NorthPoint's $10,000 offer to Hazle Township sparks bipartisan data center fight

Hazle Township's fight is not happening in a vacuum. About 20 years ago, Hazleton passed the Illegal Immigration Relief Act, which withheld permits from businesses employing undocumented immigrants and fined landlords who rented to them. That law galvanized a base of white, working-class supporters. Today, the same area is at the center of a different kind of resistance — this time against AI infrastructure.

The scale of opposition is notable. Active opposition groups grew from 396 to 833 over the first three months of this year, according to Data Center Watch. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Josh Shapiro initially fast-tracked permitting for AI infrastructure and announced a $20 billion investment from Amazon for data center buildout in July 2025, the largest capital investment in the state's history. But after public pushback, he signed another executive order in August eliminating fast-track permits and gave local agencies power to approve data center projects.

The political dynamics are shifting. According to Annie Vinatieri, a Sugarloaf Township protester, Democrats are discouraged by Shapiro's changing data center stance, while Republican candidate Stacy Garrity has largely not broken from Trump's pro-data center position. Vinatieri said there are enough disgruntled residents that a meaningful number of voters could write in Democratic Sen. Katie Muth, who has sponsored a statewide data center development moratorium. As Ben Green of the University of Michigan's Ford School put it, the true test of a changing political tide will be whether candidates like Garrity change their stances.