Maryland Puts Every 25 MW Data Center Through State Review

Executive Order 01.01.2026.16, “Responsible Data Center Development in Maryland: Protecting Ratepayers, Empowering Communities, and Ensuring Transparency and Accountability,” was signed in Annapolis on September 23, 2026 and took effect immediately. It covers a facility or campus principally used to house computing, storage and telecommunications equipment with a projected or actual peak electric demand of 25 megawatts or more, including an expansion of an existing facility that adds 25 megawatts or more, or any Large Load Customer as defined in Maryland’s Public Utilities Article § 7-232. University, health care, state agency and Department of Defense facilities are carved out. A “developer” is defined broadly: any entity that proposes, owns, develops or operates a data center, including a parent, affiliate, anchor tenant or site-selection agent acting for it. The order creates a task force staffed by the Governor’s Office, with a chair the governor designates and the heads of the Maryland Energy Administration and the Departments of Commerce, Labor, the Environment, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Planning. One detail differs between the two state records: the order names it the Maryland Data Center Accountability Task Force, while the governor’s release calls it the Maryland Data Center Task Force. PSV uses the order’s name.

Review starts at the earliest of three events: the developer applies for, or asks in writing for, any state engagement, which the order defines to include permits, incentives, tax exemptions, grants, loans, state land, letters of support and advocacy before PJM or FERC; a member agency, the Public Service Commission or a host county refers the project; or the developer volunteers. Within 60 days the task force must complete a baseline assessment, notify the host jurisdiction and list the project on a public Maryland Data Center Dashboard, and within 30 days after that it must reach out to meet the developer. The developer is invited to sign a Statement of Commitments, signed by an officer who can bind the company, that runs for the life of the project and binds any successor or assignee. The task force then issues a written Framework Determination of Aligned, Conditionally Aligned or Not Aligned, judged against five principles: ratepayer and grid protection, economic benefit, community voice, environmental protection, and transparency and accountability. Separately, the governor’s office says he will work with the General Assembly in the coming session to repeal the Data Center Sales and Use Tax Exemption, enacted in 2020. Maryland Matters reported that Moore told the Annapolis news conference that “the state will not go around a local community’s ‘no.’”

The order has no power to deny a permit on its own, and says so: it does not authorize any agency to deny, delay or condition a permit on grounds the law does not allow, and it creates no enforceable rights. Its force is over everything the state does at its discretion. For a project graded Not Aligned or Non-Performing, or one that never seeks a Determination, no agency may offer the Coordinated Review Pathway, letters of support or advocacy; agencies defer substantive review until the developer documents all required local land use approvals, comprehensive plan consistency and any water appropriation or discharge authorization; and the Department of Commerce may not recommend, certify or approve any discretionary state incentive. A project that has been denied a required local approval cannot be Aligned while the denial stands. Aligned projects get the reverse: concurrent state and local permit review, with each agency’s timelines posted publicly. Any discretionary incentive now requires an Aligned or Conditionally Aligned finding just to apply, and the developer’s commitments go into the incentive agreement as enforceable terms with milestones, reporting, clawbacks, successor assumption and a performance review at least every five years.

Two sets of terms reach directly into the capital stack. Under the ratepayer principle, the task force weighs whether the developer has an energy plan covering the project’s full incremental load without costs to other customers, bears the full cost of the infrastructure it requires, accepts collateral, minimum-bill and exit-fee protection against stranded costs, commits to curtailment in grid emergencies, and can back its stated load with an identified end user or executed agreements, disclosing any duplicate interconnection requests elsewhere. Under the transparency principle, it weighs disclosure of the parent, controlling entities and, to the extent known, any anchor tenant using a majority of capacity, and the order separately bars state agencies from entering, renewing or extending non-disclosure agreements with developers, operators or site-selection agents. The tax side matters as much. Tax-General § 11-239 exempts qualified data center personal property, a definition that covers computer equipment, chillers, cooling towers and air handlers, and exterior substations, generators, transformers, UPS systems and batteries. A center qualifies by investing $2 million and creating five qualified positions in a Tier I county or opportunity zone, or $5 million and five positions elsewhere, and the certificate renews yearly for up to 10 years, or 20 for $250 million or more. Repeal needs the General Assembly, but the order already directs Commerce, to the extent the law permits, to fold the new framework into how it takes applications for and certifies that exemption.

The artifact worth building is a framework readiness file, one per Maryland site a firm develops, owns, lends against or is buying. Inputs: the order itself; the site’s local approvals, zoning and comprehensive plan references; utility load letters and any interconnection filings; the energy plan and water appropriation materials; drafts of any community benefits agreement; and the site’s § 11-239 certificate history. Output: a table with one row per criterion under each of the five principles in Section D of the order, the evidence on file for each, the gap, and the page cite. Two companion columns do the most work. The first marks which items the developer would have to disclose for publication on the Dashboard, such as the parent, anchor tenant, projected peak demand, water use and duplicate requests, and which ones counsel would claim as trade secrets under the Maryland Public Information Act, since the order requires any withholding claim to be specific and noted publicly. The second maps each prospective commitment to who carries it after a sale, because a Statement of Commitments binds successors and any change in ownership or anchor tenant can trigger reassessment.

The reviewer is the development lead with land use and energy counsel, and the gate is the signature: nothing goes to the task force, and no Statement of Commitments is signed, until counsel and the investment committee have approved every commitment, because the developer attests to the accuracy of each submission and the commitments outlive the current owner. An assistant does the volume work well here: turning a 19-page order into a criteria checklist, cross-referencing a site file against it, tracking the 60-day and 30-day clocks, and drafting the plain-language project summary the community voice principle asks for. It should not choose the commitments, estimate how the task force will weigh a criterion, or decide what the firm is willing to publish. PSV ran no model on this order, tested no product, and promises no approval, timing or incentive outcome.