Plain-English background. A 'data center moratorium' is a county or city ordinance that pauses all new data center applications for a fixed period (commonly 6 or 12 months) so the local government can write zoning rules, set impact fees, or just decide whether they want the industry at all. They have no force outside the jurisdiction that passes them — but they stack up. By the end of June 2026 there are roughly 30 county-level moratoriums in effect across the country (interconnectedcapital.com tracker count). Five more passed in June that have not been individually catalogued in this newsletter yet. They matter as a set because the geographic spread is now beyond the original NoVa-and-Texas conversation. **Spartanburg County, South Carolina — June 22, 2026, 1 year, pending-ordinance doctrine.** Spartanburg County Council voted Monday June 22 to invoke the 'pending ordinance doctrine,' which is a procedural mechanism that lets local governments freeze new applications immediately after the first reading of an ordinance, without waiting for the second and third readings. So even though the full ordinance still has to pass three readings to become final, applications submitted today already get rejected. The special meeting lasted less than five minutes, no council members dissented, and the timing — less than 24 hours before the state primary runoffs in which council members Mabry and Coker are up for re-election — suggests this was as much a political-positioning move as a substantive policy one. Spartanburg sits in Duke Energy Carolinas territory (a non-RTO investor-owned utility) and is one of the SC counties most actively negotiating with hyperscalers; this is the first major SC county to pass a formal moratorium. **Woodbury County, Iowa — June 23, 2026, 1 year, unanimous 5-0.** This one comes with a structural twist. MidAmerican Energy (the local Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiary, which serves western Iowa) confirmed earlier in June that it is shopping a 900-acre site in Salix for a possible data center development. The City of Salix annexed those 900 acres in April 2026 specifically to enable the project. Because the land is now INSIDE the city of Salix (incorporated), the county moratorium — which only covers unincorporated areas — does not affect the MidAmerican project. So the moratorium is essentially a 'no second project' message to the rest of the county, while the original Salix project proceeds. It still expands the moratorium map into Iowa, which is MISO-West territory and previously had no county-level data center moratoriums. **Cumberland County, North Carolina — June 15, 2026, 6 months, unanimous.** Cumberland is anchored by Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg) and the city of Fayetteville. Like Spartanburg, it sits in Duke Energy Carolinas territory — non-RTO Southeast. The Board of Commissioners voted unanimously for a 6-month ban. This is significant in combination with Spartanburg because the two together are the start of a Southeast non-RTO cluster. Duke serves both states; until June there was no formal moratorium activity in Duke territory at all. **Jackson County, Missouri — June 9, 2026, 120→180 day extension.** Jackson County (Kansas City metro) had a 120-day moratorium that was set to expire. The Jackson County Legislature voted on Monday June 9 to extend the moratorium to 180 days instead. The amendment cites the need for additional time to evaluate long-term impacts. MO sits in SPP territory in the western half; Jackson County sits in MISO/SPP boundary territory near KC. **Lexington/Fayette County, Kentucky — June 9, 2026, until Oct 31.** The Urban County Council unanimously passed a moratorium on data center development in Lexington through October 31, 2026. Kentucky is unusual because most of the state is served by electric cooperatives (KU/LG&E, the Kentucky cooperatives, TVA in the western tip) rather than IOUs, and Kentucky has no RTO at all — it's split between PJM (KU/LG&E), MISO (Big Rivers), and TVA (western KY). Fayette County is in KU territory. The pattern. All five jurisdictions are outside FERC's June 18 RTO show-cause reach (which only covers PJM, MISO, CAISO, ISO-NE, NYISO, SPP at the RTO/ISO level — and only the tariff-design surface, not local zoning). All five are in either non-RTO Southeast (SC, NC, KY western), cooperative-served (KY), or rural-MISO-West (IA, MO) territory. None of them are in NoVa or Texas. The moratorium movement has graduated from a NoVa-and-Texas story to a 'national zoning-level pushback across non-RTO and non-IOU territory' story.
Why it matters
Three implications. (1) The county-zoning-moratorium dataset is now structurally distinct from the state-policy dataset and the federal-tariff dataset, and it needs its own field in any Cliff site-readiness assessment. A campus that passes federal interconnection AND state tax/rate-class approval can still die at the county zoning level if the county passes a moratorium during the construction-permitting window. This is a real risk surface for hyperscaler underwriting and the easiest one to ignore because it doesn't show up in PUCT/SCC/ICC dockets. (2) The Southeast non-RTO cluster (Spartanburg + Cumberland, both in Duke Energy Carolinas territory, both passed in June) is a new pattern worth watching. Duke is the major non-RTO IOU in the Southeast — it serves NC, SC, and FL plus parts of IN/KY/OH. Until June, the moratorium movement had not penetrated Duke territory at all. Two counties in 7 days is the start of a contagion pattern; the next 60 days will show whether other Duke-served counties follow (Mecklenburg NC, Anson NC, Cherokee SC, Greenwood SC, Polk FL). If they do, that's a structurally important regional development because Duke had been the path of least resistance for hyperscaler siting since 2022. (3) The Salix carve-out mechanic in Woodbury IA is a real GTM-relevant pattern. When a city annexes land specifically to host a data center, the surrounding county moratorium cannot reach that parcel. Hyperscalers and their site-selection consultants will copy this pattern in other jurisdictions — annex first, then defend the project against the inevitable county moratorium with the 'we're in city limits' answer. Cliff's site-screening should add 'is this parcel in city limits or unincorporated?' as a question, because it changes the moratorium risk profile dramatically.
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Related filings
T-7 ERCOT ILLE Form W Jul 10 / T-21 Form W step 2 Jul 24 / PJM 2028-29 auction closes Jul 7 / results Jul 14 / price band $175-325 MW-day / 13-state governor pre-negotiated band / MD FERC ratepayer complaint comment deadline Jul 27 extended / NY A11560 not delivered to Hochul / 10-day clock not started / passive enactment plausible / 4 deadline-anchored windows next 24 days
Plain-English background on why the four operational-track deadlines all matter this month. Each of these deadlines drives a specific action by developers, hyperscalers, or state parties, and each represents a concrete moment where Cliff can produce a...
FERC show cause orders Jun 18 / Section 206 / PJM MISO SPP CAISO ISO-NE NYISO / 30-day informational report Jul 20 / 60-day tariff response Aug 17 / 90-day abeyance request Aug 3 / five reform categories / cost-shift prevention is the big one / colocation + BTMG rules / flexible-load transmission services
Plain-English version. On June 18, 2026, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC, the federal regulator with jurisdiction over the interstate transmission grid) used Section 206 of the Federal Power Act to issue what are called 'show-cause orders'...
FL moratorium wave / Clay final + Hernando, Lake first reading Jun 23 / Santa Rosa 3-1 to draft / Zephyrhills final / 5-8 FL jurisdictions in 5 weeks / SB 484 backdrop / water-first concern
Plain-English version of what happened. Tuesday, June 23 was the single most active moratorium day Florida has had — three county boards moved separate ordinances forward in a coordinated wave. Clay County (just south of Jacksonville, ~220,000 residents) gave...
FERC / 5-0 / Section 206 show-cause / 30-day + 60-day deadlines / six RTOs
Plain-English version of what FERC actually did. The expected path was a single final rule (or a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking) under Docket RM26-4-000 that would have set one national answer to 'who pays for the grid upgrades large data centers force.' FERC...
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — press release on June 18, 2026 action ↗