What would you want to know before a building that uses as much electricity as every home in Norwalk moved in down the road?

Who pays for the power? What happens to your electric bill? Who is watching what goes on inside?

Those are fair questions. They are exactly the kind of questions we spent most of last year asking about housing. For months, the legislature debated how much the state could ask of our 169 towns. We argued over parking spaces. We argued over whether a two-family house could go up in a neighborhood. Towns wanted a say, and the law we passed makes sure they have one, with local plans for how each community will grow. It was a long fight, and it was worth having.

But while we were debating a duplex, something much bigger was getting ready to plug in.

A typical AI data center uses as much electricity as 100,000 homes, according to the International Energy Agency. The largest ones under construction will use 20 times that. Right now, Connecticut has no statewide rules on how much power these facilities can draw or who pays for the grid upgrades they require.

We spent a year arguing about a two-family house. A building that consumes as much power as a small city deserves at least that much attention.

That is why I am calling for no new data centers in Connecticut, or anywhere on the New England grid, until we have strict laws on AI and data centers. 

Our towns are not waiting, with some already passing local moratoriums on new data centers. But here is the problem: a town can say no to a data center. It can’t say no to the electric bill. New England shares one power grid. Imagine your neighbor ran an extension cord into your garage to power his new business, and the bill showed up in your mailbox. That is what happens when a massive new load plugs in anywhere on our grid. The strain does not stop at the town line or the state line.

So ask yourself a simple question. Would any family in Connecticut have agreed to pay more for electricity so a tech company could train a chatbot? Of course not. Nobody asked them.

We have seen what happens when lawmakers wait. Social media grew up with no guardrails, and now we have apps engineered to be addictive, a mental health crisis among our kids, and a small group of billionaire tech bros who got rich while the damage piled up. We are watching it happen again right now with prediction market apps that let anyone bet on a football game from their phone while claiming our state’s gaming laws don’t apply. We cannot let AI follow the same path.

Gov. Ned Lamont said in his State of the State address that Connecticut should slow down new data centers unless they bring new power generation with them. I want to build on that.

Connecticut has already started laying that foundation. This year, led by Sen. James Maroney, we passed Senate Bill 5, one of the most wide-ranging AI laws in the country. It protects kids from dangerous AI companions, makes sure workers are treated fairly when AI is used in hiring, and requires AI-generated images and video to be traceable. It was a strong step, but more work remains.

We still don’t have rules for the energy these systems consume, who pays for it, and what happens to the workers whose jobs are on the line.

And this cannot be just a Connecticut fight. Last year, Washington tried to slip a 10-year ban on state AI laws into its budget bill. Through the National Conference of State Legislatures, Democrats and Republicans came together and said no: states’ rights should win on this issue. That provision was stripped out in the U.S. Senate by a vote of 99 to 1. The Trump regime has since tried again by executive order to stop states from protecting their own residents.

As president-elect of NCSL, I spend a lot of time with legislators from red states and blue states, and I hear the same concerns everywhere. Parents are worried about their kids. Workers are worried about their jobs. Seniors are worried about scams they can’t see coming. Nobody wants a higher electric bill. Sen. Maroney and I will take that to the national stage and work with lawmakers from both parties to write model legislation that any state can pass.

The order of operations matters. Rules first, then data centers. 

We gave a two-family house a full public debate. The least we owe our children, seniors, workers, and families is the same debate before the biggest power users in history move in next door.

Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) is Majority Leader of the Connecticut State Senate and president-elect of the National Conference of State Legislatures.