Data Centers: Talk of the Panhandle
Since the Legislature finished its 2026 Regular Session March 14, there have been two public meetings about data centers.
The first was held on March 20 at Spring Mills High School. Fundamental Data wants to put a data center very near that school. About 700 people came to that meeting, hosted by two Berkeley County Commissioners. The meeting lasted two hours, each person in attendance was permitted to speak up to three minutes, and many who spoke were quite angry.
The second meeting took place at the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education at Shepherd University. It was sponsored by the Bonnie and Bill Stubblefield Center for Civil Political Communication, also headquartered at Shepherd.
The second format was quite different from the first. A four-person panel discussed the issue for an hour and a half. Two panelists, Chris Morris (with Governor Patrick Morrisey’s office) and industry executive Dado Slezak, supported data centers. Two others, Amy Margolies of Tucker County United and Jefferson County Commissioner Cara Keys, had major concerns. The panelists answered questions prepared in advance, and the audience (numbering 90+) was not permitted to speak. I thought the panelists framed the issue splendidly. Asked by Keys for a show of hands responding to a set of three choices, the vast majority of the folks in attendance indicated they would be willing to accept data centers with proper safeguards. The other choices were to ban data centers entirely or to allow them with no rules. (Five people, including a sitting state legislator, voted for no rules.)
Does state law (embodied in House Bill 2014, passed in 2025) have proper safeguards? Hardly.
Three major concerns are water, taxes and how centers might affect neighborhoods.
Water is a state responsibility, and while the skimpy regulatory provisions of HB 2014 were slightly strengthened when the rules were drafted, I think they need to be even stronger.
Property taxes historically belong to local governments (counties, municipalities and school districts), not the state. HB 2014 turned this idea on its head. Half the property tax revenue from most data centers will go to the state, and a county with a center keeps only 30%. Not only is this different from our history, it differs from our surrounding states. Loudoun County, VA, gets considerable revenue from data centers for local schools, parks, libraries, law enforcement, fire protection and other responsibilities. Our counties will get a pittance of data centers revenue.
Moreover, HB 2014 bans any local control of data centers, including zoning. No other state has done this, and I think it an outrage. Every other type of business must deal with zoning and other local regulations.
Some argue that no data center will want to come to a state in which there are different rules in each county. Really? Every county in Virginia has its own local zoning, and data centers have flocked to several Virginia counties.
I sense among some a belief that West Virginia is so unattractive that we must give away the entire store (not just part of it, like other states) to get anyone interested. Why this lack of confidence in our state? Why might we be so unattractive? I doubt it’s taxes, which are per-capita lower than our neighboring states. Is it because we pay our teachers, troopers and other public servants wages far below those in most other states? Perhaps because many parts of our state have some of the dirtiest drinking water on the planet? Or that we have a seriously unhealthy population?
All other states have rules that require data centers to be responsible to their communities. We’ve said we’ll waive those rules. I fear we’ll get data centers uninterested in community responsibility.
Passing a bill and implementing the rules for it doesn’t finish the work. Legislating is always a work in progress. Enacting a law doesn’t stop the process, many laws are changed shortly after being enacted. A few years ago, Arkansas passed a data center bill that banned local zoning. Two years later, that state restored local zoning.
All 100 seats in the House of Delegates are up for election this year, as are 19 of 34 State Senate seats. In 2027, elected legislators can restore the control local governments should have over data centers, the same control counties and cities retain over other businesses. They can restore the local tax revenue funneled to Charleston in HB 2014. And they can further strengthen water protections.
