Every open thread from July 7 resolved toward the moratorium side, and the wave changed character — from rural counties to major cities and from process fights to electoral kills. The scheduled votes: Prince George's County passed its 2-year statutory moratorium July 7 (Adams the lone no, 3 abstentions), though a Fisher zoning amendment creating designated data-center zones is moving as the escape hatch — planning board declined to oppose it. Montgomery County followed July 28 with an 18-month hyperscale moratorium (Expedited Bill 19-26) plus ZTA 26-01 development limits — the two most populous Maryland counties are now both frozen by statute. Lakeland FL passed its 12-month, ≥50 MW moratorium 4-3 at second reading August 3, freezing 'Project Swan.' Sarasota County halted ≥50 MW applications until at least July 2027. Durham County slipped again — no July 13 vote, hearing reset to August 24. The escalation: Indianapolis — a top-15 US city — voted 23-1 on August 10 to bar new data centers through end of 2027. Nashville adopted its first data center zoning regs plus a permit moratorium July 21 ('bans some, pauses the rest'). Louisville passed a 180-day moratorium August 13, signed next day. Fort Worth — 13th-largest city, in Texas — unanimously started the state's statutory clock toward a 90-day moratorium August 11. Memphis City Council votes August 18 on a pause aimed at the xAI expansion. Jeffersonville IN suspended its own rules to pass a 1-year moratorium in a single session; Mercer and Nicholasville KY, Cle Elum and Kittitas County WA followed; Coachella CA voted a unanimous first reading of a PERMANENT citywide ban (final reading Aug 26). The electoral kill: Amazon abandoned its planned 3-data-center campus at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant (Aug 4) after opposition candidates ousted the pro-project county commissioners — the first flagship abandonment attributable directly to an election flip. Beacon Partners pulled its $180M Radius DC Raleigh project Aug 15 after a water/power/secrecy fight; ComEd canceled the 1.8 GW PowerHouse Hillwood TSA in Joliet. The counter-current is real but thinner: Aurora CO rejected a 6-month ban in favor of an evaporative-cooling prohibition plus buffer zones (Aug 10); developers sued localities in NJ (Hexa's $300M claim against Monroe Township), Nashville (DC BLOX), Wixom MI, Upper Merion PA, and DeKalb GA; Edgerton KS sued its own residents to keep a petitioned ban off the ballot; and the Ohio Supreme Court forced the EdgeConneX referendum onto Ashville's November ballot — the window's one new ballot measure. But the two developer suits that resolved both died: RCM Hill dismissed its own $100M Hill County suit with prejudice, and Hood County's 'automatic approval' suit was dismissed with prejudice. Data Center Watch's Q2 report did NOT publish in the window; the Q1 baseline ($130B blocked/delayed, 833 groups) stands.
Why it matters
Three structural reads. (1) The wave moving into top-15 cities kills the 'this is rural NIMBYism' frame — Indianapolis and Fort Worth are pro-growth, pro-industry jurisdictions in pro-data-center states, and Fort Worth doing it inside Texas during Abbott's own audit shows state-level enthusiasm no longer transfers down. The state-local divergence variable is now the dominant siting risk in every 'friendly' state. (2) The Calvert Cliffs abandonment is the first clean demonstration of the electoral kill chain — organize → flip commission → developer walks. With data centers running as an issue in 21 races this November, every project with a 2027+ entitlement date now carries election risk on its critical path, which is a fundamentally different risk type than a hearing loss (you can't out-lawyer an election). (3) The moratorium threshold convergence at ≥50 MW (Lakeland, Sarasota, NY EO 62, PJM's IRAS definition) — rather than the activists' 20 MW — is quietly the most important number in the wave: it leaves the sub-50 MW tier (enterprise, modular, edge) almost universally untouched. The small-modular thesis inherits an regulatory moat the big-campus world is building for it.
Related filings
CO HB 1030 / killed 11-2
HB 1030 was Colorado's primary 2026 attempt to attract data-center investment via tax incentives — the bill was first introduced in January and modeled loosely on the sales-and-use exemption regimes that Texas, Virginia, Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska, and...
KUNC / CPR News / The Colorado Sun / The Durango Herald ↗
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'...
Oracle sued Wisconsin PSC Jun 19 Ozaukee County / challenging April tariff rule / $100M/year financial security / very large customer >20 MW sub-A credit / Oracle BBB / Port Washington $15B 672 acres 1 GW 4 buildings We Energies / statutory-authority + discrimination + due-process theories / parallel administrative reconsideration / first hyperscaler-vs-PSC ratepayer-protection lawsuit / template for VA SCC MD FERC IL DCIP TX SB6 / AWS BBB+ adjacent risk / expected 6-12 months to ruling
Plain-English background on why this lawsuit matters more than a single facility dispute. Multiple states have enacted or are enacting 'ratepayer protection' rules for hyperscaler-scale customers in 2025-2026: Virginia's SCC rate class (approved Nov 2025,...
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...