New York State Gets One Step Closer to a Data Center Moratorium

The New York Legislature passed a one-year moratorium Thursday night on data center permits, the latest sign of pushback amid a nationwide rush to build the power-hungry facilities.  New York would become the first state in the nation to enact such a freeze if Gov. Kathy Hochul signs the bill into law. But Hochul, who is up for re-election this year, has said that she believes it should be left up to municipalities, Politico’s E&E News reported last week. Maine’s governor vetoed a moratorium there in April. The bill, named the Responsible Data Center Development Act, would also require a local public hearing before such facilities are constructed and a statewide data center environmental impact report within a year and a half after the bill becomes law. The moratorium would apply to any data center with a peak energy use above 20 megawatts.  “We need to make sure that we have the appropriate infrastructure and processes in place to protect communities from rising utility bills, protect our environmental resources and actually have a positive vision for what our energy future as a state should look like,” state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez, a Democrat who introduced the bill, told Inside Climate News. ICN Weekly Saturdays Our #1 delivers the week’s climate and energy news – our original stories and top headlines from around the web. Get ICN Weekly Inside Clean Energy Thursdays Dan Gearino’s habit-forming weekly take on how to understand the energy transformation reshaping our world. Get Inside Clean Energy Today’s Climate Tuesdays A once-a-week digest of the most pressing climate-, written . Get Today’s Climate Don’t miss a beat. Get a daily email of our original, groundbreaking stories written -winning reporters. Get ICN Sunday Morning Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and ICN reporters as they discuss one of the week’s top stories. Get ICN Sunday Morning Justice & Health A digest of stories on the inequalities that worsen the impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities. Large data centers that support artificial intelligence suck up an enormous amount of energy to power their computers. They also need water to cool them.  In New York, data centers have been proposed across upstate communities, from Niagara and Erie counties along the border with Canada to the town of East Fishkill in the southeast. Local opposition to these projects, which are often proposed in rural areas, is growing.  “The burden of rigorous analysis and defense against billionaires and their white-shoe law firms should not be put on volunteer planning board appointees,” said Gay Nicholson of Sustainable Finger Lakes, a nonprofit opposed to a large data center in the upstate town of Lansing.  “We need state-level intervention,” she said at a recent press conference.