Data Centers: Daily Notes | April 27, 2026
Maine governor vetoes first-in-nation data center moratorium over one town's $550M project; Louisiana board approves PILOT terms for $7.2 billion Applied Digital facility; Spartanburg data center's ninefold power increase draws scrutiny.
At A Glance 🔽
- Maine Gov. Janet Mills vetoes the nation's first statewide data center moratorium, citing a $550 million project planned in Jay.
- Utah lawmakers pass the Data Center Water Transparency Amendments, requiring developers to disclose future water use estimates.
- Delaware Senate unanimously passes SB 276, freeing the state's electric cooperative from the obligation to serve data centers drawing 50+ MW.
- Rapides Parish, LA development board approves PILOT terms for a $7.2 billion Applied Digital data center, the largest investment in the region's history.
- Spartanburg, SC data center requests a ninefold power increase to 450+ MW; the company says that was always the plan.
- Hanover County, VA supervisors eliminate a 45-cent data center equipment tax to reevaluate it, with a new rate of up to $3 per $100 proposed for June.
- Brentwood, MO aldermen approve ordinance classifying data centers as conditional use in light industrial zoning.
Maine
Gov. Janet Mills vetoed legislation that would have created an 18-month moratorium on new data centers using more than 20 megawatts of power, blocking what would have been the first statewide ban of its kind in the U.S.
Dane Artisola
Maine's legislature passed the first statewide moratorium on large data centers...
Utah
Utah lawmakers passed the Data Center Water Transparency Amendments, requiring server farm developers to provide an estimate of future water use before building. The state currently allows data centers to keep their actual water use records secret.
Utah has 48 operational data center facilities with more than 900 megawatts of capacity and the state is in a severe drought after several years of lower-than-expected snowpack in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Zach Frankel, executive director of the Utah Rivers Council, said two data centers in a single community can use as much water as a city of 100,000 people.
Delaware
The Delaware Senate unanimously passed SB 276, which would free the Delaware Electric Cooperative from the obligation to serve facilities consuming 50 megawatts or more. That threshold is enough to power roughly 50,000 homes.
CEO Rob Book said the cooperative requested the bill to shield existing members from price spikes if national data center construction spreads to southern Delaware. If the requirement is lifted, Book said he would require data centers to generate their own power or contract with a third-party supplier. The bill now goes to a House committee.
Rapides Parish, Louisiana
The England Economic and Industrial Development District voted April 24 to approve PILOT terms for a $7.2 billion Applied Digital data center, described as the single largest investment in the region's history and one of the top five in Louisiana's.
Under the Payment in Lieu of Taxes agreement, local taxing authorities would collect $574.9 million over 25 years. The first three years would guarantee $13.8 million annually during construction, with post-completion payments starting at roughly $24 million per year and depreciating. The project would create an estimated 200 full-time jobs with minimum salaries between $90,000 and $93,000. The facility plans to use a closed-loop water system to limit consumption. State certification and a final cooperative endeavor agreement vote are still required.
Spartanburg, South Carolina
NorthMark, the company building a data center on South Pine Street in Spartanburg, said its request for a ninefold power increase is consistent with its original plans for the facility. Spartanburg County Council approved tax breaks for the company last year, and in September it received an initial permit for generators producing 48 megawatts.
In December, NorthMark contacted the S.C. Department of Environmental Services about a permit for turbines producing an additional 400-plus megawatts. The Southern Environmental Law Center said the expanded scope brings greater potential for harmful air pollution and questioned whether the company and county officials had been transparent about the project's full scale. NorthMark pledged to voluntarily implement continuous emissions monitoring with real-time data for regulators. Councilmember Jack Mabry said the full power output wasn't something council members fully grasped at the time.
Hanover County, Virginia
Government Websites by CivicPlus®Hanover County supervisors eliminated a 45-cent-per-$100 data center equipment tax from the FY27 budget on April 8, planning to reinstate it at a potentially higher rate of up to $3 per $100. A public hearing and vote are scheduled for June 24.
Board of Supervisors Meeting April 08, 2026
The rate was created in 2023 but has never generated revenue because no data centers are operational in the county. Since then, developers have filed at least five zoning requests. For comparison, Chesterfield's data center equipment rate is 24 cents per $100 and Henrico's is 40 cents.
Brentwood, Missouri
Brentwood's Board of Aldermen approved ordinances at its April 20 meeting that classify data centers as a conditional use in the city's light industrial district.
Any data center application will now require public hearings before both the planning and zoning commission and the board of aldermen. The ordinance covers crypto processing and Bitcoin mining, and prohibits data centers from being housed in storage containers or other temporary structures.
👀 Industry Finds
Power, water, land, and now geopolitical risks.
Anthropic is hiring a Geopolitical Intelligence Analyst whose job includes evaluating risks tied to international expansion and facility siting. Iranian strikes have already hit AWS and Oracle facilities in the Middle East, and Anthropic has its own friction with the U.S. Department of Defense.
Worth watching as more AI companies expand internationally and put real money into physical infrastructure.
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