00:00New York put a moratorium on large data centers this summer.
00:04The project 30 miles north of Manhattan needs 45 megawatts,
00:09five short of the line where that ban begins.
00:12And that gap is where this entire fight now lives.
00:17We begin 30 miles north of New York City, in Rockland County,
00:22where a data center is moving forward despite a statewide moratorium.
00:26Governor Kathy Hochul announced that moratorium last month to considerable fanfare.
00:32But the executive order applies only to facilities requiring 50 megawatts or more.
00:39Databank's Orangeburg project would use 45 if its planned expansion goes through.
00:45Five megawatts under the line.
00:48Residents protested outside Orangetown Town Hall on Tuesday.
00:52Dave Rosen, co-founder of the Bi-State Data Center Crisis Coalition,
00:57said the biggest issue is that these facilities sit next to residential areas and,
01:03most importantly, next to Lake Topan.
01:06This week the town passed its own moratorium,
01:09and then exempted the databank project because it is already in the approval process.
01:15Residents were furious.
01:17This databank, for its part, says it takes no water out of the reservoir at all.
01:24That same frustration carried protesters up the steps of the Utah State Capitol.
01:30Their target is Stratus,
01:32a proposed data center development in Box Elder County spanning roughly 40,000 acres and
01:38powered by its own natural gas plant.
01:41The projected draw is around 9 gigawatts.
01:44That is close to double what the entire state of Utah consumes today.
01:50The site sits inside the Great Salt Lake Basin,
01:53a watershed already in ecological crisis after decades of diversion.
01:58And opponents argue that basin does not have an extra drop to give.
02:03The project is backed by investor Kevin O'Leary.
02:06Demonstrators have delivered a petition carrying more than 7,000 signatures,
02:11demanding independent review and what they call a genuine public comment period,
02:17while a separate referendum group works to put the project's fate directly in front of county voters.
02:25That kind of pressure is now translating directly into local law.
02:30In Elkhart, Indiana, the city council voted 9 to nothing at a special meeting to impose a moratorium on both
02:38data
02:38centers and battery energy storage facilities.
02:42The pause runs until December of 2027.
02:46And for that entire period, the city will not accept applications for either type of project.
02:52What makes this one notable is who supported it.
02:56Mayor Rod Roberson stood with the council rather than against it,
03:00saying he stands right with them,
03:02and that this is not a complete rejection of data centers.
03:06His framing was that the city needs time to understand what these facilities actually mean for the
03:12community before it begins approving them.
03:21Georgia delivered a similar answer and delivered it in silence.
03:26The Coetta County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to deny the rezoning application for the
03:32data center known as Project Oak.
03:36Developers had already scaled their request down to a 255-acre parcel,
03:41apparently hoping a smaller footprint would land better with the board.
03:46It did not.
03:47Commissioners listened to the developers.
03:50Listened to residents who had organized themselves under the banner stop Project Oak.
03:55And then, without any discussion at all among themselves,
04:00voted the petition down.
04:02After the vote, the developers said they would take resident feedback into account
04:07before deciding what comes next.
04:09Under the county's own zoning procedure,
04:12they will have to wait a full six months before they are even permitted to reapply.
04:18And the reason so many of these local fights keep landing on cost brings us to Virginia,
04:25where regulators just moved the bill.
04:27The State Corporation Commission ordered Dominion Energy to develop a tariff that directly assigns
04:33transmission costs to the large customers who make that infrastructure necessary in the first place.
04:40In practice, that means a mandatory contribution in aid of construction,
04:46applied to direct connect facilities,
04:49covering both the substations and the transmission lines that link them to the grid.
04:54The case grew out of Dominion's request to recover roughly $1.5 billion through
05:00its Rider T1 charge.
05:03The commission approved an amended allocation factor and cut the proposed monthly increase for a
05:09typical residential customer from $2.90 down to $0.94.
05:19The pressure on the grid is only half the story.
05:23Water tells the other half.
05:25And in New York's Finger Lakes it is being told on a shoreline.
05:30Opponents of a proposed 300-megawatt artificial intelligence data center on Cayuga Lake
05:36are gathering at Salt Point Natural Area in Lansing,
05:40pressing Governor Hochul to sign legislation restricting large-scale development.
05:46The project belongs to Tara Wolf and the coalition fighting it.
05:51FLX Strong argues it would carry environmental, quality of life,
05:56and economic consequences across the entire watershed.
06:00The gathering is part of a statewide tour organized by State Senator Kristen Gonzalez and the group
06:07Food and Water Watch
06:09Moving from town to town
06:11Building pressure on a bill the governor still has not committed to signing
06:17State legislators are taking notice
06:20And in New Jersey one of them just got a signature
06:23Governor Mikey Sherrill signed legislation requiring data centers to report their water and energy
06:30Used to state regulators every six months
06:34Operators will have to disclose total energy consumption
06:37The energy used for cooling and for information technology equipment
06:42Peak water use per day
06:44Where that water comes from
06:46And what backup power supplies they hold
06:49The Board of Public Utilities then has 30 days to publish that information on its website
06:55And to keep it updated
06:57This matters because data center operators have generally treated those numbers as trade secrets
07:04Sherrill signed the bill at the South Brunswick Public Library
07:08And her line was about as direct as it gets
07:11She will not let these developers operate in the shadows
07:16And the money behind all of this has not slowed down for a single moment
07:22JPMorgan Chase has begun early outreach to lenders on a $5 billion debt package to fund an
07:28Artificial Intelligence Data Center build out for Volta Infra Holdings
07:33If that name means nothing to you
07:36That is very much the point
07:38Volta is a new artificial intelligence cloud company that closed $300 million in
07:44Venture funding earlier this month
07:47A round that valued the whole business at $2.4 billion
07:52Now a major bank is assembling debt worth more than twice that valuation
07:57Just to build the physical footprint
08:00Communities are voting on moratoriums measured in acres and megawatts
08:05And capital is moving in billions
08:07On a timeline that answers to no city council
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