Week in Review: Pennsylvania's Crackdown, New Jersey's Ban Wave, and Nevada Says No to a Dry Basin
This week Pennsylvania's governor signed what Bloomberg Law called the strictest data center executive order in the country, New Jersey towns kept banning data centers faster than developers could sue over it, and Nevada regulators banned new data centers outright in an over-appropriated water basin. Plus: Kansas cities suing their own residents over ballot petitions, a DeKalb County win, and Michigan's moratorium fight goes to court.
Welcome back to the GridWatch AI Week in Review — our Sunday roundup of the most important data center stories from the past seven days, what they mean for communities, and what you can learn from each one.
1. Pennsylvania's governor signs the "strictest" data center order in the US
What happened: Governor Josh Shapiro signed Executive Order 2026-05 on August 18, creating the GRID framework — requiring developers to fund their own power infrastructure, secure local government approval before any state permit, sign enforceable community benefit agreements, and drop out of the state's Permit Fast Track program entirely. NBC News described Shapiro taking a hard line against "predatory" developer practices; Bloomberg Law called it the strictest data center order in the country.
Why it matters: Pennsylvania has been one of the most aggressively courted states for new data center campuses, thanks to cheap natural gas and a governor who has otherwise embraced the industry. A governor who campaigned on data centers as an economic win turning around and requiring local approval before state permitting is a signal of how far the politics have shifted in a single year — and it flips the leverage: a town's planning commission now effectively holds a veto that used to belong entirely to the state.
What to learn — what an executive order can and can't do: An executive order directs state agencies to change how they operate — it can tighten permit review, require disclosure of previously confidential contract terms, and condition tax breaks on compliance, the way GRID does. It generally can't create binding rate caps through legislation, and it can't bind a future governor, who can rescind it. GRID's designers built around that weakness with a consent-order model rather than an outright ban — details worth reading in full in Pennsylvania Just Told Data Centers: Build Your Own Power, or Don't Build Here. The follow-up ask for residents is to push legislators to codify the same protections into statute before the next election changes who's signing orders. See our analysis of the broader political shift in Data Center Opposition Just Became a National Political Force.
Sources: WHYY, Aug 18; NBC News, Aug 18; Bloomberg Law, Aug 18
2. New Jersey's ban wave keeps growing — and a developer wants $300 million for it
What happened: Jersey City's council voted unanimously to ban new standalone data centers in the city's industrial zones, joining a growing list of New Jersey municipalities — including Bayonne and Howell — that have passed outright bans rather than temporary moratoriums this year. Days later, inc.com reported that a developer is seeking $300 million in damages from a New Jersey town over its ban.
Why it matters: Most of the country is still debating temporary moratoriums — pauses of 6 to 18 months while a town writes new zoning rules. New Jersey's wave is different: these are permanent zoning bans, not pauses. That's a stronger tool, but it also invites a stronger legal response — developers arguing the ban destroys the value of land they already control or have under contract.
What to learn — moratorium vs. outright ban, and why developers sue over both:
| Moratorium | Zoning ban | |
|---|---|---|
| Duration | Temporary (6–18 months) | Permanent, until repealed |
| Legal basis | Police power to pause while writing rules | Police power to zone land use |
| Developer's likely claim | "You paused my pending application" | "You destroyed the value of land I already hold" |
| Strongest defense for the town | Tie it to a stated planning purpose | Show the ban applies to a use category, not one project |
A "regulatory takings" lawsuit — the theory behind the $300 million claim — argues a zoning change went so far it amounts to the government seizing the property without paying for it. Courts set a high bar for these claims, but towns should expect them any time a ban follows a specific project's announcement rather than a general policy review. Track the state's growing list on the moratorium tracker, and see how other operators have responded to bans in How to Negotiate with Every Major Data Center Developer.
Sources: Hudson County View, Aug 20; inc.com, Aug 21
3. Nevada bans new data centers in an over-appropriated water basin
What happened: Nye County commissioners voted to ban new data centers in the Pahrump Water Basin, which state regulators have already designated as over-appropriated — meaning more water rights are on paper than the basin can actually sustain.
Why it matters: This is one of the clearest wins so far for a resource-based argument, rather than a noise or traffic argument. Nevada's water law follows prior appropriation ("first in time, first in right"), and an over-appropriated basin means existing water-rights holders — farms, wells, small water utilities — are already competing for a shrinking supply. Adding a data center's cooling demand into that basin isn't a theoretical risk; it's math the state had already done.
What to learn — how to find out if your basin is already stressed:
- Ask your state's water authority (in Nevada, the Division of Water Resources) whether your basin has a designated status — over-appropriated, critical management area, or similar.
- If it does, that status is a stronger legal hook than a general "we're worried about water" comment at a hearing — it's the state's own finding.
- Ask what cooling technology is proposed. Evaporative cooling draws far more water than air-cooled or closed-loop systems — see our breakdown in last week's issue and in They Figured This Out Fifty Years Ago.
Sources: Nevada Current, Aug 20; KSNV, Aug 19
4. Virginia Beach pauses hyperscale data centers for a year
What happened: Virginia Beach's city council approved a 12-month moratorium on new large-scale data center applications, giving the city time to write zoning standards. Neighboring Chesapeake moved the same week to restrict data center development further.
Why it matters: Virginia is the most data-center-dense state in the country, and Hampton Roads has largely been spared the buildout concentrated in Loudoun and Prince William counties — until now. Two Hampton Roads cities moving in the same week signals the pattern spreading to a new part of the state before the facilities are even built, not after residents are already living with them.
What to learn — what a moratorium does and doesn't freeze: A pause typically applies only to new applications filed after the ordinance takes effect. Projects that already have a complete application on file are often "grandfathered" and continue under the old rules unless the ordinance explicitly says otherwise. If your city is about to vote on a pause, ask your council member directly: does this apply to applications already in the pipeline, or only future ones? That one sentence in the ordinance determines whether the pause protects your neighborhood or just the next one.
Sources: WTKR, Aug 19; The Virginian-Pilot, Aug 19; WHRO, Aug 19
5. Kansas cities are suing their own residents over data center ballot petitions
What happened: The city of Edgerton, Kansas, sued residents who filed a petition seeking a public vote on a proposed data center ban, and a similar fight played out in El Dorado, where a judge ruled the city must either adopt a data-center ban itself or put the question to voters.
Why it matters: Most states give residents the right to force a ballot referendum on a local ordinance if they collect enough signatures. A city suing the petitioners — rather than simply certifying or rejecting the petition — is an aggressive move, and it puts the city in the position of fighting its own residents' right to vote on the issue rather than fighting the data center developer.
What to learn — protecting your right to petition:
- Most states set specific rules for what a petition must contain and how many signatures are needed (often a percentage of votes cast in the last municipal election). Get those rules from your city clerk before you circulate anything, in writing.
- If a city challenges your petition's validity, that's a normal legal step. A lawsuit specifically aimed at the organizers, asking a court to block the vote entirely, is a different and more aggressive posture — document it and get it in front of local media.
- El Dorado's outcome — a judge ordering the city to either act or let voters decide — is the precedent to cite if your city tries to simply ignore a valid petition.
Sources: Johnson County Post, Aug 18; KMBC, Aug 21; KSN.com, Aug 22
6. A Black DeKalb County community wins its year-long fight against a data center
What happened: Capital B News Atlanta reported that a Black community in DeKalb County, Georgia, successfully blocked a massive data center project after nearly a year of organizing. In the same week, Atlanta's city council utilities committee approved forming a Data Center Task Force to study the industry's local impact.
Why it matters: Data center siting in the Southeast has followed a pattern documented in multiple environmental-justice studies: developers disproportionately target land near lower-income and majority-Black communities, where zoning is often lighter and organized political opposition is assumed to be weaker. DeKalb's win is a direct rebuttal to that assumption — and a reminder that a sustained, year-long campaign, not just a single hearing, is often what it takes.
What to learn — task forces are slower, but they can outlast a single project fight: A task force doesn't stop any specific proposal the way a moratorium does. What it can do is build the data and political cover for stronger permanent rules — recommending noise limits, water reporting, or a siting map that keeps future projects away from residential areas. If your city forms one, push to get a resident or community advocate seated on it, not just industry and staff representatives. More on organizing for the long fight in How the Industry Files Your Protest.
Sources: Capital B News Atlanta, Aug 18; FOX 5 Atlanta, Aug 17
7. Michigan's moratorium fight moves to the courtroom
What happened: A data center developer sued the city of Gibraltar, Michigan, claiming its one-year moratorium unlawfully halted an already-in-progress project. In the same week, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers came out in favor of a statewide, one-year data center moratorium after new data center investments in the state were revealed.
Why it matters: Gibraltar's lawsuit is the sharpest test yet of whether a moratorium can be applied to a project that was already under review when the ordinance passed — the same "was this application already in the pipeline" question raised in the Virginia Beach story above. Meanwhile, Rogers backing a moratorium shows data center opposition breaking out of its usual local-politics lane and into a statewide, partisan campaign message.
What to learn — a moratorium is more legally durable when it treats every pending application the same way. The strongest legal defense for a town being sued over a moratorium is consistency: applying the pause to every project in a category, not carving out exceptions, and documenting the planning purpose (drafting zoning standards) in the ordinance itself. Singling out one already-filed project for a "pause" is what invites — and sometimes wins — a lawsuit like Gibraltar's.
Sources: WXYZ Channel 7, Aug 20; Michigan Advance, Aug 20
What to watch next week
- Gibraltar, Michigan — how the court rules on whether the moratorium can apply to an already-filed application
- El Dorado, Kansas — whether the city adopts a ban itself or the question goes to voters
- Pennsylvania's legislature — whether lawmakers move to codify Shapiro's executive order into statute before it can be reversed by a future governor
- More New Jersey towns — additional council votes are queued up following Jersey City's ban
Every Sunday we cover the week's most important data center stories, explain the underlying concepts, and point you to the tools you need. Know a story we should cover? Reach out through the consulting tab or the newsletter signup.