More than 200 environmental organizations signed a letter to Congress supporting a national moratorium on the approval and construction of new data centers. The letter, sent Monday, highlights these centers’ impacts on water resources, electricity rates and greenhouse gas emissions.

Data centers often suck up large amounts of water to cool their computers. They require a lot of electricity to run their servers, often leading to higher regional utility rates and upgrades to the electricity grid to accommodate them. Some utilities are planning to build natural gas plants to serve the new load, while some data-center companies are even building their own plants , increasing local greenhouse gas emissions.

It is near-impossible to paint a complete picture of the energy and water use of data

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