Huntington Herald-Dispatch – The West Virginia Legislature has passed controversial, far-reaching legislation aimed at attracting facilities that could grow the state’s tax base but also threaten to raise power bills and cause environmental harm.
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In the final hours of the state’s 2025 regular legislative session Saturday night, the Senate sent House Bill 2014 to its most vocal supporter, Gov. Patrick Morrisey, who requested the bill to attract and fast-track development of data centers.
Data centers are server-populated warehouses that power artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Their high energy and water consumption and noise pollution have caused system cost concerns for non-data center residents and electric customers in states with the kind of development Morrisey and the Republican-supermajority Legislature are seeking through HB 2014.
