Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Tuesday signed an executive order establishing guardrails on data center developers “that will hold greedy developers accountable, stop bad projects and put more power back in the hands of local communities,” he said during a signing ceremony. The Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development, or GRID, Standards outline steps data center developers must take to prove that proposed projects provide value to local communities and will be developed responsibly. “We’ve seen an unacceptable number of speculative proposals for data centers swamp our commonwealth — many of them led by developers who have no regard for local communities,” Shapiro said. The speculators are “scaring our communities — being aggressive with township officials, bullying our neighbors and refusing to listen to the people of Pennsylvania,” he said. The new standards require developers to provide a community outreach plan with commitments to hold public meetings and consult with municipal leaders “at a sufficiently early stage of the project to enable meaningful public input on key design decisions.” Developers must also provide a footprint report detailing: - Who the end user will be - Planned building size - Campus acreage - Estimated peak electric demand - Annual water consumption - Water source - Percentage of electricity sourced from non-emitting resources Developers “must respect our local communities by being transparent, hiring locally and offering a robust community benefits agreement,” Shapiro said. They must earn legal approval at the local level and are no longer allowed to use nondisclosure agreements, he added. “Let me put it succinctly: If the local community doesn’t approve a project, the state won’t approve it, either,” he said. Developers must commit to making at least $250 million in cumulative new investments and creating at least 200 prevailing-wage construction jobs. They must also submit hiring and workforce training plans