---
title: "Chapter 9, Expanded — The Price of Permission — The AI Compute Race"
source: https://dryburgh.com/vol1/ch9-expanded
description: "Chapter 9, Expanded — The Price of Permission, from The AI Compute Race."
---

# Chapter 9, Expanded — The Price of Permission

The passages of chapter 9 that the record needs and the chapter does not carry on its page, each whole, with its sources. The chapter’s own Notes are on [its Notes page](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-9).

Updated 31 October 2026

*These are the passages of chapter 9 that the record needs and the chapter’s argument does not need on its page. Each is carried here whole, with its sources, in the order the chapter told it.*

## San Antonio and Newton County

*In chapter 9 this followed the residents’ declarations and the noise suit, in the section The permission slip.*

**San Antonio.** A second Clean Air Act citizen suit against a datacenter’s own plant, filed inside this book’s record, names three companies of the developer whose Virginia permit this chapter read. On 21 September 2026 Public Citizen and the Sierra Club sued VoltaGrid and three Vantage Data Centers entities in federal court in San Antonio under the Clean Air Act.

The complaint alleges that two campuses there, with about 405 megawatts of gas-fired generation “as currently disclosed to” the state’s regulator and about 455 megawatts of diesel backup, are each one major source permitted as minor ones through standard-permit and permit-by-rule registrations, “sham permitting tactics” in its words.

The complaint asks the court to “Enjoin Defendants from continuing construction and/or operation” of both until major-source permits issue. A motion for a preliminary injunction went in the same day, and the docket as last retrieved, on the day of filing, shows no ruling.

**Newton County.** Three days before that suit was filed, Georgia’s air regulator had accepted the same kind of argument against VoltaGrid. Its permit of 18 September 2026 was for VoltaGrid’s 90-megawatt plant of thirty-three gas engines in Newton County, which supplies Serverfarm’s nearby ATL2 datacenter.

The Southern Environmental Law Center had commented that the two must be permitted as a single source. The permit found, “Based on a contractual agreement EPD became aware of after the issuance of the draft permit,” that “VoltaGrid and ATL2 are a single, minor NSR site.” It held the two together to 99.0 tons of nitrogen oxides a year, a limit the permit labels “Avoidance of Title V,” and, under a separate condition on air toxics, let no more than thirty of the engines run at once.

## The evidentiary hearing

*In chapter 9 this followed the government’s motion and the court’s first rulings, before the court’s order of 19 October.*

The evidentiary hearing on the NAACP’s motion to halt the turbines while the suit runs was set for 24 August in Greenville, before the chief judge of the district.

1. A notice filed on 21 August postponed it “until further notice” and made it a telephone conference.
2. At that conference, on 24 August, the court asked the parties for October dates and, by the government’s account of the conference, said it intended to deny the government’s motion to intervene and, in the government’s words, “deny Defendants’ motion to dismiss.” On 19 October 2026 the court ruled that “the United States will be allowed to intervene but will not be allowed to dismiss this case,” and it set no hearing date.
3. The government appealed that intended denial to the Fifth Circuit on 18 September. Three days later it asked for a stay of every proceeding and for “entry of a written order by September 28”; the plaintiffs opposed it, and the company consented. The order of 19 October denied those motions as moot, and the same day the Fifth Circuit denied the government’s motion to stay the case pending its appeal “only currently and temporarily,” saying it “can be refiled.”

Whether an AI lab’s power plant is a strategic asset beyond citizen enforcement is undecided at the close.

## The Memphis City Council

*In chapter 9 this followed the list of what permission cost in Tennessee, in the section What permission cost.*

On 18 August 2026 the Memphis City Council passed the first of three readings of a moratorium on new datacenters — a pause of up to a year on the processing of datacenter rezonings, site plans and building permits.

1. It passed with seven votes, on the council’s consent agenda, where items pass together without debate, hours after a standing-room-only committee session at which Bobby White of the Chamber warned that “a year is an eternity.”
2. Two weeks later, on 1 September, the council passed it again — Ordinance 5982, four sponsors, the second of the three readings, unanimously among the ten members present of thirteen.
3. The third reading, due on 15 September, was put off that day to 6 October, when an amended version was to come to a final vote. On 6 October the vote was held over again, to 20 October, after the chair recessed the meeting “until order could be restored in the Council Chamber.” On 20 October 2026 the substitute posted for the vote, a pause of up to “Eighteen (18) months,” failed on a tie of six to six, and the council passed instead, by seven votes to five, a text that “starts the clock on a 135-day period that pauses the development of any new data centers in Memphis” and leaves existing ones, “including Musk’s SpaceXAI facilities,” to “continue business as normal for now.”

By a local station’s account the ordinance “would not shut down” facilities already operating, “like xAI, for example” — the exemption at such a site being “routine maintenance or modernization that does not expand a facility’s impact” — and would leave untouched “applications that were legally vested before the ordinance was introduced.”

## Southaven’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen

*In chapter 9 this followed the list of what permission cost in Mississippi.*

On 1 September Southaven’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen approved the design of a further building for MZX Tech on the south side of Stanton Road — “not the construction,” a local station’s reporter was careful to say. The building is a “storage warehouse” on the city’s agenda, “a massive data storage center” on the evening news.

The approval followed a land swap with the city. Fifty-one acres of Southaven’s own land, on Tulane Road in Southaven, Mississippi, where its current police and fire training facility stands, went to the company. The mayor told the board on 18 August that the city had “entered a contract” with MZX Tech to move the training center to Swinnea Road. The minutes record that the swap “will transfer ownership of the City’s 51-acre site in exchange for 69 acres of new land surrounding an existing 20-acre parcel of City property and $40 million to construct new facilities.” An alderman of the approving board, Charlie Hoots, spoke on camera.

> “I think in the big scheme of things, the xAI projects are good for the city. But I personally, my constituents, my ward, would like to see them complete some of the stuff they promised they’re going to do. You know, like right now we’re still suffering from the noise from the temporary turbines.”

## Maryland

*In chapter 9 this followed the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book on the moratoriums.*

**Maryland.** One such hold was already in force there, and it came the day after a ballot was closed. In January 2026 Frederick County’s council had drawn a zone of approximately 2,614.9 acres in which datacenters could be built; residents petitioned to put the map to referendum, and the board of elections validated 21,029 of their 24,053 signatures.

On 30 June 2026 the Supreme Court of Maryland affirmed a lower court’s judgment that the map was not open to referendum under the county’s charter, and that the petition, which reproduced the map’s colors in black and white, was insufficient. Quantum Maryland was the first-named of the parties who had challenged it. The court wrote that the siting of datacenters “is a matter of significant controversy and consequence at this moment,” and that it was “not weighing in on that broader discussion.”

The next day the county executive, Jessica Fitzwater, directed her planning staff on 1 July 2026 to stop taking applications for datacenters and their substations, except on land that held an approved letter of understanding from before 17 June 2025. On 14 September she replaced that order with one that “shall expire on July 1, 2027.” The same day she rejected a developer’s application for an agreement on its development rights, because “the provisions that would have shielded the development from all future local laws are unacceptable.”

**The developer’s suit.** On 8 October 2026 the developer, Quantum Maryland, sued her in the county’s circuit court, in a case the court classes as an “Injunction,” with an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order. No order was on the docket when it was read on 11 October. On Friday 23 October the court denied the motion, writing that Quantum had “failed to clearly show that immediate, substantial, and irreparable harm will result before a full adversary hearing can be held,” and set a status hearing on its motion for a preliminary injunction for 10 November, the local paper reported on 28 October. The complaint answers her letter’s reason directly, “The agreement contained no provision shielding the development from all future local laws,” and claims damages on one count alone “in an amount to be proven at trial, but no less than $500 million.” It is an allegation, with no answer on the docket that day.

Her answer came the next day on her campaign’s Facebook page, not on the docket, twenty-five days before an election in which she is a candidate. The suit, she wrote, was “rife with factual errors and outright lies; it even seeks damages against me personally,” and the county would “fight this lawsuit because it’s the right thing to do for Frederick County.” The post names no error and no law; the complaint does name her in her personal capacity as well as her official one, as the paper confirmed on 15 October.

The county as a government said less: its communications manager, the local paper reported on 9 October, “said Friday that the county does not comment on ongoing litigation.” A spokesperson for the developer, whom the paper did not name, said it was “asking the Court to require the County Executive to follow the County’s own laws and restore access to its land-use process.” On 15 October 2026 the paper reported the county’s first filing in the suit, a response to the developer’s scheduling motions by its outside counsel and not yet an answer to the suit’s substance. The county government said there “is no emergency” related to the November election that would require a shortened time frame, in the paper’s words, and its spokesperson said the county “will file a response to Quantum’s lawsuit within 30 days.”

## Kansas

*In chapter 9 this followed Maryland.*

**Kansas.** Seven weeks after Maryland’s court closed a ballot, a court opened one and suspended its result in advance. On 20 August 2026 the Lyon County District Court ordered the City of Emporia to put a citizens’ ordinance prohibiting high impact datacenters, a facility drawing “a peak electrical load exceeding ten (10) megawatts or a daily water draw exceeding one hundred thousand (100,000) gallons” by the city’s own definition, to its voters on 3 November. It “further ordered that publication, implementation, enforcement, and any legal effect of the proposed ordinance are stayed pending final judgment or further order of the Court, regardless of the election outcome.”

The city’s resolution of 26 August submits the question “in strict compliance with the interim order” while “expressly preserving its position in the pending litigation that the proposed ordinance is administrative, rather than legislative.” It provides that if the voters approve it, “the ordinance shall not be published or enacted unless and until the Lyon County District Court determines that the ordinance is valid.” The order and the resolution fall inside this book’s record; the vote does not.

**The city’s terms.** On 16 October 2026, eighteen days before the vote, the city wrote down the price of its own yes, in nonbinding guidelines “proposed for City Commission consideration”: a development agreement requiring “per each two megawatts of Project size, a minimum of one permanent, year-round, on-site job located in Lyon County,” pay and benefits “at least 150%” of the county’s, “a payroll-shortfall payment” when the payroll falls short, security for “100% of the City’s reasonably estimated financial exposure” and “110%” of the estimated cost of decommissioning, “a mandatory purchase offer” to any occupied property within 500 feet of the boundary, and no “100% property tax exemption or abatement.” The document takes a side on the ballot: “A ban on high impact data centers may harm the public by removing the possibility that a high impact data center can financially benefit the public at the same time that the public is protected from concerns.” It also says what it is, a price list with no buyer: “Emporia has been proactive to create these guidelines before any data center developer asked for them or proposed any terms.” The same day the mayor, a commissioner and the city manager told the local paper that “no operator has come to the city with a committed development, secured financing or a construction timeline.” The group holding options on the land, they said, was “marketing the opportunity,” and, in the mayor’s words, “There is no project.” On 21 October the commission took the guidelines up in a study session, an item its own papers called “for discussion and direction; it is not approval of a development agreement or project.” The discussion, the local paper reported, “did not result in approval of a development agreement.”

## The worry is sentiment

*In chapter 9 this followed Kansas.*

The worry is sentiment; the measurement, so far, is small. On 15 September SemiAnalysis, which sells its research into the buildout it was counting, mapped more than three hundred local moratoriums and put what they had actually delayed at 1,525 megawatts. That was three projects (an AWS campus in Ohio, a powered-land developer’s campus in Pennsylvania and a site in Colorado) out of some 20 gigawatts of planned capacity sitting inside a restricted boundary. With New York’s executive order counted it came to about 2.3 gigawatts nationwide: “counting moratoriums is not counting megawatts.” A national total is not what a county votes on, and none of the three is in Tennessee or Mississippi.

## Loudoun County, Virginia

*In chapter 9 this followed the count of the moratoriums.*

**Loudoun County, Virginia.** The county this chapter met in Sterling voted in September to consider a pause of its own. On 15 September 2026 a majority of its Board of Supervisors voted to consider a resolution to that end, the county announced two days later. If approved, it “would pause the Board’s action on data center and electrical substation applications that require legislative approval for up to 12 months, the maximum allowed by Virginia law.” The vote, the county said, “follows a legal opinion from the Loudoun County Attorney indicating that a moratorium on data center approvals is not legal.” Developers “may continue to submit applications to the county,” and only the Board’s final votes would wait. The resolution was set for the Board’s meeting of 20 October. That day the county posted that the proposal “will be deferred to the Board’s November 17 meeting.” The Board’s own action report, a memorandum of the county administrator dated 22 October, records the act: item 14p “was deferred to the November 17, 2026, Board Business Meeting.” At the same meeting the Board denied, by seven votes to two, a Quantum Park application for a substation and an expanded datacenter, on four findings for denial. The fourth was that “The electrical grid in Loudoun County is severely strained due to increased electrical demand and constraints on delivering sufficient power to the County,” and that the new uses “will exacerbate the problem by promoting development of new high wattage users.” The report gives no megawatt figure for the application.

**Loudoun County, the GW campus.** At the same meeting the Board ended a different application by agreement rather than by vote. Amazon Data Services had filed a site plan for data centers on the George Washington University campus in Ashburn, EPLAN-2026-0110, which the county “rejected due to deficiencies on August 5, 2026” and accepted for review on 23 September. County staff’s report of 6 October put the plan, at 805,092 square feet, at “power usage of 217.4 megawatts,” an estimate at 270 watts a square foot, with “approximately 84 diesel generators for back-up power.” On 20 October, from closed session, the Board voted nine to nothing to continue talks on acquiring about 25 acres of the campus, valued at $65 million, and to accept Amazon’s donation of $5 million to the county’s housing trust, and eight to one to direct a rezoning “to include residential development and no data centers.” The county’s release of 22 October says that Amazon “stated its intent to withdraw its application for data centers at the site and forego any legal action regarding data center development at the site.” Amazon’s reason appears only in the trade press, from Josh Weissman, its vice president for data center capacity delivery: “we concluded that the best outcome for all is to come together on a shared vision for this campus rather than engage in costly litigation.” On the hostile standard chapter 12 applies, the case is not yet a prevention: the load is the county’s estimate, no refusal was voted, and the withdrawal is an intent stated.

## Ohio

*In chapter 9 this followed Loudoun County.*

**Ohio.** A state’s highest court then said what one moratorium holds against a developer. On 20 October 2026 the Supreme Court of Ohio denied a writ sought by Bristolville 25 Developer, in an opinion joined by all seven justices. The developer had asked the court to make the village of Lordstown review its datacenter site plan under the rules in force before the village’s moratorium. The review had “halted on January 5, 2026, when the village council enacted the moratorium on data centers,” and in June the council passed an ordinance “extending the data-center moratorium through 2026.” “As long as a duly enacted moratorium ordinance is in effect, the village does not have a clear legal duty to proceed with a review of Bristolville’s site plan,” the court wrote. The one exception it named was a moratorium “unenforceable as to Bristolville’s submission.” The developer “has not yet applied for a permit to begin construction, much less met all legislative requirements for obtaining such a permit.” The court ruled on the review, not on any permit.

## Oregon

*In chapter 9 this followed Ohio, before Saline Township.*

**Oregon.** A governor then asked a state agency for a pause. In a letter of 9 October 2026 Oregon’s governor, Tina Kotek, asked the director of the state’s Department of Environmental Quality “to exercise your existing administrative authority and discretion to pause processing and issuance of air or water discharge permit applications until July 1, 2027 that involve new or expanded data center facilities within Oregon.” It was a request, not an order, and what it would pause was applications. On 20 October the city council of Umatilla, Oregon, declared a local state of emergency against it. The city’s preliminary estimates put more than $5 billion “in anticipated private industrial investment potentially delayed or jeopardized” and more than $6 million “in potential direct financial losses or delays in revenue to the City.” Its city manager, David Stockdale, said that the city “has not spent, obligated, or appropriated any of the anticipated future revenues,” and that “The concern is not an immediate budget shortfall.”

The letter gave its reason. “This time limited pause will provide an opportunity for me to evaluate and digest recommendations forthcoming from the Advisory Committee,” it said. Kotek had convened that committee, the Data Center Advisory Committee, on 20 January 2026, with its report “due to the Governor no later than October 2026.” On 10 September it released its one document of findings, which says of itself that “This document does not contain the Committee’s final recommendations,” and that “The Committee expects to present final recommendations to Governor Kotek by December 2026.” The document names no pause. On 24 October 2026 I filed a comment on it, in a personal capacity. At the committee’s meeting of 31 July, by its facilitator’s summary, “The idea of a temporary pause or moratorium was brought up as one way to provide time for better data, rules, and coordination.” The legislature had already paused one thing. A law the governor approved on 31 March 2026, in force from 5 June, bars a firm from authorization in an enterprise zone, the step that opens the zone’s property-tax exemption, for “property consisting of a data center project before the date that is 90 days following the date on which the 2027 regular session of the Legislative Assembly adjourns sine die.”

One city went further. On 27 July 2026 Hillsboro’s City Council resolved that for 120 days “No person shall submit, and the City shall not accept, process, or approve, any new application for land use approval” for a new or expanded datacenter or battery storage system as a primary use. “Projects that submitted applications before the moratorium may continue to develop,” the city said. The council’s own findings expected “the only effect on other local governments that can reasonably be anticipated” to be “a potential for data center or BESS facility developments to shift to other locations.”

What the basin’s hosts forgo is on record too. Morrow County’s assessor, Mike Gorman, presenting for the state’s assessors and tax collectors to the governor’s advisory committee on 26 June 2026, put the tax Morrow’s data center property was exempted from in 2025 at $123.6 million. Against it stood $72.3 million of tax the county certified and $23.9 million the data centers paid under their enterprise-zone and strategic-investment agreements. In Umatilla County the three figures were $119.7 million, $140.1 million and $14.2 million. The assessors called the incentives “very time and resource consuming with little or no financial return to taxing districts during the exemption period.” The basin’s other cost is paid in water. On 31 March 2026 Amazon Data Services agreed to pay $20.5 million to settle claims by residents of Morrow and Umatilla counties that its datacenter operations had contributed to the nitrate in their wells, with “no admission of guilt”; the company denied the allegations, its spokesperson said the communities “have faced groundwater quality issues for decades — long before we opened our data centers,” and the deal went to the federal court at Pendleton to be approved.

## New York

*In chapter 9 this followed Saline Township’s consent judgment.*

**New York.** One state has written a price down for every town. On 15 September 2026, under the governor’s executive order of July, its economic development agency, Empire State Development, posted a framework for the towns that host datacenters. It offers “a proposed community investment benchmark of $1 million-per-megawatt of utility demand, inclusive of investments into grid modernization as required by New York State.” “For example, a project utilizing 50MW has an associated recommended community investment level of $50M,” it goes on. The framework is voluntary in its own words, and the benchmark is a price a town may ask for, not one the state requires.

## Indiana

*In chapter 9 this followed New York.*

**Indiana.** There the bargain was struck at the commission rather than the counter. Indiana Michigan Power filed a settlement on behalf of itself, the state consumer counselor and every intervenor, and the commission approved it on 19 February 2025. It fixed a large load’s minimum monthly billing demand at the greater of “80 percent of the Large Load Customer’s contract capacity” on the contract’s ramp schedule or 80 percent of its highest billing demand of the past eleven months. That was above the 60 percent Amazon and Google had proposed and below the 90 the utility had asked for. The intervenors were the Citizens Action Coalition, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and the Data Center Coalition. The same commission approved a second bargain for NIPSCO, the northern Indiana utility. “On June 17, the IURC fully approved the settlement agreement, Amazon special contract and related power purchase agreement,” its parent, NiSource, announced on 23 June 2026. It described a structure “designed so that data center customers fund the generation and transmission infrastructure required to serve their needs,” and the parties agreed “to support expedited procedural schedules for future agreements.”

## Lancaster, Pennsylvania

*In chapter 9 this followed Indiana, before the table of what permission cost in money.*

**Lancaster, Pennsylvania.** The campaign group Lancaster Stands Up read the city’s benefits agreement, sorted it into “good, inadequate, and missing,” and wrote that the council’s yes “doesn’t mean the fight against AI data centers is over.” Under good it put the noise limit, the water cap and an enforcement section in which the developers “can’t just get out of it by paying a fine.” Under inadequate it put money that came to “$20 million, which is less than one percent of the total project cost.”

## The price studies

*In chapter 9 this followed the search for one place that met four tests.*

A defender of the datacenters conceded Memphis and the noise. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace interviewed Andy Masley in July 2026 for *The World Unpacked*, under the title “Data Centers Are Fine, Actually.” He cited what he called “this really weird pattern” in a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study of retail electricity prices by state, that the states with the largest new builds “also had the lowest increases in residential bills.” He named no title or date, and neither edition of the laboratory’s briefing deck with the Brattle Group claims that. The October 2025 deck says it does not “assess possible future drivers of price changes (e.g., data centers),” and finds that states with the highest load growth from every source “generally saw retail electricity prices decline in real terms.” Commercial customers led that growth, it adds, and “Past relationships need not persist.” The 2026 edition is dated April 2026, months before the interview. It sets residential prices against load growth from every source and finds that “Residential customers may have benefited from load growth from 2019 to 2025 in some states, but the relationship is less clear and may change.” Beside that finding it says that “The presence of significant data center and cryptocurrency growth does not appear to alter these conclusions.” He was “basically aware of one spot in the country” where they had so far raised water bills.

A working paper posted in June 2026 by researchers at the Electric Power Research Institute and Watershed gives that pattern a causal estimate and a caution. On United States data for 2015 to 2024 it estimates that “for every 10% increase in data center capacity average residential retail prices fell by approximately 0.4% on average,” and its authors “caution that future supply constraints could reverse the effect.”

Three other studies of the same question, posted between May and August 2026, reach other answers. Economists at Duke University, MIT and North Carolina State University compared utilities whose territory received a large datacenter for the first time with utilities whose territory never received one. Their working paper of 19 June found that “Data center entry between 2010 and 2024 increases average retail electricity prices by 2.7%, with effects of 2.1% for residential customers, 2.8% for commercial customers, and 4.2% for industrial customers.” Angela Ryu and Shon Hiatt, in a brief of 22 May for the University of Southern California’s Marshall School, read utility data for 2015 to 2024. They found that “A doubling of a utility’s operating data-center capacity is associated with an approximately 0.65 percent increase in residential prices, with no statistically significant association for commercial or industrial rates.” They called their estimates “conditional within-utility associations rather than definitive causal pass-through effects.” Dany Bahar of Brown University and Greg Wright of the University of California, Merced studied utilities whose territory received its first hyperscale datacenter between 2015 and 2021. Against utilities that never received one, their working paper of 7 August found that “the mean effect over years zero through five is −1.0% (p = 0.42),” an average the authors call imprecise. “The estimates provide no evidence that residential rates rise in the host utility over this horizon,” they wrote, and their sample “covers cloud-era cohorts through 2021 followed to 2024, not the larger post-2022 artificial intelligence build-out.” The four differ in design, in the years they read and in what they found.

Masley put Loudoun County’s take at “something like $1.3 billion every year.” The county’s own page, undated and read on 22 October 2026, says that data centers “generated $1.2 billion in real and personal property tax revenue” in fiscal 2026, “representing 39% of the county’s overall budget.” The $1.3 billion is the projection of the budget adopted for fiscal 2027, “representing 40% of the total budget.” That budget’s own lines are $417.7 million of real property tax on datacenters and $879.1 million of tax on their computer equipment, out of a General Fund of $3.2 billion. The equipment tax was $581.6 million in fiscal 2023, and the county assesses business equipment “at 60 percent of original cost in the first year, decreasing each year to 5 percent for property at least five years old.” Then Masley said that “Elon Musk’s data center specifically added what I think is an unacceptable amount of local air pollution to already very overburdened poor communities that didn’t really have the political power to resist them.” He added that noise “is one of the most serious problems that I worry about the most with data centers.”

## The county had already priced its permission

*In chapter 9 this followed the paragraph introducing Project Jupiter, in Doña Ana County, New Mexico.*

The county had already priced its permission, and the price was not the figure in the headline. On Friday 19 September 2025 Doña Ana County’s commissioners voted 4 to 1, Bloomberg reported that day, to approve “a $165 billion industrial revenue bond package and a sweeping set of tax incentives tied to a sprawling AI data center project.” The vote came after a commissioner’s motion to table it failed and hours of public comment; “When the resolution passed several people shouted ‘sell outs’ at the commissioners.” The package, in Bloomberg’s own words, “isn’t county debt, but a mechanism to confer tax breaks,” and “The $165 billion represents the total amount of investment in the project and was calculated by the developers in their bond application.”

The county’s inducement resolution, on the commission’s agenda of 26 August, says it in the issuer’s words. The bonds “shall not constitute a debt or indebtedness of the County within the meaning of any provision or limitation of the Constitution or statutes of the State,” and “will not be sold to investors other than an affiliate or parent of the Companies.” They have a maximum face amount of $165 billion split three ways, $15 billion for the power generation and microgrid, $25 billion for four datacenters and $125 billion for equipping them. The bond purchase agreements of 12 November 2025 name the buyers: Yucca Growth Infrastructure Purchaser, LLC for the first series, Red Chiles Sub A, B, C and D, LLC for the four parts of the second, and Oracle America, Inc. for the third, whose largest part runs “up to an aggregate principal amount of $124,999,925,000.” What the county gave was its property tax, which the resolution says “will be abated during the term of the Bonds,” for payments in lieu of it that the resolution leaves to be “negotiated and agreed to” before the county takes title. The instruments that followed agreed them. The memorandum the county and the project signed on 22 and 24 September 2025 tables “$12,000,000” a year and “$360,000,000” over thirty payments, the table the county had published in its agenda packet for the vote on 15 September. The leases executed in November chart thirty payments from 31 December 2026. They are $3 million a year under the power-plant series, about $1.2 million of it to three school districts, and $2.25 million a year under each of the four datacenter leases, to the county alone. The debt came later and was smaller: on 7 November Bloomberg reported “a roughly $18 billion project finance loan” from about twenty banks for the campus.

It gave a second thing. Under an ordinance adopted the same day as the bonds and an agreement with the state’s Economic Development Department effective 23 October 2025, “the County will direct to the Project 50% of the County’s gross receipts and compensating tax increments generated from the taxable expenses related to the construction of the Project for ten years.” The state passes “designated portions” of its own gross receipts tax from the project to the county “for disbursement to the Companies.” The companies “dedicate the first fifty million dollars ($50,000,000) of their GRT proceeds back to the County to be held in a separate fund to be used exclusively for water and/or wastewater improvements in southern Doña Ana County.” Oracle’s release of 27 April 2026 wrote that “Project Jupiter has also committed $50 million to help repair, upgrade, and improve local water systems,” the first of the three sums it listed. A community benefits agreement executed on 12 November scheduled $11.4 million more, by this book’s sum, for the county to spend on six named purposes, $4.5 million of it for “County discretionary projects as consideration for building permit fee reduction.” Under it the county “shall have no separate claim for damages or specific performance under this CBA.” It may still seek “payment for unpaid amounts listed in Exhibit B from the Guarantor,” Green Chile Ventures LLC, under a guaranty of the same day.

## The first applications for its air permits

*In chapter 9 this list followed the county’s price; its fourth item, the turn to fuel cells, stays in the chapter.*

1. The first applications for its air permits, which the state’s Environment Department received on 17 November 2025 in the name of Acoma, LLC, were for gas turbines in two microgrids, the western of them “thirty-four (34) GE TM2500” and “twenty (20) Mitsubishi FT8” portable units.
2. On 17 December 2025 the department ruled the eastern microgrid’s application “administratively incomplete.” Acoma had put that plant’s potential to emit at “up to 521 tpy NOx” and asked for a cap of 248.90 tons a year, and the department told it to propose a lower limit or apply for a Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permit, because “A PSD synthetic minor limit for NOx that is 1.1 tons away from the 250.0 tpy PSD threshold is not practically enforceable.”
3. The department counted “approximately 7,155 public comments” on the two and recommended a public hearing.

## How large the campus is to be

*In chapter 9 this followed the turn to fuel cells.*

How large the campus is to be rests on estimates.

- Epoch projects its IT load at 1,750 megawatts by the end of 2028, the figure this book’s ledger carries.
- SemiAnalysis wrote in September 2026 of “Oracle’s 1.3GW IT Project Jupiter.”

The plant beside it is on the record: the state’s draft Statement of Basis of 29 July 2026 gives the applicant’s “proposed electrical generation capacity is over 2.0 GW” and tables 2.462 gigawatts. The same draft weighs the plant’s exhaust, which it says “is approximately 95 percent carbon dioxide once dried.” It struck a 15 percent safety factor from the applicant’s greenhouse-gas figure, which would have raised it “from 8,820,970 tpy to 10,144,115 tpy,” in tons a year. The parties’ own announcement of 27 April said that “the data center will be supported by up to 2.45 GW of installed Bloom fuel cell capacity,” generation capacity rather than IT load.

## The stays

*In chapter 9 this followed the size of the campus.*

**The stays.** On Sunday 23 August the state Supreme Court paused the air-permit hearing, on a petition that said the hearing officer had fast-tracked it, and the same day unanimously stayed the use of a well the State Engineer had authorized as an emergency without notice or hearing. The hearing officer had recused himself the night before, after two environmental law groups moved to disqualify him for bias; on 1 September the court unanimously refused the developer’s request to lift the pause temporarily. The next day the state’s attorney general, Raúl Torrez, filed in support of the well petition, against the State Engineer: “Delay in the construction of a private data center does not rise to the level of a genuine emergency.” On 17 September it denied both petitions and lifted both stays, the hearing’s and the well’s.

## The water at issue

*In chapter 9 this followed the stays, before Arizona.*

The water at issue had a number on each side. Asked by CBS News by phone how much water the campus would use, a woman the reporter billed as “a VP from Oracle” put it at “about the equivalent of nine households” over time.

An on-screen label names her Julia Robin, “Head of Infrastructure Planning and Sourcing,” and names no company. A filing on another docket does. The joint petition that Wisconsin Electric and two developers put to Wisconsin’s regulators on 10 June 2026 rests on the “Affidavit of Julia Robin in Support of Joint Petition for Reopening or Rehearing on behalf of Oracle Corporation.” Wisconsin Public Radio named her that month as “vice president of infrastructure capacity and sourcing for Oracle.”

The reporter, Riley Callanan, said on air on 27 August 2026 that the figure was averaged over fifteen years: 11 million gallons “to fill up the data center initially,” then, because the cooling is closed-loop, about 168,000 gallons a year, with what the reporter called “construction costs” not counted.

The petition the court had acted on was about the construction water. The Center for Biological Diversity, which filed it on 20 August, said that since April 2026 more than 103 million gallons had been pumped from the well, on meter readings it had obtained from the State Engineer’s office.

## Wichita Falls

*In chapter 9 this followed the first Project Raptor letters, in the section The politics of permission.*

**Wichita Falls.** Then, between 11 and 14 September, sixteen letters signed by fifteen people at nine addresses in and around Wichita Falls arrived, on one circulated template that each household had adapted to its own distance: “within 2 miles,” “share a fenceline,” “1200 ft from my home.” They asked the Commission to “conduct an audit and comprehensive review of Project Raptor” for “its potential impact on nearby residents and agricultural operations,” and to “make its findings publicly available and provide opportunities for community input throughout the review process.”

The September letters name no applicant, site or load. The load appears only in the description four filers typed into the docket’s index — two of them “The 1000 MW request sits 1200 ft from my home,” two “1 road over from my home.” The fifteen signers filed the sixteen letters in this docket and fifteen more copies in the standing docket for ERCOT’s reports, thirty-one copies in all. What Raptor is, the record says only in its neighbors’ words, and second-hand.

## Pennsylvania

*In chapter 9 this followed Georgia’s election.*

**Pennsylvania.** The state’s two senators had put both halves of the politics on one stage in late May or early June, in a conversation published on 10 June 2026, before either Texas turn. “Moratorium for data centers, for me, that’s a China first kinds of policy,” John Fetterman said; later in the same conversation, “vote me out if you think it’s okay to give China a benefit to win the AI race.”

Dave McCormick was back from Homer City, where, by his account, a coal plant is being converted to 4.4 gigawatts of gas generation, 3.4 of it for a datacenter complex and one gigawatt for the grid. He drew the other conclusion: “there needs to be a much clearer covenant of what it means. If you’re gonna have a data center in your community, and you’re a township supervisor, here’s what you know” — and the bill was not the end of it: “as soon as you get through that, they move to the next thing, which is water. And then the schools are gonna be crowded.”

He listed those as grievances to answer, in a reply that also found “enormous misinformation” behind the opposition, “largely,” he thought, “being driven by China and outside forces.”

## The AI Action Plan

*In chapter 9 this followed the White House framework’s exemption for state zoning.*

The concession came eight months after a push the other way. The White House’s AI Action Plan of 23 July 2025 had said that “America’s environmental permitting system and other regulations make it almost impossible to build this infrastructure in the United States with the speed that is required.”

Its section on streamlined permitting recommended new categorical exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act for datacenter-related actions and a wider FAST-41 process covering datacenters and their energy projects. It recommended exploring the need for “a nationwide Clean Water Act Section 404 permit for data centers,” and expediting permitting by “streamlining or reducing regulations” under the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and other laws. Every one is a recommended action: a record of what the federal government set out to do, not of any permit that moved faster.

What the federal government did with its own land followed in October. On 15 October 2025 the Air Force invited proposals to lease “underutilized parcels of land” on five active bases, Arnold in Tennessee, Davis-Monthan, Edwards, McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and Robins, 3,101 acres by the sum of its own site tables. The terms were private datacenters of more than 100 megawatts and $500 million, leases of up to fifty years at “not less than the fair market value of the leasehold interest,” and a government free to buy the output but “under no obligation to do so.” At Arnold nobody bid: on 1 June 2026 the base reported that “potential Enhanced Use Lease offerors will not be submitting proposals for Arnold AFB parcels for an AI Data Center.”

## Boulder City, Nevada

*In chapter 9 this followed the AI Action Plan.*

**Boulder City, Nevada.** On federal land the government’s own review paused an approval inside the record. On 26 June 2026 the Bureau of Land Management approved an amended right-of-way for a datacenter proposed by Townsite Solar 2 near Boulder City, Nevada, on a site of its land it had granted in 2023 for a solar plant, without a new environmental assessment. On 1 September 2026 the Interior Board of Land Appeals stayed the approval on the showing of the Center for Biological Diversity. It found the appellants likely to show that the solar plant’s assessment could not carry it: “A 300,000-square foot data center is a different project from a 19-MW solar power generating facility.”

The appellants state, and the bureau does not dispute, that this was “the first ROW for a data center that BLM has approved”; the order is a stay, not a decision on the merits, and the board expedited the appeals.

## Ro Khanna

*In chapter 9 this followed Boulder City, before Governor Shapiro’s executive order.*

By August 2026 a third Pennsylvania voice was Ro Khanna, a Bucks County native who has represented Silicon Valley since 2017. He spent the end of July and the start of August 2026 on a fifteen-county tour of his home state and said afterward that datacenters had come up more than any other issue.

> “I was surprised by the anger about it in Pennsylvania. In other states, people are sometimes opposed in local communities, local pockets. But not this widespread anger.”

On 6 August he introduced a Data Center Bill of Rights — a House resolution, a statement of rights rather than a statute. Under it:

- Every affected community would have the right to reject a proposed datacenter through a transparent process.
- Communities could ban them in residential areas and within 2,500 feet of a home, a school, a childcare facility, a hospital or a nursing home.

The distance rule has a house behind it. Four families in Mansfield, Georgia, “situated just across the street” from Meta’s Stanton Springs datacenter on the Newton and Walton county line, sued Meta and the county development officials on 31 August 2026 in Gwinnett County, alleging that its construction had fouled their wells, USA Today reported from the complaint it reviewed. The case was docketed in the federal court in Atlanta on 16 October, and Meta told WSB-TV that “the groundwater flows away from these properties, not toward them.” Khanna visited the Morris home on 14 October and told the paper, “My sense is we may need to be more than 2,500 feet.”

- A state could pause new construction until its ratepayer, water and community-say protections were law.

## Conshohocken

*In chapter 9 this followed Governor Shapiro’s executive order and his petition to the utility commission.*

**Conshohocken.** One of the projects he had heard about sits a mile from a downtown he knew as a child. It is the Cleveland-Cliffs steel mill at Conshohocken, closed in 2025, sixty-six acres on the Schuylkill River, where a developer proposes two million square feet of datacenter across ten of the mill’s buildings, powered by its own natural gas turbines. That is the Memphis machine’s bridge, proposed here as the design. The turbines, the developer argues, will limit what it asks of the grid.

The township’s planning board refused unanimously to recommend it in October 2025. A special-exception application dated 28 April 2026 went before the zoning hearing board on 25 June, 28 July and 6 August. Along the way the applicant filed a validity challenge to the township’s zoning on 21 July and a noise assessment on 7 August, updated on 26 August. On 4 September the docket listed the next hearing as “to be determined.”

## Crusoe

*In chapter 9 this followed the Commerce Secretary’s remarks and Musk’s on water.*

**Crusoe.** The builder of Abilene made both of the Commerce Secretary’s claims in October 2026. In the interview of 3 October 2026, Crusoe’s chief executive, Chase Lochmiller, said that modern AI factory designs “use pretty close to zero water.” He said one of Crusoe’s buildings at Abilene uses “about the same water annually as about 10 single family homes,” its chips cooled by water in a closed loop. He gave no volume.

In markets where big datacenters had been built, he said, “typically energy prices for communities have come down,” through “more megawatts being amortized over the same transmission and distribution infrastructure.” He named no market and no study.

## OpenAI

*In chapter 9 this followed AMP’s rule.*

**OpenAI.** Asked how OpenAI picks a datacenter site, Sachin Katti, its head of industrial compute, gave four factors in his own order, in an interview published on 16 July 2026.

1. Plentiful land.
2. Permitting, “like can we build these things?”
3. Access to power.
4. Labor.

He answered the permitting question with distance: “we want to build these things such that they are not affecting any neighborhoods,” so “land that is somewhat remote is the ideal candidate.”

## The Treasury Secretary and the labs

*In chapter 9 this followed the sentence that in Memphis and Southaven the hell yes was never the neighbors’ to give.*

**The Treasury Secretary and the labs.** The charge had come first from the Treasury. At his G20 news conference in Asheville on 1 September, Scott Bessent was asked what his message was to the local and state leaders “coming out against the build-out of this economic infrastructure.” The AI companies, “whether it is the builders of the data centers, whether it is the labs themselves, have done a horrendous job, horrendous job of explaining themselves to the American people,” he said. “And I think we need a big reset on this.” They would have to “take some of the blame” and “convince the American people that all the benefits will not accrue to a small group.”

The day after the Commerce Secretary spoke, on 3 September, the chief executive of the largest laboratory admitted the failure that the backlash measures. Asked on Bloomberg about the Treasury Secretary’s charge, Altman did not dispute it.

> “I think the industry has done a terrible job of this on the whole. I think we have done a bad job ourselves. You know, maybe better than some others, worse than some others.”

## Meta

*In chapter 9 this followed the Treasury Secretary and the labs, and closed the section The politics of permission.*

**Meta.** A builder’s causal theory of the same anger came the following week. In a conversation published on 8 September 2026, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, put part of it down to “a lot of speculation”: companies that “aren’t necessarily planning on running a data center for decades,” that are “trying to find a plot and then trying to sell it to one of the big labs” and “don’t really care as much about the local community” — “then of course people are going to get upset.”

His support for it was that Meta had “dug into it” and asked “a bunch of people.” Whatever it explains elsewhere, it does not reach Memphis or Southaven. xAI built the datacenters, and as SpaceXAI it runs them. It bought the Southaven plant in July 2025 and signed a tax agreement with the city and county reciting more than $10 billion of investment. The anger came anyway.

## Pecém

*In chapter 9 this followed the cross-examination’s census, in the section What consent does.*

Inside the record, a suit outside America reached one of the forty campuses of chapter 12’s campus ledger. On 10 September 2026 Brazil’s federal prosecutors and public defenders announced a civil action against the Pecém datacenter, in Caucaia, Ceará. It asks that the campus not begin operating before the Anacé, the indigenous people living around it, are given free, prior and informed consultation and a full environmental impact study is made. Their notice says the campus is “também conhecido como Data Center do TikTok” (also known as the TikTok datacenter), in this book’s translation, and puts its planned installed power at 300 megawatts. The state environment agency, Semace, had classed it as of low or medium impact, needing only a simplified environmental report, the action says. By the action’s account two of the three licenses, the prior and the installation licenses, “já foram concedidas” (have already been granted). As an urgent measure the plaintiffs asked that Semace “não emita a licença de operação” (issue no operating license), or any other act allowing the datacenter to run, until the measures they name are met. They asked the court, too, to bar the builder, Omnia, from “a operação e a energização definitiva das instalações” (the operation and final energization of the installations) on the same terms. The notice is the plaintiffs’ own account, and it reports no ruling on their requests, only the court’s first order bringing the state of Ceará and the municipality of Caucaia in as defendants. In the licensing filings of the year before, Intercept Brasil had reported in May 2025, the applicant was Casa dos Ventos, a Brazilian wind-power company, and “A rede social chinesa não aparece nos pedidos de autorização” (the Chinese social network does not appear in the applications for authorization); that April the national grid operator had refused the company access to the basic grid “por risco à estabilidade da rede” (for risk to the grid’s stability).

## Roberto Anacé

*In chapter 9 this followed the suit at Pecém.*

The community had given its own account five weeks before the suit. On 4 August 2026 the Anacé cacique, Roberto Anacé, spoke by video to the Brazilian Senate’s science and technology committee, at a hearing on a bill to regulate AI datacenters. “A gente tem direito a um protocolo de consulta e nunca viram” (we have the right to a consultation protocol, and they never saw it), he said, in this book’s translation. He said the company building the datacenter and the government called them to talk only once the community had acted, and that “por duas vezes, nós fechamos o canteiro de obra” (twice, we shut down the building site). They were then given a document to sign, made “para a gente não se arrepender e não voltar mais atrás” (so that we could not change our minds and go back), and did not sign it. It is a party’s own account, given to legislators, and no finding of a court.

## Jatiluhur

*In chapter 9 this followed the Anacé testimony.*

On 30 September 2026 a halt outside America became one of the delays. On 22 September 2026 BDx Data Centers broke ground on a 640-megawatt AI campus at Jatiluhur in West Java, Indonesia, and the province’s governor, Dedi Mulyadi, “attended the groundbreaking ceremony.”

On 30 September, by the provincial government’s account, he ordered construction halted until two outstanding approvals, an environmental impact assessment and a building approval, were issued. BDx said: “At this stage, we continue to target the first phase entering service in early 2027, subject to the completion of these approvals.” The halt stopped the work and not the campus, and on this book’s hostile standard it has so far prevented nothing.

## Muhos and Kajaani

*In chapter 9 this followed Jatiluhur, before the retirements.*

Six days later a second was asked for in Europe. On 6 October 2026 the Finnish Supervisory Agency urged Tuike Finland, Google’s subsidiary, to suspend, immediately and by 23 October at the latest, the preparatory works that significantly alter the environment at its planned datacenter sites at Muhos and Kajaani until their environmental impact assessments were complete, and to say whether it would comply. Google said it had “fallen short of our own high standards in this instance.” On 22 October the agency recorded the company’s answer. In explanations of 11 and 14 October, Tuike said it was following the requests in full at both sites and had suspended the preparatory works, which would continue only once the assessments were completed in early 2027. For Muhos the agency made a second request, under the Water Act, for a plan for the site’s water by 5 November, and found that 8.9 kilometers of new ditches, mostly already dug, needed a permit under that Act.

## Two TM2500s, Nos. 15 and 16

*In chapter 9 this followed the amendment of 11 September 2026 to the agreed order.*

In the order as first agreed, two TM2500s, Nos. 15 and 16, were due to stop by 27 August 2026; two Mitsubishi FT8s, Nos. 57 and 58, stopped by that date instead, and Nos. 15 and 16 took the FT8s’ dates, 5 and 8 May 2027, about twenty months after they arrived, the department “exercising its discretion” to allow it.

## Notes

*Keyed to the phrase in the text; every entry carries the source’s URL.*

**Antonio under the Clean Air Act:** Public Citizen, Inc. and Sierra Club, Inc. v. VoltaGrid LLC, Vantage Data Centers Management Company, LLC, Vantage Data Centers TX11, LLC and Vantage Data Centers TX21, LLC, No. 5:26-cv-06032 (W.D. Tex.), complaint filed 21 September 2026 (a citizen suit under the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. § 7604, over two datacenter campuses in San Antonio, at Omicron Drive and Rogers Road, Bexar County). [environmentalintegrity.org](https://environmentalintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Lawsuit-against-Vantage-Voltagrid-data-centers-9.21.26.pdf)

**sham permitting tactics” in its words:** Public Citizen, Inc. and Sierra Club, Inc. v. VoltaGrid LLC, Vantage Data Centers Management Company, LLC, Vantage Data Centers TX11, LLC and Vantage Data Centers TX21, LLC, No. 5:26-cv-06032 (cited above in this chapter). [environmentalintegrity.org](https://environmentalintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Lawsuit-against-Vantage-Voltagrid-data-centers-9.21.26.pdf)

**of both until major-source permits issue:** Public Citizen, Inc. and Sierra Club, Inc. v. VoltaGrid LLC, Vantage Data Centers Management Company, LLC, Vantage Data Centers TX11, LLC and Vantage Data Centers TX21, LLC, No. 5:26-cv-06032 (cited above in this chapter). [environmentalintegrity.org](https://environmentalintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Lawsuit-against-Vantage-Voltagrid-data-centers-9.21.26.pdf)

**day of filing, shows no ruling:** Public Citizen, Inc. and Sierra Club, Inc. v. VoltaGrid LLC, Vantage Data Centers Management Company, LLC, Vantage Data Centers TX11, LLC and Vantage Data Centers TX21, LLC, No. 5:26-cv-06032 (cited above in this chapter). [environmentalintegrity.org](https://environmentalintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Lawsuit-against-Vantage-Voltagrid-data-centers-9.21.26.pdf)

**which supplies Serverfarm’s nearby ATL2 datacenter:** Georgia Environmental Protection Division, Air Quality Permit No. 4911-217-0080-S-01-0, VoltaGrid ATL-1 EGU, Covington, Newton County, issued 18 September 2026, with the permit narrative for Application No. 29947 and its addenda (a plant of “90 MW, consisting of 33 natural gas-fired, four stroke lean-burn (4SLB) reciprocating internal combustion engines”). [permitsearch.gaepd.org](https://permitsearch.gaepd.org/Permit/OP-29947) ; [permitsearch.gaepd.org](https://permitsearch.gaepd.org/Permit/ON-29947)

**are a single, minor NSR site:** Georgia Environmental Protection Division, Air Quality Permit No. 4911-217-0080-S-01-0, VoltaGrid ATL-1 EGU, Covington, Newton County, issued 18 September 2026, with the permit narrative for Application No. 29947 and its addenda (cited above in this chapter). [permitsearch.gaepd.org](https://permitsearch.gaepd.org/Permit/OP-29947) ; [permitsearch.gaepd.org](https://permitsearch.gaepd.org/Permit/ON-29947)

**of the engines run at once:** Georgia Environmental Protection Division, Air Quality Permit No. 4911-217-0080-S-01-0, VoltaGrid ATL-1 EGU, Covington, Newton County, issued 18 September 2026, with the permit narrative for Application No. 29947 and its addenda (cited above in this chapter). [permitsearch.gaepd.org](https://permitsearch.gaepd.org/Permit/OP-29947) ; [permitsearch.gaepd.org](https://permitsearch.gaepd.org/Permit/ON-29947)

**and made it a telephone conference:** NAACP v. X.AI Corp., N.D. Miss., Dkt. 42 (26 May 2026): “Evidentiary Motion Hearing set for 8/24/2026 09:30 AM in Greenville Courtroom 1 before District Judge Debra M. Brown”; Dkt. 112 (21 August 2026): hearing “continued until further notice.” [courtlistener.com](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73188848/national-association-for-the-advancement-of-colored-people-v-xai-corp/)

**words, “deny Defendants’ motion to dismiss:** *NAACP v. X.AI Corp.*, No. 3:26-cv-00074-DMB-JMV (N.D. Miss.), CourtListener docket, entries to 18 September 2026, and the documents of entries 114, 123, 124 and 125 (Mississippi amicus 1 July). [courtlistener.com](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73188848/national-association-for-the-advancement-of-colored-people-v-xai-corp/) ; [storage.courtlistener.com](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261.114.0.pdf) ; [storage.courtlistener.com](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261.123.0.pdf) ; [storage.courtlistener.com](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261.124.0_1.pdf) ; [storage.courtlistener.com](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261.125.0.pdf)

**and it set no hearing date:** *NAACP v. X.AI Corp. and MZX Tech LLC*, No. 3:26-cv-00074-DMB-JMV (N.D. Miss.), opinion and order, ECF 135, District Judge Debra M. Brown, signed and filed 19 October 2026 (the court’s ruling on the United States’ amended motion to intervene and dismiss, entry 85, granted as to intervention and denied in all other respects, with five other motions, among them the government’s for a stay and for a written order, denied as moot, and nothing in it ruling on the preliminary injunction or on whether the defendants’ turbines are lawful). [storage.courtlistener.com](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261.135.0.pdf)

**the Fifth Circuit on 18 September:** *NAACP v. X.AI Corp.*, No. 3:26-cv-00074-DMB-JMV (cited above in this chapter). [courtlistener.com](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73188848/national-association-for-the-advancement-of-colored-people-v-xai-corp/) ; [storage.courtlistener.com](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261.114.0.pdf) ; [storage.courtlistener.com](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261.123.0.pdf) ; [storage.courtlistener.com](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261.124.0_1.pdf) ; [storage.courtlistener.com](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261.125.0.pdf)

**opposed it, and the company consented:** *NAACP v. X.AI Corp.*, No. 3:26-cv-00074-DMB-JMV (cited above in this chapter). [courtlistener.com](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73188848/national-association-for-the-advancement-of-colored-people-v-xai-corp/) ; [storage.courtlistener.com](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261.114.0.pdf) ; [storage.courtlistener.com](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261.123.0.pdf) ; [storage.courtlistener.com](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261.124.0_1.pdf) ; [storage.courtlistener.com](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261.125.0.pdf)

**temporarily,” saying it “can be refiled:** *NAACP v. X.AI Corp. and MZX Tech LLC*, No. 3:26-cv-00074-DMB-JMV (cited above in this chapter). [storage.courtlistener.com](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261/gov.uscourts.msnd.52261.135.0.pdf); *NAACP v. X.AI*, No. 26-60806 (5th Cir.), unpublished order, per curiam, Circuit Judges Stewart, Richman and Haynes, Document 47-1, filed 19 October 2026 (the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal denied for now, with leave to refile). [storage.courtlistener.com](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca5.232419/gov.uscourts.ca5.232419.47.1.pdf)

**rezonings, site plans and building permits:** Imani Williams, “Memphis City Council committee advances data center moratorium proposal,” Action News 5 (Memphis), 18 August 2026 (the committee meeting, standing-room-only). [actionnews5.com](https://www.actionnews5.com/2026/08/18/memphis-city-council-committee-advances-data-center-moratorium-proposal/); Jeremiah Hall, “City council approves first reading of ordinance that would pause data center development in Memphis,” Local Memphis (ABC24), 18 August 2026 (graduated from the council committee’s executive session to the full council the same afternoon). [localmemphis.com](https://www.localmemphis.com/article/news/local/city-council-passes-first-reading-of-ordinance-that-would-pause-data-center-development-in-memphis/522-677cb765-3a64-48b4-a481-003f24af7bee)

**that “a year is an eternity:** Imani Williams, “Memphis City Council committee advances data center moratorium proposal,” Action News 5 (cited above in this chapter). [actionnews5.com](https://www.actionnews5.com/2026/08/18/memphis-city-council-committee-advances-data-center-moratorium-proposal/); Jeremiah Hall, “City council approves first reading of ordinance that would pause data center development in Memphis,” Local Memphis (cited above in this chapter). [localmemphis.com](https://www.localmemphis.com/article/news/local/city-council-passes-first-reading-of-ordinance-that-would-pause-data-center-development-in-memphis/522-677cb765-3a64-48b4-a481-003f24af7bee)

**the ten members present of thirteen:** Memphis City Council, regular meeting of 18 August 2026, the council’s own video and caption track (Granicus clip 10846), and the minutes of its regular meeting of 1 September 2026 (the consent agenda carrying the first reading of Ordinance 5982 passed at 48:13–48:59 of the 18 August meeting with seven members voting yes — Canale, Green, Smiley, Walker, Warren, Chairwoman Swearengen-Washington and Ford — and none against, eleven present at the roll call). [memphis.granicus.com](https://memphis.granicus.com/MinutesViewer.php?view_id=6&clip_id=10863&doc_id=350938f7-b29f-11f1-a81e-005056a89546) ; [memphis.granicus.com](https://memphis.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=6&clip_id=10846)

**to come to a final vote:** Lydian Coombs, “Memphis City Council pushes back vote on data center regulation,” Action News 5, Memphis, 15 September 2026 (the third reading of 15 September put off: “City leaders will revisit the topic at the October 6 city council meeting”). [actionnews5.com](https://www.actionnews5.com/2026/09/16/memphis-city-council-pushes-back-vote-data-center-regulation/); Lydian Coombs, “City leaders break down revised data center moratorium ahead of final vote,” Action News 5, 25 September 2026 (an amended ordinance to a final vote on 6 October, exempting “Existing, lawfully operating data centers that do not expand their building footprint, electrical demand, utility capacity, or operational intensity”). [actionnews5.com](https://www.actionnews5.com/2026/09/25/city-leaders-break-down-revised-data-center-moratorium-ahead-final-vote/)

**be restored in the Council Chamber:** Memphis City Council, regular agendas of 6 and 20 October 2026 and the notice of 8 October 2026 continuing the meeting of 6 October (the meeting of 6 October “was recessed by the Chairman until order could be restored in the Council Chamber”). [memphistn.gov](https://memphistn.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/AG-10-06-2026-RECESSED-.pdf) ; [memphistn.gov](https://memphistn.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/October_8_Meeting_Notice.pdf) ; [memphistn.gov](https://memphistn.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Regular-Agenda-10.20.26.pdf)

**continue business as normal for now:** City of Memphis, “Substitute Ordinance No. 5982,” the datacenter moratorium the city posted for the council’s third and final reading of 20 October 2026 (section 11, the moratorium to run until the earliest of “Eighteen (18) months following the effective date of this Ordinance”, the adoption of permanent regulations after a community-engagement report, or repeal). [memphistn.gov](https://memphistn.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Substitute-Ordinance-No.-5982-Data-Center-Temporary-Moratorium.pdf); Jack Armstrong and Annie Goldman, “Memphis Council didn’t know what it voted on. Data center pause passed anyway,” The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, 22 October 2026, as syndicated by Yahoo News (the council’s meeting of 20 October 2026: “With a 6-6 tie, the highly anticipated 18-month moratorium failed.”). [yahoo.com](https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/memphis-council-didn-t-know-100741774.html)

**vested before the ordinance was introduced:** Ezekiel Telemaco, “Ordinance to pause data centers due up for 2nd reading,” ABC24 Memphis, 1 September 2026 (ABC24’s words on the ordinance’s reach, at about 0:56 of its report: it “would not shut down” facilities already operating, “like xAI, for example”, the exemptions as the reporter lists them at 1:00.7–1:10.8, “applications that were legally vested before the ordinance was introduced” and “routine maintenance or modernization that does not expand a facility’s impact”). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38jF-YlUqGY)

**station’s reporter was careful to say:** “Plans approved for another SpaceXAI data center in Southaven,” WREG News Channel 3, 2 September 2026 (the Board of Mayor and Aldermen’s design approval of 1 September); City of Southaven, Board of Mayor and Aldermen agenda, 1 September 2026 (Planning Agenda, Item #2, the agenda’s own item 2 being the invocation: “Application by MZX Tech for design review approval of a storage warehouse to be located on the south side of Stanton Road, west of Tulane Road”). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN6vxBAp8MU) ; [southaven.org](https://southaven.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_09012026-484)

**storage center” on the evening news:** “Plans approved for another SpaceXAI data center in Southaven,” WREG News Channel 3, 2 September 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN6vxBAp8MU) ; [southaven.org](https://southaven.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_09012026-484)

**facility stands, went to the company:** “Plans approved for another SpaceXAI data center in Southaven,” WREG News Channel 3, 2 September 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN6vxBAp8MU) ; [southaven.org](https://southaven.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_09012026-484)

**the training center to Swinnea Road:** City of Southaven, Mississippi, Minutes of the Mayor and Board of Aldermen, regular meeting of 18 August 2026, Part 1 (the mayor’s report on the land swap, page 15 of the minutes). [southaven.org](https://southaven.org/Archive.aspx?ADID=1807)

**$40 million to construct new facilities:** City of Southaven, Mississippi, Minutes of the Mayor and Board of Aldermen, regular meeting of 18 August 2026, Part 1 (cited above in this chapter). [southaven.org](https://southaven.org/Archive.aspx?ADID=1807)

**the noise from the temporary turbines:** “Plans approved for another SpaceXAI data center in Southaven,” WREG News Channel 3, 2 September 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN6vxBAp8MU) ; [southaven.org](https://southaven.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_09012026-484)

**weighing in on that broader discussion:** Supreme Court of Maryland, In the Matter of Frederick County Data Center Referendum Committee, No. 67, September Term 2025, per curiam order filed 30 June 2026 and opinion by Chief Justice Fader filed 24 July 2026 (the order affirms the Circuit Court for Frederick County’s judgment, the appellees “Quantum Maryland, LLC” first among eleven). [mdcourts.gov](https://www.mdcourts.gov/data/opinions/coa/2026/67a25.pdf) ; [mdcourts.gov](https://www.mdcourts.gov/data/opinions/coa/2026/67a25pc.pdf)

**all future local laws are unacceptable:** Frederick County, Maryland, Office of the County Executive, Executive Order No. 05-2026, “Temporary Hold on Accepting, Considering, and Processing Applications for Critical Digital Infrastructure Facilities and Critical Digital Infrastructure Electric Substations,” effective 14 September 2026, signed by Jessica Fitzwater, County Executive, and John K. Peterson, Chief Administrative Officer, and Fitzwater’s letter of 14 September 2026 to Michael Kuykendall of Quantum Maryland, LLC (the order supersedes Executive Order 04-2026 of 1 July 2026, directs the Planning and Permitting Division staff to stop accepting, considering, processing or reviewing the applications, exempts a property with an approved Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance Letter of Understanding “prior to June 17, 2025,” and “shall expire on July 1, 2027”). [frederickcountymd.gov](https://www.frederickcountymd.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/17236) ; [frederickcountymd.gov](https://frederickcountymd.gov/DocumentCenter/View/375040/DRRA-Letter-091426)

**it was read on 11 October:** Maryland Judiciary Case Search, Quantum Maryland L L C vs. Jessica Fitzwater, et al., Circuit Court for Frederick County, case C-10-CV-26-000874, case type “Injunction,” filed 8 October 2026 (the docket as read on 11 October 2026: the complaint, summonses, “Plt’s Emergency Motion for Temporary Restraining Order” and a motion to expedite its hearing, no order entered and no hearing date). [casesearch.courts.state.md.us](https://casesearch.courts.state.md.us/casesearch/case-detail-page?caseId=C10CV26000874)

**local paper reported on 28 October:** Erik Anderson, “Judge denies restraining order in data center lawsuit against Frederick County,” The Frederick News-Post, 28 October 2026, on the circuit court’s order of Friday 23 October 2026 in Quantum Maryland v. Fitzwater, C-10-CV-26-000874 (the order quoted: Quantum “failed to clearly show that immediate, substantial, and irreparable harm will result before a full adversary hearing can be held”). [fredericknewspost.com](https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/continuing_coverage/data_centers/judge-denies-restraining-order-in-data-center-lawsuit-against-frederick-county/article_40b3c806-d3ff-5807-b195-4e445d198a73.html)

**answer on the docket that day:** Quantum Maryland, LLC v. Jessica Fitzwater, et al., Circuit Court for Frederick County, Maryland, case C-10-CV-26-000874, complaint e-filed 8 October 2026 (the complaint as the Frederick News-Post posted it, a 68-page scan read on its page images: paragraph 94, “Fitzwater’s stated reason was inaccurate and untrue. The agreement contained no provision shielding the development from all future local laws”). [bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com](https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/fredericknewspost.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/97/1973a944-f426-5da9-a2fb-60e05f1836ad/6ac9b016c45f4.pdf.pdf)

**in which she is a candidate:** Jessica Fitzwater, “Today I was served with a lawsuit challenging our moratorium on new data center development,” post on the Facebook page Jessica Fitzwater for Frederick County, 9 October 2026 (a campaign page, Friends of Jessica Fitzwater named as responsible for it, not a statement of the county government). [facebook.com](https://www.facebook.com/JessicaFitzwaterforFrederick/posts/pfbid02Khyko3sQ1b2XBBxAaBMmsNRH8jbbbagk2cuXoUAzkdLmzarntnCtjpN6bZ8sbiLEl)

**thing to do for Frederick County:** Jessica Fitzwater, “Today I was served with a lawsuit challenging our moratorium on new data center development,” post on the Facebook page Jessica Fitzwater for Frederick County, 9 October 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [facebook.com](https://www.facebook.com/JessicaFitzwaterforFrederick/posts/pfbid02Khyko3sQ1b2XBBxAaBMmsNRH8jbbbagk2cuXoUAzkdLmzarntnCtjpN6bZ8sbiLEl)

**the paper confirmed on 15 October:** Erik Anderson, “Updated: County says ‘no emergency’ in data center moratorium lawsuit response,” *Frederick News-Post*, 15 October 2026 (“The Frederick County government said there ‘is no emergency’ related to the November election requiring a shortened time frame in a lawsuit filed by a data center developer over a data center moratorium issued by County Executive Jessica Fitzwater”). [fredericknewspost.com](https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/continuing_coverage/data_centers/updated-county-says-no-emergency-in-data-center-moratorium-lawsuit-response/article_3c02bc33-f52f-52dc-bcd2-78d7f7c4bc2d.html)

**does not comment on ongoing litigation:** Joseph DeBell, “Updated: Data center developer sues Frederick County over moratorium,” Frederick News-Post, 9 October 2026 (Hope Morris, the county’s communications manager, “said Friday that the county does not comment on ongoing litigation”). [fredericknewspost.com](https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/continuing_coverage/data_centers/updated-data-center-developer-sues-frederick-county-over-moratorium/article_72bc73fc-8a81-5839-9b98-9a686c198167.html)

**restore access to its land-use process:** Joseph DeBell, “Updated: Data center developer sues Frederick County over moratorium,” Frederick News-Post, 9 October 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [fredericknewspost.com](https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/continuing_coverage/data_centers/updated-data-center-developer-sues-frederick-county-over-moratorium/article_72bc73fc-8a81-5839-9b98-9a686c198167.html)

**an answer to the suit’s substance:** Erik Anderson, “Updated: County says ‘no emergency’ in data center moratorium lawsuit response,” *Frederick News-Post*, 15 October 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [fredericknewspost.com](https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/continuing_coverage/data_centers/updated-county-says-no-emergency-in-data-center-moratorium-lawsuit-response/article_3c02bc33-f52f-52dc-bcd2-78d7f7c4bc2d.html)

**to Quantum’s lawsuit within 30 days:** Erik Anderson, “Updated: County says ‘no emergency’ in data center moratorium lawsuit response,” *Frederick News-Post*, 15 October 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [fredericknewspost.com](https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/continuing_coverage/data_centers/updated-county-says-no-emergency-in-data-center-moratorium-lawsuit-response/article_3c02bc33-f52f-52dc-bcd2-78d7f7c4bc2d.html)

**ordinance is administrative, rather than legislative:** City of Emporia, Kansas, Resolution No. 3799, “A Resolution of the Governing Body of the City of Emporia, Kansas, Submitting a Proposed Ordinance Prohibiting High Impact Data Centers to the Electors at the General Election to Be Held on November 3, 2026,” adopted 26 August 2026 (recitals: a petition filed 14 July 2026 and certified sufficient on 21 July). [emporiaks.gov](https://www.emporiaks.gov/DocumentCenter/View/9120/Resolution-3799-Ballot-Question-2-Prohibit-Installation-and-Operation-of-High-Impact-Data-Centers-PDF)

**determines that the ordinance is valid:** City of Emporia, Kansas, Resolution No. 3799, “A Resolution of the Governing Body of the City of Emporia, Kansas, Submitting a Proposed Ordinance Prohibiting High Impact Data Centers to the Electors at the General Election to Be Held on November 3, 2026,” adopted 26 August 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [emporiaks.gov](https://www.emporiaks.gov/DocumentCenter/View/9120/Resolution-3799-Ballot-Question-2-Prohibit-Installation-and-Operation-of-High-Impact-Data-Centers-PDF)

**100% property tax exemption or abatement:** City of Emporia, Kansas, “High Impact Data Center Development Guidelines for Emporia,” 16 October 2026 (nonbinding guidelines “proposed for City Commission consideration,” published ahead of the ballot of 3 November 2026: “The Development Agreement will require the Project to provide per each two megawatts of Project size, a minimum of one permanent, year-round, on-site job located in Lyon County”; “the Developer must secure 100% of the City’s reasonably estimated financial exposure” and “110% of the reasonably estimated cost of said decommissioning and restoration”). [emporiaks.gov](https://www.emporiaks.gov/DocumentCenter/View/9182/High-Impact-Data-Center-Development-Guidelines-for-Emporia-PDF)

**the public is protected from concerns:** City of Emporia, Kansas, “High Impact Data Center Development Guidelines for Emporia,” 16 October 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [emporiaks.gov](https://www.emporiaks.gov/DocumentCenter/View/9182/High-Impact-Data-Center-Development-Guidelines-for-Emporia-PDF)

**for them or proposed any terms:** City of Emporia, Kansas, “High Impact Data Center Development Guidelines for Emporia,” 16 October 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [emporiaks.gov](https://www.emporiaks.gov/DocumentCenter/View/9182/High-Impact-Data-Center-Development-Guidelines-for-Emporia-PDF)

**secured financing or a construction timeline:** Jessie Wagoner, “City leaders: No operator committed to proposed digital campus,” *The Emporia Gazette*, 16 October 2026 (Mayor Becky Smith, City Commissioner Tammy Ogle and City Manager Trey Cocking in an interview with the paper: “no operator has come to the city with a committed development, secured financing or a construction timeline”). [emporiagazette.com](https://www.emporiagazette.com/free/article_59e3b222-d4eb-4a9e-8926-adbc7f3e907f.html)

**mayor’s words, “There is no project:** Jessie Wagoner, “City leaders: No operator committed to proposed digital campus,” *The Emporia Gazette*, 16 October 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [emporiagazette.com](https://www.emporiagazette.com/free/article_59e3b222-d4eb-4a9e-8926-adbc7f3e907f.html)

**of a development agreement or project:** City of Emporia, Kansas, City Commission, agenda packet for the meeting of 21 October 2026, study session report “Proposed Data Center Development Agreement Guidelines,” presented by Trey Cocking, City Manager (the study session item “Discuss Development Agreement Standards,” p. 88 of 98, with the guidelines of 16 October 2026 attached at pp. 89 to 98). [emporiaks.api.civicclerk.com](https://emporiaks.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=1709,plainText=false))

**in approval of a development agreement:** Jessie Wagoner, “City outlines data center expectations; no end user or construction timeline identified,” *The Emporia Gazette*, 21 October 2026 (the City Commission’s action and study sessions of 21 October 2026). [emporiagazette.com](https://www.emporiagazette.com/free/article_7d5a95c3-fa97-4493-a1dd-0cd920b1d601.html)

**had actually delayed at 1,525 megawatts:** Barkin, M., Knuhtsen, R., Eliahou Ontiveros, J., and Patel, D., “Everyone Says Datacenter Moratoriums Are Killing the US Buildout. We disagree”, *SemiAnalysis*, 15 September 2026 (the subhead: “300+ moratoriums mapped, 20GW sits inside a restricted local boundary, 1,525MW actually slips, 2.3GW nationwide including New York”) (SemiAnalysis sells subscriptions and consulting into the datacenter market it measures). [newsletter.semianalysis.com](https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/everyone-says-datacenter-moratoriums)

**capacity sitting inside a restricted boundary:** Barkin, M., Knuhtsen, R., Eliahou Ontiveros, J., and Patel, D., “Everyone Says Datacenter Moratoriums Are Killing the US Buildout. We disagree”, *SemiAnalysis*, 15 September 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [newsletter.semianalysis.com](https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/everyone-says-datacenter-moratoriums)

**counting moratoriums is not counting megawatts:** Barkin, M., Knuhtsen, R., Eliahou Ontiveros, J., and Patel, D., “Everyone Says Datacenter Moratoriums Are Killing the US Buildout. We disagree”, *SemiAnalysis*, 15 September 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [newsletter.semianalysis.com](https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/everyone-says-datacenter-moratoriums)

**the county announced two days later:** Loudoun County, Virginia, “Board Approves Process that Could Pause Legislative Data Center & Substation Applications,” county news, posted 17 September 2026, updated 24 September 2026 (the Board’s vote of 15 September 2026: a resolution that, if approved, “would pause the Board’s action on data center and electrical substation applications that require legislative approval for up to 12 months, the maximum allowed by Virginia law”). [loudoun.gov](https://www.loudoun.gov/m/newsflash/Home/Detail/10874)

**the maximum allowed by Virginia law:** Loudoun County, Virginia, “Board Approves Process that Could Pause Legislative Data Center & Substation Applications,” county news, posted 17 September 2026, updated 24 September 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [loudoun.gov](https://www.loudoun.gov/m/newsflash/Home/Detail/10874)

**data center approvals is not legal:** Loudoun County, Virginia, “Board Approves Process that Could Pause Legislative Data Center & Substation Applications,” county news, posted 17 September 2026, updated 24 September 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [loudoun.gov](https://www.loudoun.gov/m/newsflash/Home/Detail/10874)

**the Board’s final votes would wait:** Loudoun County, Virginia, “Board Approves Process that Could Pause Legislative Data Center & Substation Applications,” county news, posted 17 September 2026, updated 24 September 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [loudoun.gov](https://www.loudoun.gov/m/newsflash/Home/Detail/10874)

**the Board’s meeting of 20 October:** Loudoun County, Virginia, “Board Approves Process that Could Pause Legislative Data Center & Substation Applications,” county news, posted 17 September 2026, updated 24 September 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [loudoun.gov](https://www.loudoun.gov/m/newsflash/Home/Detail/10874)

**to the Board’s November 17 meeting:** Loudoun County, Virginia, “Board of Supervisors to Defer Discussion of Proposed Pause on Some Data Center Applications,” county news, posted 20 October 2026, agenda item 14p (“A proposal to pause consideration of legislative applications for data centers and substations that was to be discussed at the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors’ October 20, 2026, business meeting will be deferred to the Board’s November 17 meeting.”). [loudoun.gov](https://www.loudoun.gov/m/newsflash/home/detail/10938)

**November 17, 2026, Board Business Meeting:** Loudoun County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors, Action Report of the Business Meeting of 20 October 2026, a memorandum of Tim Hemstreet, County Administrator, dated 22 October 2026, not the approved minutes (under Requests for Additions/Deletions to the Agenda, “Item 14p, Resolution to Pause Board of Supervisors Consideration of Legislative Applications for Data Centers and Substations was deferred to the November 17, 2026, Board Business Meeting.”). [pub-loudoun.escribemeetings.com](https://pub-loudoun.escribemeetings.com/FileStream.ashx?DocumentId=2151)

**development of new high wattage users:** Loudoun County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors, Action Report of the Business Meeting of 20 October 2026, a memorandum of Tim Hemstreet, County Administrator, dated 22 October 2026, not the approved minutes (cited above in this chapter). [pub-loudoun.escribemeetings.com](https://pub-loudoun.escribemeetings.com/FileStream.ashx?DocumentId=2151)

**accepted for review on 23 September:** Loudoun County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors, business meeting of 6 October 2026, item 10.c, staff report in response to a Board Member Initiative on the George Washington University campus (the site plan EPLAN-2026-0110, Bridgefield Tech Center, “rejected due to deficiencies on August 5, 2026” and accepted for review on 23 September 2026). [pub-loudoun.escribemeetings.com](https://pub-loudoun.escribemeetings.com/FileStream.ashx?DocumentId=1818)

**84 diesel generators for back-up power:** Loudoun County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors, business meeting of 6 October 2026, item 10.c, staff report in response to a Board Member Initiative on the George Washington University campus (cited above in this chapter). [pub-loudoun.escribemeetings.com](https://pub-loudoun.escribemeetings.com/FileStream.ashx?DocumentId=1818)

**residential development and no data centers:** Loudoun County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors, Action Report of the Business Meeting of 20 October 2026, a memorandum of Tim Hemstreet, County Administrator, dated 22 October 2026, not the approved minutes (cited above in this chapter). [pub-loudoun.escribemeetings.com](https://pub-loudoun.escribemeetings.com/FileStream.ashx?DocumentId=2151)

**data center development at the site:** Loudoun County, Virginia, “Preliminary Agreement with Amazon Prevents Data Centers, Fast Tracks Housing at Loudoun GWU Campus,” county news release, 22 October 2026 (Amazon “stated its intent to withdraw its application for data centers at the site and forego any legal action regarding data center development at the site”). [loudoun.gov](https://www.loudoun.gov/m/newsflash/home/detail/10944)

**rather than engage in costly litigation:** Dan Swinhoe, “Amazon withdraws application for data center campus at GWU site in Ashburn, Virginia,” Data Center Dynamics, 21 October 2026 (Josh Weissman, Amazon’s vice president for data center capacity delivery: “While we see the property’s legal development potential differently than the county does, we concluded that the best outcome for all is to come together on a shared vision for this campus rather than engage in costly litigation”). [datacenterdynamics.com](https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/amazon-withdraws-application-for-data-center-campus-at-gwu-site-in-ashburn-virginia/)

**in force before the village’s moratorium:** Supreme Court of Ohio, State ex rel. Bristolville 25 Developer, L.L.C. v. Lordstown, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-4073, per curiam, decided 20 October 2026 (the opinion joined by all seven justices). [supremecourt.ohio.gov](https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/0/2026/2026-Ohio-4073.pdf)

**extending the data-center moratorium through 2026:** Supreme Court of Ohio, State ex rel. Bristolville 25 Developer, L.L.C. v. Lordstown, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-4073, per curiam, decided 20 October 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [supremecourt.ohio.gov](https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/0/2026/2026-Ohio-4073.pdf)

**moratorium “unenforceable as to Bristolville’s submission:** Supreme Court of Ohio, State ex rel. Bristolville 25 Developer, L.L.C. v. Lordstown, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-4073, per curiam, decided 20 October 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [supremecourt.ohio.gov](https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/0/2026/2026-Ohio-4073.pdf)

**requirements for obtaining such a permit:** Supreme Court of Ohio, State ex rel. Bristolville 25 Developer, L.L.C. v. Lordstown, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-4073, per curiam, decided 20 October 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [supremecourt.ohio.gov](https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/0/2026/2026-Ohio-4073.pdf)

**expanded data center facilities within Oregon:** Tina Kotek, Governor of Oregon, letter to Leah Feldon, Director, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, 9 October 2026, as posted by Oregon Public Broadcasting (“I am asking you to exercise your existing administrative authority and discretion to pause processing and issuance of air or water discharge permit applications until July 1, 2027 that involve new or expanded data center facilities within Oregon”). [opb.org](https://www.opb.org/pdf/100926_GovernorLettertoDEQDataCenterPermitting_1791931532928.pdf)

**what it would pause was applications:** Tina Kotek, Governor of Oregon, letter to Leah Feldon, Director, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, 9 October 2026, as posted by Oregon Public Broadcasting (cited above in this chapter). [opb.org](https://www.opb.org/pdf/100926_GovernorLettertoDEQDataCenterPermitting_1791931532928.pdf)

**local state of emergency against it:** City of Umatilla, Oregon, and its City Manager, David Stockdale, “Umatilla City Council Declares Local State of Emergency in Response to Governor’s Data Center Permitting Directive,” press release, 21 October 2026 (Resolution No. 15-2027, approved by the council on 20 October 2026, “declaring a Local State of Emergency”; the resolution and the council packet not read). [umatilla.gov](https://www.umatilla.gov/DocumentCenter/View/2293/Umatilla-City-Council-Declares-Local-State-of-Emergency--10-21-26)

**delays in revenue to the City:** City of Umatilla, Oregon, and its City Manager, David Stockdale, “Umatilla City Council Declares Local State of Emergency in Response to Governor’s Data Center Permitting Directive,” press release, 21 October 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [umatilla.gov](https://www.umatilla.gov/DocumentCenter/View/2293/Umatilla-City-Council-Declares-Local-State-of-Emergency--10-21-26)

**is not an immediate budget shortfall:** City of Umatilla, Oregon, and its City Manager, David Stockdale, “Umatilla City Council Declares Local State of Emergency in Response to Governor’s Data Center Permitting Directive,” press release, 21 October 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [umatilla.gov](https://www.umatilla.gov/DocumentCenter/View/2293/Umatilla-City-Council-Declares-Local-State-of-Emergency--10-21-26)

**from the Advisory Committee,” it said:** Tina Kotek, Governor of Oregon, letter to Leah Feldon, Director, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, 9 October 2026, as posted by Oregon Public Broadcasting (cited above in this chapter). [opb.org](https://www.opb.org/pdf/100926_GovernorLettertoDEQDataCenterPermitting_1791931532928.pdf)

**Governor no later than October 2026:** Office of the Governor of Oregon, “Governor Kotek Convenes Statewide Data Center Advisory Committee,” press release, 20 January 2026 (“Today, Governor Tina Kotek announced the convening of a statewide Data Center Advisory Committee”). [web.govpress.oregon.gov](https://web.govpress.oregon.gov/mail/util.cfm?gpiv=2100169217.3759.507&gen=1)

**to Governor Kotek by December 2026:** Oregon Data Center Advisory Committee, Preliminary Learnings and Questions Document, September 2026, released 10 September 2026 for public comment by the Oregon Department of Energy for the committee (“This document does not contain the Committee’s final recommendations”; disclosure: the author of this book filed a comment on this document, in a personal capacity, on 24 October 2026, after the book’s close; the committee publishes no comments). [oregon.gov](https://www.oregon.gov/energy/get-involved/Documents/2026-09-10-DCAC-Preliminary-Learnings.pdf)

**for better data, rules, and coordination:** Oregon Data Center Advisory Committee, Session 6 (31 July 2026), Additional Considerations and Deliberations: Facilitator Summary, by the facilitation team, DS Consulting, reviewed by the members, dated by its PDF, made 10 September 2026 (“The idea of a temporary pause or moratorium was brought up as one way to provide time for better data, rules, and coordination”). [oregon.gov](https://www.oregon.gov/energy/get-involved/Documents/7-31-2026-DCAC-Session-Meeting-Summary.pdf)

**the Legislative Assembly adjourns sine die:** Oregon Laws 2026, chapter 50 (House Bill 4084), “Relating to economic development”, approved by the governor 31 March 2026, effective 5 June 2026 (section 11b: “an eligible business firm may not be authorized under ORS 285C.140 with respect to property consisting of a data center project before the date that is 90 days following the date on which the 2027 regular session of the Legislative Assembly adjourns sine die”). [oregonlegislature.gov](https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/lawsstatutes/2026orLaw0050.pdf)

**storage system as a primary use:** City of Hillsboro, Oregon, City Council, Resolution No. 2932, a moratorium under ORS 197.505 to 197.540 adopted “at a special meeting held on the 27th day of July 2026”, with Exhibit A, its findings of fact, and City of Hillsboro, “Land Use Moratorium Enacted on Data Centers & BESS Facilities,” notice of 27 July 2026 (section 1: “No person shall submit, and the City shall not accept, process, or approve, any new application for land use approval under the Hillsboro Community Development Code for a new data center or battery energy storage system as a primary use, or expansion of an existing data center or battery energy storage system as a primary use”). [hillsboro-oregon.civicweb.net](https://hillsboro-oregon.civicweb.net/document/262110/HIllsboro%20-%20Council%20Resolution%20and%20Findings%20-%20Data.pdf?handle=D6A8F6783AE14FE08312D8BCC9696EBB) ; [hillsboro-oregon.gov](https://www.hillsboro-oregon.gov/Home/Components/News/News/17551/4324)

**continue to develop,” the city said:** City of Hillsboro, Oregon, City Council, Resolution No. 2932, a moratorium under ORS 197.505 to 197.540 adopted “at a special meeting held on the 27th day of July 2026”, with Exhibit A, its findings of fact, and City of Hillsboro, “Land Use Moratorium Enacted on Data Centers & BESS Facilities,” notice of 27 July 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [hillsboro-oregon.civicweb.net](https://hillsboro-oregon.civicweb.net/document/262110/HIllsboro%20-%20Council%20Resolution%20and%20Findings%20-%20Data.pdf?handle=D6A8F6783AE14FE08312D8BCC9696EBB) ; [hillsboro-oregon.gov](https://www.hillsboro-oregon.gov/Home/Components/News/News/17551/4324)

**developments to shift to other locations:** City of Hillsboro, Oregon, City Council, Resolution No. 2932, a moratorium under ORS 197.505 to 197.540 adopted “at a special meeting held on the 27th day of July 2026”, with Exhibit A, its findings of fact, and City of Hillsboro, “Land Use Moratorium Enacted on Data Centers & BESS Facilities,” notice of 27 July 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [hillsboro-oregon.civicweb.net](https://hillsboro-oregon.civicweb.net/document/262110/HIllsboro%20-%20Council%20Resolution%20and%20Findings%20-%20Data.pdf?handle=D6A8F6783AE14FE08312D8BCC9696EBB) ; [hillsboro-oregon.gov](https://www.hillsboro-oregon.gov/Home/Components/News/News/17551/4324)

**under their enterprise-zone and strategic-investment agreements:** Oregon State Assessors and Tax Collectors Association and Mike Gorman, “Administration of Data Center Valuation and Property Tax Incentives,” prepared “In coordination with Umatilla, Washington and Morrow Counties,” presented by Mike Gorman, Morrow County Assessor/Tax Collector, to the Governor’s Data Center Advisory Committee, Oregon Department of Energy, 26 June 2026 (slides 17 and 19, the values printed on the bars, “2025 Certified Tax vs Data Center Exempt Tax Morrow County”: Certified Tax $72,287,070, Data Center Exempt Tax $123,589,210, Data Center EZ & SIP Payments $23,894,550). [oregon.gov](https://www.oregon.gov/energy/get-involved/Documents/09-Mike-Gorman-DCAC.pdf)

**million, $140.1 million and $14.2 million:** Oregon State Assessors and Tax Collectors Association and Mike Gorman, “Administration of Data Center Valuation and Property Tax Incentives,” prepared “In coordination with Umatilla, Washington and Morrow Counties,” presented by Mike Gorman, Morrow County Assessor/Tax Collector, to the Governor’s Data Center Advisory Committee, Oregon Department of Energy, 26 June 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [oregon.gov](https://www.oregon.gov/energy/get-involved/Documents/09-Mike-Gorman-DCAC.pdf)

**taxing districts during the exemption period:** Oregon State Assessors and Tax Collectors Association and Mike Gorman, “Administration of Data Center Valuation and Property Tax Incentives,” prepared “In coordination with Umatilla, Washington and Morrow Counties,” presented by Mike Gorman, Morrow County Assessor/Tax Collector, to the Governor’s Data Center Advisory Committee, Oregon Department of Energy, 26 June 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [oregon.gov](https://www.oregon.gov/energy/get-involved/Documents/09-Mike-Gorman-DCAC.pdf)

**court at Pendleton to be approved:** Alex Baumhardt, Oregon Capital Chronicle, “Amazon to pay $20.5 million settlement over northeast Oregon nitrate pollution - OPB,” OPB, 31 March 2026, and Hagens Berman, “$20.5M Settlement Reached with Amazon Data Services, Inc. Over Alleged Nitrate Groundwater Contamination in Oregon’s LUBGWMA,” release, 31 March 2026 (“Tech giant Amazon will pay $20.5 million to settle with northeast Oregonians living with contaminated groundwater in exchange for no admission of guilt in the polluting”). [opb.org](https://www.opb.org/article/2026/03/31/amazon-fine-northeast-oregon-boardman-nitrate-pollution-well/) ; [hbsslaw.com](https://www.hbsslaw.com/press/oregon-groundwater-contamination/205m-settlement-reached-with-amazon-data-services-inc-over-alleged-nitrate-groundwater-contamination-in-oregons-lubgwma)

**for the towns that host datacenters:** Empire State Development, “New York State Guidance for Host Communities Implementing the Community Investment Framework for Data Center Development,” and Office of Governor Kathy Hochul, “Governor Hochul Announces Strongest Community Investment Framework in the Nation to Protect Communities from Exploitative Data Center Development,” 15 September 2026 (voluntary guidance for towns negotiating with data center developers, under Executive Order No. 62). [esd.ny.gov](https://esd.ny.gov/sites/default/files/media/document/CIFGuidanceDocument.pdf) ; [governor.ny.gov](https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-strongest-community-investment-framework-nation-protect-communities)

**as required by New York State:** Empire State Development, “New York State Guidance for Host Communities Implementing the Community Investment Framework for Data Center Development,” and Office of Governor Kathy Hochul, “Governor Hochul Announces Strongest Community Investment Framework in the Nation to Protect Communities from Exploitative Data Center Development,” 15 September 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [esd.ny.gov](https://esd.ny.gov/sites/default/files/media/document/CIFGuidanceDocument.pdf) ; [governor.ny.gov](https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-strongest-community-investment-framework-nation-protect-communities)

**level of $50M,” it goes on:** Empire State Development, “New York State Guidance for Host Communities Implementing the Community Investment Framework for Data Center Development,” and Office of Governor Kathy Hochul, “Governor Hochul Announces Strongest Community Investment Framework in the Nation to Protect Communities from Exploitative Data Center Development,” 15 September 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [esd.ny.gov](https://esd.ny.gov/sites/default/files/media/document/CIFGuidanceDocument.pdf) ; [governor.ny.gov](https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-strongest-community-investment-framework-nation-protect-communities)

**for, not one the state requires:** Empire State Development, “New York State Guidance for Host Communities Implementing the Community Investment Framework for Data Center Development,” and Office of Governor Kathy Hochul, “Governor Hochul Announces Strongest Community Investment Framework in the Nation to Protect Communities from Exploitative Data Center Development,” 15 September 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [esd.ny.gov](https://esd.ny.gov/sites/default/files/media/document/CIFGuidanceDocument.pdf) ; [governor.ny.gov](https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-strongest-community-investment-framework-nation-protect-communities)

**approved it on 19 February 2025:** Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, final order in Cause No. 46097, Indiana Michigan Power Company’s petition to modify its Industrial Power Tariff, approved 19 February 2025 (a settlement every party signed: on 22 November 2024 I&M filed the Stipulation and Settlement Agreement “on behalf of itself, the OUCC, and all intervenors” — the Citizens Action Coalition, Amazon Data Services, the Data Center Coalition, Google and Microsoft — as unopposed). [secure.in.gov](https://secure.in.gov/iurc/files/ord_46097_021925.pdf)

**demand of the past eleven months:** Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, final order in Cause No. 46097, Indiana Michigan Power Company’s petition to modify its Industrial Power Tariff, approved 19 February 2025 (cited above in this chapter). [secure.in.gov](https://secure.in.gov/iurc/files/ord_46097_021925.pdf)

**90 the utility had asked for:** Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, final order in Cause No. 46097, Indiana Michigan Power Company’s petition to modify its Industrial Power Tariff, approved 19 February 2025 (cited above in this chapter). [secure.in.gov](https://secure.in.gov/iurc/files/ord_46097_021925.pdf)

**NiSource, announced on 23 June 2026:** NiSource, “Regulatory approvals underscore strength of NiSource’s customer-focused data center strategy supporting growth in Indiana,” press release, 23 June 2026 (“On June 17, the IURC fully approved the settlement agreement, Amazon special contract and related power purchase agreement”; the company’s account, the order itself not read). [nisource.com](https://www.nisource.com/news/article/regulatory-approvals-underscore-strength-of-nisource-s-customer-focused-data-center-strategy-supporting-growth-in-indiana)

**expedited procedural schedules for future agreements:** NiSource, “Regulatory approvals underscore strength of NiSource’s customer-focused data center strategy supporting growth in Indiana,” press release, 23 June 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [nisource.com](https://www.nisource.com/news/article/regulatory-approvals-underscore-strength-of-nisource-s-customer-focused-data-center-strategy-supporting-growth-in-indiana)

**of it by paying a fine:** Lancaster Stands Up, “CBA Report”, 11 December 2025 (the opponents’ own audit of a signed bargain, the organisation a party to the dispute and the post its own account, written in the first person and unsigned, three weeks after Lancaster city council adopted the community benefits agreement on 20 November 2025: “We can break the CBA into three categories: good, inadequate, and missing”, and the council’s yes “doesn’t mean the fight against AI data centers is over”). [pastandsup.org](https://pastandsup.org/lancaster/2025/12/11/cba-report/)

**percent of the total project cost:** Lancaster Stands Up, “CBA Report”, 11 December 2025 (cited above in this chapter). [pastandsup.org](https://pastandsup.org/lancaster/2025/12/11/cba-report/)

**the lowest increases in residential bills:** Andy Masley, interviewed by Jon Bateman, “Data Centers Are Fine, Actually,” The World Unpacked, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, published 17 July 2026 (Loudoun’s “something like $1.3 billion every year” at 31:00). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q6t2PxZxDE)

**electricity prices decline in real terms:** Ryan Wiser, Galen Barbose and others, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, with Ryan Hledik, Long Lam and Audrey Yan, The Brattle Group, “Recent Retail Electricity Price Trends: What Do We Know... or Think We Know?,” presentation, October 2025 (its scope: “The study does not predict future price trends or assess possible future drivers of price changes (e.g., data centers)”) (funded by the US Department of Energy). [eta-publications.lbl.gov](https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/2025-10/presentation_retail_price_trends_drivers.pdf)

**and “Past relationships need not persist:** Ryan Wiser, Galen Barbose and others, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, with Ryan Hledik, Long Lam and Audrey Yan, The Brattle Group, “Recent Retail Electricity Price Trends: What Do We Know... or Think We Know?,” presentation, October 2025 (cited above in this chapter). [eta-publications.lbl.gov](https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/2025-10/presentation_retail_price_trends_drivers.pdf)

**April 2026, months before the interview:** Ryan Wiser, Galen Barbose and others, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, with Ryan Hledik and Long Lam, The Brattle Group, “Retail Electricity Price Trends and Drivers: Data Update−2026 Edition,” briefing deck, April 2026, and its “July 2026 - update” (the 2026 edition, which “updates and builds on LBNL/Brattle’s 2025 work”) (funded by the US Department of Energy). [eta-publications.lbl.gov](https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/2026-03/retail_price_trends_2026_edition.pdf) ; [eta-publications.lbl.gov](https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/2026-07/retail_price_trends_2026_edition_julyupdate.pdf)

**is less clear and may change:** Ryan Wiser, Galen Barbose and others, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, with Ryan Hledik and Long Lam, The Brattle Group, “Retail Electricity Price Trends and Drivers: Data Update−2026 Edition,” briefing deck, April 2026, and its “July 2026 - update” (cited above in this chapter). [eta-publications.lbl.gov](https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/2026-03/retail_price_trends_2026_edition.pdf) ; [eta-publications.lbl.gov](https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/2026-07/retail_price_trends_2026_edition_julyupdate.pdf)

**not appear to alter these conclusions:** Ryan Wiser, Galen Barbose and others, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, with Ryan Hledik and Long Lam, The Brattle Group, “Retail Electricity Price Trends and Drivers: Data Update−2026 Edition,” briefing deck, April 2026, and its “July 2026 - update” (cited above in this chapter). [eta-publications.lbl.gov](https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/2026-03/retail_price_trends_2026_edition.pdf) ; [eta-publications.lbl.gov](https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/2026-07/retail_price_trends_2026_edition_julyupdate.pdf)

**had so far raised water bills:** Andy Masley, interviewed by Jon Bateman, “Data Centers Are Fine, Actually,” The World Unpacked, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, published 17 July 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q6t2PxZxDE)

**supply constraints could reverse the effect:** Asa Watten, John Bistline and Geoffrey Blanford, “Have Data Centers Raised Your Electric Bill? Causal Evidence from the United States,” working paper, arXiv 2606.19777, version 1, 18 June 2026 (an unrefereed working paper, two of its authors at the Electric Power Research Institute and one at Watershed, estimating by instrumental variables on United States data for 2015 to 2024). [arxiv.org](https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.19777)

**utilities whose territory never received one:** Robyn Meeks, Jacquelyn Pless, Zhiyuan Qi and Zhenxuan Wang, “Who Pays for Growth? Evidence from Data Centers and the Grid,” MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research Working Paper 2026-13, 19 June 2026 (an unrefereed working paper, its authors at Duke University, the MIT Sloan School of Management and North Carolina State University, comparing utility-state pairs “whose service territories receive a large data center for the first time” with pairs “whose territories never receive a data center”). [ceepr.mit.edu](https://ceepr.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/MIT-CEEPR-WP-2026-13.pdf)

**customers, and 4.2% for industrial customers:** Robyn Meeks, Jacquelyn Pless, Zhiyuan Qi and Zhenxuan Wang, “Who Pays for Growth? Evidence from Data Centers and the Grid,” MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research Working Paper 2026-13, 19 June 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [ceepr.mit.edu](https://ceepr.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/MIT-CEEPR-WP-2026-13.pdf)

**utility data for 2015 to 2024:** Angela Ryu and Shon R. Hiatt, “Data Center Entry and U.S. Electricity Prices: From the Wholesale Market to the Power Bill,” Energy Brief, USC Marshall Zage Business of Energy Initiative, University of Southern California, 22 May 2026 (a policy brief setting utilities’ residential prices against their operating data-center capacity, “prepared by Shon R. Hiatt and Angela Ryu for the USC Marshall Zage Business of Energy Initiative”; “In the primary 2015–2024 specification, operating data-center capacity is positively associated with residential prices (β = 0.0094, p<0.001; Appendix Table A3)”). [drive.google.com](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IWolyGYxOv5ENI3frcRU8U0Mge_fbWUr/view)

**association for commercial or industrial rates:** Angela Ryu and Shon R. Hiatt, “Data Center Entry and U.S. Electricity Prices: From the Wholesale Market to the Power Bill,” Energy Brief, USC Marshall Zage Business of Energy Initiative, University of Southern California, 22 May 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [drive.google.com](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IWolyGYxOv5ENI3frcRU8U0Mge_fbWUr/view)

**rather than definitive causal pass-through effects:** Angela Ryu and Shon R. Hiatt, “Data Center Entry and U.S. Electricity Prices: From the Wholesale Market to the Power Bill,” Energy Brief, USC Marshall Zage Business of Energy Initiative, University of Southern California, 22 May 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [drive.google.com](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IWolyGYxOv5ENI3frcRU8U0Mge_fbWUr/view)

**hyperscale datacenter between 2015 and 2021:** Dany Bahar and Greg C. Wright, “The Local Economic Impact of Data Centers,” working paper, 7 August 2026 (a working paper on a registry of 341 hyperscale facilities, its authors at Brown University and the University of California, Merced, its residential-price estimate in Appendix C, a cohort event study of “52 utility-states first treated between 2015 and 2021” in EIA Form 861 data for 2012 to 2024). [gregcwright-econ.github.io](https://gregcwright-econ.github.io/files/DataCenters_LocalImpact_2026.pdf)

**an average the authors call imprecise:** Dany Bahar and Greg C. Wright, “The Local Economic Impact of Data Centers,” working paper, 7 August 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [gregcwright-econ.github.io](https://gregcwright-econ.github.io/files/DataCenters_LocalImpact_2026.pdf)

**the larger post-2022 artificial intelligence build-out:** Dany Bahar and Greg C. Wright, “The Local Economic Impact of Data Centers,” working paper, 7 August 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [gregcwright-econ.github.io](https://gregcwright-econ.github.io/files/DataCenters_LocalImpact_2026.pdf)

**something like $1.3 billion every year:** Andy Masley, interviewed by Jon Bateman, “Data Centers Are Fine, Actually,” The World Unpacked, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, published 17 July 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q6t2PxZxDE)

**39% of the county’s overall budget:** Loudoun County, Virginia, “Data Centers: The Loudoun Story,” county page, undated (“In Fiscal Year 2026, data centers generated $1.2 billion in real and personal property tax revenue, representing 39% of the county’s overall budget. The FY 2027 adopted budget projects data center revenue at $1.3 billion, representing 40% of the total budget.”). [loudoun.gov](https://www.loudoun.gov/6408/Data-Centers-The-Loudoun-Story)

**representing 40% of the total budget:** Loudoun County, Virginia, “Data Centers: The Loudoun Story,” county page, undated (cited above in this chapter). [loudoun.gov](https://www.loudoun.gov/6408/Data-Centers-The-Loudoun-Story)

**a General Fund of $3.2 billion:** Loudoun County, Virginia, FY 2027 Adopted Budget, “General Fund Revenue” chapter, June 2026 (adopted for fiscal 2027: real property taxes on data centers $417,666,456 and “Computer Equipment Data Centers” $879,094,354, of a Total General Fund of $3,218,218,368). [loudoun.gov](https://www.loudoun.gov/DocumentCenter/View/221479/General-Fund-Revenue-PDF)

**property at least five years old:** Loudoun County, Virginia, FY 2027 Adopted Budget, “General Fund Revenue” chapter, June 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [loudoun.gov](https://www.loudoun.gov/DocumentCenter/View/221479/General-Fund-Revenue-PDF)

**the political power to resist them:** Andy Masley, interviewed by Jon Bateman, “Data Centers Are Fine, Actually,” The World Unpacked, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, published 17 July 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q6t2PxZxDE)

**about the most with data centers:** Andy Masley, interviewed by Jon Bateman, “Data Centers Are Fine, Actually,” The World Unpacked, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, published 17 July 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q6t2PxZxDE)

**a sprawling AI data center project:** Maxwell Adler, “AI Data Center Gets Approval for $165 Billion Phantom Debt Deal,” Bloomberg, 19 September 2025 (the first press report of the vote, published the day of it: “The board voted 4-1 on Friday”). [bloomberg.com](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-19/ai-data-center-gets-approval-for-165-billion-phantom-debt-deal)

**shouted ‘sell outs’ at the commissioners:** Maxwell Adler, “AI Data Center Gets Approval for $165 Billion Phantom Debt Deal,” Bloomberg, 19 September 2025 (cited above in this chapter). [bloomberg.com](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-19/ai-data-center-gets-approval-for-165-billion-phantom-debt-deal)

**the developers in their bond application:** Maxwell Adler, “AI Data Center Gets Approval for $165 Billion Phantom Debt Deal,” Bloomberg, 19 September 2025 (cited above in this chapter). [bloomberg.com](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-19/ai-data-center-gets-approval-for-165-billion-phantom-debt-deal)

**affiliate or parent of the Companies:** Doña Ana County Board of County Commissioners, “A Resolution Relating to the Proposed Industrial Revenue Bonds, Entitled Doña Ana County, New Mexico Taxable Industrial Revenue Bonds, Project Jupiter; Declaring the Intent of Doña Ana County to Issue Such Industrial Revenue Bonds in an Aggregate Principal Amount up to $165,000,000,000,” inducement resolution with its notice of intent, agenda item 17 of the regular meeting of 26 August 2025, pages 553 to 572 of the meeting’s agenda packet (the bonds “shall not constitute a debt or indebtedness of the County”). [donaanaconm.api.civicclerk.com](https://donaanaconm.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=3879,plainText=false))

**and $125 billion for equipping them:** Doña Ana County Board of County Commissioners, “A Resolution Relating to the Proposed Industrial Revenue Bonds, Entitled Doña Ana County, New Mexico Taxable Industrial Revenue Bonds, Project Jupiter; Declaring the Intent of Doña Ana County to Issue Such Industrial Revenue Bonds in an Aggregate Principal Amount up to $165,000,000,000,” inducement resolution with its notice of intent, agenda item 17 of the regular meeting of 26 August 2025, pages 553 to 572 of the meeting’s agenda packet (cited above in this chapter). [donaanaconm.api.civicclerk.com](https://donaanaconm.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=3879,plainText=false))

**an aggregate principal amount of $124,999,925,000:** Doña Ana County, New Mexico, Taxable Industrial Revenue Bonds, Project Jupiter, Series 2025A, 2025B and 2025C, the lease agreements and the bond purchase agreements, executed and recorded on 12 November 2025 (the county’s recorded instruments, as it serves them on its Project Jupiter page; the bond purchase agreements, dated as of 12 November 2025, name the purchasers, Yucca Growth Infrastructure Purchaser, LLC for Series 2025A, Red Chiles Sub A, B, C and D, LLC for the four subseries of Series 2025B, and Oracle America, Inc. for Series 2025C, its Subseries 2025C-1 “up to an aggregate principal amount of $124,999,925,000” and Subseries 2025C-2 to 2025C-4 $25,000 each). [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/IRB%20Series%202025A%20-%20Executed%20%26%20Recorded.pdf) ; [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/IRB%20Series%202025B%20-%20Executed%20%26%20Recorded.pdf) ; [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/IRB%20Series%202025C%20-%20Executed%20%26%20Recorded.pdf)

**to” before the county takes title:** Doña Ana County Board of County Commissioners, “A Resolution Relating to the Proposed Industrial Revenue Bonds, Entitled Doña Ana County, New Mexico Taxable Industrial Revenue Bonds, Project Jupiter; Declaring the Intent of Doña Ana County to Issue Such Industrial Revenue Bonds in an Aggregate Principal Amount up to $165,000,000,000,” inducement resolution with its notice of intent, agenda item 17 of the regular meeting of 26 August 2025, pages 553 to 572 of the meeting’s agenda packet (cited above in this chapter). [donaanaconm.api.civicclerk.com](https://donaanaconm.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=3879,plainText=false))

**for the vote on 15 September:** Doña Ana County and Project Jupiter, “Memorandum of Understanding by and between Doña Ana County, New Mexico and Project Jupiter, by and through its affiliated development entities,” signed for the county on 22 September 2025 and for Project Jupiter on 24 September 2025 (executed by DocuSign, as the county serves it on its Project Jupiter page). [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/Executed%20Memorandum%20of%20Understanding%20(MOU).pdf); Doña Ana County Board of County Commissioners, agenda packet for the regular meeting of 19 September 2025, published on the county’s CivicClerk portal on 15 September 2025 (531 pages, with item 10, the Project Jupiter bond ordinance, its staff summary and the forms of the leases, and the draft memorandum of understanding). [donaanaconm.api.civicclerk.com](https://donaanaconm.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=3903,plainText=false))

**thirty payments from 31 December 2026:** Doña Ana County, New Mexico, Taxable Industrial Revenue Bonds, Project Jupiter, Series 2025A, 2025B and 2025C, the lease agreements and the bond purchase agreements, executed and recorded on 12 November 2025 (cited above in this chapter). [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/IRB%20Series%202025A%20-%20Executed%20%26%20Recorded.pdf) ; [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/IRB%20Series%202025B%20-%20Executed%20%26%20Recorded.pdf) ; [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/IRB%20Series%202025C%20-%20Executed%20%26%20Recorded.pdf)

**datacenter leases, to the county alone:** Doña Ana County, New Mexico, Taxable Industrial Revenue Bonds, Project Jupiter, Series 2025A, 2025B and 2025C, the lease agreements and the bond purchase agreements, executed and recorded on 12 November 2025 (cited above in this chapter). [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/IRB%20Series%202025A%20-%20Executed%20%26%20Recorded.pdf) ; [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/IRB%20Series%202025B%20-%20Executed%20%26%20Recorded.pdf) ; [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/IRB%20Series%202025C%20-%20Executed%20%26%20Recorded.pdf)

**about twenty banks for the campus:** Paula Seligson, Jeannine Amodeo and Laura Benitez, “Banks Lend $18 Billion for Oracle-Tied Data Center in New Mexico,” Bloomberg, 7 November 2025 (the original of the report Reuters relayed the same day). [bloomberg.com](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-07/banks-lend-18-billion-for-oracle-tied-data-center-in-new-mexico)

**of the Project for ten years:** Doña Ana County Board of County Commissioners, Ordinance No. 368-2025, adopted 19 September 2025, and the Project Participation Agreement among Doña Ana County, the New Mexico Economic Development Department, Red Chiles A, B, C and D, LLC and Yucca Growth Infrastructure, LLC, effective 23 October 2025, under the Local Economic Development Act (as the county serves them on its Project Jupiter page). [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/Ordinance%20No.%20368-2025%20LEDA%20GRT%20Share_%20Executed%26Recorded.pdf) ; [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/LEDA%20PPA%20GRT%20Share_Executed.pdf)

**county “for disbursement to the Companies:** Doña Ana County Board of County Commissioners, Ordinance No. 368-2025, adopted 19 September 2025, and the Project Participation Agreement among Doña Ana County, the New Mexico Economic Development Department, Red Chiles A, B, C and D, LLC and Yucca Growth Infrastructure, LLC, effective 23 October 2025, under the Local Economic Development Act (cited above in this chapter). [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/Ordinance%20No.%20368-2025%20LEDA%20GRT%20Share_%20Executed%26Recorded.pdf) ; [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/LEDA%20PPA%20GRT%20Share_Executed.pdf)

**improvements in southern Doña Ana County:** Doña Ana County Board of County Commissioners, Ordinance No. 368-2025, adopted 19 September 2025, and the Project Participation Agreement among Doña Ana County, the New Mexico Economic Development Department, Red Chiles A, B, C and D, LLC and Yucca Growth Infrastructure, LLC, effective 23 October 2025, under the Local Economic Development Act (cited above in this chapter). [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/Ordinance%20No.%20368-2025%20LEDA%20GRT%20Share_%20Executed%26Recorded.pdf) ; [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/LEDA%20PPA%20GRT%20Share_Executed.pdf)

**of the three sums it listed:** Oracle, “Oracle, BorderPlex, and Bloom Energy to Power Project Jupiter with Cleaner, Water-Efficient Fuel Cell Technology,” press release, Austin, Texas, 27 April 2026 (issued with BorderPlex Digital Assets and Bloom Energy). [oracle.com](https://www.oracle.com/news/announcement/oracle-borderplex-and-bloom-energy-to-power-project-jupiter-with-fuel-cell-technology-2026-04-27/)

**consideration for building permit fee reduction:** Project Jupiter Community Benefits Agreement among Red Chiles A, B, C and D, LLC, Yucca Growth Infrastructure, LLC and Doña Ana County, New Mexico, made and executed on 12 November 2025 (as the county serves it on its Project Jupiter page). [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/Community%20Benefits%20Agreement%20(CBA)%20Executed.pdf)

**or specific performance under this CBA:** Project Jupiter Community Benefits Agreement among Red Chiles A, B, C and D, LLC, Yucca Growth Infrastructure, LLC and Doña Ana County, New Mexico, made and executed on 12 November 2025 (cited above in this chapter). [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/Community%20Benefits%20Agreement%20(CBA)%20Executed.pdf)

**a guaranty of the same day:** Project Jupiter Community Benefits Agreement among Red Chiles A, B, C and D, LLC, Yucca Growth Infrastructure, LLC and Doña Ana County, New Mexico, made and executed on 12 November 2025 (cited above in this chapter). [donaana.gov](https://www.donaana.gov/Documents/About%20Us/Economic%20Development%20Projects/Community%20Benefits%20Agreement%20(CBA)%20Executed.pdf)

**twenty (20) Mitsubishi FT8” portable units:** New Mexico Environment Department, Air Quality Bureau, legal notice of the application of Acoma, LLC for Air Quality Permit No. NSR 10734, the West Microgrid, published January 2026, with the bureau’s memorandum of 23 March 2026 recommending a public hearing on that application and on No. NSR 10732, the East Microgrid (the notice: “thirty-four (34) GE TM2500 32.9 MW natural gas-fired (NGF) portable aeroderivative combustion turbines, and twenty (20) Mitsubishi FT8 27.9 MW portable turbines”, and “Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) at 245.0 tons per year (tpy)”). [service.web.env.nm.gov](https://service.web.env.nm.gov/urls/sxoXlJhu) ; [cloud.env.nm.gov](https://cloud.env.nm.gov/resources/_translator.php/NDZmZjVhMzg1MWQxMWQ0N2I2MmU3MmNmY18yMjIwMzQ~.pdf)

**PSD threshold is not practically enforceable:** New Mexico Environment Department, Air Quality Bureau, “Incomplete Determination of Air Quality Permit Application No. 10732 (Agency Interest No. 41309 - PRN20250001)-East Microgrid,” letter from the bureau’s PSD unit supervisor on the application of Acoma, LLC, 17 December 2025 (the application “was received by the Department on November 17, 2025” and “your application was ruled administratively incomplete on December 17, 2025”). [service.web.env.nm.gov](https://service.web.env.nm.gov/urls/OfjaesDB)

**two and recommended a public hearing:** New Mexico Environment Department, Air Quality Bureau, legal notice of the application of Acoma, LLC for Air Quality Permit No. NSR 10734, the West Microgrid, published January 2026, with the bureau’s memorandum of 23 March 2026 recommending a public hearing on that application and on No. NSR 10732, the East Microgrid (cited above in this chapter). [service.web.env.nm.gov](https://service.web.env.nm.gov/urls/sxoXlJhu) ; [cloud.env.nm.gov](https://cloud.env.nm.gov/resources/_translator.php/NDZmZjVhMzg1MWQxMWQ0N2I2MmU3MmNmY18yMjIwMzQ~.pdf)

**the figure this book’s ledger carries:** Epoch AI, “OpenAI Stargate New Mexico,” Frontier Data Centers directory, updated 2 October 2026 and read 5 October 2026 (“In Q4 2028, we project it to host an estimated 5,104k H100-equivalents of AI compute, supported by 1,750 MW of IT power at a capital cost of $66.3 B”). [epoch.ai](https://epoch.ai/data/ai-data-centers/directory/openai-stargate-new-mexico)

**of “Oracle’s 1.3GW IT Project Jupiter:** Ellie Holbrook, Robert Boswall, Jeremie Eliahou Ontiveros, Nicolas Bontigui and Dylan Patel, “What is So Hard About Behind-The-Meter Power For Datacenters? Part 1,” *SemiAnalysis*, 10 September 2026 (the free portion of a paid post, 7,872 of 9,577 words by the publisher’s count; “Oracle’s 1.3GW IT Project Jupiter”) (SemiAnalysis sells subscriptions, consulting and its own models of chip, memory and datacenter supply into the markets it measures; its closing section is for paid subscribers and was not read). [newsletter.semianalysis.com](https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/what-is-so-hard-about-behind-the)

**2.0 GW” and tables 2.462 gigawatts:** New Mexico Environment Department, Air Quality Bureau, draft Statement of Basis for NSR permit 10883, Yucca Growth Infrastructure, dated 29 July 2026 (the applicant’s figure: “YGI’s proposed electrical generation capacity is over 2.0 GW”, and in its table 2.4620 GW, “Provides power to one data center”). [service.web.env.nm.gov](https://service.web.env.nm.gov/urls/liepnPTb)

**10,144,115 tpy,” in tons a year:** New Mexico Environment Department, Air Quality Bureau, draft Statement of Basis for NSR permit 10883, Yucca Growth Infrastructure, dated 29 July 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [service.web.env.nm.gov](https://service.web.env.nm.gov/urls/liepnPTb)

**generation capacity rather than IT load:** Oracle, “Oracle, BorderPlex, and Bloom Energy to Power Project Jupiter with Cleaner, Water-Efficient Fuel Cell Technology,” press release, Austin, Texas, 27 April 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [oracle.com](https://www.oracle.com/news/announcement/oracle-borderplex-and-bloom-energy-to-power-project-jupiter-with-fuel-cell-technology-2026-04-27/)

**an emergency without notice or hearing:** New Mexico PBS, New Mexico in Focus, “Hyperscale Data Center in New Mexico Hits Snags,” 28 August 2026 (host Nash Jones: the Supreme Court paused the air-permit hearing “on Sunday” [23 August] on New Energy Economy’s petition and the same day unanimously stayed the use of the well the Office of the State Engineer had authorized for Santa Teresa Capital without notice or hearing). The video is at the second address. [newmexicopbs.org](https://www.newmexicopbs.org/productions/newmexicoinfocus/hyperscale-data-center-in-new-mexico-hits-snags/) ; [youtu.be](https://youtu.be/59WJ0ds0GDA)

**request to lift the pause temporarily:** Abigail Salas, “NM Supreme Court denies request from Project Jupiter developers to lift air quality permit stay,” KRWG Public Media, 1 September 2026 (unanimous denial of Yucca Growth Infrastructure’s request). [krwg.org](https://www.krwg.org/krwg-news/2026-09-01/nm-supreme-court-denies-request-from-project-jupiter-developers-to-lift-air-quality-permit-stay)

**the level of a genuine emergency:** Raúl Torrez, Attorney General of New Mexico, for the State of New Mexico, Response of the Attorney General in Support of Petitioner’s Emergency Verified Petition for Writ of Mandamus and Request for Stay, Center for Biological Diversity v. Elizabeth Anderson, State Engineer, Supreme Court of New Mexico No. S-1-SC-41580, 2 September 2026 (“Delay in the construction of a private data center does not rise to the level of a genuine emergency”). [nmdoj.gov](https://nmdoj.gov/wp-content/uploads/State-Response-CBD-v.-Anderson-2026.09.02.pdf)

**stays, the hearing’s and the well’s:** Supreme Court of New Mexico, orders of 17 September 2026 in New Energy Economy v. Kenney, No. S-1-SC-41579, on Yucca Growth Infrastructure’s air-quality permit No. 10883, and in Center for Biological Diversity v. Anderson, No. S-1-SC-41580, with Santa Teresa Capital as real party in interest (in each case the petition for a writ of mandamus is denied and “the stay imposed by this Court’s order filed on August 23, 2026, is hereby LIFTED”). [nmcourts.gov](https://nmcourts.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Orders-in-Project-Jupiter-air-quality-permit-and-water-cases.pdf)

**equivalent of nine households” over time:** Riley Callanan, “Project Jupiter: New Mexico’s massive data center and its massive water needs,” CBS News, 27 August 2026 (an Oracle vice-president, “a VP from Oracle” in the reporter’s words and named on screen as “Julia Robin, Head of Infrastructure Planning and Sourcing”, the label naming no company, by phone, on the campus’s water use: over time “about the equivalent of nine households”). [youtu.be](https://youtu.be/dKurj5TCrNg)

**and Sourcing,” and names no company:** Riley Callanan, “Project Jupiter: New Mexico’s massive data center and its massive water needs,” CBS News, 27 August 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [youtu.be](https://youtu.be/dKurj5TCrNg)

**Rehearing on behalf of Oracle Corporation:** Joint Petition for Reopening or Rehearing, in the Application of Wisconsin Electric Power Company for Approval of its Very Large Customer and Bespoke Resources Tariffs, Public Service Commission of Wisconsin docket 6630-TE-113, received 10 June 2026 (PSC REF# 593736). [midwestadvocates.org](https://midwestadvocates.org/wp-content/uploads/Oracle-Petition-for-Reopening-June-2026.pdf)

**infrastructure capacity and sourcing for Oracle:** Danielle Kaeding, “Oracle sues Wisconsin utility regulators over financial requirements for data centers,” Wisconsin Public Radio, 24 June 2026 (“Julia Robin, vice president of infrastructure capacity and sourcing for Oracle, said only a handful of companies worldwide could meet the requirements in an affidavit submitted in support of We Energies’ petition”). [wpr.org](https://www.wpr.org/news/oracle-sues-wisconsin-utility-regulators-psc-financial-requirements-data-centers)

**reporter called “construction costs” not counted:** Riley Callanan, “Project Jupiter: New Mexico’s massive data center and its massive water needs,” CBS News, 27 August 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [youtu.be](https://youtu.be/dKurj5TCrNg)

**obtained from the State Engineer’s office:** Center for Biological Diversity, “New Mexico Supreme Court Pauses Illegal Water Use for Project Jupiter Construction,” press release, 24 August 2026 (the Center’s emergency petition, filed Thursday 20 August 2026, against the State Engineer’s October 2025 emergency authorization to Santa Teresa Capital for a replacement well, for want of the public notice and hearing state law requires). [biologicaldiversity.org](https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/new-mexico-supreme-court-pauses-illegal-water-use-for-project-jupiter-construction-2026-08-24/); Nicholas Gilmore, “New Mexico Supreme Court pauses Project Jupiter permitting processes,” Searchlight New Mexico, 25 August 2026 (the well has pumped more than 103 million gallons since April “according to meter readings the group obtained from the State Engineer’s Office”). [searchlightnm.org](https://searchlightnm.org/new-mexico-supreme-court-pauses-project-jupiter-permitting-processes/)

**fenceline,” “1200 ft from my home:** Public Utility Commission of Texas, Project No. 59142, Review of ERCOT’s Interconnection Processes for Large Loads, items 56–72, filed 11–14 September 2026 (sixteen public comments signed by fifteen residents of Wichita Falls and Holliday, Texas, at nine addresses, on one template in eight variants, each asking the Commission to “conduct an audit and comprehensive review of Project Raptor” for “its potential impact on nearby residents and agricultural operations” and to “make its findings publicly available and provide opportunities for community input throughout the review process”; the distances are the letters’ own — “within 2 miles”, “share a fenceline”, “(1200 ft from my home)”). [interchange.puc.texas.gov](https://interchange.puc.texas.gov/Documents/59142_69_1682895.PDF)

**community input throughout the review process:** Public Utility Commission of Texas, Project No. 59142, Review of ERCOT’s Interconnection Processes for Large Loads, items 56–72, filed 11–14 September 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [interchange.puc.texas.gov](https://interchange.puc.texas.gov/Documents/59142_69_1682895.PDF)

**1 road over from my home:** Public Utility Commission of Texas, Project No. 59142, Review of ERCOT’s Interconnection Processes for Large Loads, items 56–72, filed 11–14 September 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [interchange.puc.texas.gov](https://interchange.puc.texas.gov/Documents/59142_69_1682895.PDF)

**benefit to win the AI race:** Senators John Fetterman and Dave McCormick (Pennsylvania), on stage at the All-In Liquidity Summit, Napa Valley, recorded late May or early June 2026, published 10 June 2026 (Fetterman on moratoria at 3:27 and 35:57, the speakers settled by seat and by the frames, a voice comparison having refused). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y28p0jqPro)

**the schools are gonna be crowded:** Senators John Fetterman and Dave McCormick (cited above in this chapter). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y28p0jqPro)

**driven by China and outside forces:** Senators John Fetterman and Dave McCormick (cited above in this chapter). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y28p0jqPro)

**with the speed that is required:** The White House, *Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan*, 23 July 2025 (“Whoever has the largest AI ecosystem will set global AI standards and reap broad economic and military benefits”); release “White House Unveils America’s AI Action Plan,” same day. [whitehouse.gov](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf) ; [whitehouse.gov](https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2025/07/white-house-unveils-americas-ai-action-plan/)

**covering datacenters and their energy projects:** The White House, *Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan*, 23 July 2025 (cited above in this chapter). [whitehouse.gov](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf) ; [whitehouse.gov](https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2025/07/white-house-unveils-americas-ai-action-plan/)

**Clean Water Act and other laws:** The White House, *Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan*, 23 July 2025 (cited above in this chapter). [whitehouse.gov](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf) ; [whitehouse.gov](https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2025/07/white-house-unveils-americas-ai-action-plan/)

**of any permit that moved faster:** The White House, *Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan*, 23 July 2025 (cited above in this chapter). [whitehouse.gov](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf) ; [whitehouse.gov](https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2025/07/white-house-unveils-americas-ai-action-plan/)

**under no obligation to do so:** Department of the Air Force, Air Force Civil Engineer Center, Request for Lease Proposals No. AFCEC-26-R-0002, “Artificial Intelligence (AI) Data Center Development at Arnold AFB, TN, Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ, Edwards AFB, CA, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, and Robins AFB, GA,” posted on SAM.gov 15 October 2025 (under Executive Orders 14179 and 14318). [sam.gov](https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/c0dd2474a2114d93a5e8ff14d3884270/view)

**parcels for an AI Data Center:** Andrew Miller, Arnold Engineering Development Complex, “Notification of AI Data Center No Proposal,” Arnold Air Force Base, 1 June 2026 (“Arnold Air Force Base leadership has been notified by the Air Force Civil Engineering Center that potential Enhanced Use Lease offerors will not be submitting proposals for Arnold AFB parcels for an AI Data Center. This decision was based on responses they received from the companies who participated in their multi-installation source selection process”). [arnold.af.mil](https://www.arnold.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/4505271/notification-of-ai-data-center-no-proposal/)

**and the board expedited the appeals:** Interior Board of Land Appeals, order of 1 September 2026 in City of Boulder City, Nevada, IBLA 2026-0213, and Center for Biological Diversity et al., IBLA 2026-0216, “Stay Granted; Appeals Consolidated and Expedited; Briefing Schedule Ordered” (by its Decision Record of 26 June 2026 the Bureau of Land Management approved an amended right-of-way for Townsite Solar 2 LLC to build a datacenter on land the bureau manages near Boulder City, on a site granted in 2023 for a solar plant, without a new environmental assessment). [flybouldercity.com](https://www.flybouldercity.com/DocumentCenter/View/17364/2026-0213-Boulder-City-Stay-Granted)

**pockets. But not this widespread anger:** Sam Janesch, “A new federal ‘Data Center Bill of Rights’ took lessons from Philly suburbs and Western Pa. fracking country,” *The Philadelphia Inquirer*, 9 August 2026 (Khanna’s fifteen-county Pennsylvania tour). [inquirer.com](https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/data-center-bill-of-rights-ro-khanna-pennsylvania-20260809.html)

**of rights rather than a statute:** Office of Congressman Ro Khanna (CA-17), “Release: Rep. Khanna Introduces Data Center Bill of Rights,” press release, 6 August 2026 (the resolution’s enumerated rights: a ban on data centers in residential areas and within 2,500 feet of homes, schools, childcare facilities, hospitals or nursing homes). [khanna.house.gov](https://khanna.house.gov/media/press-releases/release-rep-khanna-introduces-data-center-bill-rights)

**a hospital or a nursing home:** Office of Congressman Ro Khanna (cited above in this chapter). [khanna.house.gov](https://khanna.house.gov/media/press-releases/release-rep-khanna-introduces-data-center-bill-rights)

**reported from the complaint it reviewed:** Irene Wright, “Georgia families sue Meta over data center, contaminated water,” *USA Today*, 2 September 2026, as carried by Yahoo Finance (on “the lawsuit reviewed by USA TODAY”: “The suit, filed Monday in Gwinnett County, accuses both Meta as well as county development officials”, the Monday being 31 August 2026). [usatoday.com](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/state/georgia/2026/09/02/meta-sued-by-georgia-families-following-construction-of-data-center/91578594007/)

**from these properties, not toward them:** *Morris v. Meta Platforms, Inc.*, No. 1:26-cv-06273 (N.D. Ga.), docket header as CourtListener served it on 29 October 2026 (“Date Filed: Oct. 16, 2026”, assigned to Judge Steven Daniel Grimberg). [courtlistener.com](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/74996593/morris-v-meta-platforms-inc/); Ashlyn Webb, “4 Georgia families sue Meta, claim data center construction contaminated well water,” WSB-TV, 21 October 2026 (the families allege “that sediment is clogging filters” and that “blasting, excavation and land clearing at the data center disturbed the groundwater system and allowed sediment to enter the aquifer”). [wsbtv.com](https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/4-georgia-families-sue-meta-claim-data-center-construction-contaminated-well-water/FVX726UR7FGJTLEAOYTQ4MDZ2Y/)

**to be more than 2,500 feet:** Irene Wright, “‘Breaks my heart’: Rep. Ro Khanna visits family taking on Meta in GA,” *USA Today*, 15 October 2026, as carried by Yahoo News (Khanna, after his visit to the Morris home on 14 October 2026: “My sense is we may need to be more than 2,500 feet. The legislation is 2,500 feet, but when you look at this, as close as it is, I think you probably need even a broader buffer”). [usatoday.com](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/state/georgia/2026/10/15/rep-ro-khanna-stops-in-georgia-to-see-family-near-meta-data-center/92261238007/)

**water and community-say protections were law:** Office of Congressman Ro Khanna (cited above in this chapter). [khanna.house.gov](https://khanna.house.gov/media/press-releases/release-rep-khanna-introduces-data-center-bill-rights)

**downtown he knew as a child:** Sam Janesch, “A new federal ‘Data Center Bill of Rights’ took lessons from Philly suburbs and Western Pa. fracking country,” *The Philadelphia Inquirer*, 9 August 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [inquirer.com](https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/data-center-bill-of-rights-ro-khanna-pennsylvania-20260809.html)

**by its own natural gas turbines:** Sam Janesch, “A new federal ‘Data Center Bill of Rights’ took lessons from Philly suburbs and Western Pa. fracking country,” *The Philadelphia Inquirer*, 9 August 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [inquirer.com](https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/data-center-bill-of-rights-ro-khanna-pennsylvania-20260809.html)

**next hearing as “to be determined:** Zoë Read, “Conshohocken-area residents push back against proposed data center,” WHYY News Climate Desk, 20 October 2025 (a 2 million-square-foot data center a mile from downtown across 10 existing buildings of the recently closed Cleveland-Cliffs steel mill on 66 acres along the Schuylkill River). [whyy.org](https://whyy.org/articles/conshohocken-pennsylvania-residents-pushback-data-center-proposal/); Noah Zucker, “Conshohocken Data Center Proposal Fields Pushback From Residents And Officials,” Bisnow Philadelphia, 20 October 2025 (Brian O’Neill’s plan to convert the Cleveland-Cliffs mill, scheduled to close the following month, into a 2M SF data center across 10 buildings generating its own power from natural gas turbines, which he argued would limit its demand on the grid). [bisnow.com](https://www.bisnow.com/philadelphia/news/data-center-development/conshohocken-pushback-cleveland-cliffs-steel-mill-131443); Plymouth Township (Montgomery County, Pennsylvania), “900 Conshohocken Road Data Center Information,” township docket page listing the applicant’s Special Exception application of 28 April 2026, Validity Challenge of 21 July 2026, traffic and fiscal studies of 5 August, Environmental Noise Assessment of 7 August and its update of 26 August 2026, Council’s Statement on Proposed Data Center of 27 July 2026, and hearing live streams of 25 June, 28 July and 6 August 2026, with the upcoming live stream “to be determined”; accessed 4 September 2026 (read again on 18 September 2026: the “to be determined” entry is gone, the page listing no upcoming live stream and carrying a meeting-cancellation notice dated 17 September 2026). [plymouthtownship.org](https://www.plymouthtownship.org/departments/900-conshohocken-road-data-center-information/)

**closed loop. He gave no volume:** Chase Lochmiller (co-founder and chief executive, Crusoe), interviewed by Harry Stebbings, “Crusoe CEO: Why Everyone Gets GPU Depreciation & AI Energy Costs Wrong,” the publisher’s title, though everyone is the host’s word and the tape gives no cost of energy, 20VC, published 3 October 2026 (every figure is his own account of a private firm that files no accounts, and no contract or depreciation schedule is shown). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko7nU1Img40)

**named no market and no study:** Chase Lochmiller (cited above in this chapter). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko7nU1Img40)

**somewhat remote is the ideal candidate:** Sachin Katti, Head of Industrial Compute at OpenAI, interviewed by Matt Turck, “OpenAI’s Compute Chief: We Can’t Build Fast Enough,” *The MAD Podcast with Matt Turck*, FirstMark, YouTube, 16 July 2026 (“Compute Chief” is the publisher’s title, and the host introduces him as Head of Industrial Compute at OpenAI). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEZBlmvxx4o)

**the build-out of this economic infrastructure:** CNBC Television, “Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent holds a news conference at the G20 meeting, Asheville,” YouTube, 1 September 2026 (the Secretary answering a reporter who asked his message to the local and state leaders “coming out against the build-out of this economic infrastructure,” at 28:32) (the speaker settled by the frames, one man at the single podium through the whole answer, named the Secretary by the stream’s title and the reporters’ “Mr. Secretary”) (the audio transcribed at two speech-to-text models on 20 October 2026, agreeing on every word quoted). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcKvObWR-1E)

**need a big reset on this:** CNBC Television, “Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent holds a news conference at the G20 meeting, Asheville,” YouTube, 1 September 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcKvObWR-1E)

**not accrue to a small group:** CNBC Television, “Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent holds a news conference at the G20 meeting, Asheville,” YouTube, 1 September 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcKvObWR-1E)

**some others, worse than some others:** Sam Altman, interviewed by Ed Ludlow, Bloomberg Tech (Bloomberg Television and Radio), live, 3 September 2026, on the release of GPT-6 Astra (the Astra line at 4:57–5:15, the terrible-job line from 8:34.0 and the going-public line at 12:37). [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF0wh7IZP1A)

**people are going to get upset:** Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta, interviewed by Alex Heath, “Mark Zuckerberg says bad actors are causing the data center backlash,” the channel’s title, in words he does not use, Sources podcast, 10 September 2026, the short the channel cut from the conversation published 8 September 2026 (he says neither “bad actors” nor “backlash”: neither phrase occurs on the caption track of the short or of the whole 70:10 conversation, and the short’s title hardens the host’s own “helping fuel the backlash”, a sentence of Alex Heath’s written post of 8 September 2026 on the episode, “He thinks speculative data center developers are helping fuel the backlash against AI infrastructure”, the second address, and not on the tape). [youtu.be](https://youtu.be/1PvrQKrQycI) ; [sources.news](https://sources.news/p/mark-zuckerberg-meta-muse-ai-podcast-interview); Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta, interviewed by Alex Heath, “Mark Zuckerberg on how Meta’s Muse AI agent will make people money,” Sources podcast, published 8 September 2026, the title’s claim one he states on the tape only as belief (the support he offers is Meta’s own asking, “we’ve dug into it” and “so we ask a bunch of people” at 12:54 of the conversation, with no sample, method, measure or named site). [youtu.be](https://youtu.be/Lx8lrn-cytc)

**and asked “a bunch of people:** Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta, interviewed by Alex Heath, “Mark Zuckerberg on how Meta’s Muse AI agent will make people money,” Sources podcast, published 8 September 2026, the title’s claim one he states on the tape only as belief (cited above in this chapter). [youtu.be](https://youtu.be/Lx8lrn-cytc)

**the Pecém datacenter, in Caucaia, Ceará:** Ministério Público Federal, Procuradoria da República no Ceará, Brazil’s federal prosecutors in Ceará, with the Defensoria Pública da União, its federal public defenders, “MPF e DPU vão à Justiça para impedir operação de data center no Complexo do Pecém, em Caucaia (CE),” news notice of 10 September 2026 on Ação Civil Pública nº 0080626-66.2026.4.05.8100, brought against Omnia, the builder, and Semace, the Ceará state environment agency, the plaintiffs’ own account of their suit, in Portuguese and read in this book’s English (the action seeks to keep the Pecém datacenter, under construction in the Pecém industrial and port complex at Caucaia, from beginning operations before free, prior and informed consultation of the Anacé indigenous people living around it and before an environmental impact study and report are made; the notice reports no ruling on the requests, and the complaint itself was not read). [mpf.mp.br](https://www.mpf.mp.br/o-mpf/unidades/pr-ce/noticias/mpf-e-dpu-vao-a-justica-para-impedir-operacao-de-data-center-no-complexo-do-pecem-em-caucaia-ce)

**full environmental impact study is made:** Ministério Público Federal, Procuradoria da República no Ceará, Brazil’s federal prosecutors in Ceará, with the Defensoria Pública da União, its federal public defenders, “MPF e DPU vão à Justiça para impedir operação de data center no Complexo do Pecém, em Caucaia (CE),” news notice of 10 September 2026 on Ação Civil Pública nº 0080626-66.2026.4.05.8100, brought against Omnia, the builder, and Semace, the Ceará state environment agency, the plaintiffs’ own account of their suit, in Portuguese and read in this book’s English (cited above in this chapter). [mpf.mp.br](https://www.mpf.mp.br/o-mpf/unidades/pr-ce/noticias/mpf-e-dpu-vao-a-justica-para-impedir-operacao-de-data-center-no-complexo-do-pecem-em-caucaia-ce)

**planned installed power at 300 megawatts:** Ministério Público Federal, Procuradoria da República no Ceará, Brazil’s federal prosecutors in Ceará, with the Defensoria Pública da União, its federal public defenders, “MPF e DPU vão à Justiça para impedir operação de data center no Complexo do Pecém, em Caucaia (CE),” news notice of 10 September 2026 on Ação Civil Pública nº 0080626-66.2026.4.05.8100, brought against Omnia, the builder, and Semace, the Ceará state environment agency, the plaintiffs’ own account of their suit, in Portuguese and read in this book’s English (cited above in this chapter). [mpf.mp.br](https://www.mpf.mp.br/o-mpf/unidades/pr-ce/noticias/mpf-e-dpu-vao-a-justica-para-impedir-operacao-de-data-center-no-complexo-do-pecem-em-caucaia-ce)

**simplified environmental report, the action says:** Ministério Público Federal, Procuradoria da República no Ceará, Brazil’s federal prosecutors in Ceará, with the Defensoria Pública da União, its federal public defenders, “MPF e DPU vão à Justiça para impedir operação de data center no Complexo do Pecém, em Caucaia (CE),” news notice of 10 September 2026 on Ação Civil Pública nº 0080626-66.2026.4.05.8100, brought against Omnia, the builder, and Semace, the Ceará state environment agency, the plaintiffs’ own account of their suit, in Portuguese and read in this book’s English (cited above in this chapter). [mpf.mp.br](https://www.mpf.mp.br/o-mpf/unidades/pr-ce/noticias/mpf-e-dpu-vao-a-justica-para-impedir-operacao-de-data-center-no-complexo-do-pecem-em-caucaia-ce)

**foram concedidas” (have already been granted):** Ministério Público Federal, Procuradoria da República no Ceará, Brazil’s federal prosecutors in Ceará, with the Defensoria Pública da União, its federal public defenders, “MPF e DPU vão à Justiça para impedir operação de data center no Complexo do Pecém, em Caucaia (CE),” news notice of 10 September 2026 on Ação Civil Pública nº 0080626-66.2026.4.05.8100, brought against Omnia, the builder, and Semace, the Ceará state environment agency, the plaintiffs’ own account of their suit, in Portuguese and read in this book’s English (cited above in this chapter). [mpf.mp.br](https://www.mpf.mp.br/o-mpf/unidades/pr-ce/noticias/mpf-e-dpu-vao-a-justica-para-impedir-operacao-de-data-center-no-complexo-do-pecem-em-caucaia-ce)

**the measures they name are met:** Ministério Público Federal, Procuradoria da República no Ceará, Brazil’s federal prosecutors in Ceará, with the Defensoria Pública da União, its federal public defenders, “MPF e DPU vão à Justiça para impedir operação de data center no Complexo do Pecém, em Caucaia (CE),” news notice of 10 September 2026 on Ação Civil Pública nº 0080626-66.2026.4.05.8100, brought against Omnia, the builder, and Semace, the Ceará state environment agency, the plaintiffs’ own account of their suit, in Portuguese and read in this book’s English (cited above in this chapter). [mpf.mp.br](https://www.mpf.mp.br/o-mpf/unidades/pr-ce/noticias/mpf-e-dpu-vao-a-justica-para-impedir-operacao-de-data-center-no-complexo-do-pecem-em-caucaia-ce)

**the installations) on the same terms:** Ministério Público Federal, Procuradoria da República no Ceará, Brazil’s federal prosecutors in Ceará, with the Defensoria Pública da União, its federal public defenders, “MPF e DPU vão à Justiça para impedir operação de data center no Complexo do Pecém, em Caucaia (CE),” news notice of 10 September 2026 on Ação Civil Pública nº 0080626-66.2026.4.05.8100, brought against Omnia, the builder, and Semace, the Ceará state environment agency, the plaintiffs’ own account of their suit, in Portuguese and read in this book’s English (cited above in this chapter). [mpf.mp.br](https://www.mpf.mp.br/o-mpf/unidades/pr-ce/noticias/mpf-e-dpu-vao-a-justica-para-impedir-operacao-de-data-center-no-complexo-do-pecem-em-caucaia-ce)

**municipality of Caucaia in as defendants:** Ministério Público Federal, Procuradoria da República no Ceará, Brazil’s federal prosecutors in Ceará, with the Defensoria Pública da União, its federal public defenders, “MPF e DPU vão à Justiça para impedir operação de data center no Complexo do Pecém, em Caucaia (CE),” news notice of 10 September 2026 on Ação Civil Pública nº 0080626-66.2026.4.05.8100, brought against Omnia, the builder, and Semace, the Ceará state environment agency, the plaintiffs’ own account of their suit, in Portuguese and read in this book’s English (cited above in this chapter). [mpf.mp.br](https://www.mpf.mp.br/o-mpf/unidades/pr-ce/noticias/mpf-e-dpu-vao-a-justica-para-impedir-operacao-de-data-center-no-complexo-do-pecem-em-caucaia-ce)

**(for risk to the grid’s stability):** Laís Martins and Francisco Amorim, “O data center do TikTok no Ceará: ‘Para ficar árido, é só um empurrãozinho’,” *Intercept Brasil* with the Guardian, 22 May 2025 (“A rede social chinesa não aparece nos pedidos de autorização. Formalmente, a responsável pela empreitada é a Casa dos Ventos, uma empresa brasileira de energia eólica”). [intercept.com.br](https://www.intercept.com.br/2025/05/22/tiktok-data-center-cidade-seca-no-ceara/)

**a bill to regulate AI datacenters:** Roberto Anacé, cacique of the Anacé indigenous community of Caucaia, Ceará, by video to the Brazilian Senate’s Comissão de Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovação e Informática, public hearing on Projeto de Lei 3.018/2024, the AI datacenter bill, 4 August 2026, Senado Federal, Notas Taquigráficas, revised text (a party’s own account to legislators, not a finding of a court nor a document of the company or the state). [www25.senado.leg.br](https://www25.senado.leg.br/web/atividade/notas-taquigraficas/-/notas/r/14884)

**he said, in this book’s translation:** Roberto Anacé, cacique of the Anacé indigenous community of Caucaia, Ceará, by video to the Brazilian Senate’s Comissão de Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovação e Informática, public hearing on Projeto de Lei 3.018/2024, the AI datacenter bill, 4 August 2026, Senado Federal, Notas Taquigráficas, revised text (cited above in this chapter). [www25.senado.leg.br](https://www25.senado.leg.br/web/atividade/notas-taquigraficas/-/notas/r/14884)

**we shut down the building site):** Roberto Anacé, cacique of the Anacé indigenous community of Caucaia, Ceará, by video to the Brazilian Senate’s Comissão de Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovação e Informática, public hearing on Projeto de Lei 3.018/2024, the AI datacenter bill, 4 August 2026, Senado Federal, Notas Taquigráficas, revised text (cited above in this chapter). [www25.senado.leg.br](https://www25.senado.leg.br/web/atividade/notas-taquigraficas/-/notas/r/14884)

**back), and did not sign it:** Roberto Anacé, cacique of the Anacé indigenous community of Caucaia, Ceará, by video to the Brazilian Senate’s Comissão de Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovação e Informática, public hearing on Projeto de Lei 3.018/2024, the AI datacenter bill, 4 August 2026, Senado Federal, Notas Taquigráficas, revised text (cited above in this chapter). [www25.senado.leg.br](https://www25.senado.leg.br/web/atividade/notas-taquigraficas/-/notas/r/14884)

**Dedi Mulyadi, “attended the groundbreaking ceremony:** BDx Data Centers, “BDx Breaks Ground on 640MW AI Data Center in West Java, Backed by 845MVA of Secured Grid Power,” press release, 22 September 2026 (“BDx Data Centers (“BDx”) today broke ground on AI Campus 2 (CGK4), a 640MW AI data center campus in Jatiluhur, West Java, Indonesia”). [prnewswire.com](https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/bdx-breaks-ground-on-640mw-ai-data-center-in-west-java-backed-by-845mva-of-secured-grid-power-302885578.html)

**and a building approval, were issued:** The Straits Times, Hariz Baharudin, “Singapore’s BDx AI sticks to 2027 target after Indonesia halts work on data centre,” 4 October 2026 (BDx “confirmed on Oct 3 that construction at the 640MW artificial intelligence data centre campus in Jatiluhur, West Java, had stopped following instructions from West Java Governor Dedi Mulyadi”). [straitstimes.com](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/singapores-bdx-ai-sticks-to-2027-target-after-indonesia-halts-work-on-data-centre)

**to the completion of these approvals:** The Straits Times, Hariz Baharudin, “Singapore’s BDx AI sticks to 2027 target after Indonesia halts work on data centre,” 4 October 2026 (cited above in this chapter). [straitstimes.com](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/singapores-bdx-ai-sticks-to-2027-target-after-indonesia-halts-work-on-data-centre)

**to say whether it would comply:** Lupa- ja valvontavirasto, the Finnish Supervisory Agency, “Lupa- ja valvontavirasto kehottaa Tuike Finland Oy:tä keskeyttämään Muhoksen ja Kajaanin datakeskushankkeiden valmistelutoimet,” release via STT Info, 6 October 2026, with its two notices to Tuike Finland Oy of the same day, in Finnish and read in this book’s English (a request under section 32(2) of the Environmental Impact Assessment Act to suspend “välittömästi ja viimeistään 23.10.2026 mennessä” the preparatory works that significantly change the environment at the planned projects at Muhos and Kajaani until their assessment procedures are complete). [sttinfo.fi](https://www.sttinfo.fi/tiedote/72390663/lupa-ja-valvontavirasto-kehottaa-tuike-finland-oyta-keskeyttamaan-muhoksen-ja-kajaanin-datakeskushankkeiden-valmistelutoimet?publisherId=69821631); “Google halts work on data centres as Finnish police probe suspected illegal logging,” Yle News, 8 October 2026 (“LVV’s order was issued to Google’s subsidiary Tuike Finland”). [yle.fi](https://yle.fi/a/74-20250446)

**own high standards in this instance:** “Finland orders pause on Google AI data centres over environmental concerns,” Euronews with AFP, 7 October 2026 (Google spokesman Sondre Ronander, in a statement sent to AFP: “We understand the concerns and have fallen short of our own high standards in this instance” and “We will study the LVV’s findings and follow their guidance”). [euronews.com](https://www.euronews.com/2026/10/07/finland-orders-pause-on-google-ai-data-centre-over-environmental-concerns)

**assessments were completed in early 2027:** Lupa- ja valvontavirasto, the Finnish Supervisory Agency, “Lupa- ja valvontavirasto vaatii Tuike Finland Oy:ltä toimenpiteitä,” release via STT Info, 22 October 2026, and its attached “Vastaus ja kehotus” to Tuike Finland Oy of the same day, decided by Sari Myllyoja, in Finnish and read in this book’s English (Tuike’s explanations of 11 and 14 October 2026 said it followed the requests in full at both sites and had suspended the preparatory works, to continue only after the assessment procedures end in early 2027). [sttinfo.fi](https://www.sttinfo.fi/tiedote/72435808/lupa-ja-valvontavirasto-vaatii-tuike-finland-oylta-toimenpiteita?publisherId=69821631) ; [sttinfo.fi](https://www.sttinfo.fi/files/69821631/72435808/532934/fi)

**needed a permit under that Act:** Lupa- ja valvontavirasto, the Finnish Supervisory Agency, “Lupa- ja valvontavirasto vaatii Tuike Finland Oy:ltä toimenpiteitä,” release via STT Info, 22 October 2026, and its attached “Vastaus ja kehotus” to Tuike Finland Oy of the same day, decided by Sari Myllyoja, in Finnish and read in this book’s English (cited above in this chapter). [sttinfo.fi](https://www.sttinfo.fi/tiedote/72435808/lupa-ja-valvontavirasto-vaatii-tuike-finland-oylta-toimenpiteita?publisherId=69821631) ; [sttinfo.fi](https://www.sttinfo.fi/files/69821631/72435808/532934/fi)

**exercising its discretion” to allow it:** Mississippi Commission on Environmental Quality, Amendment to Agreed Order 7739-26 (MZX Tech LLC), ordered 11 September 2026 and agreed by MZX on 10 September 2026 (two retirements moved at MZX’s request and Appendix A “amended and restated in its entirety”, pp. 1–2). [opcgis.deq.state.ms.us](https://opcgis.deq.state.ms.us/ensearchonline/get_doc.aspx?dt=order&id=1871000)

- [Campuses](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/ledger)
- [Tests](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/tests)
- [Scorecard](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/scorecard)
- [Data](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/data/releases)
- [Chapter by chapter](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/companion)
- [The record at a glance](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/observatory)
- [The machine](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/machine)
- [One campus, four futures](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/hyperion)
- [Glossary](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary)
- [People](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/people)
- [Sources](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/sources)
- [Notes](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes)
- [Where the book was wrong](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/corrections)
- [Where its sources were wrong](https://dryburgh.com/corrections?book=vol1)
- [The Paper](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/paper)
- [Consent](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/consent)
- [Who builds and pays](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/parties)

*The AI Compute Race: Five Races, One Machine* is a book by Lee S. Dryburgh, the first volume of THE COMPUTE ECONOMY, published by Dryburgh, an imprint of Contestra OÜ, Tallinn, Estonia; its record closes on 8 November 2026.

[About the book](https://dryburgh.com/vol1)[Tell me when it is out](https://dryburgh.com/vol1#notify)