Plain-English background on why ballot-initiative bans are structurally different from council-enacted moratoriums. A city council ordinance can be reversed by a subsequent city council vote (typically 3 of 5 or 4 of 7 depending on the city). A...
Ballotpedia — Monterey Park California Measure NDC Prohibit Data Centers Measure (June 2026) + Broadband Breakfast — Monterey Park Votes to Permanently Ban Data Centers + ABC7 Los Angeles — Monterey Park voters approve Measure NDC banning power-hungry data centers within city limits + Fox Business — California city votes to permanently ban data centers in first-of-its-kind measure + LA Public Press — Monterey Park overwhelmingly votes to ban data centers + City of Monterey Park — June 2 2026 Special Municipal Election page + Data Center Knowledge — California City Approves First Voter-Enacted Data Center Ban ↗
VirginiaColoradoArizonaOregonMoratoriumRatepayer protectionBallot initiative
Read why it matters →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...
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) ↗
ERCOTPJMTexasVirginiaInterconnectionCapacity marketRatepayer protection
Read why it matters →Plain-English background. There are two ways to legislate a data center moratorium. A 'county zoning moratorium' is local — a single county or city pauses applications in its own boundaries for 6-12 months while it writes rules. A 'state-level moratorium' is...
Greenberg Traurig — New York Legislature Passes Data Center Moratorium; Bill Awaits Governor's Approval (Jun 2026) + Harris Beach Murtha — New York State Legislature Passes First-in-the-Nation Data Center Moratorium + Mintz — New York Legislature Passes First-in-the-Nation Data Center Moratorium, Awaiting Governor's Signature (Jun 12 2026) + DCD — New York state legislature passes data center moratorium, awaits governor Hochul's approval + Earthjustice — NYS Legislature Passes Data Center Moratorium + Thompson Hine — Vetoed, Not Dead: Maine's Data Center Moratorium and What It Means for Developers + Maine Office of the Governor — Veto Message LD 307 (Apr 24 2026) ↗
MaineOregonMoratoriumRatepayer protection
Read why it matters →Plain-English background. Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a formal data center directive on June 10, 2026, to the two state-level energy authorities: the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT — appointed by the governor, regulates retail electricity in...
Office of the Texas Governor — Governor Abbott Directs PUC and ERCOT to Shield Texans from Data Center Infrastructure Costs (Jun 10 2026) + Shale Magazine — Governor Abbott Directs PUC and ERCOT to Protect Texas Ratepayers from Data Center Costs + Texas Scorecard — Abbott Directs Regulators to Make Data Centers Pay Their Own Infrastructure Costs + Community Impact — Gov. Abbott tells PUC, ERCOT to ensure Texas consumers do not foot the bill for data center growth (Jun 10 2026) + Alden Energy — Abbott Issues Directive to ERCOT, Public Utility Commission to Control Rising Data Center Costs ↗
ERCOTTexasVirginiaIllinoisInterconnectionRatepayer protection
Read why it matters →Plain-English version. Oregon is a top-5 state for data center capacity in the US: ~7-8% of all US data center build-out has been in Oregon over the last decade, concentrated in Hillsboro (the Washington County corridor west of Portland), Prineville (Crook...
Oregon Department of Energy — Governor's Data Center Advisory Committee Meeting 5 Agenda (Jun 26 2026) + Davis Wright Tremaine — New Oregon Law Impacts Data Center Development Statewide + Oregon CUB — Oregon Still Needs More Protections Against Data Centers + Columbia Riverkeeper engagement materials ↗
PJMVirginiaOregonMoratoriumRatepayer protectionHyperscaler
Read why it matters →Plain-English version. Until June 24, the most common threshold for state and local data-center legislation was either 100 MW+ (hyperscale conventional definition, used by industry groups like AFCOM and Uptime Institute) or no threshold at all (county...
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — FACT SHEET: FERC Directs Nation's Largest Grid Operator to Create New Rules (Jun 18 2026) + cross-reference to NY S.10642 / AOC HR / Sanders S.4214 statutory text ↗
NYISOFERCOregonOklahomaMoratoriumInterconnectionBehind-the-meter
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. Monterey Park is a city of ~60,000 in Los Angeles County (San Gabriel Valley). 'Measure NDC' was put on a special-election ballot after a January 2026 city council 45-day moratorium and a March 2026 10-month extension — the moratoriums...
ABC7 Los Angeles / Fox Business / Planetizen / Data Center Knowledge / Monterey Park City Council ↗
ERCOTPJMTexasColoradoMoratorium
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. Yesterday's newsletter (and most of the trade press) implied the 10-day signing clock was already running. That's the standard pattern in most states, but New York's transmission rules are different. The Senate Majority Leader and...
Daily Kos / NY Senate procedural manual / Inside Climate News ↗
PJMOregonMoratoriumInterconnection
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. Schedule 96 is Oregon's version of the separate-rate-class concept that New York's S10642 mandates: a tariff schedule specifically for data center loads with longer contract terms (typically 15-20 years), demand-charge floors, and...
OPB / Utility Dive / KOIN ↗
ERCOTTexasOregonMoratoriumInterconnectionBehind-the-meter
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. (Recap from yesterday for new context.) FERC committed in April to act by end of June on the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking covering large-load interconnection to the interstate transmission system. The substantive ruling could...
FERC / Holland & Knight / Power Magazine ↗
ERCOTMISONYISOFERCInterconnectionBehind-the-meterHyperscaler
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. New York's state legislature wraps each year in early June. In that final-hour rush they passed a bill that, if Hochul signs it, freezes any state agency from issuing a permit to a 20 MW+ data center anywhere in New York for one year....
Data Center Dynamics / Earthjustice / Spectrum News ↗
TexasVirginiaIllinoisGeorgiaMoratorium
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) is the federal body that regulates interstate transmission and wholesale electricity markets. State PUCs handle retail rates and local distribution; FERC handles the high-voltage grid...
FERC / Holland & Knight / Troutman / TDWorld ↗
ERCOTFERCOhioOregonInterconnectionBehind-the-meter
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. Larimer County sits north of Boulder and Denver and contains Fort Collins (Colorado State University, where Aspen Aerogels was founded) and Loveland. The county is the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park and historically not a data...
Larimer County Planning / Rocky Mountain Real Estate Law / engage.larimer.gov ↗
ColoradoOregonMoratorium
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. Oregon's data center action this spring had two pieces. Piece one is Schedule 96 — the rate-class framework that defines who pays what kind of charges (10-30 year contracts, 90% minimum demand, 1¢/kWh surcharge above 100 MW, 100% of...
OPB / Utility Dive / Oregon PUC ↗
OregonRatepayer protection
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. Edmond is a Oklahoma City suburb operating under Article XVIII home rule. The city has no pending data center applications and no announced projects. The council voted to pause anyway, expressly to give staff time to 'fully research...
Edmond city government / NonDoc ↗
OhioWashingtonOregonOklahomaMoratorium
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. A regulated utility (Xcel) signed a one-off contract with a single very large customer (Google) instead of running the cost-allocation through a new public tariff. In a state with a regulated monopoly utility, every cost the utility...
Xcel Energy Newsroom / Q1 2026 8-K / 24/7 Wall St ↗
WisconsinFloridaOregonMinnesotaBehind-the-meterRatepayer protectionHyperscaler
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. A 'moratorium' is just a local time-out on issuing new permits — typically 60-day, 180-day, or 1-year. The county uses the pause to write new zoning or impact-fee rules; if the rules don't get written before the moratorium expires, the...
WHQR / WRDW / 10TV / Arkansas Times / WALB ↗
TexasWisconsinFloridaOregonMoratorium
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. A 'rate class' is the legal bucket a utility puts a customer into to decide what tariff applies — residential, small commercial, large industrial. Oregon just carved out a new bucket exclusively for data-center-scale loads, ring-fenced...
Utility Dive / KPTV / KGW / Oregon PUC ↗
ColoradoWisconsinOregonMinnesotaInterconnectionRatepayer protection
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. The Florida bill is structurally similar to the Wisconsin / Oregon / PA pattern (the data center pays its full cost of service) but adds two Florida-specific provisions worth tracking. The aquifer-permitting clause is the under-noted...
Florida Gov / Central Jersey / MultiState / Climate Law Blog ↗
WisconsinFloridaOregonHyperscaler
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 →HB 2992 is structurally different from the other four state-level ratepayer-protection actions in the May cluster. Pennsylvania's May 8 PUC model tariff is regulator-issued guidance (binding on the four PA investor-owned utilities only after...
Oklahoma House of Representatives / Oklahoma Senate / KGOU / OKCFOX / Fox23 / Oklahoma Energy Today ↗
PJMFERCWisconsinFloridaMoratoriumInterconnectionRatepayer protection
Read why it matters →Three regulatory events in the same 24-hour window on May 8 — Pennsylvania PUC's model-tariff vote, PPL Electric's pending rate-case settlement (filed March 13, ALJ recommendation April 17, effective July 1), and Oregon PUC's PGE Schedule 96 directive —...
WHYY / WESA / Utility Dive / KGW / KOIN / Beaver County Radio / RTO Insider ↗
ERCOTPJMFERCWisconsinMoratoriumInterconnectionBehind-the-meter
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
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