Data center projects in Pennsylvania face stronger local scrutiny after Shapiro’s executive order

Filed 49m ago · Via The Conversation · The Buffoon Desk

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Bumbly March

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Giovanni Battista Quadrone · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

Gov. Josh Shapiro's Aug. 18 executive order restricts state permitting for Pennsylvania data centers, following similar moratorium-style moves by New York's Kathy Hochul and Texas's Greg Abbott. The order bars data centers from a fast-track permit program, prohibits nondisclosure agreements on such projects, and requires a public map of all known data center permitting activity.

Most notably, the order blocks state permits until developers secure all required municipal approvals — effectively handing local officials new leverage. A two-tier system offers rolling review to developers who meet the administration's GRID standards, which call for securing their own power supply, including some clean energy, and covering 100% of project costs.

The order cites 'Pennsylvanians' constitutional rights' without naming them, an apparent reference to the state's Environmental Rights Amendment, which recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court rulings have given renewed legal teeth.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Citing a constitutional right without naming it is a neat trick — vague enough to sound weighty, specific enough to spook developers, and untested enough that nobody in the administration has to defend it in court just yet. If the strategy works, expect every governor with a permitting headache to discover their own dormant constitutional amendment by next summer.

Source: Read the original at The Conversation → Scored: Bumbly March · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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