Memphis Settles for a 135-Day Data-Center Pause

MEMPHIS, Oct. 20 — TheThe Memphis City Council rejected a moratorium on new data centers on Tuesday night on a 6-to-6 tie, then passed a substitute, changed at the last minute, that calls for a 135-day pause. Councilwoman Yolanda Cooper-Sutton was absent; Action News 5 was told she was handling a family emergency in Mississippi.

What the pause covers is unsettled. Action News 5 reported that it applies to “the permitting process for data centers”; CBS News, that it would “halt construction of data centers.” Its contents were not immediately clear after the vote, and some members said they did not know what was in it, The Commercial Appeal reported.

The 135 days are far less than the 12 to 18 months activists had endorsed, Action News 5 noted, and leave builders in Memphis facing a pause of months rather than a long freeze. Opposition here began in 2024 with the Colossus 1 data center of Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI, CBS reported; the company, SpaceX’s artificial-intelligence arm, has also built two more in the region and has two under construction. On SpaceX’s earnings call on Tuesday, Mr. Musk said he was in Memphis “often four days a week,” according to a Motley Fool transcript.

The Substitute

The moratorium, Ordinance 5982, would have suspended “the acceptance, processing, approval, and issuance” of zoning, land-use, building and “other associated infrastructure permits” for data centers, the agenda shows. Action News 5 and CBS News described it as lasting a year; The Daily Memphian called it indefinite. Four council members sponsored it: JB Smiley Jr., Jerri Green, Michalyn Easter-Thomas and the chairwoman, Jana Swearengen-Washington.Thirteen SeatsThe council has 13 members. With Ms. Cooper-Sutton absent, 12 voted, and the tie defeated the moratorium.

The measure that passed was sponsored by Councilman Jeff Warren and Councilwoman Rhonda Logan, according to Action News 5, and Dr. Warren swapped in its text in the middle of the meeting, The Commercial Appeal reported. The station identified it as Ordinance 5986, whose published version set rules on cooling water and electricity; whether they survive is not known. The council’s agenda lists Dr. Warren alone as the sponsor of 5986 and Ms. Logan among the sponsors of a separate ordinance, 5988, which advanced. CBS reported that the substitute that passed was intended to complement Mayor Paul Young’s 90-day study of data centers.

“Councilmembers were trying to read the ordinance on the spot,” Mr. Smiley said afterward, as quoted by The Commercial Appeal. “My ordinance has not changed,” Ms. Logan said, as quoted by Action News 5, which did not say which ordinance she meant. “Everything you talked about tonight is not under our purview. The only thing we can address is land use.”

“This item is still going to have a pause in it and it’s going to have some guardrails,” Ms. Swearengen-Washington told Action News 5. The station also listed her among the five members who voted no on the ordinance, with Dr. Easter-Thomas, Ms. Green, Mr. Smiley and Pearl Eva Walker; four of the five had sponsored the moratorium. It did not report the count in favor.

Others want the work. Hundreds of people lined up outside the electrical workers’ union office in Midtown hoping for data-center jobs, Action News 5 reported on Monday night; some electricians said they were being offered more than $8,000 a week for construction work, though the station noted that actual earnings depend on hours, pay rates and per diem. “Tell Elon Musk to stay, we love this money you’re giving us man,” one said.

The Courts

Hours before the meeting, a federal judge, Thomas L. Parker, lifted the council’s bans on six people, among them state Rep. Justin J. Pearson and his brother, KeShaun Pearson, barred after protests cut short the Oct. 6 meeting. City rules, he found, give the chair no power to bar anyone from future meetings, The Commercial Appeal reported.The OrderJudge Parker’s 14-day order also blocks enforcement of the council’s bans on “personal, impertinent, slanderous, defamatory, abusive” and “gossip” remarks as likely viewpoint discrimination, Action News 5 reported. Bans on vulgar or profane speech were left in place pending further briefing.

On Monday, a federal court in Mississippi refused the Justice Department’s bid to end the NAACP’s Clean Air Act suit over the gas turbines SpaceXAI runs in Southaven, Miss., to power its data centers. The department had written that dismissal “accords with federal policy, national security, and the public interest,” Action News 5 reported. Judge Debra M. Brown wrote in her order, signed Oct. 19, that there was “no ‘fairly possible’ interpretation of the Clean Air Act that would give the United States the right to unilaterally dismiss a citizen suit.” SpaceXAI did not reply to a request for comment from CBS News.

What Comes Next

“It’s not good enough because it’s not what the people wanted,” KeShaun Pearson, executive director of Memphis Community Against Pollution, told Action News 5 after the vote. “It’s not good enough because it was presented to the people 45 minutes before it was voted on.”

It’s not good enough because it was presented to the people 45 minutes before it was voted on.

“It is apparent that the Chamber of Commerce and Elon Musk have significant sway over some of these city council members,” Rep. Pearson said, as quoted by Action News 5, “and it’s the responsibility of the people of this city to see them for who they are and to vote them out next year.”

“It was a big missed opportunity for the City of Memphis to be a leader in the region,” said Sarah Houston of Protect Our Aquifer, as quoted by the station.

The council also advanced ordinances on zoning and on a land-use framework for data centers, and held two others. Dr. Warren’s plan for a board to collect fees from data centers based on their energy use passed on first reading; it needs two more, and the state legislature’s permission to collect money beyond property taxes, The Commercial Appeal reported.

Still to come are a clear account of what the pause covers, Shelby County’s decision on its own moratorium and the mayor’s study, due in early January.The StudyMr. Young signed the executive order on Oct. 9. It calls for a written report within 90 days on land use, infrastructure, air quality, water and aquifer protections, energy and utility costs, and noise. It “does not suspend, delay, restrict, or interfere with council action,” he said. The county’s 12-month moratorium for unincorporated areas passed a first reading on Oct. 12 and, as of Sunday, needed two more, ABC24 reported.