The New York state legislature voted Thursday to approve a one-year moratorium on new “hyperscale” datacenters, sending the measure to Governor Kathy Hochul for a signature or veto. If signed, New York would become the first US state to enact a statewide pause on the large computing facilities that underpin the artificial intelligence boom.
The bill, authored by state senator Kristen Gonzalez, targets datacenters with a capacity over 20 megawatts. Gonzalez told The Guardian that the moratorium is aimed at facilities built by “tech goliaths” and will not affect datacenters that have already obtained the necessary state permits. She said at least 28 large datacenters are currently being evaluated by the state for their impact on the electrical grid and would “add an additional 9,682MW of energy onto the state’s already constrained and aging grid.”
“We should not have to sacrifice our water, our energy, our green space and local communities for big tech and specifically for generative AI, which is oftentimes used for things like AI slop,” Gonzalez said.
In addition to the one-year pause, the bill would require an environmental impact report documenting water and electricity usage. It also sets new labor, energy efficiency, and transparency standards, along with ratepayer protections intended to prevent energy bill increases for New Yorkers. The original proposal would have imposed a three-year moratorium; it was reduced to one year as a compromise.
Opponents on the legislative floor in Albany argued the ban was too broad. Assemblymember Paul Bologna said, “We shouldn’t be imposing blanket moratoriums that punish every community in the state for a problem that may not be universal. We should be letting markets and local governments drive this policy, not fear and environmental overreach in Albany.” The Data Center Coalition, a trade group representing the industry, also warned that a statewide moratorium would “discourage further investment, undermine New York’s economy, and send a signal that the state is closed for business.”
Gonzalez rejected the argument that local governments should handle regulation of datacenters. “It’s an abdication of our responsibility to ask a local government to engage and take on the wealthiest companies in the world,” she said. “This notion that we can let these local governments take on tech goliaths and assume that everything will be OK is, for me, very misguided.”
Cheryl Cordes, a retired nurse who has lived in the town of Alabama, New York, in Genesee County for more than four decades, said she is closely watching the governor’s decision. “They’re trying to shove this datacenter down our throats,” she said, citing worries about noise, higher utility bills, and disruption to wildlife including bald eagles and snowy owls. “These regulations have to come from above,” Cordes said. “I’m not a person who’s about big government — but come on: please help us here in these small rural towns.”
The vote comes amid a broader backlash against datacenter development across the US. More than a dozen states have considered moratoria, according to The Guardian. Maine’s legislature passed a temporary ban earlier this year, but Governor Janet Mills vetoed it in April. A new Heatmap poll cited in the article found that almost three-quarters of Americans oppose a datacenter project being built near their homes.
Governor Hochul’s office has said she will review the legislation. While Hochul has previously dismissed a statewide approach to regulating datacenters, she has advocated for protecting New Yorkers from taking on additional energy costs driven by the facilities.