Joint committee rejects creation of Montgomery County data-centers task force after debate

A joint committee of the Montgomery County Council’s Transportation and Environment and Economic Development committees voted against creating a task force to study data centers, rejecting Bill 4-26 after a lengthy work session on March 9.

“This is a bill that I introduced because Montgomery County deserves to have a transparent and structured process for evaluating data center proposals,” said Chair Evan Glass, the bill’s sponsor, at the start of the meeting. Glass framed the proposal as a way to bring residents, experts, environmental advocates, utility representatives and business leaders together to evaluate land, water, energy and other impacts.

Committee members spent more than an hour debating the bill’s scope, timeline and overlap with other work. Council staff summarized background material showing that neighboring jurisdictions have convened similar studies, that the county has no contemporary definition of “data center” in its code and that OLO and others have prepared relevant reports. Members agreed several technical amendments—adding a public-health representative to the task force, clarifying residency requirements for civic and environmental designees, and explicitly requiring climate analysis—were appropriate and adopted them without objection.

Despite the amendments, several council members said the task force would duplicate work already under way in the county’s zoning-text amendment (ZTA) process, the Office of Legislative Oversight (OLO) review and outreach undertaken by council offices and the County Executive. Others said a short, focused task force could tailor regional findings to Montgomery County’s specific needs.

After the discussion the committee voted and the motion to create the task force failed, 3–2. Chair Glass announced the result and adjourned the joint meeting.