The debate over how to regulate data centers in Montgomery County is inflaming election-year tensions among elected officials.

County Executive Marc Elrich and Council President Natali Fani-González are moving forward with proposed zoning law changes that may determine where data centers can be built and what land use regulations they must follow.

Meanwhile, Evan Glass — one of three council members running to succeed Elrich — is calling for his colleagues to pump the brakes. He’s pushing for a workgroup to study potential benefits and harm from data centers, which house equipment to store, process and distribute data.

Elrich says the issue has been studied enough.

“I guess everybody needs to do something for elections,” he said. “We don’t need a study.”

Glass pushed back on Elrich, the term-limited county executive who is also seeking office.

“Marc Elrich is running for the council, right?” Glass said in a statement. “My proposal isn’t about politics.”

Elrich, Fani-González and two other council members sponsoring the proposal — Marilyn Balcombe and Laurie-Anne Sayles — are hosting a community forum on Tuesday to hear from residents, organizations, businesses and environmentalists.

Glass said he plans to attend the listening session, though he said his colleagues didn’t formally invite him.

Several jurisdictions in the D.C. region, including Frederick and Prince George’s counties, have convened work groups and studied how data centers could help and harm their communities.

Data centers can generate significant tax revenue for state and local governments, and, according to The Brookings Institution, demand for them is soaring as the artificial intelligence market surges.

But data centers can also disrupt neighbors with near-constant humming and require significant water for cooling and energy to operate, which in Maryland raises the risk of severely straining the electrical grid.

Montgomery County, Glass said, is distinct from other counties and needs its own study. He has proposed a 15-member work group that would recommend regulations that consider Montgomery County’s geography, available land and conservation goals.

“There are different approaches,” he said, “and I prefer to start with deep community engagement from the best and the brightest in our community.”

‘Time is of the essence’

Montgomery County has a handful of data centers, according to the online tracker Data Center Map, which lists four.

More are on the way.

California-based Atmosphere Data Centers has plans for multiple data centers and energy storage facilities in Dickerson, just outside the bounds of the county’s Agricultural Reserve at the site of a decommissioned coal-fired power plant.

Atmosphere CEO Chuck McBride declined to weigh in on the county’s competing proposals, but said in a statement that the company supports clear, objective rules for data centers. Data centers should be located where they make sense, he said.

“We believe reuse of the former Dickerson coal plant property, an already industrial site, is the one location that makes sense,” he said.

Kelly Schulz, CEO of the Maryland Tech Council, which recently launched the Data Center Alliance of Maryland to advocate for the industry, said officials across the state and country have sufficiently studied them.

“Time is of the essence,” she said. “That is the big roadblock for developers right now — sitting and waiting for decisions to be made when there has been plenty of opportunity to look at these issues.”

But Kevin Walton, who is part of a coalition of 20 environmental organizations working in Montgomery County, said local officials should pause before they adopt regulations.

Members of his group, Climate Coalition Montgomery County, are calling for a moratorium on data center projects in the county.

“In no way,” he said, is that “an extreme request.”

Frederick County officials, Walton noted, enacted a six-month moratorium on data center applications while they finalized stricter regulations on the industry. Prince George’s County adopted a similar moratorium last September.

Carroll County officials are also considering a moratorium.

“I don’t think necessarily that you’re gonna see this will hold things up,” Walton said of a potential moratorium in Montgomery County. “If we want them to be good neighbors, I think it’s a reasonable thing that we understand what it is that we’re getting involved in.”

What’s next

The state legislature created its own task force to study data centers. Lawmakers say they’re expecting a set of recommendations in September.

Fani-González said recommendations from the legislature’s task force will inform Montgomery County’s approach.

She’s planning for the council to vote this summer on proposed zoning law changes, which would restrict data center developments to areas of the county zoned for industrial use, which she said is “very small.”

The changes would also require data centers near residential neighborhoods to maintain setbacks of at least 500 feet, in addition to the distance required by county law.

But Fani-González is planning to wait for the state’s recommendations before voting on a separate bill that will govern, among other things, how data centers use water and energy resources.

The council is expected to take up Glass’ bill in March.

“I don’t believe in his approach,” she said of Glass. “If we didn’t have data centers in the county, I could probably see his point. But we already have them.”