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, according to WIRED. The order comes as opposition to data center construction sweeps the country, putting elected officials under intense pressure to act.
Scope of the Moratorium
The executive order specifically pauses state environmental reviews for facilities over 50 megawatts for one year. It instructs New York’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, WIRED reported. 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."
Comparison with Legislative Bill
The executive order is less aggressive than the legislation passed by the New York legislature in early June, the Responsible Data Center Development Act. That omnibus bill had bipartisan support and would put into effect several different reforms around data center development. The moratorium in the bill applies to data centers over 20 megawatts, while the executive order applies only to those over 50 megawatts. The bill has been sitting on Hochul’s desk since passage, and a representative from Hochul’s office told WIRED that the governor is still reviewing it.
| Feature | Executive Order | Legislative Bill (Responsible Data Center Development Act) |
|---|---|---|
| Moratorium threshold | Above 50 MW | Above 20 MW |
| Duration | One year | Not specified (bill includes multiple reforms) |
| Status | Signed | Awaiting governor's decision |
Advocates for the Data Center Development Act applauded Hochul’s move. Democratic state senator Kristin Gonzalez, the sponsor of the bill, said in a statement: "Technology should make our lives better, not pollute our water, strain our energy grid, or drive up our utility bills. 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."
Political and Environmental Context
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. Environmental, faith, and labor groups in the state have pressured the governor to sign it. Alex Beauchamp, the northeast regional director of Food and Water Watch — an environmental group that helped craft the original New York moratorium bill — said it is clear that the legislation passed in May was influential in pushing the governor to sign the executive order. At the bill’s signing Tuesday, Hochul personally thanked the sponsors of the Act, including Gonzalez. Beauchamp stated: "Any real moratorium is just a gigantic step forward."
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. This is not the first time 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, according to WIRED.
National Trend
The New York moratorium is part of a broader wave of data center opposition across the United States. 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. In April, Maine became the first state to pass a data center moratorium out of the legislature, but 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." That project was put on hold indefinitely in June.
Data center opposition has skyrocketed through the first half of the year, according to WIRED. A report released earlier this month by the Coalition for Responsible Data Center Development, a group of researchers compiling information on data center resistance, found that membership in anti-data center Facebook groups has grown rapidly. The report's exact findings were not detailed in the source, but the trend is clear.
The executive order signals that state governments are increasingly willing to rein in data center expansion to address environmental and energy concerns. For enterprise technology decision-makers, this could mean tighter constraints on where and how cloud computing infrastructure is built, potentially affecting latency, capacity, and cost for digital services in New York and beyond.
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