rich 1.0 Action Network https://actionnetwork.org <link href='https://actionnetwork.org/css/style-embed-v3.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' /><script src='https://actionnetwork.org/widgets/v6/petition/no-data-centers-in-kern-county?format=js&source=widget'></script><div id='can-petition-area-no-data-centers-in-kern-county' style='width: 100%'><!-- this div is the target for our HTML insertion --></div> No Data Centers in Kern County https://actionnetwork.org/groups/no-data-centers-in-kern-county https://can2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/petitions/photos/000/786/572/normal/NO_DATA_CENTERS_IN_KERN_COUNTY.png To: The Kern County Board of Supervisors and the California Energy Commission We're a coalition of youth, working families, small businesses and nonprofits, and we're calling on you to stop the wave of data centers being pushed into Kern County without our consent. Right now, two massive data centers are proposed on opposite ends of our county, and residents warn they're only the first of many. In western Kern, an oil company wants to build a 600,000 square foot AI data center at Elk Hills, powered by its own natural gas plant, a mile and a half from the nearest homes. In eastern Kern, a developer wants to build in Inyokern with 40 diesel backup generators and pull up to 16 million gallons of water a year from a groundwater basin the state already classifies as critically overdrafted. This is not a coincidence. Tech and energy companies are targeting Kern because they think our communities are too poor, too rural and too tired to fight back. They're wrong. Kern County families already breathe some of the dirtiest air in the nation. Our farmworker communities already ration water in a drought. We will not accept projects that burn more gas, drain more groundwater and lock our county into decades of pollution so that corporations elsewhere can profit off AI. And we won't be sold with promises of jobs that disappear once construction ends. We're not against technology. We're against being sacrificed for it. We demand: Deny the pending permits. Reject the conditional use permit for the Elk Hills data center and reject the Inyokern project's attempt to skip full state review. Pass a countywide moratorium on new data center approvals until Kern County adopts a data center ordinance with enforceable standards on water, energy, air quality and noise. Full environmental review, no exceptions. Every data center proposal must go through complete CEQA review with independent analysis of water, air and grid impacts. No exemptions, no shortcuts. Real community say. Public hearings in the affected communities, not just Bakersfield, with Spanish language access and evening times working families can actually attend. No fossil-fuel-powered data centers. Kern County should not approve any data center that runs on gas while our kids grow up with asthma. Our communities deserve clean air, secure water and a real voice in what gets built next to our homes. Protect our communities, don't pollute them. Sign now and tell the Board of Supervisors: No data centers in Kern County without community consent. In solidarity, No Data Centers in Kern County Coalition https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/no-data-centers-in-kern-county