Montgomery County is actively considering policies that would shape whether, and how, large-scale data centers are developed here, after recent conditional use approvals raised questions about how such projects are reviewed in the absence of clear, data-center-specific standards. While often described as neutral infrastructure or “just warehouses,” these facilities bring profound implications for energy use, water, land use, the balance of power between corporate operators and local government, public process, and long-term governance.
On February 3, 2026, County Executive Marc Elrich convened a public community forum to provide residents, organizations, labor representatives and industry voices an opportunity to speak on the public record.
What the February 3 Forum Revealed
Dozens of residents took the microphone. Their comments were wide-ranging in background and affiliation, but a pattern did emerge.
Key takeaways from public testimony:
- Strong opposition or calls for a moratorium were the dominant positions.
- Many speakers said data centers should not proceed under current conditions.
- Even “conditional” speakers emphasized strict limits, transparency, and enforceability.
- Some speakers warned that data centers could entrench corporate power and surveillance systems, with counties having little say over how the infrastructure is ultimately used or by whom.
Here is a summary of some of the comments. Access the YouTube link for the complete recording.
- A former data-center systems administrator warned that large facilities would drive up electricity, water, and sewer rates; create very few permanent jobs; rely on tax breaks that rarely pay back; and risk becoming obsolete within a few years, leaving communities with stranded infrastructure.
- A Silver Spring resident focused on household economics, arguing that data center revenue cannot simply flow into general county programs but must directly offset rising utility costs for residents if such facilities are allowed.
- Multiple climate and environmental coalition speakers called for a formal moratorium on new data center approvals until cumulative energy, water, and environmental impacts are fully studied and transparent standards are adopted.
- A Rockville resident and water-systems engineer warned that policies allowing low renewable thresholds effectively mandate fossil-fuel generation and heavy water use, locking the county into environmentally damaging outcomes.
- A Food & Water Watch representative urged the County to call a moratorium on approvals, warning that once contracts are signed and projects are grandfathered in, meaningful safeguards may no longer be possible. (He also noted: “…we know that as County Executive said, there are contracts being signed right [now] between property owners and potential data centers. Some of these mentioned Dickerson already and how there’s things moving there already.” )
- Several residents expressed concern that data centers could enable surveillance technologies and data practices that harm communities and civil liberties, beyond environmental impacts alone.
- Union representatives described data centers as critical modern infrastructure that can provide well-paid jobs if developed responsibly, urging the County to proceed deliberately rather than reject them outright.
- A Rockville resident stressed the importance of accountability, noting that enforcement failures in other regulatory contexts make residents skeptical that data center promises will be upheld over time.
- A high school student argued that allowing data centers to source even 20% of their power from the grid could significantly raise household electricity bills, calling for much higher on-site generation requirements.
- A Silver Spring tenant association advocate described how rising energy bills already strain families in rent-stabilized housing and questioned who would bear the cost of enforcing noise, pollution, and safety regulations. She gave the example of a neighbor who is a stay at home mom with two small children in a rent-stabilized 2-bedroom unit: last month her Pepco bill was $400.
- The moderator paused to address an online question asking what is the best mechanism for residents to voice their complete opposition to the construction of any new data centers? It feels like our representatives are talking about this like it’s a foregone conclusion that we need to allow their construction and can only make minor restrictions such as 10% more renewable energy, more tree setbacks. But the facilities do not carry their weight in our economy and do not justify the environmental impacts. They drive up energy costs us our precious water and create very few jobs. They are largely being built right now by companies investing in generative AI that is not serving the public. We don’t need more data centers and the conversation should be more expansive, including that perspective.
- A member of Montgomery County DSA said the County Executive’s promise to reflect residents’ values should mean rejecting data centers visible public opinion and available evidence show they harm working people—through higher utility bills, polluted water, expanded surveillance and enforcement harms, and minimal local economic benefit. He said data centers primarily benefit wealthy and powerful interests, urged elected officials and candidates to consider the legacy they’re creating, and argued the County should invest in what helps people thrive rather than treating data centers as inevitable.
- A physician specializing in climate-related health impacts urged the County to include asthma, cardiovascular disease, reproductive outcomes, and missed work and school days in any cost-benefit analysis.
- Several speakers warned that hyperscale data centers could prolong coal and gas plant operations regionally, undermining climate goals and worsening air quality across the Mid-Atlantic.
- Multiple residents argued that “data center” is an umbrella term and urged the County to distinguish between small, specialized facilities and massive AI-driven hyperscale developments with far greater resource demands. (County Executive Elrich responded to one commenter, “… since you mentioned it, one of the companies we met with actually does small data centers and the focus of the data centers on concentrating computational power, not storage. So the not providing mass storage so the county could store everything it wants in a data center across the river. The sole purpose is to concentrate the computing power and to use the computing power for research, not for storage, their status center is magnitude smaller. The kind of thing they’re doing and they’re looking for that kind of market where they can provide computational ability, not so much storage ability.)
- One resident raised concerns about how the 24/7 noise and vibrations from the centers will disturb nearby neighbors in their homes.
- One resident asked what air quality monitoring baselines can be planned before the data centers are built and during operations, specifically mentioning monitoring for hazardous pollution.
- An environmental advocate cited Loudoun County as a cautionary example, describing how data centers have encroached on homes, schools, and farmland while driving infrastructure expansion and public backlash.
- Several speakers questioned the long-term economic viability of AI-driven data centers, citing high energy demands, reliance on tax exemptions, and uncertain profitability.
- A working-class resident described how data centers disproportionately burden low-income communities, arguing that promised economic benefits rarely reach those already struggling with housing, transportation, and utility costs.
- One speaker noted that the Dickerson proposal has already received a conditional use approval from planning authorities, raising concerns that site-specific approvals may be advancing ahead of countywide policy decisions.
- A technology professional warned that the current wave of AI-driven data centers is far more energy-intensive than earlier facilities and may not be economically viable, citing reports of companies seeking bailouts and relying on public subsidies.
One commenter directly challenged the narrative that data centers function as engines of local economic growth, arguing instead that they represent a form of upward and outward wealth extraction.
- They noted that data centers are frequently marketed to communities as job creators and economic catalysts, but said that claim does not hold up under scrutiny. These facilities are highly capital-intensive but not labor-intensive, meaning that once construction is complete, they employ very few permanent workers—and those jobs are often specialized and not broadly accessible to local residents.
- Drawing on examples from Virginia, they pointed out that residents there are projected to pay significantly higher monthly electricity costs over time as a result of data center demand, even as companies receive hundreds of millions of dollars in tax exemptions and incentives. When those tax breaks fail to pay for themselves, they argued, the costs do not disappear—they are shifted onto households through higher utility bills and reduced public resources.
- They emphasized that hyperscale and AI-driven data centers are designed to serve global markets, not local needs. The computational power housed in these facilities supports worldwide corporate operations, cloud platforms, and surveillance-driven technologies, while the environmental and infrastructure burdens—energy demand, water use, land consumption, and pollution risk—remain local.
- The speaker also raised concerns about surveillance and civil-liberties implications, noting that counties have little control over which companies ultimately lease space inside data centers. They questioned whether Montgomery County should host infrastructure that could enable firms with documented human-rights concerns–like Palantir–or deep ties to surveillance and enforcement systems, especially when no clear public benefit is guaranteed.
- Returning to the economic question, they framed data center development as a one-sided transaction: communities provide land, water, power, tax relief, and regulatory accommodation, while the primary financial gains flow to large technology firms and investors headquartered elsewhere.
- They closed by urging the County to ask a simple but essential question before moving forward: who benefits, and who pays?
Data Centers Are Not Just Local Infrastructure
While much of the forum focused on zoning, utilities, and county process, several speakers raised a more fundamental question: what these facilities are actually for.
That question connects directly to the work of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, a landmark analysis by Shoshana Zuboff, Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School.
Zuboff’s research does not focus on Montgomery County or on individual siting decisions. Instead, it examines the economic system that has driven the explosive growth of large-scale digital infrastructure worldwide.
Shoshana Zuboff: Surveillance Capitalism and Its Physical Infrastructure
In The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Zuboff describes an economic model built on the large-scale extraction of data from everyday human activity—what she calls “behavioral surplus.”
This data is captured, aggregated, analyzed, and transformed into prediction products designed to anticipate—and increasingly shape—human behavior.
Although Zuboff does not center her analysis on data centers as a topic in themselves, the system she describes depends on vast computational back-end infrastructure to function. The planetary-scale computer networks, storage systems, and processing architectures she documents are what make surveillance capitalism operational at scale.
Under this framework:
- Human experience is treated as a raw material for data extraction
- That data must be stored, processed, and analyzed continuously
- The resulting systems enable a new form of power—what Zuboff calls “instrumentarian power”—which operates not through persuasion or consent, but through automated prediction and behavioral modification
From this perspective, large-scale data centers are not neutral or incidental. They are the industrial infrastructure required to sustain this economic model.
Why This Matters for Local Decision-Making
When communities are asked to host hyperscale data centers, the impacts are not limited to land use, traffic, or tax revenue. These facilities are embedded in a global system that:
- Prioritizes data extraction and prediction over traditional production
- Requires enormous and continuous inputs of electricity and water
- Concentrates power in private corporate systems largely outside democratic oversight
- Treats digital infrastructure as critical assets requiring hardened security and restricted access
Zuboff’s work underscores that debates about data centers are not only technical or local. They are also about power, governance, and whose interests shape the future—and about whether communities are being asked to absorb long-term environmental and social costs for systems whose primary benefits accrue elsewhere.
Resident Testimony and State-Level Warnings Align
Several themes raised by residents during the February 3 forum—particularly concerns about rising electricity bills, grid upgrades, and who ultimately bears the cost of new infrastructure—echo issues that have been discussed in state-level utility and grid proceedings. Multiple speakers questioned whether large data centers could trigger significant new transmission and generation investments, and whether those costs might be spread across all ratepayers rather than assigned to the entities driving the demand. In recent filings, Maryland’s Office of People’s Counsel has warned that under certain regulatory structures, large new electricity loads can result in costs being socialized among residential and small-business customers, even when the infrastructure primarily serves highly profitable corporate users. While the forum did not delve into the technical details of these proceedings, the overlap between public testimony and consumer-protection concerns raised at the state level suggests that residents are reacting to risks that regulators are actively examining—not hypothetical ones.
State Policy Context
State-level incentives help explain the pressure Montgomery County is facing as it considers data center development. Maryland’s Qualified Data Center Program offers a long-term, generous subsidy that encourages counties to act quickly or risk being seen as losing investment to neighboring jurisdictions, creating a competitive “now or never” dynamic. Because the largest financial incentive is guaranteed at the state level, counties have less leverage to demand strong environmental protections, infrastructure cost recovery, or meaningful public benefits—while still bearing long-term local impacts on electricity, water, roads, and enforcement. At the same time, once the state signals that data centers are a priority industry, counties that pause or impose strict limits can be framed as anti-growth or out of step with state economic policy, making it politically harder for local leaders to slow down or say no, even when residents raise serious concerns.
Related analysis:
This dynamic has been examined nationally as well. A 2025 Harvard Electricity Law Initiative report documents how large corporate infrastructure and technology projects increasingly extract private profits while shifting long-term costs—such as grid upgrades and utility investments—onto the public.
Extracting Profits from the Public: How Utility Ratepayers Are Paying for Big Tech’s Power
https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Harvard-ELI-Extracting-Profits-from-the-Public.pdf
Take Action: Public Hearing on Data Center Legislation — February 24, 2026
Montgomery County Council has scheduled public hearings on key data center legislation — including Bill 4-26, “Buildings — Task Force on Data Centers” and a proposed Zoning Text Amendment (ZTA 26-01) to define and regulate data centers. These hearings are crucial opportunities for community members to share their views before the Council advances policy or zoning changes. (Press release.)
Date: Tuesday, February 24, 2026
Where: Montgomery County Council Office Building, Rockville, MD (and options to testify virtually or submit written/video testimony)
- Bill 4-26, Buildings – Task Force on Data Centers – Established, would establish a task force to study the potential risks and benefits of data centers in the County, require the task force to produce a report that identifies the impacts of data centers and evaluates the feasibility of potential legislative, policy, or zoning changes, and generally amend the law regarding data centers in the County. https://www2.montgomerycountymd.gov/mcgportalapps/Press_Detail.aspx?Item_ID=48123
- Zoning Text Amendment (ZTA) 26-01, Commercial Uses – Data Center, would define Data Center as a new use subject to zoning requirements, specify the zones where Data Centers may locate in the County as conditional uses, establish minimum standards for the location of Data Centers in the County, and generally amend the law regarding permissible locations and conditions for Data Centers in the County.
How to participate
To testify in-person or remotely during a live public hearing at the Council Office Building, residents need to preregister on the Council’s web page. Residents may also choose to provide pre-recorded testimony in written, audio or video formats or submit testimony by mail.
Send testimony by mail to County Council, 100 Maryland Ave., Rockville, MD 20850; or residents may sign up to testify remotely by phone (call 240-777-7803 for information). To express an opinion call 240-777-7900.
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Montgomery County Council provides reasonable accommodations to ensure that people with disabilities have an equal opportunity to testify at public hearings. Email CouncilHearing.Accommodation@montgomerycountymd.gov or call the public hearing line (240-777-7803) at least five business days prior to the public hearing date to request an ADA accommodation (MD Relay – Dial 711 or 800-201-7165).
The Council meeting schedule may change from time to time. View the current Council and Committee agendas, Council staff reports and additional information on items scheduled for Council review on the Council website.
Public hearings will be televised live by County Cable Montgomery (CCM) on Xfinity channels 6 and 996, RCN channels 6 and 1056; and FiOS channel 30. Also available live via streaming through the Council website, Facebook Live (@MontgomeryCountyMdCouncil or @ConcejodelCondadodeMontgomery), or YouTube (@MoCoCouncilMD).
How to Sign Up for Public Hearings
The Stay Council Connected video series is a step-by-step guide to navigating the Montgomery County Council that offers instructions for residents.
Additional Coverage & Links:
The MoCo Climate Coalition provided comments on the County Executive’s draft framework for Data Centers – you can read those here. From the comments you can see that there are so many moving parts to this issue and Montgomery County is only beginning to set up any guide rails while data centers speed toward approval under zoning meant for “cable communications”. For this reason the coalition is asking for the County Executive to call for an immediate moratorium on permitting for data centers while these policies are discussed and adopted in a transparent process with stakeholders.
Montgomery and Prince George’s counties share regional infrastructure, energy, and grid concerns that transcend county lines. In Prince George’s County, officials implemented a temporary pause on new data center approvals in late 2025 — a moratorium designed to give policymakers time to study impacts and develop zoning and procedural safeguards before additional projects move forward.
