Missoula County, MT Adopts Temporary Moratorium on New or Expanding Data Centers

Missoula County commissioners adopted a temporary moratorium — up to one year — on new or expanding data center facilities on July 11, citing public health and environmental concerns while the county updates its land-use regulations. The move is part of a national wave of local-government resistance: at least 17 Indiana counties have moratoriums, Washington County, MD adopted a yearlong moratorium July 1, and Linn County, IA passed an 18-month moratorium.

Missoula extends the moratorium wave’s geographic reach into Montana and the Mountain West, a region with comparatively little prior datacenter-siting activity in the timeline’s coverage — its inclusion alongside the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and Southeast moratorium clusters documented through July 2026 confirms the pattern is genuinely national rather than concentrated in a handful of hyperscaler-target regions.