Cliff Daily · Wed, July 1, 2026

July 1 is here — VA $0.011/kWh tax + IL DCIP freeze + FL SB 484 all go live the same morning that Trump EO 14318 kicks in as a federal permitting accelerant on the opposite side, PJM's 2028/2029 backstop capacity auction opened yesterday June 30 with the board publicly telling states to build residential-shielding rules 'immediately,' Hochul still hasn't been formally delivered the NY 20 MW moratorium so her 10-day clock still hasn't started, and the developer counter-litigation pattern is hardening — Hill County TX rescinded its moratorium June 4 under a $100M damages suit (first successful kill), Cave City KY got sued June 9, Imperial County CA is in TRO, and Lordstown OH went to the Ohio Supreme Court.

3 items across 3 sections.

Wednesday — this is the day. Four separate federal + state clocks all move at 12:01 AM this morning, in two directions at once. Virginia's per-kWh data center electricity consumption tax is live; Illinois has stopped accepting new sales-tax-exemption applications; Florida's SB 484 (utility-cost-shift prohibition + aquifer permitting tightening) is in effect; and Trump's Executive Order 14318 begins federally accelerating permitting for any data center >100 MW / >$500M. The state levers all point toward friction — Virginia is now taxing electrons, Illinois has closed its incentive window, Florida is making hyperscalers pay full cost of service. The federal lever points the other way — Commerce is now authorized to offer loans, grants, and tax incentives to 'Qualifying Projects' and to reduce agency review timelines. Same morning, opposite directions. The strategic read is that state and federal are now genuinely misaligned on data center policy for the first time — states are localizing cost, the federal government is subsidizing capacity. The three flags for today: (1) the four July 1 clocks and how they interact, (2) PJM's 2028/2029 base capacity auction opened yesterday June 30, with the PJM board publicly telling all states to 'immediately' set up rules to shield residential customers from auction cost passthrough — that's a signal that even the RTO thinks the cost socialization problem has run out of runway, (3) the developer counter-litigation pattern has now hardened enough to be a repeatable playbook — Hill County TX rescinded its moratorium June 4 after RCM Hill LLC filed a $100M damages suit, which is the first successful kill of a US data center moratorium via developer lawsuit, and copycat suits are now live in Cave City KY, Imperial County CA (TRO), Lordstown OH (Ohio Supreme Court), and an unnamed NC county.

Four separate July 1 clocks fire at 12:01 AM this morning in two directions at once — VA tax + IL DCIP freeze + FL SB 484 all localize cost; Trump EO 14318 federally accelerates permitting the opposite way; state-federal alignment on data center policy is now broken for the first time

Wed, July 1, 2026

T-0 Jul 1 2026 / VA $0.011/kWh tax live 12:01 AM SCC collecting / IL DCIP application intake frozen Pritzker fall veto session reform / FL SB 484 live utility cost shift prohibition ≥50 MW full cost of service aquifer permitting tightened / Trump EO 14318 live federal permitting acceleration DC >100 MW or >$500M / IL joins OH AZ ME cluster / VA DEQ water language interim today hard cutover Jan 1 2027 Eastern VA Groundwater Mgmt Area / Data Center Coalition Josh Levi opposed / state-federal misalignment first visible day

July 1 2026 T-0: Virginia $0.011/kWh electricity consumption tax LIVE, Illinois Data Center Investment Program (DCIP) sales-tax exemption application intake FROZEN, Florida SB 484 utility cost-shift prohibition LIVE with new ≥50 MW users required to pay full cost of service and tightened aquifer permitting, AND Trump Executive Order 14318 federally accelerating permitting for any DC >100 MW or >$500M LIVE — same morning, opposite directions. State levers = friction; federal lever = subsidy

Plain-English background. Four separate regulatory clocks all reach 12:01 AM Wednesday July 1, 2026 at the same instant. Three are state-level and point toward friction — they increase cost or reduce access for hyperscalers building in that state. One is federal and points the opposite way — it reduces cost and increases access for hyperscalers building anywhere in the US that clears the federal thresholds. Same morning, opposite directions. That's the first time in the 2026 data-center-policy cycle that state and federal actors are genuinely misaligned on the same day. The three state friction clocks. **Virginia — $0.011/kWh consumption tax LIVE.** State Corporation Commission (SCC, the utility regulator, not the Department of Revenue) begins collecting today on every kilowatt-hour any Virginia data center consumes — regardless of whether the electrons come from Dominion, Appalachian Power, a co-op, a competitive retail supplier, or behind-the-meter self-supply. Two-year sunset (expires June 30, 2028 unless reauthorized). $600M annual revenue cap with pro-rata refund of any excess. First quarterly return due September 2026. Additive to the existing sales-tax exemption — the exemption was preserved, the tax is on top. Data Center Coalition president Josh Levi on-record calling the tax a business-friendly-reputation hit, but no legal challenge has been filed as of this morning. (Bifurcated implementation detail: the DEQ water-cooling requirement in the same budget has an interim-guidance start today, but the hard cutover — new data centers in Eastern Virginia Groundwater Management Area must use air cooling, 100% recycled/stormwater, or closed-loop — doesn't hit until January 1, 2027.) **Illinois — DCIP application intake FROZEN.** The Illinois Data Center Investment Program was the state's post-2019 marquee incentive: qualified data center investments got sales-tax exemption on equipment plus a 20% investment tax credit if located in an underserved area. Effective this morning, DCEO stops processing new applications. Existing agreements signed before today are honored. Gov. Pritzker's directive explicitly ties the pause to electricity-cost and water-resource concerns from AI buildout and calls on the General Assembly to pass comprehensive reform in the fall veto session (October 2026). Illinois joins Ohio and Arizona as the third state with an active DCIP-equivalent suspension; Maine repealed its similar program earlier this year. **Florida — SB 484 LIVE.** Not a moratorium — structurally different. SB 484 bars Florida investor-owned utilities from socializing new data center grid infrastructure costs to residential and small-business ratepayers; any large user ≥50 MW must pay the full cost of service. Tightens aquifer permitting for high-water-use industrial facilities in the four water management districts (Northwest, Suwannee River, St. Johns River, South Florida). Preserves local government's ability to deny data center projects on land-use grounds. Net effect: doesn't stop projects but forces every Florida hyperscaler campus to pencil out on its own economics without ratepayer subsidy — which materially chills the speculative-siting behavior that had been pulling projects toward Florida since the Tampa / Ashburn overflow started in 2024. The federal accelerant clock. **Trump Executive Order 14318 — LIVE.** Signed in June 2026, effective today. Directs Commerce (Secretary Howard Lutnick) to offer loans, grants, and tax incentives to any 'Qualifying Project' — defined as a data center exceeding 100 MW installed capacity OR $500M capital investment. Directs implementing agencies (Interior, EPA, USACE, DOE, DHS, DOD) to reduce environmental-review and permitting timelines for Qualifying Projects. First implementing guidance from federal agencies goes live today. Structurally this is a subsidy — the federal government is now willing to write checks to hyperscalers to build faster in states where the local politics allows it. Which means it stacks against the state friction clocks in a specific way: a project that clears local zoning but is being slow-walked by a state utility regulator can now potentially access federal accelerants and cost offsets. How the four clocks interact. A hyperscaler campus decision today has to price in four things simultaneously that it didn't have to price in yesterday: (a) which state you're in and how much it's taxing you (VA and OR now have per-user cost regimes, IL and OH are closed to new incentive applications, FL and multiple others are forcing full cost of service), (b) whether you clear EO 14318's 100 MW / $500M threshold and can access federal subsidy to offset (a), (c) whether the ERCOT / PJM / MISO grid-operator queue can actually deliver interconnection on the timeline you're modeling (see next section), (d) whether local county / city political dynamics allow the project to break ground at all (see third section). The multi-clock interaction is the actual planning problem now, not any single one of them.

Greenberg Traurig — Virginia Legislature Approves Tax on Data Center Electricity Consumption (Jun 2026) + Data Center Knowledge — Virginia Approves First-Ever Data Center Power Tax + Illinois Governor's Newsroom — Gov. Pritzker Pauses New Data Center Tax Incentives + Capitol News Illinois — Gov. JB Pritzker to Suspend Tax Breaks for Data Centers, Urging More Discussion + The Hill — Pritzker Pauses Data Center Tax Incentives in Illinois + MultiState — State Data Center Policy Shifts as Governors Impose New Restrictions (Jun 22 2026) + Whitehouse.gov — Executive Order 14318 Promoting Advanced Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Security (Jun 2026) + AI Governance Institute — EO 14318 Accelerating Federal Permitting Data Center Infrastructure 2026 + Henrico Citizen — Virginia Has a New Two-Year Budget. Here's What Lawmakers Now Require of Data Centers + Kiplinger — Virginia Approves First Data Center Power Tax ↗

Why it matters

Three implications. (1) The state-federal misalignment is the story of the second half of 2026 and probably 2027. If the November 2026 midterms don't shift the House / Senate composition materially, EO 14318 stays in effect and the federal subsidy channel keeps opening while more states join VA / IL / FL / OR / OH in tightening. That two-sided pressure creates a real economic sorting mechanism: hyperscalers move new capacity to states that don't tax them AND accept federal accelerants (TX, AZ, GA, MS, LA), and slow-walk expansions in states that do (VA, IL, FL, OR, OH, and increasingly MN and MD). Cliff's site-diligence corpus needs to model both sides explicitly. (2) The Trump EO 14318 100 MW / $500M threshold is now the third convergent legal definition of 'hyperscaler-scale' — 20 MW (state moratoriums / OR POWER Act / NY / federal S. 4214) captures 'any AI-workload facility' at the low end; 75 MW (ERCOT Batch Zero) captures 'must be an interruptible load resource'; and now 100 MW / $500M (EO 14318) captures 'federal accelerant applies.' Cliff should track all three thresholds as separate risk-and-opportunity fields per site, because the same 90 MW campus can be simultaneously (a) subject to state moratorium, (b) not required to be interruptible on ERCOT, (c) not federally accelerated — which is a different regulatory package than an 80 MW campus or a 120 MW campus. (3) The IL DCIP freeze isn't just about IL — it's a signal that Democratic governors are now willing to close incentive programs without a Democratic legislative majority to replace them with something. That's a shift from the Pritzker / Whitmer / Walz / Newsom playbook of the last four years, which had reliably paired 'closing the old thing' with 'opening a new thing.' Watch for CA, WA, MI, MN, CO to consider similar incentive freezes in Q3-Q4 2026. Cliff's regulatory corpus should now weight governor executive orders on incentive suspensions as first-class regulatory objects, not just as pre-legislative signals.

ERCOTPJMMISOEPATexasVirginiaOhioIllinoisMoratoriumTax incentiveInterconnectionBehind-the-meterRatepayer protection

PJM 2028/2029 base capacity auction opened yesterday June 30 with the PJM board publicly telling all states to 'immediately' set up rules shielding residential customers — that's the RTO itself signaling that cost socialization has run out of runway; separately the ERCOT Batch Zero PCLR two-step deadline is now nine days out (ILLE→TSP/DSP July 10, TSP/DSP→ERCOT July 24) and Abbott Texas's July 17 PUCT+ERCOT joint memo deadline sits between them

Wed, July 1, 2026

PJM 2028/2029 base residual auction opened Jun 30 / PJM board urges 13 states immediately establish residential shielding rules / RTO signals cost socialization runway ended / ERCOT Batch Zero two step deadline / ILLE Form W notarized to TSP DSP Jul 10 / TSP DSP Form W plus LPC limit to ERCOT Jul 24 / miss deadline drops to standard queue 438 GW / Abbott PUCT ERCOT joint memo Jul 17 / all resolve Jul 10-24 window / Sep auction results / OR Schedule 96 template

PJM 2028/2029 base residual capacity auction opened Monday June 30, 2026 with PJM board publicly urging all 13 PJM states to 'immediately' establish rules shielding residential and existing customers from data-center-driven auction cost passthrough — first time the RTO itself has signaled that cost socialization has run out of political runway. Simultaneously ERCOT Batch Zero PCLR two-step deadline now T-9 (ILLE→TSP/DSP July 10, TSP/DSP→ERCOT July 24) and Governor Abbott's July 17 PUCT+ERCOT joint memo deadline sits between them

Plain-English background. In deregulated wholesale electricity markets, capacity is auctioned three years ahead of when it delivers. PJM (the grid operator for 13 states from Illinois to Virginia covering ~65 million people, the largest electricity market in the world by served population) ran its 2027/2028 auction in July 2025 with clearing prices around 22x the prior year's, sending average residential bills up $10-30/month across the footprint. That $10-30/month pass-through is the political fault line that's now driving state-level data-center policy across the entire PJM region — Virginia's tax, Maryland's moratoriums, New Jersey's rate hearings, Ohio's DCIP freeze, all trace back to auction cost socialization from the 2027/2028 cycle. The 2028/2029 auction (the one for capacity delivered in June 2028 through May 2029) opened Monday June 30, 2026 — yesterday. This is the auction that will price whether the data-center-driven demand surge continues to socialize to residential customers or gets meaningfully shielded. PJM's board went public simultaneously with the auction open, urging all 13 states in the PJM footprint to 'immediately' set up rules that shield residential and existing customers from any auction cost passthrough attributable to data centers. That's an unusual move — RTOs typically stay quiet on state politics because the state PUCs are their regulators. The PJM board publicly telling states 'do this now' is a signal that even the RTO itself thinks the socialization problem is politically unsustainable and needs state-level firewalls before the auction results come out (typical timing: results in September, cost impacts show up on customer bills in June 2028). Mechanically, the states have several tools available: (a) dedicated data-center rate class (Oregon's Schedule 96 template, effective June 10, 2026 with ~29% rate increase for data centers), (b) capacity-payment carve-out (state PUC orders utilities to allocate a fixed percentage of auction cost specifically to data center customers), (c) 'social tariff' models where residential customers get a guaranteed capped rate and everything above is allocated pro-rata to industrial customers. Only Oregon has implemented (a); the others are in various rulemaking stages. PJM's 'immediately' language suggests the board wants at least Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, New Jersey, and Illinois to have some version live before the September auction results. On the parallel Texas track. ERCOT Batch Zero PCLR (Provisional Controllable Load Resource) is the process by which data centers ≥75 MW in ERCOT must classify their load as interruptible (agreeing to be curtailed during system stress in exchange for lower demand charges) or non-interruptible. The classification is a two-step deadline. **Step 1 (July 10, 2026):** the Interconnected Large Load Entity (ILLE — that's the data center operator) must submit a completed, notarized Form W to its serving Interconnecting Transmission Service Provider (TSP) or Distribution Service Provider (DSP). Missing July 10 = dropped from Batch Zero, which means the data center loses the ability to interconnect on the accelerated Batch Zero timeline and falls into the standard queue (which per ERCOT's own trending topic PDF is now ~438,000 MW proposed demand and probably 3-5 years slower). **Step 2 (July 24, 2026):** the TSP/DSP must submit Form W plus supporting modeling data (including per-study-year minimum load projection commitment / LPC limit) to ERCOT. And between those two Texas dates. **July 17, 2026 — Abbott joint memo deadline.** Gov. Abbott issued a June 10, 2026 directive requiring PUCT and ERCOT to submit a joint memo by July 17 that (1) summarizes actions taken under existing authority to shield Texas ratepayers from data center infrastructure cost passthrough, (2) identifies statutory limits on those actions, (3) recommends legislation for the 2027 session. That memo will be the definitive Texas policy document going into next year's legislative session and will be closely read for how far PUCT is willing to go in creating dedicated data center rate structures without new legislation. The PJM 2028/2029 auction, the ERCOT Batch Zero deadlines, and the Abbott memo all resolve in the July 10-July 24 window. That's the entire domestic wholesale-electricity market's data center policy stance being priced simultaneously in about two weeks.

Utility Dive — PJM Accelerates Backstop Reliability Auction Amid Uncertainty Over Data Cen[ters] + ERCOT Market Notice M-B062326-01 (Jun 23 2026) + ERCOT Trending Topic New Batch Connection Process for Large Electricity Users (Jun 18 2026 PDF) + PUCT Press Release Jun 18 2026 — PUCT Approves ERCOT's Batch Zero Rules + EPE Consulting — New Pathway and Deadlines in ERCOT's Large Load Batch Zero Provisional Controllable Load Resource (PCLR) + Willkie Farr & Gallagher — ERCOT Approves Implementing New Batch Zero Process for Large Load Interconnections + Governor Abbott Press Release Jun 10 2026 — Directs PUC and ERCOT to Shield Texans from Data Center Infrastructure Costs + ZeroEmissionGrid Workshop Summary Jun 11 2026 — Batch Zero Readiness + OPUC Order 26-154 Oregon Schedule 96 (May 2026) ↗

Why it matters

Three implications. (1) The July 10-24 window is now the single most information-dense wholesale-electricity-market window of the year for data centers. PJM's auction opens the day before the two-week window starts; ERCOT's Batch Zero deadlines bracket it on both sides; Abbott's memo sits in the middle. A hyperscaler with sites in both PJM footprint and ERCOT is going to know essentially the entire second-half-of-2026 policy stance by July 25. Cliff should build a live tracker page for these four dates now — Raymond's site diligence output for any project in PJM or ERCOT should reference this specific window as the near-term regulatory clock. (2) PJM's 'immediately' language to states is a lead indicator for OR Schedule 96 replication. Schedule 96 (Oregon PUC Order 26-154, effective June 10) creates a dedicated data center rate class at 20 MW with ~29% average rate increase and 100% distribution-upgrade cost pass-through. That's the template PJM's board is essentially telling states to copy. Watch for Virginia SCC, Maryland PSC, and Ohio PUCO to open Schedule 96-style dockets by end of Q3 2026. Cliff's regulatory corpus should preemptively ingest all state PUC docket filings tagged 'data center rate class' or 'large load' starting now — those will be the compounding-value primary sources. (3) The Abbott TX memo on July 17 is the most consequential 2027-legislative-session-anchoring document Cliff should read the day it drops. Even if Cliff doesn't have a Texas-specific product yet, the memo defines what PUCT can do without new legislation vs. what needs legislative authorization — that maps directly to which policy tools are 12-month-actionable vs. 30-month-actionable in Texas. And Texas is where ERCOT queue growth is most concentrated (438 GW proposed demand, ~90% data centers per ERCOT's own trending topic PDF). Cliff should plan to publish a same-day analysis of the memo when it drops.

ERCOTPJMTexasVirginiaOhioIllinoisOregonMarylandInterconnectionCapacity marketRatepayer protection

Developer counter-litigation pattern is now hardened into a repeatable playbook — Hill County TX rescinded its moratorium June 4 under a $100M damages suit (first successful US kill), Cave City KY was sued June 9, Imperial County CA is in TRO, Lordstown OH went to Ohio Supreme Court, unnamed NC county was sued last week; separately Hochul still has not been formally delivered the NY 20 MW moratorium (10-day clock still hasn't started) and Ohio's statewide ballot-initiative signature deadline was yesterday (needed 413,488)

Wed, July 1, 2026

Developer counter-suit playbook / Hill County TX rescinded moratorium Jun 4 first successful kill via litigation / RCM Hill LLC $100M damages suit / substituted with site-plan review requirements / Cave City KY sued Jun 9 Kentucky Industrial Alliance / Imperial County CA Sebastian Rucci TRO no true emergency / Lordstown OH Ohio Supreme Court / unnamed NC county sued DCD / no national plaintiff firm yet / NY A11560 S10642 still not delivered to Hochul this morning / 10-day clock has not started / Earthjustice Food Water Watch NYPIRG pressure sign / Lexington Institute urge veto / OH statewide ballot signature deadline Jun 30 413488 needed no public confirmation

Developer counter-suit playbook now hardened enough to be repeatable — Hill County TX rescinded its moratorium June 4 2026 after RCM Hill LLC filed $100M damages suit (first successful kill of a US data center moratorium via developer litigation); Cave City KY sued Jun 9 by Kentucky Industrial Alliance; Imperial County CA developer Sebastian Rucci filed TRO alleging no true emergency; Lordstown OH petitioned Ohio Supreme Court to halt freeze; unnamed NC county sued last week per DCD reporting. Meanwhile NY A11560/S10642 STILL not formally delivered to Hochul as of this morning — 10-day signing clock still has not started, and Earthjustice / Food & Water Watch / NYPIRG publicly pressuring her to sign, Lexington Institute publicly urging veto

Plain-English background. Local government data center moratoriums are legally vulnerable in a specific way. Under most state constitutions and common-law doctrine, a moratorium — a temporary halt on all permit applications — is only defensible when the local government can show a genuine emergency and that the moratorium is 'reasonably related' to the emergency it identifies. If a developer had already spent money in reliance on the pre-moratorium zoning regime, the developer can sue for damages under a takings-clause theory (the moratorium 'took' the value of their investment without compensation), and can also file for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to prevent the moratorium from taking effect while the underlying constitutional question is litigated. That legal vulnerability existed all along, but it stayed theoretical until Hill County Texas. **Hill County TX — first successful kill via litigation, June 4, 2026.** Hill County (population 36,000, north of Waco, along I-35 corridor) passed a data center moratorium in early 2026. RCM Hill LLC — a developer that had already begun engineering and site work on a proposed data center campus in the county — filed suit seeking $100M in damages plus a TRO. On June 4, 2026, Hill County commissioners rescinded the moratorium. Instead of a moratorium they adopted new site-plan review requirements: any proposed data center must now submit water-use projections, backup-generator air-emissions modeling, and community-benefits documentation before the county will consider approval. Structurally that's a review-and-conditions regime, not a freeze — projects can still move forward, they just have to pass more gates. Texas Tribune and KERA both confirmed the rescission. This matters because it's the first proof-of-concept that a hyperscaler-scale developer can kill a US data center moratorium in court and force the local government to substitute a review-and-conditions regime. RCM Hill LLC's playbook is now available to any developer facing any moratorium in any state. **Copycat suits now active.** (a) *Cave City KY* — Kentucky Industrial Alliance LLC filed suit June 9, 2026 over Cave City's 12-month moratorium, seeking pre-moratorium zoning treatment for its already-in-progress project. WBKO and Spectrum News 1 confirmed. (b) *Imperial County CA* — Developer Sebastian Rucci filed TRO alleging Imperial County did not demonstrate a true emergency justifying its 45-day moratorium. Reported by inewsource and CalMatters. Imperial County had actually reversed a prior data center approval (Imperial Data Center) in April before adopting the moratorium — that reversal is now part of the takings-clause argument. (c) *Lordstown OH* — Developer petitioned the Ohio Supreme Court to halt the local data center freeze. WFMJ reported. (d) *Unnamed NC county* — Data Center Dynamics (DCD) reported last week that a developer sued an unnamed North Carolina county over a 1-year moratorium. County identity not yet public — worth watching for the docket filing. The legal firms handling these developer-plaintiff suits are still mostly regional (Texas: Bracewell; Kentucky: Frost Brown Todd; California: TBD; Ohio: Vorys), but there's not yet a coordinating national plaintiff-side firm. If a Kirkland or Latham forms a national data-center-plaintiff practice by end of 2026, expect the pace of these suits to accelerate materially in 2027. **Separately — NY A11560/S10642 status this morning.** The bill passed both chambers June 4 (Senate 44-16, Assembly 102-39) but has still not been formally delivered to Gov. Hochul. The 10-day signing clock only starts on delivery. Advocacy groups (Earthjustice, Food & Water Watch, NYPIRG) are publicly pressuring Hochul to sign. Lexington Institute and other free-market policy shops are publicly urging veto. Hochul's office has said only 'she will review it.' The reason for the delivery delay is almost certainly ongoing chapter-amendment negotiations between the Senate sponsor (Kristen Gonzalez, D-Queens), Assembly sponsor, and Hochul's office — the governor is likely negotiating what post-signing amendments the legislature will commit to before agreeing to sign. Once delivered, Hochul has 10 days. **And — Ohio statewide ballot initiative signature deadline was yesterday, June 30, 2026.** An Ohio group had been organizing a statewide ballot measure to restrict data centers. Needed 413,488 valid signatures for the November 2026 ballot. As of this morning, no confirmation that they cleared the threshold has surfaced publicly. If they cleared it, Ohio becomes the first US state with a statewide ballot measure on data center policy going to voters in November — which would make it the highest-profile single vote of the 2026 data-center-politics cycle.

Texas Tribune — Texas Hill County Moratorium Rescinded Data Centers (Jun 5 2026) + KERA — Hill County Drops Data Center Moratorium After Lawsuit, Adopts New Review Requirements (Jun 5 2026) + WBKO — Developer Sues Cave City Over Data Center Zoning Moratorium (Jun 9 2026) + Spectrum News 1 KY — Lawsuit Filed Over Data Center Zoning Moratorium + inewsource — Imperial County Approves Data Center Moratorium (Jun 16 2026) + CalMatters — Imperial County Data Center (Jun 2026) + WFMJ — Ohio Supreme Court Asked to Halt Lordstown Data Center Freeze + Data Center Dynamics — Data Center Developer Sues North Carolina County After It Passes One-Year Moratorium + Greenberg Traurig — New York Legislature Passes Data Center Moratorium Bill Awaits Governor's Approval + WGRZ — New York Bill Pausing Data Centers Awaits Hochul Decision + GovTech — Some Urge Gov. Hochul to Veto New York State Data Center Block + Lexington Institute — Gov. Hochul's Data Center Moratorium Veto Deliberations ↗

Why it matters

Three implications. (1) The Hill County TX substitution pattern is the most Cliff-relevant new development in local data-center-politics in months. Every moratorium that gets killed via litigation is replaced with something structurally more complex — a review-and-conditions regime with water-use projections, backup-generator emissions modeling, and community-benefits documentation. That's MORE regulatory text per project, not less, and it's exactly the surface area Cliff's site-readiness product operates on. Cliff should build a specific 'RCM Hill playbook tracker' that catalogs every jurisdiction where a moratorium was rescinded / replaced with review-and-conditions, and productize the substitution ordinance as a template artifact for any developer facing a similar moratorium. (2) The absence of a national plaintiff-side firm coordinating these developer suits is a temporary window. Right now the suits are being handled by regional firms (Bracewell TX, Frost Brown Todd KY, Vorys OH) which limits coordination and reuse. If Kirkland or Latham stands up a national data-center-plaintiff practice by end of 2026 — which is the natural evolution given the volume of suits and the size of the damages claims — the pace and success rate of these suits will accelerate. That means the moratorium wave that peaked in June 2026 (5+ new county moratoriums that month) probably peaks in absolute count and starts declining structurally over the next 12 months as the litigation cost gets internalized by counties. Cliff should plan for a shift from 'many new moratoriums' in H2 2026 to 'many killed and substituted moratoriums' in H1 2027. (3) The NY A11560 delivery delay is politically informative. Hochul is negotiating chapter amendments with the sponsors before agreeing to accept the bill — which means she's likely going to sign a materially narrowed version, not veto outright. The chapter amendments will probably (a) raise the MW threshold from 20 to somewhere higher (35, 50, or 75), (b) create carve-outs for specific in-progress projects, (c) tighten the definition of 'data center' to exclude enterprise colo. The final signed bill will be materially less restrictive than the passed bill. Cliff should track the chapter amendment negotiations specifically because the delta between passed-bill scope and signed-bill scope tells you which NY hyperscaler campuses in-progress have the most political capital. That's high-leverage diligence data on NY-specific competitive dynamics.

TexasNorth CarolinaOhioMoratoriumBallot initiative

Source window + filtering notes

Daily news pull for Cliff. Sources cited inline. Generated 2026-07-01. T-0 day: VA $0.011/kWh tax LIVE 12:01 AM, IL DCIP freeze LIVE, FL SB 484 LIVE, Trump EO 14318 LIVE (federal permitting acceleration >100 MW / >$500M) — first day state and federal are visibly misaligned on data center policy. PJM 2028/2029 base capacity auction opened yesterday June 30 with board publicly urging states to shield residential customers 'immediately' — RTO itself signaling cost socialization runway ended. Jul 10-24 window packs ERCOT Form W step 1 (Jul 10 ILLE→TSP/DSP), Abbott PUCT+ERCOT joint memo (Jul 17), ERCOT Form W step 2 (Jul 24) — entire domestic wholesale-market policy stance priced in 14 days. Developer counter-suit playbook now proven: Hill County TX rescinded moratorium Jun 4 under RCM Hill LLC $100M suit (first US kill), Cave City KY (Jun 9), Imperial CA TRO, Lordstown OH → Ohio Sup Ct, unnamed NC county — regional firms only, no national plaintiff practice yet. NY A11560/S10642 still not formally delivered to Hochul this morning — 10-day clock has not started. Ohio statewide ballot signature deadline was yesterday (413,488 needed). Reply if any framing is wrong or off-thesis.

← Tue, June 30, 2026 Thu, July 2, 2026 →

Four separate July 1 clocks fire at 12:01 AM this morning in two directions at once — VA tax + IL DCIP freeze + FL SB 484 all localize cost; Trump EO 14318 federally accelerates permitting the opposite way; state-federal alignment on data center policy is now broken for the first time

Wed, July 1, 2026

T-0 Jul 1 2026 / VA $0.011/kWh tax live 12:01 AM SCC collecting / IL DCIP application intake frozen Pritzker fall veto session reform / FL SB 484 live utility cost shift prohibition ≥50 MW full cost of service aquifer permitting tightened / Trump EO 14318 live federal permitting acceleration DC >100 MW or >$500M / IL joins OH AZ ME cluster / VA DEQ water language interim today hard cutover Jan 1 2027 Eastern VA Groundwater Mgmt Area / Data Center Coalition Josh Levi opposed / state-federal misalignment first visible day

Why it matters

ERCOTPJMMISOEPATexasVirginiaOhioIllinoisMoratoriumTax incentiveInterconnectionBehind-the-meterRatepayer protection

PJM 2028/2029 base capacity auction opened yesterday June 30 with the PJM board publicly telling all states to 'immediately' set up rules shielding residential customers — that's the RTO itself signaling that cost socialization has run out of runway; separately the ERCOT Batch Zero PCLR two-step deadline is now nine days out (ILLE→TSP/DSP July 10, TSP/DSP→ERCOT July 24) and Abbott Texas's July 17 PUCT+ERCOT joint memo deadline sits between them

Wed, July 1, 2026

PJM 2028/2029 base residual auction opened Jun 30 / PJM board urges 13 states immediately establish residential shielding rules / RTO signals cost socialization runway ended / ERCOT Batch Zero two step deadline / ILLE Form W notarized to TSP DSP Jul 10 / TSP DSP Form W plus LPC limit to ERCOT Jul 24 / miss deadline drops to standard queue 438 GW / Abbott PUCT ERCOT joint memo Jul 17 / all resolve Jul 10-24 window / Sep auction results / OR Schedule 96 template

Why it matters

ERCOTPJMTexasVirginiaOhioIllinoisOregonMarylandInterconnectionCapacity marketRatepayer protection

Developer counter-litigation pattern is now hardened into a repeatable playbook — Hill County TX rescinded its moratorium June 4 under a $100M damages suit (first successful US kill), Cave City KY was sued June 9, Imperial County CA is in TRO, Lordstown OH went to Ohio Supreme Court, unnamed NC county was sued last week; separately Hochul still has not been formally delivered the NY 20 MW moratorium (10-day clock still hasn't started) and Ohio's statewide ballot-initiative signature deadline was yesterday (needed 413,488)

Wed, July 1, 2026

Developer counter-suit playbook / Hill County TX rescinded moratorium Jun 4 first successful kill via litigation / RCM Hill LLC $100M damages suit / substituted with site-plan review requirements / Cave City KY sued Jun 9 Kentucky Industrial Alliance / Imperial County CA Sebastian Rucci TRO no true emergency / Lordstown OH Ohio Supreme Court / unnamed NC county sued DCD / no national plaintiff firm yet / NY A11560 S10642 still not delivered to Hochul this morning / 10-day clock has not started / Earthjustice Food Water Watch NYPIRG pressure sign / Lexington Institute urge veto / OH statewide ballot signature deadline Jun 30 413488 needed no public confirmation

Why it matters

TexasNorth CarolinaOhioMoratoriumBallot initiative