Amazon wants 280 gas generators for its Falls Township AI data center. A new state order just changed the rules.

Pennsylvania's environmental agency is still deciding whether Amazon can install 280 natural-gas backup generators at its Bucks County data center. On Tuesday, the rules it will use to decide changed.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is reviewing Amazon Data Services Inc.'s application to put the generators, each rated at 4,287 horsepower, at a 250-acre former U.S. Steel site in Falls Township known as the Keystone Trade Center. A spokesperson for DEP's air quality team, Robyn Briggs, said the review was still in progress as of Thursday, with no decision date announced.

The 30-day public comment period on the generator permit closed Monday, drawing 1,236 comments, each of which the agency has said will receive "equal weight and consideration," according to the Morning Call. Separately, a petition calling for a moratorium on data centers in Falls Township had gathered nearly 5,000 signatures by the end of that period.

Then on Tuesday, Gov. Josh Shapiro signed Executive Order 2026-05, imposing new guardrails on data-center development in Pennsylvania. Among them: removing Amazon's Falls Township project from the state's fast-track permitting process, which had allowed the company to move more quickly through environmental review. The order also directs DEP to weigh grid capacity, water use, and local impact more heavily in data-center reviews going forward, per the governor's press release.

The shift is a reversal of Shapiro's stance roughly 14 months ago. In June 2025, the governor had publicly championed the Amazon deal as part of a $20 billion Pennsylvania data-center investment that the state had worked to attract. Coverage of that announcement noted the project was expected to bring thousands of construction jobs and permanent operations roles to the county.

The Falls Township project is not new to the regulatory system. Amazon already holds five DEP air and water discharge permits for the campus, including a 2025 approval for 72 diesel-fired emergency engines. The new application, for 280 natural-gas-fired "critical backup generator engines" plus additional diesel backup units, would substantially expand on-site power generation at a site planned to host 2 million square feet of data-center space across 10 buildings.

The Tuesday order does not stop the project or revoke existing permits, and the governor's office has not claimed it does. What it does change is the procedural lane DEP must drive in when it rules on the 280-generator application. The order instructs the agency to evaluate the project's compatibility with the new data-center guardrails before completing its permit review, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. That adds a step without predetermining the outcome.

For residents who organized around air quality, noise, and water-use concerns during the public comment period, the order's effect is procedural rather than dispositive. The 1,236 comments are part of the record DEP must consider; the executive order tells the agency to weigh them against a new set of state-level criteria. NBC Philadelphia reported that the order also creates a state-level data-center advisory group, which will include local government representation.

Amazon's application now enters DEP's queue under a stricter lens than the 72 diesel-fired engines it cleared last year, and under a permitting process from which the company has been removed. The fast-track designation had shortened state review windows; its removal does not by itself block a permit, but it gives DEP more room to take its time, request additional information, or impose conditions.

The next move sits with DEP's air quality team. Briggs did not give a decision timeline. The 280-generator application, the 1,236 public comments, and the new guardrails are now in the same in-box.