New York Governor Signs First Statewide Data Center Moratorium

New York governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order Tuesday enacting a one-year pause on the development of hyperscale data centers, effecting the nation’s first statewide data center moratorium. The executive order comes as opposition to data center construction sweeps across the country, putting elected officials under intense pressure to take action.

The order specifically pauses state environmental reviews for facilities over 50 megawatts for a year. It instructs the state’s Department of Public Service to assess the environmental and energy impact of data centers during this time, and to develop a new generic environmental impact statement, a general permitting process for complex environmental issues that may arise with data centers that want to build in the state. Hochul is also proposing an end to all tax incentives for data centers.

“We have no choice but to address the challenges created by these massive facilities,” Hochul said at a press conference in New York City on Tuesday. The pause, she said, would give New York the chance to create the “strongest possible framework to protect our communities.”

Hochul has been facing mounting pressure to act on data centers for months. In early June, the New York legislature passed the Responsible Data Center Development Act. The omnibus bill, which would put into effect several different reforms around data center development and had bipartisan support, has been sitting on Hochul’s desk since passage, as lawmakers and environmental, faith, and labor groups in the state have pressured the governor to sign. (A representative from Hochul’s office tells WIRED that the governor is still reviewing the bill.)

The executive order signed today is less aggressive than the legislation passed in May: The moratorium extends to data centers only over 50 megawatts, versus the 20-megawatt limit in the bill on the governor’s desk. But advocates for the Data Center Development Act applauded Hochul’s move.

“Technology should make our lives better, not pollute our water, strain our energy grid, or drive up our utility bills,” said Democratic state senator Kristin Gonzalez, the sponsor of the bill, in a statement. “By giving our state the time to plan, we can ensure that development and innovation do not come at the expense of all of us.”

Alex Beauchamp, the northeast regional director of Food and Water Watch, an environmental group that helped craft the original New York moratorium bill, says that it’s clear that the legislation passed in May was influential in pushing the governor to sign the executive order. (At the press conference on Tuesday, Hochul personally thanked the sponsors of the Act, including Gonzalez.)

“Any real moratorium is just a gigantic step forward,” he says.

In her State of the State address earlier this year, Hochul said she would ask data centers being built in New York to “pay their fair share” for power. It’s not the first time that the governor has pushed through limits on Big Tech in the state. In 2022, she signed a one-year moratorium on cryptocurrency mining, despite intense lobbying from the industry against that bill.

At least 13 other states, including Georgia, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Maryland, Vermont, and South Dakota, introduced data center moratoriums in their state legislatures this year, with both Democratic and Republican sponsors of the bills. In April, Maine became the first state to pass a data center moratorium out of the legislature. Governor Janet Mills vetoed it, defending a particular data center project, built on the site of a former paper mill, that would, she said, “bring jobs and investment back.” The project was put on hold indefinitely in June.