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The push for a data center moratorium has reached a fever pitch around the US, blocking implementation in a dozen states
New York State has enacted a one-year construction ban on the construction of large hyperscale data centers amid concerns about rising costs and water impacts, making it the first state in the United States to do so.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced the ban on Tuesday, saying the state’s efforts are aimed at creating a “strategy” to address concerns. records and data centers.
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“As data center development threatens to drive up bills, damage our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers, it is my responsibility to step up and lead,” Hochul said in a release.
During the break, the government will not issue new permits for large data center projects, which are defined as using 50 megawatts or more. The suspension is intended to give the government time to assess the need for electricity and its impact on local communities.
The law also transfers valuable assets related to data center services to the property itself and not to the public.
The government wants data center developers to pay more for the energy they use, help upgrade the state’s grid, supply their own energy, and invest in energy purchases for the facilities.
The governor also said that the government wants to abolish the tax on the sale of data centers.
The construction of the data center has become a political upheaval across the US advance Mid-term elections, including New York, have 148 locations – making the state the sixth largest of them.
Progressives in the state legislature want to stop the data center, including State Senator Kristen Gonzalez, who filed a bill last month that also seeks to halt construction.
Hochul is up for re-election in November, and his opponent has opposed a ban on data center construction. Hochul leads Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, by 20 points in the latest Siena poll, with 52 percent support compared to Blakeman’s 32 percent.
A political show
Opposition to data center infrastructure appears to be a popular point among voters. A June Reuters/Ipsos poll found that only 14 percent of Americans would be comfortable with data centers being built near them, while a Gallup poll from May found that 71 percent of Americans oppose building data centers in their communities, including 48 percent who are strongly opposed.
A moratorium has been issued in at least a dozen US states, including Vermont, Michigan, and Virginia. The Maine Legislature also proposed a measure, but Governor Janet Mills vetoed it in April.
Building a data center has been an important part of some of the early decisions. In Utah, despite local opposition, the construction of a data center promoted by Kevin O’Leary moved forward. Utah State Senate President J Stuart Adams, who supported the project, was voted out in the state’s primary election in June.
Some of the negative factors driving data center turnover are health issues and the racial disparities that accompany them.
According to a new analysis by Reuters News, Elon Musk’s xAI Colossus 2 data center project in Tennessee installed 59 gas turbines without obtaining air quality permits from the federal government.
That expansion would exceed the threshold required for a permit, according to a Reuters analysis, which found it would affect neighborhoods closer to black residents who already have respiratory problems than the general population.
Overall, the data center is expected to support 600,000 asthma-related symptoms by the end of the decade, according to a 2024 paper published by the University of California-Riverside.
