U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick said Thursday that the rise of environmentalists protesting the addition of data centers in communities “reminds me a little bit of fracking 15 years ago.”

McCormick met in Pittsburgh with officials from Homer City Redevelopment and Indiana County where construction has begun on a natural gas power plant and data center site.

“There was this huge campaign against fracking, due to the environmental impact of fracking, most of which turned out not to be true,” McCormick, R-Pittsburgh, said. “Over time, people got educated, and they saw that fracking was a huge benefit to Pennsylvania, providing thousands of jobs … and a huge boost to the economy.

“This is like that, people have anxiety about AI and data centers, and I understand that, but a lot of it is uninformed,” the senator said.

Homer City Redevelopment has offices on Stanwix Street in Pittsburgh, where McCormick and the officials met. The development itself is on 3,200 acres in Center Township, Indiana County.

The $10 billion project broke ground earlier this year on the site of a former coal-fired power plant just outside of Homer City. The former plant has been demolished and will be replaced with the gas-fired plant and the creation of hyperscale data centers.

Data centers are industrial-scale facilities that house computer servers and networking equipment used to store and process digital information, often requiring massive amounts of electricity and specialized cooling systems.

The CEO for the project, Corey Hessen, said on Thursday that the 4.4-gigawatt plant will return an estimated one gigawatt of energy, enough to power around 700,000 homes, back to the electrical grid.

“It’s part of a covenant ideal,” McCormick said, “that when these data centers come, they actually bring more energy than they consume.”

The project, which currently provides over 1,000 jobs, is expected to staff 3,600 employees through the end of construction in 2029.

Some Indiana County residents have expressed concern about increases to traffic and a lack of available, affordable housing for those who already live in the area. Hessen said on Thursday that the project’s only barrier right now is parking for the workers on the project.

“We are building new parking every day,” he said.

While McCormick said information was lacking about the impact of fracking, the Pennsylvania Capital-Star reported earlier this year that the Marcellus formation, which was fracked for oil and gas drilling, has created more radioactive wastewater than previously understood. There is evidence that the wastewater filled with radium, uranium and thorium (which increases cancer and anemia risks) has made its way into the surrounding environment.

Community members with environmental concerns spoke out during public hearings since September 2025, arguing that the gas-fired power plant could impact air quality levels in the area.

The state Department of Environmental Protection plans a public hearing Tuesday regarding a permit for a 5.8-mile pipeline that would feed natural gas to the plant. That hearing is scheduled for 5 to 7 p.m. at the Indiana Theatre, 637 Philadelphia St. in Indiana, Pa.

The Homer City Redevelopment project is the largest data center project under construction in the country, closely trailing the size of nuclear plants in Georgia and Utah.

“That is great, but if it were the biggest, period, that would be better,” McCormick teased, asking for specifics about the larger plants.

While Congress is in recess for a district work period, McCormick has toured several energy infrastructure projects across the state to promote his new legislation. The bill introduced last week would streamline the permitting process by establishing a one-year deadline for permits to be issued and raising the bar for how the National Environmental Policy Act can be used to halt projects after they have been approved.

McCormick said that greater authority should be given to localities to approve data centers, without federal regulations getting in their way.

“Local leadership needs to decide what’s best for them,” McCormick said. “You guys have gone through this process … and I think it’s going to be incredible for the community … and I think the clarity of understanding you have with developers … will help others make good decisions for their communities.”

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