00:00Most places pass a moratorium. Study the problem for a year. And hope the developers go somewhere else in the
00:07meantime. One Kentucky County skipped all of that. No developer had even applied, and they banned data centers permanently anyway.
00:17And they were not alone this week.
00:19A judge threw out a million-square-foot approval. A township killed a 20-building campus. Across the country, the
00:27answer is starting to arrive before the question does.
00:32We start in Woodford County, Kentucky, in the heart of Thoroughbred Horse Country, where the fiscal court has done something
00:40almost no local government in America has done.
00:43It did not pass a moratorium. It passed a permanent ban. The ordinance outlaws data centers, landfills, and the large
00:53battery storage systems that usually come paired with hyperscale campuses.
00:58And it passed unanimously. Judge Executive James Kaye told the court the county is a tight-knit community with a
01:06finite, irreplaceable amount of land, and that its rolling pastures and historic farms are not scenic views.
01:14They are the backbone of the economy. Here is the backbone of the economy. Here is the part that stands
01:19out. No developer had pitched anything.
01:22Kaye says they are looking at everywhere. And the county chose not to wait and not to write regulations someone
01:29could find a loophole in.
01:32Where communities cannot ban a project outright. They are increasingly winning in court instead.
01:38In Imperial County, California, Superior Court Judge L. Brooks Anderholt has halted development of a nearly 1 million square foot
01:48data center complex.
01:50Ruling that county officials violated the California Environmental Quality Act by approving it.
01:57Without any environmental review at all, the judge found the county prejudicially abused its discretion when it approved a lot
02:05merger.
02:05Without analyzing the impacts, the lawsuits came from the city of Imperial and the Sierra Club.
02:13Both arguing the facility would strain water, power, and air quality, and the design gave them plenty to point at
02:22natural gas generators, a battery storage system, and a new substation, all planned next door to the Victoria Ranch neighborhood.
02:31Developer, developer Sebastian Rucci has vowed to appeal, citing $12 million a year in tax revenue.
02:39In northeastern Pennsylvania, a group of neighbors just beat a 20-building data center campus.
02:47Clinton Township supervisors voted unanimously to reject Lindy Corporation's proposal after nearly
02:54six months of review, and the reason was technical rather than political, a township engineer concluded the plan was simply
03:03not environmentally sound.
03:05Supervisor Ken Coles added that the application was incomplete, and that the township was under no obligation to keep granting
03:13extensions.
03:14Residents organized under the banner Save Browndale Mountain Group, and they packed the room to celebrate.
03:21Their leaders were careful, though, to say the fight may not be over.
03:26Under the process, attorneys will meet with Lindy Corporation within 15 days to walk through the deficiencies in
03:34the application, which leaves the door open for a revised submission.
03:40For now, 20 buildings are off the table.
03:44Not every pause does what residents think it does.
03:47And Lake County, Illinois is the clearest example yet.
03:51The county board approved an eight-month moratorium on data center development in unincorporated
03:57areas running through May of 2027, so staff can study infrastructure, environmental and community
04:07impacts.
04:08More than 1,200 public comments and hundreds of residents shape that decision.
04:12Board Chair Sandy Hart called it a critical step toward responsible regulation, and officials
04:20acknowledged the county currently has no definition of a data center anywhere in its Unified Development
04:27Ordinance.
04:28Here is the catch.
04:29The moratorium does not apply to projects already approved by municipalities.
04:34That includes Grayslake's $18 billion T5 campus, which just received its first building permit
04:42for an 800,000-square-foot facility.
04:45The biggest project in the county is the one the Paws cannot touch.
04:51Oregon just produced the most quietly devastating argument against data centers anyone has made.
04:57This year, and it came out of a zoning file, Eugene City officials rejected a buyer's proposal to build
05:05a data center at the former Hinnick's plant.
05:08Ruling the project is flatly prohibited under the site's campus employment zoning.
05:14The city's reasoning was that data centers are, in its words, almost self-operating,
05:20and therefore do not meet the employment-focused intent of the zone, no matter how much capital
05:26goes into the building.
05:29The buyer's attorney argued they qualify as information technology services.
05:34That did not carry the day.
05:36The decision can be appealed to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals,
05:40which could uphold it, remand it, or overturn it.
05:45Meanwhile, Governor Tina Kotec has paused data center projects on state-owned land until 2027.
05:54In Florida, the objection is not about jobs.
05:58It is about the aquifer underneath everyone's feet.
06:02Levy County commissioners unanimously approved a three-year moratorium on new data centers and
06:08other large-scale, power-intensive facilities in unincorporated areas.
06:13Ordinance 2026-05 halts applications, permits and rezonings until September 30th of 2027,
06:23giving staff time to study impacts on water, electricity, infrastructure and the environment.
06:30Officials were blunt that the county has no zoning category and no policy addressing data centers
06:36at all, despite the fact that these facilities need continuous power, cooling, wastewater systems
06:45and backup generators.
06:46The ordinance specifically directs staff to examine reliance on the Floridan aquifer.
06:53Along with water supply, drought conditions and conservation, telecom infrastructure,
06:59public safety facilities and previously approved projects are exempt.
07:04Recommendations are due by August of 2027.
07:09For all of that resistance, construction is still moving, and in one Pennsylvania town,
07:15it is moving on to the bones of the old energy economy.
07:19Aligned data centers broke ground on Project Phoenix, a 2-gigawatt campus in Shippingport,
07:26Pennsylvania, spanning three facilities and anchoring an estimated $10 billion in regional
07:33economic investment.
07:35The site is the Shippingport Industrial Park, former home of the Bruce Mansfield Power Plant,
07:42a coal station that first energy launched in 1976 and shut down in 2019.
07:48What makes this one different is the power arrangement.
07:52Project Phoenix will run on its own dedicated on-site generation rather than pulling from the
07:57local grid.
07:59And once complete it is expected to push excess capacity back onto PJM.
08:05Aligned projects, 3,000 construction jobs and 640 permanent operations.
08:12Careers.
08:13And the money behind these projects is where the argument gets hardest in Ferguson, Missouri.
08:21The City Council has revived a plan to redevelop the former Emerson Electric Headquarters on
08:26West Florissant Avenue into a large-scale data center.
08:31Months after the proposal stalled on a split vote in May, the updated version keeps the tax
08:38incentives but adds a $7.5 million developer commitment to the Ferguson Neighborhood Improvement
08:45Program over 10 years.
08:47The structure involves issuing $1 billion in industrial revenue bonds along with long-term
08:53tax abatements.
08:55Dozens of residents packed City Hall Wednesday to object, arguing the incentives are far too
09:01generous for what the city gets back.
09:04Supporters counter that redeveloping a vacant corporate campus brings real economic benefit
09:10to a city that needs it.
09:12A second reading is scheduled in two weeks.
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