New data center development will soon be on pause in Howard County after the county council unanimously passed legislation temporarily halting new projects and establishing a task force to review future proposals.
Council members approved the Strategic Moratorium for Assessing Responsible Technology Siting Act (S.M.A.R.T. Act) on June 1, which would temporarily halt development plans for new data centers in Howard County while creating a task force with up to 11 appointees from the county council and county executive. Task force members would include individuals with expertise in utilities, environmental science and data center operations, among other fields.
The moratorium on data centers could last until November 2027 or end sooner if the task force issues recommendations that update zoning regulations and are approved by the county council.
Council members said the bill is intended to establish guardrails and smart-growth regulations for data center development in the county, which has not updated its data center regulations since 1993, long before sprawling data center campuses became a contentious issue in local communities.
“We know that in this modern world that data centers will grow, but we have to ensure that any of that growth is occurring in a way that is thoughtful and respectful to our residents and businesses that are here, and to the planet that we all inhabit,” said Council Vice Chair Christiana Rigby (Dist. 3), whose district includes North Laurel.
Doug Siglin, a Howard County resident who volunteers with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, applauded the county’s actions.
“To me this is a no-brainer,” he said. “If Howard County is going to have large data centers, we must ensure that they don’t screw up our climate, our air quality, or our water.”
Still, some council members felt the bill did not go far enough.
Council member Liz Walsh (Dist. 1) objected to a proposal which would have shortened the period of the task force from 18 months to 12, and another amendment which specified data center developers as one of the groups that should be represented on the task force.
“I’ve seen this council dilute my bills over and over again by amendment, but this notion of diluting one’s own bill by your own amendment was a new spin on things,” Walsh said.
The bill was also amended to allow changes to existing or previously approved data centers. Rigby said this would allow smaller, older data centers to make upgrades. Walsh was the lone “no” vote on the amendment, saying it deviated from the original spirit of the bill.
Rigby said she hoped to bring a more nuanced approach to the data center debate. She said the amendment would not apply to huge data centers designed for artificial intelligence use because Howard County does not currently have any hyperscale data centers, only smaller, older facilities designed for cloud storage.
“You can have a data center that fits in a shipping pod that fits on your driveway, and you can have, like, a 40-acre Utah hyperscale AI data center,” Rigby said, referencing a controversial data center planned for northern Utah. “And until you define the universe between the shipping pod and hyperscale, then you don’t have that ability to say … what types you want and what types you don’t want.”
Howard County remains a relatively small market for data centers and has largely avoided attracting the giant modern hyperscale facilities used to support generative AI. But it does have a smaller existing data center just outside North Laurel, and Rigby said another is under construction in the same area. In total, the Laurel area has about three to four data centers, according to DataCenterMap.com.
Like Howard County, Maryland trails Virginia in data center development. Virginia has more data centers than any other state or region in the world, according to the American Edge Project, with 663 already built and 595 in the planning or construction phase. By comparison, Maryland has 44 existing data centers and another 19 under development.
The bill comes at a time of increasing local opposition to the construction of giant hyperscale data centers, as residents raise concerns over excessive water use, noise, pollution and rising electricity costs if development becomes widespread in Maryland. Last year, Prince George’s County announced a similar pause on data center development, and Baltimore County followed suit earlier this year.
But proponents of data centers argue that the economic impacts are worth it. An August 2025 analysis by the Maryland Tech Council, which represents technology companies, says Virginia’s data center industry produced more than $1 billion in state and local tax revenue as of 2022 and supports nearly 80,000 jobs. The Tech Council argues Maryland is missing out by not embracing data center development.
The bill now heads to County Executive Calvin Ball for consideration. If signed into law, the Howard County Data Center Task Force would present its findings no later than Nov. 2, 2027.