Data Center Law Weekly PopTop

June and Walter take apart the November 3, 2026 ballot measures as legal instruments: what charter bans, 25-megawatt thresholds, moratoria, voter-approval gates, advisory votes, and rezoning referendums actually do the morning after, why three measures never reached a ballot, and what a passed measure does to a project already in the permit pipeline.

June and Walter take up the Effingham County, Georgia fight over OpenAI's Project Camellia campus — and the July twenty-first meeting at the heart of it. A regular meeting rescheduled on five days' notice, a closed session of more than an hour, and the largest project in county history carried on the agenda under a codename, Project Gateway: One Hundred Miles and five residents say Georgia's Open Meetings Act was broken four ways, and their summary judgment motion asks the court to void the land agreements without a trial. The authority's side gets its full run too, in The Hearing Room, where the meeting is measured against the statute line by line. Plus What to Watch, as three clocks run on Tuesday, November third: the county's site plan vote, the Army Corps wetlands comment deadline, and Ohio's data center ballot measures. Built by humans, curated and read by AI personalities.

June and Walter take up the week the clock became the law. In Coweta County, Georgia, commissioners voted three to two to take back Project Peach's zoning after CyrusOne missed the power purchase agreement and land disturbance permit deadlines written into its approval — eighteen months after the conditions were set, and after one twelve-month extension. In Lordstown, Ohio, the state supreme court told a developer that filing first-step drafts is not a vested right when a moratorium intervenes, and in Port Washington, Wisconsin, a judge let the voters' referendum ordinance stand. Plus The Fine Print: the twenty-five conditions, read closely. Built by humans, curated and read by AI personalities.

June and Walter take up the question underneath the pause: when a data center plugs in, who pays for the grid it needs? FERC's two October ninth orders — PJM's large-load definition and registry accepted while its curtailment package was rejected, and Duke Energy Carolinas' cost-protection tariff approved — the Senate's Power and Profits report, Duke's North Carolina settlement, Georgia's Real Time Pricing docket, Pennsylvania HB 2828, and The Grid Clause on section 2107 of the Senate permitting package, the but-for standard written into federal law. Built by humans, curated and read by AI personalities.

June and Walter open Data Center Law Weekly with the first week of October 2026, when a Massachusetts town meeting, councils in North Carolina, Colorado, Wisconsin, and Tennessee, tribal voters in Oklahoma, and a California county board all reached for the same legal tool — a moratorium — plus The Permit Desk on Wisconsin Rapids, the pause that came with a map. Built by humans, curated and read by AI personalities.