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alexandria ocasio-cortez
Ocasio-Cortez Corners EPA Administrator on Water Quality Near Data Centers
Ocasio-Cortez recently met with families in Morgan County, Georgia who said a nearby Meta data center had degraded their local wells and "now rely on bottled water to drink and prepare meals."
May 21, 2026
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez on Wednesday confronted a Trump Environmental Protection Agency official about the impact of artificial intelligence data centers on Americans' drinking water.
During a hearing held by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) grilled EPA Assistant Administrator for Water Jessica Kramer about whether the Trump administration had looked into complaints from communities across the US about nearby data centers causing a decline in water quality.
Kramer indicated that she was aware of the complaints being made about data centers' water usage, but said she hadn't heard anything about their negative impact on water quality.
At this point, the New York Democrat discussed a recent trip she made to Morgan County, Georgia, where local residents said that their tap water had turned brown since tech giant Meta began building a massive data center campus nearby.
"They are clear-cutting forests and began heavy construction, including blasting," Ocasio-Cortez said. "And families in the area are starting to see not only their water pressure decrease... but their appliances have all stopped working because it is decimating their water quality. They now rely on bottled water to drink and prepare meals, and nearby residents' water bills are expected to increase by 33%."
Ocasio-Cortez then pulled out a jar of brown water that she had taken from a local tap in Morgan County to demonstrate the severe decline in quality.
"The only difference between clear water and this was that data center," she said. "This wasn't just one well. This wasn't just one family's situation. This is what the drinking water now looks like next to that data center."
EXCLUSIVE: @AOC calls for a congressional investigation into the impact of data centers.
We took her to meet residents in a Trump +50 county in Georgia whose well water was polluted by Meta’s massive data center.
“That absolutely merits...national congressional investigation." pic.twitter.com/VS7I38MzAB
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) May 18, 2026
Ocasio-Cortez pressed Kramer about whether the Trump EPA was planning to investigate whether data centers were causing mass degradation of water throughout the country.
"As soon as I get back into my office, I will be looking into exactly what you just talked about," replied Kramer. "Because anywhere, whatever type of construction it is, it is a priority to ensure that water quality standards established by EPA are being met. So we'll be looking into that."
Earlier this year, Ocasio-Cortez joined with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to introduce a bill that would impose a nationwide moratorium on AI data center construction "until strong national safeguards are in place to protect workers, consumers, and communities, defend privacy and civil rights, and ensure these technologies do not harm our environment."
At the same time, Leading the Future—a super political action committee backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and other AI heavyweights—is spending at least $100 million in the 2026 midterm elections to elect lawmakers who aim to pass legislation that would set a single set of AI regulations across the US, overriding any restrictions placed on the technology by state governments.
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AOC Among Lawmakers Saying US Troops 'Must Disobey' Trump Order to Destroy Iranian Civilization
"We can still stop this," said one think tank.
Apr 07, 2026
As US lawmakers and the international community registered President Donald Trump's threat to commit genocide in Iran on Tuesday, rights advocates demanded action from Trump's Cabinet, congressional leaders, and the country's European allies to take action—while US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez issued a reminder that the president can be stopped by a lack of action as well, if those in the US military chain of command refuse to carry out his orders.
Trump's threat to wipe out Iran's civilization of 93 million people "merits removal from office," said Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). "To every individual in the president’s chain of command: You have a duty to refuse illegal orders. That includes carrying out this threat."
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) also addressed the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose chairman, Dan Caine, has been joining Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in briefings recently as Hegseth has made bellicose threats against Iran and portrayed the unprovoked US-Israeli assault as a holy war.
Lieu reminded the top military leaders that the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and federal law prohibit war crimes.
"Obviously eradicating a whole civilization constitutes a war crime. You must disobey that order," said the congressman. "If you commit war crimes, the next administration will prosecute you."
Erik Sperling, executive director of think tank Just Foreign Policy, called on Senate and House Democrats, including those on committees that oversee the armed services and foreign relations, to make Lieu's threat "absolutely clear."
"We can still stop this," said Just Foreign Policy on social media.
Journalist Ryan Grim of Drop Site News added that federal laws prohibiting war crimes "will apply in January 2029," after Trump is out of office.
Since Trump took office for his second term in January 2025, Democratic lawmakers have previously issued reminders to the US military that the UCMJ prohibits service members from carrying out illegal orders, with six House members and senators releasing a video in November—as the Pentagon was continuing its bombings of boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean and threatening to attack Venezuela—to remind them, "You must refuse illegal orders."
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) was among the lawmakers who participated in the video. On Tuesday the former CIA analyst addressed service members across the military once again, warning that "targeting civilians en masse would be a clear violation of the law of armed conflict as laid out in the Geneva Conventions, as well as the Pentagon's Law of War Manual."
"If [service members] are today or have been asked to do things that violate the law and their training, it puts them in very real legal jeopardy. I know that our service members up and down the chain of command know their duty and the law to refuse illegal orders," said Slotkin. "It’s moments like these that are why we made the video to service members last year. And I hope and believe our troops—especially those in command—will have the moral clarity to push back if they are given clearly illegal orders.
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Ocasio-Cortez Vindicated—Again—After Amazon HQ2 Added No Jobs in Virginia Last Year
The Amazon mega-facility has consistently failed to meet job creation expectations, reported a Virginia-based business publication.
Apr 03, 2026
Although Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took criticism from some mainstream media pundits after she helped rally public opinion against the construction of Amazon's HQ2 in Long Island City, new data revealed this week has seemingly vindicated her skepticism of the project.
Virginia Business reported on Thursday that a filing submitted to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership this week showed that Amazon created no jobs at its HQ2 in Arlington County last year, and thus "will not seek a state payment" under the state's workforce grant incentives.
Last year, reported Virginia Business, Amazon requested more than $6.4 million through the grant program for adding just under 293 jobs in 2024.
"The hiring slowdown follows earlier signs that Amazon’s HQ2 buildout has fallen short of initial expectations," Virginia Business explained. "The company originally projected it would create 10,000 jobs by 2024, but hiring totals fell well short of that mark. The company currently has nearly 8,500 employees who work out of HQ2."
In 2018, Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) joined with local activists to oppose the construction of HQ2 in Long Island City, and they pointed to the billions of dollars in tax incentives offered by New York City and New York state as an example of wasteful corporate welfare being given to one of the world's richest companies.
Amazon canceled its plans to build HQ2 in New York in February 2019, prompting Ocasio-Cortez to take a victory lap.
"Anything is possible," the then-freshman congresswoman wrote in a social media post. "Today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers and their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world."
Amazon would subsequently move construction of HQ2 to Virginia after being offered hundreds of millions in potential tax incentives, but it delayed construction of the facility in 2023, which again led Ocasio-Cortez to declare vindication.
"When I opposed this Amazon project coming to New York because it was a scam of public funds, the whole power establishment came after us," she wrote. "Billboards went up in Times Square denouncing me. Powerful pols promised revenge. Op-eds and CEOs insulted my intelligence. In the end, we were right."
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