Attention‼️⚠️ Meeting with Governor Walz Enact a Two-Year Moratorium on Data Centers NOW! and Minnesota updates
The meeting that we have secured with the Minnesota Governor's Office regarding our petition for a two-year moratorium on Hyperscaled Data Centers last week was moved to next week. We are taking this opportunity to get as many Minnesotans to sign our petition. Please help us spread the petition to family, friends and neighbors so we can show a powerful force behind us when we go into this meeting with the Governor’s Office.
Petition Link: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/mndatacentermoratorium
We have packed the invite list with 16 amazing community organizers and leaders, who have been working on this issue.
Our line up is:
Great Grand Mother Mary Lyons "GGML" (IEN),
Leanna Goose (CJC),
Gina Peltier (Mukwa),
Joey Peltier (Mukwa),
Rachel Dion Thunder (IPM),
Dawn Goodwin (R.I.S.E.),
Niibi Ogichitaa Kew of Prairie Island,
Kelly Applegate (Commissioner of Natural Resources with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe),
Aubrey Derkson (Stop Pine Island DC)
Rebecca Gilbertson (Stop Hermantown DC),
Carrie Umpierre (Stop Hermantown DC),
Cathy Johnson (CRDCD),
Gary Johnson (CRDCD),
Patty O'Keefe (Vote Solar),
Avonna Starck (CleanWater),
Ben Olson (MCEA).
We won’t have enough time for each one of us to speak although we have a handful of our most powerfulest and impacting invitees to break down these three topics to the governor’s office; Impact on Tribal Communities, updates from Minnesota impacted communities and the moratorium and how to implement it. With 30 minutes to cover these topics, we also plan on supplying the governor’s office with printed material and facts around Hyperscale Data Center, along with our individual written commentary and recommendations. We are hopeful that this will be a fruitful conversation that could lead into potential action!
More News on the Minnesota Hyperscale Data Center Resistance
Mukwa, along with partner organizations and the grassroots organizations fighting data centers in their communities who have been organizing together for the better part of a year and a half will be convening an all day meeting on August 25th. This all day meeting will focus on these sessions: What we do, shared principles and values, Scope of the organizing, who we are as a collective, what does that structure look like, and what are our next steps. After this meeting it is our goal to onboard several interested organizations and grassroots groups who have shown interest in joining and complimenting the work we are doing collectively.
With our partner organizations and the Minnesotan impacted communities groups fighting data centers, developed a package of bills in 2026 that wasn’t able to pass the Minnesotan divided legislative bodies. The legislation's primary focus was good neighbor regulations and policies to protect our great state and our communities. We can’t be left unprotected and that is why it is important for Governor Walz to act now and implement a two-year moratorium on Hyperscale Data Centers until our legislative bodies can work out the policies and regulations that fit Minnesota.
One last update before I let you go.
On August 3rd, Mukwa and Aubrey Derksen from Stop the Pine Island Data Center gave an update on Minnesotan’s actions to stop hyperscale data centers to the People Vs Fossil Fuels national call. People vs. Fossil Fuels is a coalition of over 1,200 climate justice, Indigenous, Black, Latino, social justice, economic justice, progressive, environmental, youth, faith, and other organizations working together towards a common goal of ending the era of fossil fuels. People vs. Fossil Fuels coalition members have been battling hyperscale data centers and are holding conversations at the national level on how to address these big tech billionaires hyperscale data centers that pose great threat to our family, communities and environment.
