Howard County's data center "moratorium" is merely a way to create a legislative runway for their adoption. Council Bill 31-2026 "stops" new approvals for up to 18 months (with a hard deadline of November 2, 2027) while a task force writes the rules under which the industry will operate. The bill itself reserves task force seats for expertise in "data center development" and "data center operation," and directs that body to "recommend best practices for data center development."

Instead of banning them, this body would decide on how to allow them in the county.

They can't be made acceptable. Training a single large AI model can evaporate 700,000 liters of freshwater (Ren et al., 2023). U.S. data centers could draw 6.7–12% of the nation's electricity by 2028, up from 4.4% today (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2024). Maryland ratepayers are already on the hook for a projected $1.6 billion in added power costs tied to data center demand on the PJM grid. Google's own emissions are up 48% since 2019, Microsoft's up 29% since 2020. Both companies say data centers are why. And the same hyperscale cloud industry seeking a foothold in Howard County supplies the infrastructure behind ICE's deportation and surveillance systems, including Palantir's $30 million "ImmigrationOS" platform.

No task force recommendation changes any of that. Instead of a year-long study, Howard County simply needs to ban data centers. Add your name.