# AI data center moratorium wave (2026)

> Source: https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/ai_data_center_moratorium
> Updated: 2026-10-15
> Fact-checked: 2026-10-15
> Categories: AI Compute, AI Energy, AI Policy & Regulation, Data Centers
> License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) - attribute to "AI Wiki (aiwiki.ai)"
> Cite as: AI Wiki. "AI data center moratorium wave (2026)." aiwiki.ai, 15 Oct 2026. https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/ai_data_center_moratorium
> From AI Wiki (https://aiwiki.ai), the free encyclopedia of artificial intelligence. Reuse freely with attribution.

**The AI data center moratorium wave of 2026** is a surge of local and state pauses, bans, and restrictive legislation aimed at hyperscale [data center](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/data_center) development, centered on the United States. Through the first half of 2026, city councils and county boards from Denver to coastal Georgia voted to halt new projects, and lawmakers in at least a dozen states filed moratorium bills.[6][15] Maine's legislature passed the first statewide moratorium bill in April 2026, but Governor Janet Mills vetoed it.[16] Governors then acted on their own: New York's Kathy Hochul paused state environmental permits for the largest new data centers by executive order in July, and Texas's Greg Abbott ordered an audit of data center projects seeking grid connections in August and a halt to state environmental permits for them in September.[17][18][19] The backlash is bipartisan and is driven mainly by three things: electricity bills that have jumped as the grid struggles to serve AI computing loads, water consumption in already dry regions, and ordinary land-use friction. A Gallup poll conducted in March 2026 found that 71% of Americans would oppose construction of an AI data center in their area, more than the 53% who would oppose a nuclear power plant there.[5] By one tracker's count, roughly $64 billion in projects had been blocked or delayed by local opposition over the two years to early 2025, and about $130 billion more were disrupted in the first quarter of 2026 alone.[11][20]

The movement is the political shadow of the [AI infrastructure](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/ai_infrastructure) boom. The same wave of spending that produced the [Stargate Project](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/stargate_project), [Meta](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/meta_ai)'s Hyperion and Prometheus campuses, and [xAI](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/xai)'s Colossus has put gigawatt-scale facilities next to communities, and residents in many of them have organized against new projects.

## What is driving the backlash

For most of the 2010s, data centers were a quiet category of development that towns competed to attract with tax breaks. AI changed the scale. A single hyperscale campus can draw hundreds of megawatts or more, comparable to a small city, and the rush to build has collided with a power grid that cannot expand transmission and generation fast enough to keep up.

The clearest grievance is the electricity bill. In the PJM Interconnection, the largest US grid operator, the capacity auction for the 2026-2027 delivery year, held in July 2025, cleared at the price cap of $329.17 per megawatt-day, up from $28.92 for 2024-2025, an eleven-fold jump.[1] PJM's market monitor attributed much of that increase to data center demand: in its annual report, released in March 2026, it estimated that existing and forecast data center load had added about $23.1 billion in capacity costs across the three most recent auctions.[21] The total cost of wholesale power in the region rose almost 76% in the first quarter of 2026 from a year earlier.[2] The auction for 2028-2029, held in July 2026, again cleared at its cap, set at $325 per megawatt-day for that auction, and still fell 6,831 MW short of PJM's reliability requirement.[22] The market monitor attributed $6.3 billion of that auction's $16.4 billion in charges (38.2%) to data center load, and $29.4 billion across the last four auctions.[23] Those costs flow into household bills. The Natural Resources Defense Council projected in September 2025 that, unless something changes, an average family in the region would be paying around $70 a month extra on its electricity bill by 2028 because of forecast data center growth.[24][1] When residents see their rates climbing while a new campus rises nearby, the connection is easy to draw.

Water is the second driver. US data centers directly consumed about 66 billion liters (about 17.4 billion gallons) of water in 2023, according to a December 2024 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report, which projected that on-site consumption could reach roughly 38 billion to 73 billion gallons by 2028.[25] The electricity those facilities used carried a further indirect water footprint, at power plants, of roughly 211 billion gallons in 2023.[3] In a May 29, 2026 episode of its podcast The Intercept Briefing, The Intercept described a data center in Fayette County, Georgia, that had drained 30 million gallons of water while nearby residents faced low water pressure and were told to cut their own use, and it aired Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying that water bills near Meta's data center campus in Morgan County, Georgia, were expected to rise by 33 percent.[4] In northern Utah, developers of the proposed Stratos project said they were working to secure 13,000 acre-feet of water in Hansel Valley, enough for more than 20,000 Utah households, near the drought-stricken Great Salt Lake.[4] The episode's title framed the problem as a race to build "before the people can protest," and Food & Water Watch policy director Jim Walsh said that "nobody's actually looking at the full impacts" of these projects.[4]

The third driver is ordinary not-in-my-backyard land-use politics: noise, truck traffic, lost green space, and the worry that an industrial building consuming a city's worth of power will not bring many permanent jobs. Gallup's polling captured the mix. Asked in an April 2026 follow-up survey why they objected, half of opponents cited excessive resource use, with 18% each naming water and energy specifically; 16% mentioned pollution, and roughly a fifth each pointed to local quality-of-life effects and to economic harms such as higher utility bills.[5]

## The polling

Gallup interviewed 1,000 US adults by telephone from March 2 to 18, 2026, with a margin of error of four percentage points, and published the results on May 13, 2026.[5] The headline finding: 71% said they would oppose construction of an AI data center in their local area, including 48% who were strongly opposed, while 27% favored it.[5][26] For comparison, 53% in the same survey said they would oppose construction of a nuclear power plant in their area, so data centers drew broader local opposition than nuclear generation.[5][26]

Opposition cut across party lines. Majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents all said they would oppose a nearby project, though Democrats were more likely to be strongly opposed (56%) than Republicans (39%), with independents at 48%.[5] Women registered strong opposition more often than men (55% versus 43%), and opposition was somewhat lower in the West (63%) and East (68%) than in the Midwest (76%) and South (75%).[5] Among supporters, two-thirds cited economic benefits, including 55% who mentioned job opportunities.[5]

## Notable local and state actions

By spring 2026 the pauses had spread from town boards into statehouses. By mid-April, moratorium proposals had been introduced in at least a dozen states, according to the Associated Press,[15] and Data Center Watch counted statewide moratorium proposals in 14 states in the first quarter of the year.[20] Local pauses spread faster. The Stateline news service documented the local wave in a widely syndicated May 28, 2026 report by Robbie Sequeira.[6] By late June, Michigan Public counted at least 52 Michigan communities with data center moratoriums,[27] and in August the National League of Cities' new tracker listed at least 76 cities, counties and towns that had tried to adopt moratoriums or permanent bans, most of them successfully, while describing the list as "by no means exhaustive."[28]

| Jurisdiction | Action | Adopted | Notes and status |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Tulsa, OK | Nine-month pause on new data center construction | 2026-03-25 | Unanimous; projects already in the pipeline, including the first two phases of Project Anthem, allowed to proceed[6][29] |
| Oklahoma City, OK | Moratorium until the end of 2026, or until the zoning code is updated | 2026-04-21 | In May 2026 the council voted 7-2 to narrow it to projects above 75 MW of net load and exempt two more sites[6][30] |
| Morgan County, IL | Six-month moratorium | 2026-04 | Approved in April 2026[6] |
| Chatham County, NC | 12-month moratorium | 2026-02-11 | In September 2026 a Superior Court judge ruled that developer Eco TIP West's project could proceed and that the county owed it damages; the moratorium itself stayed in force[6][31] |
| Orange County, NC | Moratorium | 2026-04 | Orange County includes Chapel Hill[6] |
| Denver, CO | One-year moratorium | 2026-05 | Unanimous; halts new [data center](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/data_center) zoning permits and site development plans while the city drafts rules[6] |
| Bloomington and Normal, IL | Six-month moratoriums | 2026-05 | Normal voted on May 18 and Bloomington on May 26, 2026; Bloomington's covers facilities over 5 MW[6][32][33] |
| Camden County, GA | Six-month moratorium | 2026-05 | First coastal Georgia community to pause development[6] |
| Huron County, MI | Three-year moratorium | 2026-05 | Stateline counted roughly 20 other Michigan communities with pauses at the time; Michigan Public counted at least 52 by late June 2026[6][27] |
| Hill County, TX | Moratorium of up to one year | 2026-05 | Rescinded unanimously about two weeks later, after developer RCM Hill sued in federal court seeking $100 million; replaced with a checklist for developers[34] |
| Monterey Park, CA | Permanent citywide ban (Measure NDC) | 2026-06-02 | Voter-approved, with more than 86% in favor in preliminary results; the first US city to ban data centers at the ballot box[35][36] |
| Seattle, WA | One-year moratorium on new large data centers above 20 MVA (roughly 20 MW) | 2026-06-09 | Mayor Katie Wilson proposed a moratorium on facilities of 10 MW or more after reports that developers had approached the city utility about five projects totaling 369 MW;[7] two developers then withdrew their plans;[78] the council passed it 9-0 with a 20 MVA threshold and an option to extend six months[37] |
| Imperial County, CA | Emergency moratorium on data center projects on county land | 2026-06 | A Superior Court judge ordered the county to stop enforcing it after developer Sebastian Rucci sued; supervisors unanimously re-adopted an emergency moratorium on October 6, 2026[38] |
| Montgomery County, MD | 18-month moratorium on data center permits | 2026-07-28 | Passed 11-0[39] |
| Indianapolis (Marion County), IN | Moratorium on new data centers through December 31, 2027 | 2026-08-19 | Council vote of 23-1 on August 10, then 6-0 by the Metropolitan Development Commission; three approved projects exempt[40] |
| Milwaukee, WI | One-year moratorium on new or expanded data centers | 2026-10-13 | Passed 13-0; ends sooner if permanent rules are adopted[41] |

Developers challenged several pauses in court in 2026, with mixed results: Hill County dropped its moratorium after being sued, a North Carolina judge let a Chatham County project proceed, and Imperial County re-adopted its pause after a court ordered it to stop enforcing the first one.[31][34][38]

Several states pursued statutory restrictions rather than outright zoning bans. New York legislators introduced what advocates called the strongest bill in the country: Senate Bill S.9144, introduced February 6, 2026, by Senator Liz Krueger, with Senator Kristen Gonzalez and Assemblymember Anna Kelles, would have barred permits for data centers capable of using 20 megawatts or more for at least three years while the state completed an environmental impact statement.[8][42] The bill also directed the state Public Service Commission to report on cost impacts on other [electricity](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/ai_energy_consumption) ratepayers and to issue orders ensuring developers, not ordinary New Yorkers, bear those costs.[8] It never left committee.[43] On June 4 the legislature instead passed the narrower Responsible Data Center Development Act, sponsored by Gonzalez, which pairs a one-year moratorium on data center permits with separate utility rate classes for large data centers, host-community benefits and labor standards; the bill record showed no delivery to the governor as of mid-October.[44] On July 14, Governor Kathy Hochul signed Executive Order 62, which her office called the nation's first statewide moratorium on new hyperscale data centers.[45] It pauses discretionary state environmental permits for data centers capable of using 50 MW or more until the state completes a generic environmental impact statement, which Hochul said would take about a year; it does not apply to local permits.[17]

Maine came closest to a statutory ban. Its legislature passed LD 307, sponsored by Representative Melanie Sachs, in April 2026; the bill would have stopped the state from accepting applications for data centers of more than 20 MW until November 1, 2027, and created a council to help towns vet projects.[15][46] Governor Mills vetoed it on April 24, writing that "a moratorium is appropriate" but that she would have signed the bill only with an exemption for a $550 million data center redevelopment at the former Androscoggin Mill in Jay.[46] She signed a separate bill, LD 713, barring data center projects from the state's business development tax incentive programs and said she would create a data center council by executive order.[16] The legislature failed to override the veto on April 29.[47]

In Illinois, Governor JB Pritzker proposed in February a two-year pause on the state's data center tax credit program, effective July 1, 2026, and said he would have state agencies study the facilities' effect on the grid and on consumers.[9] From 2020 to 2024, 27 data centers received more than $983 million from these incentives, according to a state report.[48] A broader regulatory bill, the POWER Act (House Bill 5513), failed to pass before the May 31 spring session deadline, and House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch said a pause on the credits lacked support in the Democratic caucus.[48] On June 5, Pritzker directed the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to pause all new data center incentive agreements from July 1 and asked lawmakers to pass reforms in the fall veto session.[48]

Georgia, despite intense public pressure, illustrated how often these efforts fall short. House Bill 1059 would have barred local governments from issuing permits for data centers from July 1, 2026, through December 31, 2028, and created a 14-member Data Center Impact Assessment Commission, but it never received a vote before the session ended in early April.[49][50] Senate Bill 34, Senator Chuck Hufstetler's measure to bar utilities from charging residential and small-business customers for the costs of serving large data centers, also failed after the Senate adjourned without voting on it.[10][51] Separately, state regulators unanimously approved a plan in July 2025 under which Georgia Power will not seek to raise base rates until 2028 at the earliest,[52] and in July 2026 the Public Service Commission opened an investigation into whether data centers and other large customers are shifting costs to households.[53] Not every locality followed through either: in late May 2026, Cheyenne, Wyoming, opted not to proceed with a proposed one-year moratorium after a lengthy public hearing.[6]

Executive action spread in the second half of the year. In Texas, where the grid operator ERCOT was weighing more than 474 gigawatts of requests to connect, about 90 percent of them from data centers, Abbott ordered on August 3, 2026, that every data center in the interconnection process be audited and said the audit must be completed "before any data center project moves forward."[18] The Public Utility Commission later let ERCOT keep processing large-load requests on a conditional basis while the audit proceeds,[54] and on September 21 Abbott directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to halt all permits sought by data centers until the audit is complete, adding that he would ask the legislature to eliminate financial incentives for data centers.[19] In Oregon, Governor Tina Kotek on September 8 paused data center requests for state-owned land, including easements, leases, land-use permits and sales, through July 1, 2027; the state cannot impose a statewide moratorium on private data center development.[55]

## How big a dent

The most cited dollar figure comes from Data Center Watch, a research group that tracks community opposition. In a report covering roughly May 2024 through March 2025, it found about $64 billion in US data center projects had been blocked or delayed, split between $18 billion blocked outright and $46 billion delayed.[11] The group counted 142 activist organizations across two dozen states and noted the opposition was strikingly cross-partisan: among elected officials who publicly opposed large (50 MW and up) projects, it found 55% were Republicans and 45% Democrats.[11] Virginia, the country's data center capital, was also the epicenter of resistance, and named casualties included a withdrawn $14 billion Tract project in Arizona and delays to multibillion-dollar Virginia campuses.[11] The group's later quarterly reports showed the pace accelerating: it counted at least 75 projects worth approximately $130 billion disrupted by local opposition from January to March 2026, which it called the largest single-quarter concentration of blocked and delayed projects on record, and at least 45 projects worth $68 billion from April to June 2026.[20][56]

These figures should be read with care. They tally announced project values that were stopped or pushed back, not compute that will never get built, and developers often relocate or revive paused projects. Opposition is also not the only brake. In April 2026, Tom's Hardware, citing Bloomberg, reported that close to half of the US data center projects planned to come online that year were expected to be delayed or canceled, mainly because of shortages of electrical equipment such as transformers, switchgear and batteries.[57]

## How it intersects with the AI buildout

The moratorium wave runs directly against the largest infrastructure push in the AI industry's history. [OpenAI](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/openai), [Oracle](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/oracle), and SoftBank's Stargate venture, Meta's [Hyperion](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/meta_hyperion) and [Prometheus](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/meta_prometheus) campuses, and xAI's [Colossus](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/xai_colossus) all depend on siting enormous loads quickly. Data center construction starts hit a record $25.2 billion in January 2026, the highest monthly total since ConstructConnect began tracking them in 2020.[12] Every local pause adds delay, legal cost, and uncertainty to a sector used to fast permitting and generous incentives, and the friction feeds a broader market debate about whether spending has outrun real demand, tracked under the heading of the [AI bubble](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/ai_bubble).

The energy collision is structural. The buildout assumes power can be added at the pace of chip deliveries, but transmission lines and new generation take years, so the near-term cost shows up in capacity auctions and consumer bills. That is why so many of the local fights are, underneath, fights about who pays for the grid.

## Industry and government responses

Industry has pushed back through the Data Center Coalition, a trade group representing [hyperscaler](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/hyperscaler)s and developers. When Maine's legislature passed its moratorium in April 2026, the coalition's Dan Diorio told the Associated Press that the bill signaled "the state is willing to essentially put a blanket ban on you if it decides that you may be politically unfavorable."[15] In Texas, many developers instead pledged to meet state conditions: in August 2026, the governor's office announced that OpenAI, Crusoe and the Data Center Coalition itself, among many others, had committed to comply with Abbott's standards, which call for data centers to pay for their own electric infrastructure, reuse their own water and stop relying on taxpayer-funded incentives.[58][59][60]

The federal government has tried to defuse the cost grievance directly. On March 4, 2026, seven companies ([Amazon](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/amazon), [Google](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/google), Meta, [Microsoft](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/microsoft), OpenAI, Oracle and xAI) accepted the terms of a Ratepayer Protection Pledge, which a presidential proclamation issued the same day declared national policy.[61] They committed to build, bring or buy the new generation their data centers need and to pay for the power-delivery upgrades required to serve them, so that the cost is not passed to households.[61][12] The pledge is voluntary and not legally binding.[62] In July 2026 the administration widened it: 23 state governors and 187 utilities and data center developers had signed by July 24, though critics argued that it was a promise that could not be legally enforced.[63] Congress debated a binding version. On September 16, 2026, the House passed the Ratepayer Protection Act 417-3; it would direct states to consider requiring customers with peak demand of 100 MW or more at a single site to cover the full incremental cost of the grid upgrades needed to serve them.[64][65] A Senate motion to advance it failed 57-43 on September 30, with most Democrats arguing that it did not go far enough.[65]

Federal lawmakers opposed to the buildout went the other way. On March 25, 2026, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced the [Artificial Intelligence](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/artificial_intelligence) Data Center Moratorium Act, which would halt the construction and upgrading of data centers of 20 MW or more until Congress passes laws protecting workers and consumers, preventing harm to the environment, and defending civil rights.[14][13][66] Sanders introduced the bill in the Senate, and Ocasio-Cortez introduced a House companion in June 2026.[67] The Data Center Coalition said a federal mandate to halt construction "risks rationing access to digital services, impairs our global competitiveness, and will have substantial impacts on Americans' daily lives," and the AI Infrastructure Coalition called the proposal a "moratorium on the American economy."[66] Data Center Dynamics judged the bill very unlikely to pass, but its introduction, paired with the Trump administration's separate push to speed permitting, shows how far the issue has traveled from zoning hearings into national politics.[66]

States that had competed hardest for data centers revisited their incentives in 2026, with mixed results.[6] Virginia kept its sales and use tax exemption for data center equipment, but the two-year budget Governor Abigail Spanberger signed on June 30, 2026, added a tax of $0.011 per kilowatt-hour on electricity consumed by data centers from July 1, intended to raise about $600 million a year.[68][69] Georgia's legislature left its sales tax exemption in place after a repeal effort failed in April,[70] and Oklahoma enacted a law in May requiring new data centers and other large loads of 75 MW or more to pay their share of the infrastructure costs they create, a week after Florida enacted a similar ratepayer-protection law.[71]

## Outside the United States

No country had adopted a nationwide moratorium on all new data centers as of October 2026, but several governments and grid operators outside the United States restrict them, and some of those limits predate the 2026 wave.

In Ireland, where data centers are concentrated around Dublin, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities published a new connection policy for large energy users on December 12, 2025, superseding a 2021 direction. Under it, data centers of 10 MVA or more must provide dispatchable on-site or nearby generation or storage that matches their maximum import capacity.[72] Reuters described Dublin's data center freeze as having ended at that point,[35] but the grid operator EirGrid's constrained-area overview of May 20, 2026 still described the greater Dublin region as "fully constrained."[73]

The Netherlands has barred new hyperscale data centers, defined as sites with more than 10 hectares of floor area and a grid connection of 70 MW or more, everywhere except a few locations in the municipalities of Het Hogeland and Hollands Kroon since January 1, 2024.[74] Amsterdam, which imposed a one-year moratorium in 2019, decided in April 2025 to allow no new data centers or expansions in the city until at least 2030.[35]

Singapore announced a moratorium on data center development in 2019 and lifted it in 2022, after which it began releasing capacity through selective calls for applications.[75] On August 21, 2026, its Economic Development Board and Infocomm Media Development Authority provisionally allocated 200 MW of new capacity to four operators in the second such round.[76] In Malaysia, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim told Parliament on February 24, 2026 that the government had "limited approvals for new data centres that are not AI-related" over the previous one to two years because energy and water use had risen significantly.[77]

## See also

- [Data center](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/data_center)
- [AI infrastructure](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/ai_infrastructure)
- [Stargate Project](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/stargate_project)
- [Energy consumption of AI](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/ai_energy_consumption)
- [AI bubble](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/ai_bubble)

## References

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3. Environmental and Energy Study Institute. "Data Centers and Water Consumption." June 25, 2025. https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-consumption
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8. Food & Water Watch. "NY Legislators Introduce Strongest Data Center Moratorium Bill in the Country." February 6, 2026. https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2026/02/06/ny-legislators-introduce-strongest-data-center-moratorium-bill-in-the-country/
9. NBC News. "Gov. JB Pritzker to propose suspending tax incentives for data centers in Illinois." February 18, 2026. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/gov-jb-pritzker-suspending-tax-incentives-data-centers-illinois-rcna259297
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15. Associated Press (via News4JAX). "The data center boom meets resistance in Maine as lawmakers pass a yearlong freeze." April 15, 2026. https://www.news4jax.com/tech/2026/04/15/the-data-center-boom-meets-resistance-in-maine-as-lawmakers-pass-a-yearlong-moratorium/
16. Office of Governor Janet T. Mills. "Governor Mills Announces Decision on LD 307." April 24, 2026. https://www.maine.gov/governor/mills/news/governor-mills-announces-decision-ld-307-2026-04-24
17. Foley & Lardner. "New York Just Pressed Pause on Large Data Center Permitting." August 3, 2026. https://www.foley.com/insights/publications/2026/08/new-york-just-pressed-pause-on-large-data-center-permitting/
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24. Natural Resources Defense Council. "Building Data Centers Without Breaking PJM." September 30, 2025. https://www.nrdc.org/bio/tom-rutigliano/building-data-centers-without-breaking-pjm
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27. Michigan Public. "Michigan communities are putting moratoriums on data centers. The clock is ticking." June 29, 2026. https://www.michiganpublic.org/politics-government/2026-06-29/michigan-communities-are-hitting-pause-on-data-centers-the-clock-is-ticking
28. Route Fifty. "Many localities have tried data center moratoriums, tracker finds." August 28, 2026. https://www.route-fifty.com/artificial-intelligence/2026/08/many-localities-have-tried-data-center-moratoriums-tracker-finds/415696/
29. Tulsa Flyer. "Tulsa will pause new data center construction for 9 months." March 25, 2026. https://tulsaflyer.org/2026/03/25/news/post/tulsa-will-pause-new-data-center-construction-for-9-months-after-council-vote/
30. KGOU. "After pausing data center development, OKC city council adds exemptions." May 21, 2026. https://www.kgou.org/business-and-economy/2026-05-21/after-pausing-data-center-development-okc-city-council-adds-exemptions
31. NC Newsline. "Judge rules Chatham County data center can proceed despite moratorium." September 22, 2026. https://ncnewsline.com/2026/09/22/judge-rules-chatham-county-data-center-can-proceed-despite-moratorium/
32. 25 News Now. "Data center pause approved in Normal, Bloomington likely to follow." May 18, 2026. https://www.25newsnow.com/2026/05/19/data-center-pauses-considered-normal-bloomington/
33. WGLT. "Bloomington approves 6-month moratorium on data centers." May 26, 2026. https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2026-05-26/bloomington-approves-6-month-moratorium-on-data-centers
34. The Texas Tribune. "Texas county rescinds its data center moratorium after $100 million lawsuit from developer." June 5, 2026. https://www.texastribune.org/2026/06/05/texas-hill-county-moratorium-rescinded-data-centers/
35. Reuters (via The Star). "Factbox: Where authorities are restricting data centres amid AI boom." July 14, 2026. https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2026/07/14/factbox-where-authorities-are-restricting-data-centres-amid-ai-boom
36. Spectrum News 1. "SGV communities react to Monterey Park AI data center vote." June 8, 2026. https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la/politics/2026/06/07/monterey-park-ai-data-centers-vote-inspires-san-gabriel-valley
37. The Seattle Times (via The Spokesman-Review). "Seattle passes moratorium on new data centers amid national backlash." June 10, 2026. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/jun/10/seattle-passes-moratorium-on-new-data-centers-amid/
38. KPBS. "Two Imperial County supervisors press for special election on data centers." October 8, 2026. https://www.kpbs.org/news/environment/2026/10/08/two-imperial-county-supervisors-press-for-special-election-on-data-centers
39. MyMCMedia. "Montgomery County pauses new data centers for 18 months." July 28, 2026. https://www.mymcmedia.org/montgomery-county-pauses-new-data-centers-for-18-months/
40. WFYI. "New data centers temporarily banned in Marion County." August 19, 2026. https://www.wfyi.org/wfyi-news/2026-08-19/new-data-centers-temporarily-banned-in-marion-county
41. Urban Milwaukee. "Council Unanimously Approves Data Center Moratorium." October 13, 2026. https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2026/10/13/council-unanimously-approves-data-center-moratorium/
42. DLA Piper. "New York proposes moratorium on data center permits." February 9, 2026. https://www.dlapiper.com/en-us/insights/publications/2026/02/new-york-proposes-moratorium-on-data-center-permits
43. New York State Senate. "Senate Bill S9144: Imposes a moratorium on data center permit issuance; and relates to data center rate impacts." 2026. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S9144
44. New York State Senate. "Senate Bill S10642: Enacts the responsible data center development act." 2026. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S10642
45. Office of Governor Kathy Hochul. "First Statewide Moratorium on New Hyperscale Data Centers Launched by Governor Kathy Hochul." July 14, 2026. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/first-statewide-moratorium-new-hyperscale-data-centers-launched-governor-kathy-hochul
46. Data Center Dynamics. "Maine Governor vetoes bill proposing state-wide data center moratorium." April 27, 2026. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/maine-governor-vetoes-bill-proposing-state-wide-data-center-moratorium/
47. WABI (WMTW). "Maine Legislature does not override Gov. Mills' veto of data center moratorium." April 29, 2026. https://www.wabi.tv/2026/04/29/maine-legislature-does-not-override-gov-mills-veto-data-center-moratorium/
48. Capitol News Illinois. "Gov. JB Pritzker suspends tax breaks for data centers, urges more discussion." June 5, 2026. https://capitolnewsillinois.com/news/gov-jb-pritzker-to-suspend-tax-breaks-for-data-centers-urging-more-discussion/
49. Georgia General Assembly. "House Bill 1059: Data Center Impact Assessment and Development Moratorium Act of 2026." 2026. https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/legislation/document/20252026/240599
50. BillTrack50. "GA HB1059: Data Center Impact Assessment and Development Moratorium Act of 2026." 2026. https://www.billtrack50.com/billdetail/1955985/
51. Atlanta News First. "Georgia Senate skips vote on bill to block data center costs from hitting power bills." February 26, 2026. https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2026/02/27/georgia-senate-skips-vote-bill-block-data-center-costs-hitting-power-bills/
52. Capitol Beat (via Rough Draft Atlanta). "Public Service Commission approves Georgia Power rate freeze." July 1, 2025. https://roughdraftatlanta.com/2025/07/01/georgia-power-rate-freeze-approval/
53. Georgia Recorder (via Rough Draft Atlanta). "Georgia utility regulators greenlight probe into data center costs." July 8, 2026. https://roughdraftatlanta.com/2026/07/08/georgia-power-data-center-costs/
54. Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. "Texas Data Center Interconnections Face New Audit Gate After Governor Abbott Directive (UPDATE)." August 24, 2026. https://www.pillsburylaw.com/en/news-and-insights/texas-data-center-interconnections-audit-gate-governor-abbott-directive-update.html
55. KPTV. "Oregon governor pauses state land requests for data centers." September 8, 2026. https://www.kptv.com/2026/09/08/oregon-governor-pauses-state-land-requests-data-centers/
56. Data Center Watch. "Q2 2026: Data Center Watch Report." 2026. https://www.datacenterwatch.org/q2-2026
57. Tom's Hardware. "Half of planned US data center builds have been delayed or canceled, growth limited by shortages of power infrastructure and parts from China." April 3, 2026. https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/half-of-planned-us-data-center-builds-have-been-delayed-or-canceled-growth-limited-by-shortages-of-power-infrastructure-and-parts-from-china-the-ai-build-out-flips-the-breakers
58. Office of the Texas Governor. "Governor Abbott Announces Open AI Commits To Comply With His Data Center Standards." August 10, 2026. https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-announces-open-ai-commits-to-comply-with-his-data-center-standards-8-10
59. Office of the Texas Governor. "Governor Abbott Announces Prologis, Ecolab And Crusoe Commit To Comply With His Data Center Standards." August 17, 2026. https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-announces-prologis-ecolab-and-crusoe-commit-to-comply-with-his-data-center-standards
60. Office of the Texas Governor. "Governor Abbott Announces Data Center Coalition Commits To Comply With His Data Center Standards." August 18, 2026. https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-announces-data-center-coalition-commits-to-comply-with-his-data-center-standards
61. Federal Register. "Proclamation 11014: Ratepayer Protection Pledge." Signed March 4, 2026; published March 9, 2026. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/03/09/2026-04645/ratepayer-protection-pledge
62. The Decoder. "Tech giants make non-binding White House pledge to cover AI data center energy costs." March 5, 2026. https://the-decoder.com/tech-giants-make-non-binding-white-house-pledge-to-cover-ai-data-center-energy-costs/
63. Tom's Hardware. "President Trump expands AI data center 'ratepayer protection pledge' to include state governors and utility companies." July 24, 2026. https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/policy/president-trump-expands-ai-data-center-ratepayer-protection-pledge-to-include-state-governors-and-utility-companies-white-house-claims-this-will-make-electricity-more-affordable
64. Office of the Clerk, US House of Representatives. "Roll Call 312: H.R. 9340, Ratepayer Protection Act." September 16, 2026. https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2026312
65. Valley News Live. "Senate Democrats block bill to shield ratepayers from data center costs in 57-43 vote." September 30, 2026. https://www.valleynewslive.com/2026/09/30/senate-democrats-block-bill-shield-ratepayers-data-center-costs-57-43-vote/
66. Data Center Dynamics. "US Senators Bernie Sanders and AOC introduce bill for nationwide ban on data centers." March 25, 2026. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/us-bernie-senators-sanders-and-aoc-introduce-bill-for-nationwide-ban-on-data-centers/
67. Broadband Breakfast. "Ocasio-Cortez Introduces AI Data Center Moratorium Act." June 26, 2026. https://broadbandbreakfast.com/ocasio-cortez-introduces-ai-data-center-moratorium-act/
68. BDO. "Virginia Enacts Unprecedented Electricity Consumption Tax on Data Centers." July 6, 2026. https://www.bdo.com/insights/tax/virginia-enacts-unprecedented-electricity-consumption-tax-on-data-centers
69. Broadband Breakfast. "Virginia Lawmakers Strike Data Center Tax Deal After Budget Standoff." June 24, 2026. https://broadbandbreakfast.com/virginia-lawmakers-strike-data-center-tax-deal-after-budget-standoff/
70. Bloomberg Law. "Data Center Break Survives Georgia Income, Property Tax Push." April 3, 2026. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/artificial-intelligence/data-center-break-survives-georgia-income-property-tax-push
71. Data Center Dynamics. "Oklahoma enacts bill to shield ratepayers from cost increases associated with data center buildout." May 15, 2026. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/oklahoma-enacts-bill-to-shield-ratepayers-from-cost-increases-associated-with-data-center-buildout/
72. Commission for Regulation of Utilities. "Large Energy Users Connection Policy Decision Paper (CRU/2025236)." December 12, 2025. https://cruie-live-96ca64acab2247eca8a850a7e54b-5b34f62.divio-media.com/documents/CRU2025236_Large_Energy_User_connection_policy_decision_paper.pdf
73. EirGrid. "Data Centre Constrained Area Overview." May 20, 2026. https://www.eirgrid.ie/sites/default/files/publications/Data-Centre-Constrained-Area-Overview-May-2026.pdf
74. Staatsblad van het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden. "Staatsblad 2023, 492 (hyperscale data centre siting rules, in force January 1, 2024)." December 2023. https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/stb-2023-492.html
75. Linklaters. "Powering Up to Go Green: Singapore announces at least 300 megawatts increase in data centre capacity with a focus on green energy." June 4, 2024. https://techinsights.linklaters.com/post/102j94y/powering-up-to-go-green-singapore-announces-at-least-300-megawatts-increase-in-d
76. Singapore Economic Development Board. "Four data centre proposals selected as part of second data centre call for application (DC-CFA2)." August 21, 2026. https://www.edb.gov.sg/en/news-and-insights/four-data-centre-proposals-selected-as-part-of-second-data-centre
77. New Straits Times. "PM: Govt restricts non-AI data centre approvals over energy, water concerns." February 24, 2026. https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2026/02/1384108/updated-pm-govt-restricts-non-ai-data-centre-approvals-over-energy
78. The Seattle Times (via The Spokesman-Review). "2 data center developers pull Seattle plans amid opposition, talk of ban." May 1, 2026. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/may/01/2-data-center-developers-pull-seattle-plans-amid-o/