ECON Committee recommends 18-month moratorium after consideration of two-year moratorium introduced by Jawando and Mink in May. Full Council vote expected on Tuesday, July 28.
The Montgomery County Council’s Economic Development (ECON) Committee today voted unanimously to recommend an 18-month moratorium on building permits for data centers, sending Expedited Bill 19-26, as amended, to the full Council for final action. The compromise bill will replace a six-month pause enacted by Executive Order with an 18-month pause, effective upon the bill’s signing. It moves the County toward the longer moratorium that Councilmember Will Jawando (At-Large) and Councilmember Kristin Mink (District 5) proposed this spring, and it answers months of advocacy by residents across the County.
On May 12, Councilmember Jawando, joined by Councilmember Mink, introduced Expedited Bill 24-26, a two-year moratorium on building permits for data centers, followed by a letter to County Executive Marc Elrich requesting an immediate pause. County Executive Elrich then paused the County’s acceptance and processing of permit applications for new data centers for six months, including the hyperscale data center project proposed in Dickerson. Expedited Bill 19-26, introduced by Councilmember Evan Glass on May 5, had proposed a six-month legislative moratorium which exempted that data center project.
Today the committee adopted amendments to Councilmember Glass’s bill cosponsored by a Council majority to extend the moratorium to 18 months and removed the exemption that would have allowed the Dickerson project to continue moving forward.
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“This moratorium is happening because our residents organized, showed up and refused to be ignored,” said Councilmember Jawando. “When Councilmember Mink and I introduced a two-year moratorium in May, we said six months was not enough time to get this right. Today the committee agreed, and I am thrilled to see consensus around a much longer pause. I want to thank Councilmember Glass for his partnership, Council Vice President Marilyn Balcombe and my colleagues for their leadership, County Executive Elrich for standing with our residents, and most of all the advocates who brought us to this day.”
“Community members have been clear,” said Councilmember Mink. “They expect us to ensure that data centers do not move forward here unless and until clear guardrails fully protect the County from harmful impacts to the environment, our residents’ quality of life, and utility bills that are already too high – which is what we’re seeing wreak havoc in communities across the country. That’s why I joined Councilmember Jawando to propose a two-year moratorium, and I’m glad that we are coming together as a Council to meet the moment.”
The purpose of the moratorium is to provide time to establish the criteria under which data centers may be built in Montgomery County. During the pause, Councilmember Jawando will press for standards that include:
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Clean energy requirements, not just assurances: real renewable power on the grid, including for backup generators. “Not offsets, not credits, not promises.”
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Watershed protections, including closed-loop cooling requirements before any facility may draw from the Potomac watershed.
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Noise standards that protect communities from industrial noise that carries for over a mile, with documented health impacts.
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Siting rules, including whether increased setback requirements are needed.
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Measurement of the heat and health impacts of data centers, with appropriate safeguards.
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Community Benefit Agreements, contracts between data center developers and the community so that local residents receive tangible benefits in exchange for hosting a facility.
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Emergency services preparedness for data centers and any challenges they present.
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Protection for working families from rising utility bills. Residents should never be asked to subsidize billion-dollar tech companies.
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Taxing authority from the state and implementation by the County to ensure data centers pay their fair share.
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Union labor requirements, so that data centers are built by union hands, with family-sustaining wages, real benefits, and the strongest safety standards in the industry, locked in before a single shovel hits the ground.
“As I have said many times, this is a defining moment, not only for Montgomery County but for local governments across this country,” Jawando said. “Every jurisdiction faces the same choice. We can let the greed of a few decide our future, or we can listen to our residents and lead, putting community, family and the health of our environment first.”
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The full Council is expected to take final action on the moratorium at an upcoming session on Tuesday, July 28. Residents can watch Council sessions live and share their views with the office at councilmember.jawando@montgomerycountymd.gov.
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Read the original article at mcgov