BALTIMORE, MD (WBFF) — Baltimore City Council members held a hearing Thursday on a proposed data center moratorium, which would prevent new data centers for one year.
During the moratorium, City officials would be tasked with studying the impacts new data centers would have on energy infrastructure and ratepayers, the economy, as well as environmental and health impacts.
“I think there’s a real opportunity for Baltimore to be a leader in putting thoughtful guardrails on this technology so that the harms are not disproportionately borne by residents,” City Council President Zeke Cohen said during the hearing. “I think what’s important here is that that entire year is spent with everyone in good faith, working together to come up with what it would look like for Baltimore to be really a national leader in this space, in making sure the negative externalities that are inherent in data centers do not fall onto the people that we serve.”
The bill would define a data center as a facility that is used for remote storage, processing and distribution of data, capable of using 10 megawatts or more of electricity. However, some officials voiced concern during the hearing that other, unrelated projects might be swept up into the moratorium.
“I think what we’ve got is an excellent framework here going forward. Of the amendments that we suggested, the the main one that wasn’t picked up was again, increasing that megawatt threshold from 10 to 25,” said Tom Whelley with the Baltimore Development Corporation. “The intent from BDC standpoint is, we’re aligned on policy here. But just to ensure that no other project that is not a data center but does fit these criteria, or does use ten megawatts or more of power in the future, would not be swept up into this bill. So that was why we were pushing for that megawatt threshold to be aligned with the state level of 25MW, just to sort of be a better safe than sorry so that nothing could get, you know, unintentionally, rolled into this and then prevented from going forward.”
Later on in the hearing Cohen said he felt the language was clear.
“The Second Amendment we put in there clearly covers, that if it’s a data center is prohibited, if it’s not a data center, then it’s not prohibited. And I think the amendment makes that pretty clear,” Cohen said.
Several residents and advocates also spoke out in favor of the data center moratorium during public comment.
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