Governor Patrick Morrisey wasn’t able to pass much of his agenda, during the recently completed regular session of the Legislature. But his one major success was the passage of HB 2014, the so-called “microgrid” bill. I think HB 2014 doesn’t bode well for Jefferson County.

A “microgrid” is an installation that produces the electricity it uses, rather than take power from the “grid” (the network of power lines from which we customers of Potomac Edison get our electricity). This bill is a manifestation of Morrisey’s desperate attempt to make West Virginia safe for data centers. He wants them here bigly.

Data centers are large buildings in which machinery processes electronically transmitted information. They make lots of noise, and they use huge amounts of water to operate. There are already several hundred operating in nearby Virginia.

A major problem with HB 2014 is that it grants a blanket exemption from local zoning to any data center that uses a microgrid. I think this is appalling. Three years ago Arkansas passed such a bill, which included the exemption from zoning. The next year, Arkansas’s Legislature realized what a whopping mistake that was and amended the law to remove the exemption.

Another big problem with HB 2014 is that it denies the county hosting a microgrid data center the real estate property tax revenues that have historically gone to fund public schools (primarily) and local government (to a lesser extent). Most of the money instead goes to the state, primarily to enable further reduction of the state income tax rate.

The argument made for taking the real estate property tax money from the county in which the data center is located was that these centers will supposedly generate more revenue than the county would be able to spend. Indeed.

The bill did provide that 10 percent of the property tax revenue be put into a fund for distribution to all counties. The Legislature could have done this with the money it gave to the state. Or the Legislature could have rather put the money it gave to the state into a fund to augment the state school-aid formula, thereby retaining the traditional arrangement whereby property tax money is used primarily for public schools.

In order to have a microgrid, a data center needs to be large enough to produce at least 90 megawatts of electricity. Any data center in Jefferson County that doesn’t use a microgrid will be subject to zoning, and the county will get the property tax money.

I’m not opposed to data centers, although I suspect their economic potential may be overblown. But I’m convinced they should be subject to proper local regulation, and local governments and schools should get their property tax money.

It will be some time before we see an influx of data centers. We have time to fix the problems with HB 2014. When the Legislature assembles for the 2026 Regular Session in January, it can restore local zoning and make local governments and schools financially whole.

John Doyle is a 26-year former member of the West Virginia House of Delegates. He can be reached at rjohndoyle@comcast.net.