Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Greg Rothman has recently claimed that the state needs more data centers, an opinion that sparked a backlash against him. Multiple Pennsylvania residents who opposed the construction of more data centers criticized Rothman, implying that the GOP did not have voters’ best interests in mind.
During WGAL’s Commitment 2026 debate series, incumbent Rothman faced Nathan Wood in a debate for Pennsylvania’s 34th State Senate District. At one point, the host asked Rothman whether he supported any kind of moratorium on data center construction, which he opposed. He supports local decision-making on data centers, as is the case with most land development.
Rothman claimed that some people and communities want data centers and that the state should not tell them they cannot have them. He also argued that it was important to have these data centers in the United States rather than China and that there was genuine demand for more data centers.
He also called energy prices outrageous, blaming them on the “environmental policies of the Left.” However, he argued that unless Pennsylvania wanted to stop using data, “it needs more data centers.”
Pennsylvanians Disagree With Greg Rothman
Residents who commented on the discussion on r/Pennsylvania were largely against Rothman’s defense of data centers. One of them wrote: “He said yeah the data centers are using up all of our energy and that energy prices are outrageously high but thats the left’s fault with all of their environmental policies, not the data centers. The GOP has controlled the PA senate since 1992.”
Another person added: “I’d love for him to point to a single community in the US that has said ‘yes, we want data centers’ in the year 2026,” implying that their construction was not really useful.
Multiple others claimed that data centers only serve to make people’s lives worse: “For what? Stealing our jobs and spying on citizens? What do we gain? Nothing.” Some linked them to an increasingly powerful surveillance state: “They want more surveillance and propaganda bots”.
However, a few others did see some merit in Rothman’s point of view: “He may be a [expletive], but most of what he said is obviously true. This discussion needs to be stored somewhere, and we’re all contributing to the problem by just being here and doing this.”
Skyrocketing energy prices and data center construction continue to be central issues in Pennsylvania politics, and it remains to be seen how these important questions will affect the upcoming elections.
