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...
Texas Tribune — Texas Hill County Moratorium Rescinded Data Centers (Jun 5 2026) + KERA — Hill County Drops Data Center Moratorium After Lawsuit, Adopts New Review Requirements (Jun 5 2026) + WBKO — Developer Sues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 ↗
TexasNorth CarolinaOhioMoratoriumBallot initiative
Read why it matters →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...
Fox Carolina — Spartanburg County votes to pause data center applications for one year (Jun 22 2026) + KTIV — Woodbury County passes moratorium on data center projects (Jun 23 2026) + Iowa Public Radio + cityviewnc.com — Cumberland County Enacts 6-Month Data Center Moratorium (Jun 15 2026) + KCTV5 — Legislature advances ordinance extending Jackson County data center moratorium to 180 days (Jun 9 2026) + Engage LexingtonKY — Data Centers in Lexington (Jun 9 2026) + interconnectedcapital.com US Data Center Moratorium Tracker 2026 ↗
PJMMISOCAISOSPPMoratoriumInterconnection
Read why it matters →Plain-English version of what happened. PJM Interconnection is the regional transmission organization (RTO) — the federally regulated nonprofit that physically dispatches the electric grid for 13 states and DC, covering 67 million people from New Jersey...
PJM Inside Lines — PJM Adds Emergency Procedures to Maintain Reliability (Jun 24 2026) ↗
PJMFERCVirginiaNorth CarolinaMoratoriumInterconnectionCapacity market
Read why it matters →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...
Florida Politics — Three counties moving forward with one-year data center moratoriums (Jun 24 2026) ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOCAISOMoratoriumInterconnectionBehind-the-meter
Read why it matters →Plain-English version of what SB 484 does. On May 7, 2026, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 484 at a ceremony in Lakeland, calling it the 'first of its kind in the nation.' The law has four operative provisions, and unlike most data-center state...
Office of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — Governor Ron DeSantis Signs Law to Protect Floridians from Subsidizing Data Centers (May 7 2026) ↗
FERCTexasNorth CarolinaFloridaMoratorium
Read why it matters →Plain-English version. Knox County is the eastern Tennessee county containing Knoxville (population ~480,000 in the metro). On June 23, the County Commission voted 10-0 — with Commissioner Courtney Durrett recusing because she works at Xfinity (a Comcast...
WATE 6 Knoxville — Knox County puts new data center projects on hold for 1 year (Jun 23 2026) ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOFERCMoratoriumHyperscaler
Read why it matters →Plain-English version of what Project Kilby is. Microsoft and Chevron jointly announced on June 22 that they are co-developing a roughly 2.67 gigawatt natural gas power plant in the Permian Basin near Pecos, Texas (about 200 miles east of El Paso), paired...
Chevron newsroom — Chevron signs 20-year power agreement with Microsoft for West Texas data center (Jun 22 2026) ↗
ERCOTMISOFERCTexasMoratoriumInterconnectionBehind-the-meter
Read why it matters →Plain-English version of what Abbott actually directed. On June 10, 2026 — twelve days before the Project Kilby announcement — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sent a formal directive letter to the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT, the state utility regulator)...
Office of the Texas Governor — Governor Abbott Directs PUC and ERCOT to Shield Texans from Data Center Infrastructure Costs ↗
ERCOTPJMFERCTexasInterconnectionBehind-the-meterRatepayer protection
Read why it matters →Plain-English version of what Spartanburg did and why the procedural mechanic matters. Spartanburg County, in the Upstate region of South Carolina, called a 9 a.m. special meeting on June 22 to introduce a 12-month moratorium on all new data center...
WSPA — Spartanburg County Council gives first approval of data center moratorium ↗
ERCOTFERCTexasNorth CarolinaMoratoriumInterconnectionRatepayer protection
Read why it matters →Plain-English version. The North Carolina cluster covered in detail yesterday (Jun 22 newsletter) included Durham County as one of the nine jurisdictions moving on a data center pause. Today, June 23, the Durham County Board of Commissioners took the...
INDY Week — Durham County Moves Toward Data Center Moratorium ↗
TexasNorth CarolinaGeorgiaSouth CarolinaMoratorium
Read why it matters →Plain-English version of the geography. North Carolina's data center backlash has concentrated in two adjacent regions: the Charlotte metro (Mecklenburg + Rowan) and the Research Triangle (Durham, Wake, Orange, Chatham). In roughly five weeks, at least nine...
WFAE (Charlotte's NPR) — Charlotte City Council approves 150-day data center moratorium ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOFERCMoratorium
Read why it matters →Plain-English version of what happened and why it matters more than a single county. Hill County is a rural county south of Fort Worth, in ERCOT territory. On May 12 its commissioners passed — 3 to 2 — a one-year moratorium on new large battery storage, power...
The Texas Tribune — Texas county rescinds data center moratorium after lawsuit ↗
ERCOTTexasNorth CarolinaMarylandMoratoriumInterconnection
Read why it matters →Plain-English version of the geographic pattern. The moratorium streak has been geographically dispersed — Iowa, Tennessee, California, Georgia, Nebraska, Utah, North Carolina, Indiana, Oklahoma, Nevada (the counter-signal), Wisconsin. Most states have had at...
WisBusiness / Dane County Board ↗
MISOFERCNorth CarolinaWisconsinMoratoriumHyperscaler
Read why it matters →What the bill does. SB 730 combines four mechanisms that target the cost-shift question from different angles:
• Cost-share minimum: data centers must pay a minimum share of the infrastructure costs they cause (transmission upgrades, generation capacity...
Carolina Journal ↗
PJMFERCVirginiaNorth CarolinaAir permitRatepayer protectionFERC action
Read why it matters →Cumberland County (Fayetteville, home to Fort Bragg) enacted a unanimous six-month pause to give staff time to write standards on water, power, noise, and neighborhood/school impacts before permitting anything. The commissioners' framing — 'plan before we...
CityView (Fayetteville NC) ↗
North CarolinaMoratorium
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. Hood County sits about an hour southwest of Fort Worth, on Lake Granbury. It's a rural county with a small planning staff and limited industrial base. The county was the first in Texas to enact a data-center moratorium — passed quietly...
Texas Tribune / KRGV / Salon ↗
TexasVirginiaNorth CarolinaIllinoisMoratoriumInterconnection
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. Seattle's threshold is 20 MVA (megavolt-amperes), which is functionally similar to 20 MW for data center loads — both round to the same 'roughly 20 megawatts of incoming utility service' floor. The moratorium pauses any permit...
KOMO / MLQ Infrastructure / Seattle DCI ↗
TexasVirginiaNorth CarolinaWashingtonMoratoriumInterconnection
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. Western North Carolina is the cluster of counties between Asheville and the Tennessee/Georgia border, dominated by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Pisgah/Nantahala National Forests. It's not a traditional data center market — until...
WUNC / WFAE / Blue Ridge Public Radio ↗
North CarolinaGeorgiaWashingtonTennesseeMoratoriumInterconnectionHyperscaler
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. Charlotte is the second-biggest US banking center after New York (Bank of America HQ, Truist HQ, Wells Fargo's east coast hub) and the dominant Carolina metro. Until this week the assumption was that bank-anchored cities would be...
Axios Charlotte / WBTV / WCNC ↗
VirginiaNorth CarolinaWashingtonArizonaMoratorium
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. Spokane is the second-largest city in Washington State, served by Avista Corp — a small investor-owned utility (about 400,000 electric customers in eastern Washington plus northern Idaho) whose total system load is roughly 1,000 MW. So...
Spokesman-Review / City of Spokane / KXLY ↗
North CarolinaWashingtonMoratorium
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. Homewood is an inner-ring suburb of Birmingham, Alabama (population ~26,000, sits inside the I-65 / I-459 ring). Birmingham itself passed a 6-month moratorium in late May and Leeds (eastern Birmingham metro) approved a one-year freeze....
WBRC / CBS 42 / City of Homewood ↗
North CarolinaMoratoriumHyperscaler
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. Last year (effective July 23, 2025), Ohio's Public Utilities Commission approved AEP Ohio's first-of-its-kind data center tariff: any new data center load above a threshold has to sign a 12-year supply contract and commit to paying for...
Statehouse News Bureau / Ohio Capital Journal / Rep. Rader press release ↗
North CarolinaOhioOregon
Plain-English framing. Oregon's PUC issued Order 26-154 on May 7, with a 34-day countdown to today's effective date. The new Schedule 96 tariff applies to data centers and other loads above 20 MW. Contract length scales with load size: 10 years at 20 MW,...
Utility Dive / Oregon PUC / Yahoo News (PGE delay) ↗
North CarolinaOhioOregonMinnesotaRatepayer protectionHyperscaler
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. The 'Public Staff' in North Carolina is a permanent state agency that represents residential and small-business customers in utility rate cases — separate from the elected Attorney General, separate from the Utilities Commission. When...
WFAE / Duke Energy testimony filings (NC Utilities Commission) ↗
VirginiaNorth CarolinaOhioOregonRatepayer protection
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. PJM is the regional grid operator covering 13 states from Illinois to North Carolina — the largest power market in North America by load and the biggest data center buildout zone in the country. To connect a new power plant to PJM's...
Utility Dive / PJM ER26-1563 filing / FERC order ↗
PJMFERCNorth CarolinaIllinoisInterconnectionBehind-the-meter
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. There are two kinds of local government in the U.S. — home-rule (broad authority to legislate locally unless state law specifically forbids it) and Dillon's-rule (only the powers state law expressly grants). Texas counties are...
Texas Tribune / KWTX / KERA News ↗
TexasVirginiaNorth CarolinaOhioMoratoriumInterconnection
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. Most states do data-center tariff fights utility-by-utility — every utility files its own version, every commission re-litigates from scratch. Pennsylvania did the opposite: the PUC wrote one model and each utility has to file a tariff...
PA PUC / Utility Dive / National Law Review ↗
PJMMISONorth CarolinaWisconsinInterconnection
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. FERC regulates the interstate transmission grid. Until now, interconnection rules for loads (as opposed to generators) have been overwhelmingly state-level — a developer interconnects through whichever state PUC and utility happens to...
FERC / Utility Dive / Snell & Wilmer / White & Case ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOCAISOInterconnectionBehind-the-meterHyperscaler
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing: where Wisconsin's tariff change was a regulator (PSC) tightening one utility's rate plan, North Carolina is a state legislature pre-emptively writing the rules for the whole state across every utility — Duke, Dominion-NC, ElectriCities....
WRAL / WUNC / Data Center Knowledge / Data Center Dynamics ↗
VirginiaColoradoNorth CarolinaWisconsinBehind-the-meterRatepayer protection
Read why it matters →Denver is the cleanest 'yes' outcome of the four. Unanimous (13-0), one-year duration, immediate three-day window before effect (May 21), and the moratorium is scoped specifically to data center as the 'proposed primary use' — meaning a data center...
Denverite / Denver Gazette / 9news / CBS Colorado ↗
ColoradoNorth CarolinaMoratorium
Read why it matters →Charlotte is the contrast case to Denver: same kind of city-council moratorium proposal, similar developer/anti-developer split, but the mayor's tie-break vote went against the procedural fast-track. The substance question is not actually decided yet — the...
Govtech / WBTV / Axios Charlotte / WFAE / AOL ↗
ColoradoNorth CarolinaMoratorium
Read why it matters →Cheyenne is the weakest of the four outcomes for the pause camp. A motion failing to get a second in committee is the procedural equivalent of zero councilors other than the sponsor being willing to publicly support advancing the proposal. The 'no...
Cap City News / Wyoming News / Cowboy State Daily / Wyoming Public Media ↗
VirginiaColoradoNorth CarolinaArizonaMoratoriumHyperscaler
Read why it matters →Cave City is the smallest jurisdiction of the four (population ~2,000) but the most structurally interesting because it's the first Kentucky moratorium in a small town that has NOT yet seen any data center construction. Discovery (a developer Raymond will...
WBKO / Spectrum News 1 KY / WCLU Radio / Bowling Green Daily News / WKMS ↗
ColoradoNorth CarolinaMoratorium
Read why it matters →Today is the single highest-density 'moratorium decision day' of 2026 so far. Four municipal-level decisions in geographically distinct markets (Mountain West urban, Sun Belt urban, central Kentucky rural, Mountain West regional capital) plus a structurally...
9news / CBS Colorado / Yellow Scene / Denver Gazette / Cap City News / Wyoming Public Media / WBTV / Axios Charlotte / Govtech / WCLU Radio / Utility Dive ↗
PJMFERCEPATexasMoratoriumInterconnectionBehind-the-meter
Read why it matters →Cheyenne is the first city anywhere west of the Mississippi to introduce a data-center moratorium ordinance at the council level in 2026 (the Wisconsin/Michigan/Ohio/Indiana cluster is Midwest; the GA/NC/FL/AL cluster is Sun Belt; Texas has no moratorium tape...
Cowboy State Daily / KGAB / Cap City News / Wyoming News / Casper Star-Tribune ↗
ERCOTTexasVirginiaColoradoMoratoriumHyperscaler
Read why it matters →Three more entries in the local-moratorium tape, each illustrating a different sub-pattern. Penn Township MI: pure preemptive moratorium with no land sold and no developer named. The Diamond Lake Association (the local lake-property-owner organization) drove...
WNDU / WSBT / IPM News / Washington Times-Herald / News4Jax / Seehafer News ↗
North CarolinaWisconsinOhioGeorgiaMoratoriumBehind-the-meterHyperscaler
Read why it matters →The North Carolina cluster has reached critical mass through the May 4-10 window in three layered ways. Layer 1 (local moratoria): Harnett County's unanimous 1-year approval on May 4 — driven by Sen. Jim Burgin's disclosure that a developer was 'earnestly...
NC Newsline / Sanford Herald / Axios Charlotte / WBTV / Spring Hope Enterprise / NCleg ↗
VirginiaNorth CarolinaWisconsinMaineMoratoriumRatepayer protection
Read why it matters →Pending-item resolution for May 11. Colorado SB 102 (Sen. Cathy Kipp, March 18 introduction): the bill would have banned utility economic agreements incentivizing data centers and required 100% new-renewable sourcing by 2031. Per Colorado Politics ('Despite...
Colorado Politics / CPR / Seehafer News / 9News Denver / WBTV / ERCOT ↗
ERCOTPJMFERCColoradoMoratoriumInterconnectionRatepayer protection
Read why it matters →Four ongoing local-level developments tracked into May 9-10. (1) Box Elder UT referendum filing: data-center opponents in Box Elder County applied this week (reported by CNN May 9 syndication, KSL May 7 reporting) for a November 2026 ballot referendum to...
CNN / KSL / WVPE / 95.3 MNC / Seehafer News / WBTV ↗
North CarolinaWisconsinOhioGeorgiaMoratoriumRatepayer protectionHyperscaler
Read why it matters →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 ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOTexasMoratoriumTax incentiveRatepayer protection
Read why it matters →Four jurisdictions moved on data-center moratoria in the May 4-8 window. (1) Durham NC city council unanimously approved a 60-day moratorium May 4. The 60-day duration is *not* the council's policy preference — Council member Nate Baker explicitly stated 'I...
WRAL / Indy Week / Axios Charlotte / Capitol Hill Seattle News / Lakeland Times / Northwoods River News ↗
North CarolinaWisconsinGeorgiaWashingtonMoratoriumRatepayer protection
Read why it matters →EBCI is a federally recognized Native American tribe headquartered in Cherokee, North Carolina, with roughly 57,000 acres of trust land (the Qualla Boundary) primarily in Swain and Jackson Counties in the Great Smoky Mountains region. The ordinance passed...
WUNC / Cherokee One Feather / Smoky Mountain News ↗
North CarolinaOklahomaMoratorium
Read why it matters →Five separate jurisdictions moved on data-center moratoria or rejections in the May 4-8 window. (1) Northampton County NC (rural northeastern NC, ~17,500 population, near the Roanoke-Chowan area) approved a 32-month pause unanimously on May 4 after residents...
NC Health News / Fox Baltimore / The Banner / Post & Courier (Colleton) / First Alert 4 (Ferguson) / KSHB (Gardner) / Tom's Hardware ↗
North CarolinaGeorgiaMarylandKansasMoratoriumTax incentive
Read why it matters →Box Elder County commissioners voted unanimously to approve two resolutions in support of a 40,000-acre data center campus on an unincorporated site in northern Utah. The project, dubbed Stratos and developed by O'Leary Digital, would span 40,000 acres of...
Utah News Dispatch / KSL.com ↗
ERCOTPJMMISONorth CarolinaMoratoriumInterconnectionBehind-the-meter
Read why it matters →Durham City Council on Monday unanimously approved a 60-day moratorium covering data centers, data processing, and cryptocurrency mining development, with more than 30 people speaking during public comment. The council had originally considered a 24-month...
WRAL / Indy Week ↗
North CarolinaMoratorium
Read why it matters →At Monday's contentious Hermantown MN City Council meeting, a Google Technical Infrastructure team representative gave the company's first in-person presentation on the proposed 1.2 million sq ft data-center site. Project disclosures: $650 million for Phase...
MPR News / Northern News Now ↗
North CarolinaMinnesotaMoratoriumTax incentiveHyperscaler
Read why it matters →After a packed Hermantown City Council meeting Monday night with hours of public comment, Councilor John Geissler moved to table both the tax-abatement and the development agreement for Google's 1.2 million sq ft data center, citing the need for clarity on...
Duluth News Tribune ↗
North CarolinaMinnesotaMoratoriumTax incentiveHyperscaler
Read why it matters →WRAL and Data Center Knowledge confirm North Carolina lawmakers have moved HB 1004, the Ratepayer and Resource Protection Act, into the 2025-2026 General Assembly. Filed April 27, 2026. Threshold: facilities with peak electricity demand of ≥40 MW...
Data Center Knowledge ↗
ERCOTPJMFERCTexasMoratoriumInterconnectionBehind-the-meter
Read why it matters →