ANNAPOLIS, MD — Governor Wes Moore took positive steps to protect Marylanders from the harms of data centers with his executive order (EO) released today. In a press conference announcing the EO, the Governor spelled out five principles guiding the state’s criteria for considering data center projects, barred Maryland employees from entering into nondisclosure agreements with data center developers, and called on the General Assembly to repeal the sales and use tax exemption for data centers. However, the EO fails to establish a statewide moratorium on data center development, something county and municipal leaders have been seeking for months. It also contains no explicit clean energy requirements for data centers even as the global climate unravels.
With 80 percent of Marylanders – including residents across red and blue regions – now living under some kind of temporary local ban or moratorium on data centers, leaders and activists across the state have been hoping Moore or the General Assembly would establish rigorous state-level guidance and leadership on this critical issue. At the top of that wish list is a multi-year state-level pause on new data center permits to allow true reform policies to be developed and take hold. Moore even told Punchbowl News last week that he would sign a moratorium bill from the General Assembly if it reached his desk in 2027.
Governor Moore’s executive order falls silent on this issue. Instead, his EO establishes the Maryland Data Center Accountability Task Force that must consider whether a data center project meets five principles: ratepayer and grid protections; economic benefits for Marylanders, including local hiring and union jobs; the preservation of community input, including no state preemption of local decisions; language around environmental protections, but no requirements for clean energy; and transparency and accountability, including the establishment of a public dashboard to track proposed projects and the commitments made by data center companies. Several of the outlined principles begin to address on-site pollution, rising energy bills associated with data center infrastructure and demand, and community impacts, but the principles are vague and leave the agencies with little direction and significant discretion.
Also, with climate change impacts escalating across Maryland and the world, Governor Moore in his executive order, fails to require all new energy required from future data centers come from 100 percent clean power, a top priority of virtually every environmental group in the state. The EO directs the Task Force to look at the State’s climate commitments, but they are just one factor to be considered; the EO does not mandate adherence to the state’s climate goals or require data centers to run on clean energy.
Brittany Baker, Maryland Director of Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), issued the following statement:
“Governor Moore’s executive order takes several meaningful steps forward and the legislature will have to finish the task. Maryland communities confronting data center development speak in the language of bans and moratoriums. A statewide multi-year pause on data center development is the most logical next step.
“Given the deepening climate crisis, Gov. Moore and the General Assembly must explicitly require all new data centers run on 100% clean energy. Period. Full stop.
“A multi-year statewide pause on new data center approvals is needed until strong, enforceable protections for ratepayers, water, air, land, and the climate are fully in place. With scientists warning that the window to prevent the worst impacts of climate change is rapidly narrowing, Maryland should not lock itself into a new wave of massive energy demand and fossil-fuel infrastructure before those safeguards exist.”
CCAN is supportive of policy proposals to ensure that data centers pay for infrastructure they incentivize the incumbent utility to build, procure their own clean energy resources, ban nondisclosure agreements, eliminate by-right development, and close regulatory loopholes that allow diesel generation to escape compliance with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
CCAN is now calling on Marylanders to sign the petition for a statewide moratorium on new data center development. In addition, the group will be hosting “People Over Data Centers”- Maryland Action Summit on November 7 in Baltimore alongside Nature Forward.
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Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) is the first grassroots organization dedicated exclusively to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in the Chesapeake Bay region. Founded in 2002, CCAN has been at the center of the fight for clean energy and wise climate policy in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC.
