We should not allow data centers to contribute yet more damage to our communities.

Why are we even allowing 24/7 generators for non-emergency businesses.   When the power goes out, we as citizens go down, let the data centers go offline as well.   They aren't 'mission critical' for any county or state purpose.  They have workload fail over plans for this exact situation.

These same data center operators last year asked if they could run their generators during 'high load' events during the summer; they claimed it wouldn't be for long hours, just short durations.   

Given the past performance of PJM and Dominion Power, outages that reach >5 hours are EXCEEDINGLY rare.

As such, batteries exist to cover this likely outage duration.  Are they as cheap as generators?  Not yet, but we're seeing BILLION DOLLAR profits from these companies.  They can afford it.

And should a planned outage need to be multiple days, again, they can go offline like the rest of us.   How often has this happened?  I'm guessing basically never.

Data Centers provide NO BENEFIT to the affected communities that any other 'normal' business provides.

Stop giving these companies loopholes to pollute and damage our communities.