Three Amazon engineers publicly called for oversight of large-scale data center construction as their employer cuts jobs to fund AI infrastructure
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In what labor organizers are calling an unprecedented move, three Amazon $AMZN software engineers put their names on the record at a Seattle government hearing Wednesday, pressing city officials to impose rules on the construction of large-scale AI data centers.
The engineers — Liesl Wigand, Patrick Schloesser, and Darius Irani — are all members of Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, a collective of current and former workers that has long pressed the company on environmental and labor issues. At two separate committee hearings that day, the engineers addressed council members; a unanimous vote by the Land Use and Sustainability Committee sent a proposed one-year ban on new large-scale data centers forward, according to CNBC.
Schloesser, who has worked at Amazon Web Services for nearly six years, drew a direct line between the company's capital spending and its workforce reductions. "It's been reported that this year, Amazon is spending $200 billion on capital, with most of it going to data centers and AI," he said, according to CNBC. "Meanwhile, the leaders at my company have laid off 30,000 corporate employees in the last eight months." He called for data centers to be powered by renewable energy, for tech companies to pay new taxes, and for an end to the use of nondisclosure agreements and shell companies when announcing projects.
Wigand, who has worked at Amazon for more than 12 years, characterized the company's approach as an "all-costs-justified AI build-out" and said local governments should be setting the terms for data center development. Irani called for transparency requirements around project ownership and ongoing water and electricity usage.
Amazon spokesperson Margaret Callahan said in a statement that the company respects its colleagues' right to voice their opinions and has no current plans to build data centers within Seattle city limits.
The moratorium push was triggered when four developers submitted proposals to Seattle City Light for five large-scale facilities carrying a combined maximum demand of 369 megawatts — sufficient to supply roughly 300,000 homes, prompting councilmembers to announce the legislation. The proposed moratorium would take effect immediately upon adoption and last 365 days, paired with a resolution requesting impact studies on electrical grid capacity, water usage, utility rates, land use, public health, and jobs. Public backlash prompted two of the four developers to pull their proposals before any vote was taken, according to CNBC.
The Seattle push is part of a broader national debate over data center expansion. Resistance to data center construction has spread well beyond Seattle — the National Conference of State Legislatures counts 14 states weighing measures that would halt or prohibit new facilities, and Data Center Watch has tallied more than $156 billion in projects that faced delays or outright cancellations in 2025 due to community opposition and legal challenges, according to CNBC.
Data centers can consume up to five million gallons of water per day and draw significant power, raising concerns in communities across the country about rising utility costs and environmental strain. Across the four tech giants — Amazon, Microsoft $MSFT, Alphabet $GOOGL, and Meta $META — capital expenditure commitments for the year total roughly $700 billion, with AI infrastructure absorbing the bulk of that spending, according to CNBC.
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