Jefferson County’s GOP Legislators Yank Local Control of Data Centers Away from Residents

Jefferson County’s Republican delegation to the Legislature has just told local people it doesn’t matter what we think. Every one of Jefferson’s Delegates and Senators voted to approve HB 2014 authorizing data centers consuming massive amounts of electric power and water to be located pretty much anywhere in the state. And all this can happen without any local zoning or environmental control of the construction or operation of the data centers. This breathtaking anti-democratic law, dubbed the Power Generation and Consumption Act, is the first of its kind in the nation.

The justification for this is the same tired “jobs and economic development” story West Virginians have been fed for decades now. Governor Morrisey, who was the chief proponent of the Act, declared that enabling data centers would position West Virginia at the center of the artificial intelligence boom. Morrisey insisted on the removal of local control of data centers, knowing that local people who will have to live in the same neighborhood as these monsters wouldn’t willingly go along. And our Legislature, including all the Jefferson County delegation, thought this was a good idea.

What exactly are data centers? Think of large warehouses filled with computer servers. These servers train artificial intelligence. Current and widely used AI models like Open AI’s GPT-4 were trained at data centers that use around 30 megawatts of electricity at a time – roughly as much as 30 Wal-Mart stores use at any moment. A recent article in The Wall Street Journal predicts that by 2030 data centers for training newer AI models will need more than 5 gigawatts of electricity, about what the entire island of Manhattan consumes at a time.

One risk of this, of course, is that electricity will become more expensive for regular consumers. To avoid this, the Act allows the data centers to co-locate with their own power generating plant that would presumably supply all the needs of the data center. Any power source is allowed, including coal, gas or nuclear. Any power plant fueled by coal or gas would emit extensive air pollution.

Our neighbors in Northern Virginia have become plagued by data centers. Things got so bad that in September 2024 Fairfax County passed a revised zoning ordinance creating new setback requirements and noise monitoring. These changes came in response to public pressure and were adopted only after extensive public hearings and comments on the proposed changes. These are the very democratic devices West Virginians are now deprived of.

A controversy is brewing over the plan to locate a data center near the Tucker County towns of Thomas and Davis. A Virginia firm proposes the “Ridgeline Facility,” which if fully built could span 10,000 acres and be one of the largest data center installations in the country. The proposed power plant would operate at 1,000 megawatts.

But the Act renders public opposition powerless. It prohibits:

Counties and municipalities, whether by ordinance, resolution, administrative act, or otherwise, from enacting, adopting, implementing, or enforcing ordinances, regulations, or rules which limit, in any way, the creation of, and acquisition, construction, equipping, development, expansion, and operation of any certified microgrid district or certified high impact data center project.

What kind of government is afraid of input from the governed? What kind of political leaders think they know better than we do on important matters affecting our lives? Why shouldn’t we have a say in deciding between economic development that benefits the few and quality of life affecting everyone else?

These are all important questions. But now that we elected Governor Morrisey and the Republican super-majority in last year’s election, I guess we’ve had our moment of democracy and aren’t entitled to more. At least for now. But taking local control away from us means these questions will have to be answered, or rather the people responsible will have to answer for them, at the November 2026 election.

Thank Goodness for Jennifer Krouse

Thank goodness for Jennifer Krouse. While we thought we were only electing her to the Jefferson County Commission, she has grown into so much more. She has become the protector of our children at this critical time when we have so miserably failed in our own responsibilities. We must now recognize her with a new title – Leader of the Jefferson County Morality Squad.

Of course, I mainly write in praise of Leader Krouse for her role in the enactment by the County Commission of an ordinance prohibiting a parent (or anyone else) from taking a child to an “adult live performance,” which everyone knows means drag shows. Drag shows are where men dress up like women and make jokes about it.

I remember reading some Shakespeare plays as an assignment in high school. There were men dressing up like women and women dressing up like men. Oh, the inhumanity! This just shows what we get when we allow artists to run amok.

A friend showed me a letter she had written to the County Commission complaining that there had been no public hearing before the ordinance was enacted. She pointed out that Commissioner Stolipher advocated for holding a public hearing but was overruled.

The Leader responded to my friend’s letter by saying that “Only someone with an irredeemably damaged moral compass would be against protecting children from such material. Given that, there was no need to open this up to an extraordinary level of debate.”

Now that’s what I call enlightened leadership!

I looked up the ordinance and it uses an entire paragraph to define “adult live performance.” The definition was confusing and maybe that’s the point! If parents are unsure what it means, they won’t take the chance of being fined. They won’t dare take a 17-year-old child to entertainment where anything about sex could possibly be mentioned. That’s what we want, right?

I did understand that you can’t take kids to any show that is obscene and lacks serious literary and artistic value – and everyone knows what that means. Don’t they?

I must confess that I once went to a drag show in Palm Springs with some friends. The queens were flamboyant, but they didn’t take themselves seriously. They laughed and made fun of the audience. The whole thing was, well . . . very funny.

I know that this is totally disgusting and that I should be ashamed of myself. Because we know that there is only one way to think about gender and sexuality and you are showing us that way. We were meant to be very strict about these things, and our children should be stopped from thinking that they are humorous in any way.

So, Leader Krouse, the parents of Jefferson County will be forever grateful to you and the other members of the Morality Squad for passing an ordinance that fines us if we expose our children to moral corruption. We have so needed your firm hand on our shoulder. You have helped us identify that corruption even though, in our weakness, we could not see it on our own.

And blowing off a public hearing to discuss the ordinance spared us from unnecessary discussion and irrelevant points of view. Who knows what could have come from that?

But whatever else you and the Squad do, please protect our children from Shakespeare!