In 2020, the Maryland General Assembly passed a sales and use tax exemption for qualified data centers that substantially lowered the construction cost to between 55 to 65% of initial expenses (Please note that Gov. Larry Hogan had no involvement in this bill except for signing it).

In a recent commentary, former Maryland Commerce Secretary Michael Gill suggests that we “take a page from Virginia’s playbook and cut out unnecessary red tape while encouraging the growth of promising new industries” (“Let’s make Maryland ‘open for business’ again,” May 17). Unfortunately, what the author calls red tape are the environmental laws and regulations that protect people and the environment.

Virginia has now seen the errors in its approach and is now scrambling to protect its people from the harmful effects of data centers. Here are a few things to consider when thinking about data centers: Greenhouse gas emissions from the power usage, air and noise pollution caused by the use of diesel backup generators that need to be run almost weekly to ensure working order, noise from the server themselves, water consumption, water runoff and installing miles of underground fiber optic cable to mention a few.

In fact, Virginia in 2024 had 17 pieces of legislation introduced to restrict data centers and Loudoun County just passed local restrictions. In Northern Virginia, there are now over 4,000 commercial backup diesel generators, many times the size of a typical household generator.

The numbers are stunning: One data center can use the same amount of energy as 50,000 homes. This demand has real-world consequences: Virginia’s Prince William County saw a 19% rise in greenhouse gas emissions between 2005 and 2018, a time-period that matches the data center expansion in the county.

Data centers are increasingly essential to our modern life and have the potential to bring economic gains to Maryland. However, we must implement essential guardrails that protect our climate and our communities. I hate to say it, but there are no jobs on a dead planet.

— Dave Arndt, Baltimore

The writer is co-chair of the Maryland Legislative Coalition Climate Justice Wing.

Add your voice: Respond to this piece or other Sun content by submitting your own letter.

RUCKERSVILLE, Va. — Before you buy a vehicle, there’s an incredible amount of time, research, and testing that goes into creating it.

Part of that includes crash testing to see how safe you’ll be inside a vehicle in the event of an accident.

Much of that crash testing takes place in Virginia at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

IIHS describes itself as, “an independent, nonprofit scientific and educational organization dedicated to reducing deaths, injuries, and property damage from motor vehicle crashes through research and evaluation and through education of consumers, policymakers, and safety professionals.

The Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) shares and supports this mission through scientific studies of insurance data representing the human and economic losses resulting from the ownership and operation of different types of vehicles and by publishing insurance loss results by vehicle make and model.”

I went to the facility to see what goes into this research and how it’s making a difference worldwide in the auto industry.

Erin Miller/WTKR

The day began in a lab room 650 ft. away from the crash test site. On the morning I was there, engineers were prepping a 2024 Lincoln Nautilus and taking painstakingly precise measurements of everything.

With a robotic manipulator arm, they measure how far the dummy is sitting from the driver’s seat to the angle of the sea, and how the seat belt is worn.

Engineers, along with representatives from Ford, started this prep work hours before the crash test was even scheduled.

“These guys work really, really hard to prep these vehicles for these tests to make sure they’re going to run on time and that everything’s going to work out just rights,” says Joseph Young.

WTKR

Joseph Young is the Director of Media Relations at IIHS. As we walk around the vehicle, he tells me what they’re testing for.

“One of the things we’re looking closely at is the dummy’s movement, especially this rear-seated dummy. We don’t want to see that it gets too close to the seatback in front of it. We’re also looking closely at how the seat belt interacts with the hips of the dummy and the chest,” he says.

One way to do that, I learned, is by adding a little paint to the dummy. When the vehicle crashes, the dummies will likely bump into something inside the vehicle. When they hit the front seat, or the side airbag, for example, the paint will smear, and researchers will know exactly where the dummy hit.

WTKR

Advertisement

If you’re in the market for a luxury mid-size SUV it’s probably a good idea to check out the results from the Lincon Nautilus’ crash test because then you’ll be able to compare it to other vehicles on the market.

“We will pull the dummy injury values from those dummies very quickly and [researchers] start analysis right away,” Young says.

Each second, of the 16-second ride, is captured by several cameras inside and out of the vehicle shooting at 500 FPS (frames per second).

I pulled up the safety rating results, and the 2024 Lincoln Nautilus scored well, getting a “good” rating on crashworthiness and seat belts and child restraints.

Raul Arbelaez, Vice President for the Vehicle Research Center says the IIHS rating encourages manufacturers to improve vehicles and that stretches well beyond Virginia.

“In China, throughout Europe [and] other parts of the world — are kind of modeling some of the things we’re doing and taking those approaches to their own consumer information programs,” Arbelaez says.

After I saw this test, I immediately wanted to know how my car stacked up.

If you’re thinking the same thing, click here and you can look up the Make and Model of all vehicles that have received IIHS ratings.

BUCKHANNON, West Virginia – From navigating the Covid-19 pandemic to being the impetus behind West Virginia Wesleyan College’s new Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling program, Community Care of West Virginia has developed a strong partnership with the College.

During Saturday’s 133^rd Commencement, President Dr. James Moore presented CCWV CEO Trish Collett and retired CEO Rick Simon with the Presidential Medallion, reserved for individuals whose work has enriched, supported and strengthened the College in ways that are extraordinary.

“Rick Simon and Trish Collett have worked tirelessly as leaders at Community Care of West Virginia to make Upshur County and West Virginia a better, stronger and healthier place and they have done this work selflessly,” Moore said. “Community Care’s administration of our on-campus health center has been a wonderful partnership. Their work with us during the Covid-19 pandemic was a veritable lifeline for West Virginia Wesleyan College.”

In January, the College began the first cohort of a brand new Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program led by director Dr. Jen Randall Reyes. The program is a collaboration with CCWV and Aetna Better Health of West Virginia.

“Their willingness to always devote their and their organization’s resources to our community’s needs time and time again is nothing short of inspirational,” Moore said.

Collett joined Community Care of West Virginia in 2000 as a physician assistant and became Director of Medical Services in 2008. Prior to serving as Chief Executive Officer, Collett was Chief Operations Officer and Deputy Chief Executive Officer for CCWV.

Simon retired in September 2023 after 30 years at the helm of Community Care of West Virginia. Under this tenure, CCWV grew from one location in Upshur County to its current status with 18 medical centers, eight CCWV-owned pharmacies, one dental clinic and 50 school-based health center sites.