By Caity Coyne for West Virginia Watch
As people across West Virginia brace for how proposed data centers will alter their communities and their lives, state lawmakers took no substantial action this legislative session to mitigate the harms residents fear the developments could bring.
Though numerous bills were introduced by both Republicans and Democrats to put safeguards on the developments – like implementing limits on water usage, increasing transparency for the public, restoring some local control and creating a buffer zone between homes and data centers, among other things – none made it onto committee agendas.
Now, after what advocates say felt like one of the few chances to address their worries having come and gone with no action by those in power, residents in communities are feeling the burn of “empty promises” from the people elected to represent them and their interests.
Before the session started, Senate President Randy Smith, R-Preston, told his constituents in Tucker County that he knew there were flaws in House Bill 2014, which is legislation that passed in 2025 and created the state’s certified microgrid and data center program. That bill stripped local governments of the power to enforce any regulations against certain data center developments and diverted all but 30% of the tax revenue to the state.
Smith, according to news reports, said that certain portions of the law related to the local control and tax structure would be revisited.
But over the 60 days legislators were in session, there were few efforts to rectify the law. The efforts that were made, failed.
“We didn’t really see them make the changes they promised us,” said Amy Margolies, a Tucker County resident. “When it comes down to it, I feel like there were a lot of promises made that were empty promises. You need to follow your words with actions. The words don’t mean anything unless you actually do something.”
Margolies and her neighbors have spent the last year fighting for answers and more transparency regarding a massive data center and natural gas power plant complex that is proposed to be built between the tourist towns of Thomas and Davis. After HB 2014 passed during the 2025 session and Fundamental Data – the out-of-state company attempting to form the development – applied for an air quality permit, residents created Tucker United, a grassroots coalition pushing for more information and transparency regarding the project.
Since last year, the fights that started in Tucker County – where residents worry about potential environmental and health impacts, as well as whether their tourism-based economy would suffer in the shadow of what could be a 10,000 acre power plant and data center complex – have expanded across the state.
Residents in Mingo, Mason and, more recently, Berkeley counties are angry that their local governments – and themselves – have no power to dictate how the developments will function in their own backyards. They’re concerned that thirsty data centers will drain their local water supplies. They fear that air pollution from the power plants will harm public health. They’re frustrated that the state government and developers have not practiced transparency regarding the developments. They’re worried that noise and light pollution from data centers will alter their communities in irreversible ways, impacting existing economies and making life more difficult for industries that already exist.
Del. Chris Anders, R-Berkeley, was the lead sponsor on several pieces of legislation this year that would have added more guardrails to the state’s microgrid and data center process in response to those concerns.
“I didn’t get much support, as you can see,” Anders said.
Anders said he feels the burn of empty promises regarding the data center laws as well.
Last year, when HB 2014 was first up in the House of Delegates, Anders voted for the legislation. He said he was assured that the concerns he had then – including no local input, no transparency and no directives for water consumption – would be addressed by the Senate. They were not.
This year, as lawmakers considered passage of a rules bundle clarifying the process for how the state Department of Commerce certifies data centers, Anders tried to make those changes.
He and Del. Henry Dillon, R-Wayne, introduced an amendment to the rules on the floor that would have implemented several protections for residents who live near proposed developments. The amendment would have limited what water they could use, added transparency and public reporting measures, prevented energy rate increases, implemented a 500 foot “buffer zone” for the developments and allowed residents to petition proposals they believed could “significantly impact” their communities.
The resistance against the amendment came largely from other House Republicans. They said, among other things, that if the Dillon-Anders amendment passed, then no data center developer would want to come to West Virginia and code enacted through HB 2014 would, in essence, be useless.
“We’re talking about language that would have enforced property rights, returned some power to the people – ideas our very government was founded upon. But the pushback was immense,” Anders said. “So what does that tell you? If we don’t let them drain our wells, if we don’t let them violate our property rights, if we give back control to the people who actually live in an area, then they’re not going to come to West Virginia? Does that make you think (the developers) that do come here are going to be good neighbors?”
The amendment failed 6-87, with six members absent and not voting.
In the Senate, lawmakers did make a small change to the proposed rules urging developers that apply to be certified to include some information about where they will source their water and what impacts the development could have on local water tables. That reporting, however, isn’t necessarily required and the onus still falls on developers to flag potential red flags within their own projects. Any reports that are made would still be kept from the public.
Anders ended up voting against every version of the rules presented in the House this session. He said doing so, however, meant standing up to “very real pressure” that came from within his own body.
“Trust me when I say that there was a lot of pressure coming from within the (House Republican) caucus to vote for the bill, but I could not, in good conscience, because I realized the problems that were going to come from it, and I’m there to serve my people – not the interests of party leadership,” Anders said.
And while efforts in the House to mitigate potential harms from data centers fell short this session, the body’s highest lawmaker – House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay – began working directly for data center developers through his full-time job as an attorney with Bowles Rice law firm.
On Feb. 12, Hanshaw filed a notice of appearance as an attorney defending data center-linked developer MGS CNP1, LLC – an affiliate of Houston-based Fidelis Energy – against an appeal for an air permit previously approved by the state Department of Environmental Protection for a Mason County project. The West Virginia Citizen Action Group is seeking the appeal.
Less than a week later, Hanshaw voted against the Dillon-Anders amendment, as well as other proposed amendments to the data center rules bundle that would have increased requirements for developers.
And on Mar. 16 – two days after session ended – Hanshaw signed on to defend Fundamental Data in a separate air permit appeal case pending in the state’s Intermediate Court of Appeals regarding the development in Tucker County.
Anders said that while the House speaker’s personal work with data centers may not be illegal or even unethical, it’s understandable that people are concerned about potential conflicts of interest from the person in charge of setting policy priorities to be considered in the House of Delegates.
“He should have received an opinion of some sort from the (state Ethics Commission). Even if there’s nothing wrong there, it looks really, really bad from the outside and yeah, the optics are not good,” Anders said. “I don’t know the details there – I don’t think many people do – but yeah, I understand people thinking that something might not smell right here.”
Margolies said the potential for a conflict of interest from Hanshaw speaks to larger problems that community members have faced while they fight to learn more about developments coming to their area.
“It emphasizes how much is happening that we don’t know about behind the scenes. There are so many questions, so many uncertainties, so many concerns and we don’t even have the bare minimum of information that we should,” Margolies said. “It is concerning to have the speaker of the West Virginia House personally involved in these fights – it’s hard not to feel like that is a feature of the system that’s been set up here instead of simply a flaw or an oversight.”
‘I feel betrayed’: Community members want collaboration, not closed doors, as developments move forward
Proposed data center projects are continuing to move forward throughout the state, but not without challenge.
In Tucker County – the first project proposed after the passage of HB 2014 last year – Tucker United is elevating a fight to appeal an air quality permit to the state’s Intermediate Court of Appeals.
There, residents are arguing that the DEP’s previous approval of the permit – and a subsequent denial of the group’s first appeal – underestimates air pollution that could be produced through the development. They cite expert testimony given in December showing that, even in the best of circumstances, emission levels would likely exceed the volumes reported by Fundamental Data.
In Mingo County, an air permit was approved last year for TransGas to start construction on two natural gas plants and a data center complex in Wharncliffe, near the Mingo-Logan county line. Residents in December filed suit against TransGas, alleging that the company failed to undergo federal actions necessary to make the construction of the facilities legal.
Later that month, a judge denied the residents’ request for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order to halt the project.
And in Mason County, an appeal is pending for the previously granted air quality permit. Meanwhile, developers are in the process of applying for other permits, including one related to stormwater construction plans.
One of the newer developments linked to HB 2014 was announced in the middle of the 2026 legislative session. Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced in February that a D.C.-based real estate developer acquired land in Berkeley County to build a data center campus. The development is the first in the state to be certified by the West Virginia Department of Commerce as a “high impact” data center.
In the wake of that announcement, residents in Berkeley County – Anders’ home district – have scrambled for more information.
At the press conference for the Berkeley County development, Morrisey said he believed real estate firm Penzance was “doing things the right way” by involving local community stakeholders, including the county commission, in early discussions.
But at a community meeting in Berkeley County on Mar. 20, hundreds of residents spent hours voicing their concerns over how the project will function and potentially alter their communities.
Berkeley County Commission President Eddie Gochenour told residents at that meeting that he and other officials only learned of the project days before it was publicly announced. He also shared concerns he had about HB 2014; in 2025 Gochenour was one of several county commissioners who raised concerns about the bill due to it diverting a majority of tax revenue away from local governments.
Barrett Robinson lives a few miles outside of Martinsburg on farmland that has been in his wife’s family for generations. While the exact location of the Berkeley County development has not been officially released, it will be in Bedington, not far from Robinson’s home.
“I honestly feel a bit betrayed – I think a lot of us do here. We have a lot of problems with how this project came about and the secrecy that appears to be surrounding it,” Robinson said. “It doesn’t really feel accidental; you don’t just forget to ask a whole county of people whether or not they support something. It feels purposeful, and it’s hard not to be upset while you watch your state government overstep and intrude upon you and your neighbors.”
While his wife has lived in Berkeley County most of her life, Robinson moved there around 2022 from Frederick County, Maryland. He said he likes the kind of life he’s been able to build. It’s a bit quieter, and the tight knit community around them has been welcoming.
But a potential data center complex a few miles away from their home could throw things into flux, he said.
He worries about how property values could be affected. He wants to know what kind of noise and light pollution he and his neighbors should prepare for. And as energy rates continue to increase across West Virginia, he wants to know how much he and his family could be on the hook to pay if the facility is built.
“We love it here, but these are things that we really have to think about now. It changes the way you look at your future,” Robinson said. “I want to be clear that I am not against data centers, and I’m definitely not against economic growth – we need all that we can get – but I am against it happening behind my back, without any input or say from the people who will have to live next to it.”
Robinson’s concerns – alongside those shared by hundreds of his neighbors via social media – echo points made by residents across West Virginia over the last year.
Margolies, in Tucker County, said she worries that the goals of Tucker United have been misrepresented at times. The organization, she said, is not “anti-data center.”
“We are just normal people looking for answers about what will be happening in our backyards, around our families, to our livelihoods,” Margolies said. “We want economic development. We want growth. But we want to have a seat at the table when these things are decided. We don’t want it forced upon us without any say or acknowledgement of our concerns.”
Morgan King, the climate manager for WV Citizens Action Group, has been organizing in communities statewide who are concerned about potential data center developments. She said the lack of information and transparency from the state – coupled with the failed efforts this legislative session that could have addressed those concerns – is lighting a fire under residents.
“People are furious, and they have every right to be. Their state government, the people they’ve elected, are showing time and time and time again that they are not willing to defend the interests of their people,” King said. “They’re looking out for (developers) and the already wealthy people who will benefit from this type of action.”
King said it’s been difficult to organize around an issue where so much of the information is, by design, kept from the public. Details related to annual emissions, water use, wildlife impacts, hours of operation, facility size and more will not be publicly reported under current law until witnessed by residents themselves.
“We constantly have to tell people that we don’t have all the answers. What we have been able to do, though, is educate them on what we do know and show them how they can contact their legislators and demand more transparency and more answers,” King said. “I think what we’ve learned is that this lack of transparency and of information, it’s purposeful. The more people know, the more power they have to fight back. What we are seeing now is communities across this state fighting back and demanding answers that their government clearly does not want to give.”
West Virginia Watch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: info@westvirginiawatch.com.
