A 1,700-megawatt gas plant in Saline Township and a project Tenaska now calls an "Energy Hub" Tenaska's project page for its newly announced 1,700-megawatt natural gas plant in Saline Township, Jefferson County, Ohio, contains a project-timeline …
In a meeting room at the Cadiz Puskarich Library on April 14, 2026, Bowerston Village Administrator Bart Busby asked the Harrison County Community Improvement Corporation a simple question: a data-center company had reached out about siting a …
The Louisiana Legislature is moving on a bill that would prohibit anyone from suing oil and gas companies for damages, injuries, or deaths attributed to pollution-driven climate change. House Bill 804, sponsored by Rep. Brett Geymann (R-Lake …
Microsoft has revealed plans for a second data-center campus on 1,200 acres of farmland directly adjacent to the data center it has already begun building in LaPorte, Indiana. The expansion hinges on the LaPorte city council approving the …
The single largest data-center rezoning loss in Virginia history is now final at the local level. On April 7, 2026, the Prince William County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution directing counsel not to appeal in the Prince William Digital …
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled unanimously that submetering companies — the third-party middlemen who buy electricity wholesale from the utility and resell it to apartment and mobile-home tenants — must be regulated under Ohio's public-utility …
Jackson-based Gabriel Prado's PraCon Global Investment Group, acting through affiliate Prado AI Industrial, has filed a Request for Declaratory Opinion with the Mississippi Public Service Commission asking the commission to confirm that private …
Two Maine energy stories are converging this week, and both are worth understanding together. LD 307 — the statewide data-center moratorium — passed both chambers of the Maine Legislature on April 14 without Gov. Janet Mills' requested carveout for …
Ravenna City Council voted unanimously on April 20 to bar data-center construction across the city for twelve months while it drafts zoning rules. The ordinance was written to also cover "server farms" and "cryptocurrency mining facilities" so the …
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is reviewing air-quality permit applications for 45 diesel-fired backup generators at the Cloverleaf/Vantage $15 billion data center under construction in Port Washington. Per the DNR application …
A new longitudinal analysis from The Data Center, a New Orleans-based research nonprofit, delivers the single most useful empirical rebuttal in circulation to the "transformative-investment-equals-transformative-jobs" pitch that data-center and …
A town hall meeting convenes at Buffalo Town Hall tonight at 6:30 PM to coordinate opposition to Google's proposed 1,700-acre data center in Putnam County. The site is roughly 2.7 square miles — about twice the area of New York City's Central Park …
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed SB 1134 / HB 1217 on April 22 at a Jacksonville ceremony. The bill's headline provisions are anti-DEI measures — prohibiting certain diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at state and local levels — but the energy …
The three-member Public Service Commission of Wisconsin convenes at 10:30 AM today at the Hill Farms State Office Building in Madison to rule on We Energies' proposed Very Large Customer (VLC) tariff — a special electric rate structure designed …
Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection has proposed a consent decree that would allow the commonwealth's two largest coal-fired power plants — the Keystone Generating Station in Armstrong County and the Conemaugh Generating Station in …
In a closely watched veto-session vote Wednesday, the Virginia General Assembly split the difference on Gov. Abigail Spanberger's amendments to SB 253 and HB 1393 — the two major data-center cost-shift bills passed earlier this year. The outcome is …
A new Powerlines study reported Wednesday by Ohio Capital Journal finds that the country's 51 investor-owned utilities plan to spend $1.4 trillion on capital projects through 2030 — and have already filed $31 billion in rate-increase requests in …
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation — the federal-designated body responsible for keeping the U.S. bulk power system reliable — will issue a new alert in May escalating its previous warnings about data center load behavior. The short …
The North Carolina General Assembly returns to Raleigh today for its 2026 short session, and one of the few measures with visible bipartisan momentum is a proposal from Gov. Josh Stein (D) to modify or repeal the state's sales tax exemptions on data …
Amwell Township in Washington County, Pennsylvania will hold a public hearing on May 14, 2026, at 4:00 p.m. on a proposed zoning amendment that would, for the first time, define "data center" in township code and set out where such facilities could …
The Weaverville Town Council, in the Asheville metropolitan area, will hold a public hearing on Monday, April 27, 2026, at 6:00 p.m. on a proposed zoning text amendment "related to crypto mining, data centers." The notice states that "action may be …
Residents near the Vantage II data center in Sterling, Virginia are pressing Vantage Data Centers and the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors over round-the-clock noise and air-quality impacts from eight natural-gas turbines running as a microgrid …
Utah State Rep. Doug Fiefia — a former Google employee running for state senate — has seen his signature AI bill blocked with help from the Trump White House. Fiefia's proposal would have required AI companies to include child-safety protocols for …
At its annual conference in Hershey Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Association of Township Supervisors (PSATS) convened a panel specifically to help township officials build data-center zoning ordinances before a developer proposal arrives. That's the …
AEP Ohio announced Tuesday it plans to build a new electric substation on property Google already owns for a data center campus in Sugar Creek Township, Allen County, and to construct four miles of 345-kilovolt transmission lines connecting that …
NPR published a sweeping analysis arguing that data center opposition has crossed the threshold from local land-use dispute to viable midterm campaign issue. The evidence is mounting fast. In Festus, Missouri, voters ousted all four incumbent …
AEP Ohio filed notice this week with the Ohio Power Siting Board for a new 345-kilovolt substation and a cluster of transmission lines in Licking County, serving a large customer development near New Albany. The filing is in two parts: - Case No …
Two Portage County cities voted within a week of each other to pause new data center applications while they write zoning they can actually defend. Streetsboro City Council approved a six-month moratorium last Tuesday. Kent City Council followed …
The International Energy Agency reported that data centers accounted for roughly half of all electricity demand growth in the United States in 2025 — far surpassing the rise in residential, industrial, and transportation sectors combined. U.S …
The most complete single piece of data center reporting filed anywhere this week was Patrick Anderson's front-of-the-paper story in the Providence Journal on the proposed Hanton City campus — a roughly 500-acre site in Smithfield, Rhode Island that …
While Ohio communities are pausing to write zoning they don't yet have, East Manchester Township in York County, Pennsylvania took the opposite path and got somewhere. The township supervisors approved a data center ordinance last Tuesday that took …
More than 30 residents attended a Lebanon County commissioners' workshop to voice objections to a proposed $1.7 billion, 99-acre data center in South Annville Township. The project would include five buildings and employ an estimated 50 to 100 …
Update: This story builds on our April 15 coverage of Louisiana's regulatory fast-tracking. The numbers have gotten bigger. Louisiana Public Service Commission members voted 4-1 to allow Entergy Louisiana to bypass a formal administrative law judge …
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission announced it will take action in June on proposed reforms for connecting data centers and other large loads to the transmission grid, missing the Department of Energy's original April 30 deadline. The delay …
A U.S. Department of Energy-funded study by Purdue University found that Indiana counties restricting wind and solar development lose at minimum $800 million per year in economic activity and approximately 9,000 jobs, primarily in rural …
Ohio's data center debate has intensified on multiple fronts. A group is working to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to ban all new large data centers, needing roughly 414,000 valid signatures by mid-2026. Meanwhile, the $33 …
American Rivers has named the Potomac River — the primary drinking water source for the Washington, D.C. metro area — the nation's most endangered river. The designation cites a January sewage pipe failure and the ongoing expansion of more than 300 …
Florida Power & Light's $6.9 billion, four-year rate increase is being appealed to the Florida Supreme Court by a coalition including the Florida Office of Public Counsel and advocacy groups, who call it the largest utility rate hike in U.S …
All eight candidates in Wisconsin's governor's race have staked out positions on data centers, with two Democrats calling for outright construction pauses and the rest proposing strict new regulations. A recent statewide poll found nearly 70% of …
In DeForest, Wisconsin, residents organized as "No Data Centers in DeForest" after learning that village staff had been strategizing with QTS representatives and Alliant Energy since March 2025 — months before the October public announcement. The …
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain joined Senator Bernie Sanders and half a dozen labor leaders — including heads of the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association, and National Nurses United — at a Washington …
The West Virginia Democratic Party called on Chief Judge Dan Greear of the state's Intermediate Court of Appeals to recuse himself from cases involving data center developments in which House Speaker Roger Hanshaw serves as attorney. Hanshaw is …
The Illinois House Executive Committee heard testimony that ComEd projects data center proposals in its territory could more than double the utility's system peak by 2040 — a demand level "it took us 120 years to achieve," ComEd Director of Economic …
More than 600 people — most living within one mile of the proposed site — attended a Gaines Township planning commission hearing on Microsoft's request to rezone land from residential to light industrial for an AI data center. The hours-long public …
The Ypsilanti Township Board of Trustees approved a resolution requesting the Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority place a water moratorium on hyperscale and mid-size data centers. The move directly targets the University of Michigan's planned …
Attorney General Dana Nessel filed a claim of appeal in the Michigan Court of Appeals challenging the Michigan Public Service Commission's December 2025 "conditional approval" of two special contracts between DTE Energy and Green Chile Ventures for …
Governor Josh Shapiro announced that PECO — Pennsylvania's largest utility, serving 1.7 million customers in southeastern Pennsylvania — will withdraw its combined electric and natural gas rate case before the Pennsylvania PUC. The request would …
The Stokes County Board of Commissioners voted to formally void its January 2026 rezoning decision and text amendment that would have cleared the way for "Project Delta," a hyperscale data center complex along the Dan River. The county acknowledged …
Protests targeting AI companies and data centers are escalating into violence. An arson attack on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's home led to an attempted murder charge. In Indianapolis, a legislator's home was hit by gunfire with a "No Data Centers" note …
The International Energy Agency's "Key Questions on Energy and AI" report finds data center electricity consumption rose 17% in 2025 — far outpacing global electricity demand growth of 3%. Capital expenditure by five major tech companies exceeded …
A Data & Society policy brief identified several Pennsylvania bills that would reduce municipal authority over data center siting: HB 502 (part of Gov. Josh Shapiro's "Lightning Plan," creating a statewide board for large energy project approvals) …
At an Axios Live event, bipartisan lawmakers and the Trump administration's National Energy Dominance Council agreed that data center operators — not residential ratepayers — should bear the cost of their electricity demand. "The people who need the …
The NAACP, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice, filed a federal lawsuit against xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech for operating 27 unpermitted gas turbines in Southaven, Mississippi, to power its Colossus 2 data …
A Washington Post-Schar School poll of 1,101 registered Virginia voters found that comfort with new data center construction in their community dropped from 69% in 2023 to 35% today — approaching the 33% comfort level Americans express toward …
The Louisiana Public Service Commission voted to adopt a fast-track schedule for Entergy Louisiana's application to build seven new gas-fired power plants for Meta's Hyperion data center in Richland Parish. These would join three gas plants already …
The Pennsylvania House passed HB2151, a bill backed by Gov. Josh Shapiro that would provide municipalities with a model data center zoning ordinance intended to speed development. Over 20 hyperscale data centers have been proposed in Pennsylvania …
Xcel Energy submitted a proposal to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission for a large-load tariff — a rate structure requiring large electricity users like data centers to pay rates and infrastructure costs proportional to their demand, rather …
Putnam County residents used their first public opportunity to voice concerns about a Google data center planned for 1,700 acres near Buffalo, West Virginia. Discussion ran for over an hour at the county commission meeting. Residents raised concerns …
Microsoft announced plans to purchase approximately 3,200 acres south of Cheyenne, tripling its physical footprint in the area. The company has been operating data centers there since 2012 and was the No. 1 city taxpayer and No. 2 county taxpayer in …
Maine's legislature passed a first-in-the-nation statewide ban on new data centers drawing more than 20 megawatts of power — enough to power roughly 15,000 homes — effective until fall 2027. The bill establishes a study mechanism to evaluate data …
Texas will forgo at least $3.1 billion in sales tax revenue over the next two years from its data center tax exemption, according to the state comptroller's office. The exemption cost $5–30 million per year from 2014 to 2022. By 2023 it hit $150 …
The NAACP filed a federal lawsuit against xAI for operating 27 unpermitted gas turbines in Southaven, Mississippi, to power its Colossus 2 data center. The turbines could emit more than 1,700 tons of nitrogen oxides per year, potentially making the …
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