Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have introduced federal legislation to place a temporary ban on construction of new AI datacenters, following similar moratoriums passed by towns and counties across 11 states since August 2025. The bill aims to give the US government time to create federal AI safeguards amid growing concerns about datacenter impacts on utility costs, energy consumption, and climate effects - with some regions seeing power costs surge 267% over five years and projections showing datacenters could account for nearly half of all US power sector emissions under current climate targets. This represents a shift of datacenter opposition from local margins to mainstream federal policy consideration.