiro’s initial June data center plan also proposed that lawmakers change economic opportunity zone programs, which allow investors to receive tax breaks if they build projects in specific places, so that data centers could only access the program if they meet GRID standards.

That proposal was not included in his executive order, and no such bill has passed the legislature.

When asked by Spotlight PA about whether she supports changing the opportunity zone program, Garrity said she does “not believe data center development should receive special tax incentives.” She previously told reporters there should be “no more sweetheart tax deals” for developers benefiting billionaires and their companies that are building these centers, such as Jeff Bezos and Amazon Web Services.

Moratorium on data center development

State lawmakers have introduced a bevy of bills that would enact moratoriums on data center development. Some give municipalities the option to enact a moratorium for a few months while others create a blanket moratorium across the state for three years.

While none of these bills have passed through both chambers, the state House passed the bill allowing temporary local moratoriums at the end of June and it was subsequently voted through in the Senate Local Government Committee.

Garrity said she would support a “pause” in data center development for “however long it takes” so townships could update zoning requirements and plan emergency services needs related to data centers.

She emphasized, however, that she would not support a moratorium lasting three years or longer, but did not specify how long a pause should last.

The difference, she says, is that “a moratorium is a definitive period of time.”

Shapiro has not proposed a pause or moratorium. In remarks reported by PA Environment Digest in August, a staffer for the governor offered some insight into the administration’s thinking on the issue.

“We really do want to respect the local decision-making that has a primary role in siting and zoning decisions,” Sam Robinson, a deputy chief of staff, said. “That is a local power that is retained, and we believe should be retained here. But we don't want to say there's nowhere that [data center construction] can happen.”

This story was updated to include the candidates’ evolving positions on data centers.