Records Show Data Center NDAs Kept Officials Silent in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Louisiana and Arizona

Since Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order in August barring Pennsylvania agencies from using nondisclosure agreements on data center projects, records requests across the country have shown just how routine the practice had become before anyone tried to stop it.

Spotlight PA filed public records requests and found at least eight NDAs signed by township, county and Shapiro administration officials tied to data center projects. A separate Center Square investigation found that four of nine projects in Shapiro's former "Fast Track" permitting program involved municipalities where officials had signed confidentiality agreements with developers or related parties, including entities connected to Amazon, Quality Technology Services and Oracle America. A fifth municipality, Kline Township, stopped responding to records requests about whether an agreement even existed.

One case Spotlight PA documented: Talen Energy asked Anthony Township Supervisor Craig High to sign an NDA just to hold a meeting about rezoning. High refused. "The premise of saying, 'Will you not tell your constituents what you're about to do?' left a major bad taste in my mouth," he told the outlet. He only learned months later that Talen had been planning a data center.

Pennsylvania isn't unique. Eric Bonds, an environmental sociologist at the University of Mary Washington, and a research partner examined Virginia, the country's largest data center hub, and found 25 of 31 localities with existing, approved or proposed projects had signed NDAs with developers, according to NPR. Bonds said the pattern held up when reporters and activists in Arizona, Indiana, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania started asking similar questions.

In Louisiana, the Gulf States Newsroom's Drew Hawkins traced the timeline on a $3.6 billion Applied Digital project outside Boyce, a town of about 1,000 people in Rapides Parish. A state economic development agency signed NDAs with the company in late 2024. In January, members of a local board, the England Economic and Industrial Development District, signed their own NDAs to negotiate under the code name "Project Lightning." That board approved the deal with little public discussion in April. By the time residents held a town hall in June, the land, once cotton and soybean fields, was already fenced off and under construction.

"Our politicians were elected to represent us, not to represent industry," resident Robert Maddox said at that meeting, according to NPR. Former sheriff's deputy Shannon McManus put it more bluntly to Boise State Public Radio: "What was it, taxation without representation? That's where we feel like we're at right now."

Arizona has drawn the attention of at least one federal lawmaker. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, has cited reports that Amazon sought to limit what Pima County officials could publicly discuss regarding a proposed $3.6 billion data center, and the case is now part of a broader Senate inquiry into data center secrecy, according to Newsweek.

Tennessee has its own version. Public Citizen has reported that xAI required government officials to sign NDAs during development of its "Colossus" facility near Memphis, limiting what could be disclosed about the project before it went operational.

The industry's case for confidentiality

Dan Diorio, vice president of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, told Spotlight PA he "understands the potential need for regulation here" but noted that NDAs are common across many kinds of large business development, not just data centers, from restaurants to manufacturing plants. The argument from developers and some local officials is straightforward: companies don't want competitors seeing their site-selection strategy, and premature disclosure can blow up a deal before terms are finalized. Melissa Melewsky, an attorney with the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, disputed that framing as applied to elected officials specifically. "Any time a private company tries to limit what a public official can say about public business, that's a red flag," she told Spotlight PA. "It's not a private transaction."

Microsoft has pledged to stop using NDAs with local governments going forward, a move other companies in the sector have not matched, according to Spotlight PA.

Legislative responses are moving unevenly. Bills to restrict or ban data center NDAs have been introduced in Michigan, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Ohio, according to NPR. In Pennsylvania, a bill has passed the state House but has not yet been taken up by the Senate. Shapiro's executive order only covers agencies under his own jurisdiction going forward, meaning past agreements and county-level or independent authority deals fall outside its reach.

Blumenthal's Senate inquiry into the Amazon-Pima County agreement remains open, with no public timeline for findings. Whether Congress or additional state legislatures move to restrict the practice, or whether NDAs simply become standard boilerplate that local officials are expected to sign before they're even told what's being proposed, remains to be seen.