A county ban on data centers never made it to a vote in Charles County. It never even made it to introduction, Commissioner Gilbert “BJ” Bowling III said, because he could not find two colleagues willing to put it on the table.
“The data center bill, I did try to introduce it. You need three commissioners to introduce the bill,” Bowling said during commissioner comments at the board’s Oct. 6 evening session. “When I say I didn’t have the votes, you would literally have to have the votes to introduce the bill.”
Bowling was answering Alana Davis, who leads the Charles County Against Data Centers Coalition. Earlier in the session she asked whether he would still introduce a ban he had promised in writing, even knowing the current board would likely vote it down. A bill introduced now, she argued, would give residents a public hearing to rally around before a new board takes office. The Chronicle reported that exchange and the board’s call to define “data center” before any ban.
Bowling said he had kept his word. “There is another board of commissioners coming in in December,” he said. “If there’s somebody that wants to make a motion then, I will second the motion and I will move it forward.” He added: “I’m only one commissioner out of five.”
The argument over imported power
The same session opened a second front in the data center debate: where Maryland’s electricity comes from, and what that means for a county with an idle power plant site.
Jacqueline Moore, who has had a home on Cobb Island since 1998, used part of her public comment to rebut a recent presentation to the board by Jason Stanek, PJM Interconnection’s executive director for governmental affairs and a former chair of the Maryland Public Service Commission. PJM runs the regional power grid that serves Maryland.
Moore said Stanek’s call for Maryland to build more power plants ignored PJM’s own record. The grid operator had held up new generation projects for two years, she said, and most of what it held up was renewable energy. She also pushed back on what she called a common talking point.
“People keep saying that Maryland imports 40% of its electricity, like it’s a bad thing. It is not. Importation has been saving ratepayers’ money,” Moore said. “It is cheaper to generate electricity in other states.” She said the state has imported that share for decades, the same way it imports its gasoline and most of its food. Refiring the Morgantown plant with natural gas as an alternative to a hyperscale data center, she said, “is untenable.”
Bowling disagreed. The power is cheaper elsewhere, he said, for a reason.
“They’re doing it the way that folks in this state decide they didn’t want it, which is coal fire,” Bowling said. “It kind of sounds hypocritical that we’re going to take power from a place that’s using coal fire to provide here, but here we’re going to shut down power plants and continue to raise rates.”
“I do do my homework,” he said. “It’s a lot more complex than what meets the eye.”
Rates beyond the county line
Another commissioner said the PJM presentation prompted more reading, and pointed to a new power deal between Google and Constellation Energy inside the PJM system. Even deals made elsewhere, the commissioner said, can raise what Charles County residents pay. “When we’re talking about our energy prices, we need to include and understand what’s going on in other states is affecting us.”
The cost of serving data centers has become a statewide fight. Maryland’s Office of People’s Counsel has challenged PJM’s plan to buy power for projected data center growth, arguing households could pay for demand that never materializes. In Calvert County, Amazon’s 20-year power purchase from Calvert Cliffs is financing a $3 billion upgrade of the nuclear plant.
Water came up too. Bowling said he has asked staff at the county’s wastewater plants whether treated water now discharged to the river under state permits could be reused for agriculture or fire departments. If the county keeps buying water from WSSC, he said, “we should have a seat at the table.”
What happens Dec. 1
For now, Charles has no county data center bill in front of it. In July, commissioners declined to advance a zoning amendment that would have allowed data centers in certain zones. Board members have said they will take the issue up again after the state reports under Gov. Wes Moore’s September executive order on large data centers.
The coalition’s Trudy Badou told commissioners voters have one option left: “See you at the polls” on Nov. 3. The new board takes office Dec. 1. Under Bowling’s account, a ban needs three of its five members just to be introduced.
