In Hillsboro, petition seeks pause on new data centers amid energy and farmland concerns
by Jennifer Singh,KATU
Wed, April 8, 2026 at 8:43 PM
Updated Thu, April 9, 2026 at 3:08 PM
HILLSBORO, Ore. (KATU) — Washington County has grown to become a major data center hot spot in Oregon, and as the demand for energy continues to grow, a group of residents are pushing back against further expansion.
A new petition, created by Hillsboro City Councilor Kipperlyn Sinclair, is calling for a temporary moratorium, or a pause, on new data center development, asking local leaders to study the long-term impacts on the economy, environment, and energy use of the facilities.
“A moratorium is not a permanent ban. It is a pause for accountability,” Sinclair said. “If our government is going to keep approving data center expansions, the public deserves clear answers about energy demand, land use, environmental impact, tax fairness, and real local benefit. We need this information up front, before final decisions are made and critical farmland is paved over.”
Sinclair and backers of the petition have raised concerns over rising electricity costs, decreases in public funding, environmental strain, loss of farmland, and irreversible land impacts.
“While our residential electricity rates have risen by nearly 50%, data centers continue paying less than half the rate per kilowatt-hour that we do,” Sinclair said. “This gap forces our families and small businesses to subsidize infrastructure like the $200 million Hillsboro substation.”
According to Tualatin Riverkeepers, data centers consumed 11.4% of Oregon’s electricity in 2023 and estimated that large-scale facilities can use up to 4.5 million gallons of water per day.
“There are huge questions about the cost being passed on to residential ratepayers,” said Tammy Carpenter, candidate for House District 27 and current Beaverton School Board member. “They are not paying their share. We are paying that share. So there are huge questions to be answered.”
As data centers have received major tax breaks from the state, funding for public services has been reduced. A report by Good Jobs First claims Hillsboro School District lost $128 million to tax abatements in 2024.
Hillsboro School District Communications Officer Beth Graser clarified that the district did not directly lose that amount of money, but said because all districts collect local revenue through property taxes, it's more likely that "the State of Oregon and/or Oregon Department of Education may have 'lost out on' approximately $128 million worth of tax collections from data centers, and thus that money was not available to distribute to Oregon's 197 school districts."
Graser said districts do rely on property owners in the area for general obligation bonds and local option levies; those dollars go directly to the districts that levy the taxes. However, Hillsboro School District does not have a local option levy at the moment according to Gaser.
"We do understand that tax abatement is an important component to attracting business investment and are not against the concept, but it must be contemplated carefully, with a thorough understanding of potential unintended consequences," Graser said.
“When we are in this crisis of public education, we should not be giving away money that needs to be going to our schools to educate our students,” said Carpenter.
Community leader and Hillsboro Herald editor Dirk Knudsen said he has been advocating for transparency into data centers for years.
“This is not a ‘no data center, no tech center, no AI’, type of thing,” Knudsen said. “Although a lot of us have those feelings, we also know Oregon needs revenues. Oregon needs jobs, and so I feel like the moratorium is the right thing to do.”
Knudsen said one of his biggest concerns is the strain data centers are having on power grids.
“I have multiple inside informants telling me PGE’s power grid is maxed out here. Totally maxed,” Knudsen said. “There’s data centers being finished here in Hillsboro that have no power, and they’re being told three to five years before you get power.”
According to Knudsen, data centers in Hillsboro are paying less than half of what the average resident is paying for power.
“They get tax breaks, they don’t chip in anything to the local economy, and they’re buying power and water at highly discounted rates,” said Knudsen. “That’s where people in their houses should say, 'Who did this, and why is this happening?' And then during this moratorium, if we can take that time-out and come back and start correcting those things and understanding them for what they are, we’ll all be better off.”
Jacob Roloff, lifelong Hillsboro resident and local farmer, said he’s concerned about future expansion and the drawbacks for farmers and residents.
“Farmland in the world is decreasing every year, and so we’re just swiping away all this topsoil for data centers that are giving profits to private companies,” Roloff said. “They’re giving only a future percentage points back to our community, and it just doesn’t quite -- ‘the math isn’t mathing’ as folks say.”
“Land is Washington County’s greatest asset,” said Sinclair. “We have the richest world-class soil here in Washington County. Our farmland here is priceless. Agriculture is second only to technology, bringing in almost $7 billion a year. We need to further understand, drop opportunity creation, and put a pause on expanding for the sake of expanding.”
Hillsboro is home to more than a dozen data centers and more are slated to open in the coming years, including a 350,000-square-foot 27-megawatt data center by Flexential and a 285,000-square-foot 36-megawatt site by Lewis.
At the same time, a bill that would have rezoned 1,700 acres of farmland for industrial development and expanded tax breaks for large companies and data centers was shot down last month.
“If we have to cut into their profits and make them annoyed, I don’t care about that,” said Roloff. “I care about farmland, and school funding, and public services, and building anything else besides another fortress for Facebook and data centers.”
The petition reflects a growing interest in the impacts of data center expansion. Communities across the state are raising similar concerns about energy demand, water use, and utility prices.
In January, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek announced that a statewide Data Center Advisory Committee would work to develop a set of policy recommendations and actions to address concerns with new data centers and officials have temporarily paused certain tax incentives for new data-center projects.
According to the committee, companies operating data centers in Hillsboro have also agreed to purchase at least 10% of their services from local vendors, but backers of a moratorium say there is a lot more to consider.
“There’s a lot of talking points, and it’s such a big issue that it’s gonna take a lot of good people to work on this and make something good out of it,” said Knudsen. “And not kill it, but just kind of, like I said, rein it in and make it work for us.”
State Senate candidate and Washington County resident Myrna Muñoz is backing a pause and said local leaders owe the community answers before corporations.
“This is not about stopping innovation. It’s about stopping the blank check,” said Muñoz. “Washington County should not be expected to give away land, infrastructure, tax dollars, and public trust without proof of public benefit. A pause gives us the time to make informed decisions with the community at the table before world-class farmland is paved over and lost forever.”
Articles Official Website:
To sign the petition or to learn more visit:
https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/data-center-moratorium-petition
Sudanese Researcher Lina Yassin on COP30 Climate Talks, UAE-Funded Proxy War in Sudan over Gold & More
Story November 19, 2025
Sudanese climate diplomacy researcher Lina Yassin is supporting the Least Developed Countries Group at the U.N. climate summit in Belém, Brazil. The group is composed of 44 countries, including Sudan, whose cumulative emissions amount to less than 1% of total global emissions. “They are the countries that have the least amount of resources to respond to the climate crisis,” explains Yassin.
Yassin also discusses the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, where the estimated death toll is now at 150,000. “This is a proxy war funded by foreign nationals who have vested interests in Sudan’s resources. … The UAE has been using the RSF militia to illegally smuggle gold out to finance the war and finance their own gold reserves. The UAE is also really interested in Sudan’s agricultural lands.”
Full Story available at Democracy Now Sudanese Researcher Lina Yassin: https://www.democracynow.org/2025/11/19/lina_yassin
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Greta Thunberg
Born in Sweden, Greta Thunberg is a Swedish Climate Activist and Founder of Friday for future movement, also known as School Strike for Climate. In 2018 at the age of 15, Greta held the first "School Strike Climate" protest outside the Swedish Parliament. Her action has influenced the Global Climate movement. She has Addressed the United Nations Climate change Conference and also the 2019 UN Climate change Action Summit, where she scolded World Leaders exclaiming "How dare you!" in reference to their perceived indifference and in action to the Climate Crisis. She also has been a passionate advocate of Social Justice on War and Conflicts in Africa, Ukraine, Armenia and especially the Middle East on behalf "Gaza" and the Indigenous People of Palestine. She has received many Honors and Awards, including Time's Magazine 100 most influential people, Forbes Magazine list of the world's 100 most powerful Women, and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.