Plans for a giant data center near Ithaca met strong resistance last year when they emerged at the site of a closed power plant on Cayuga Lake’s shore.
By last month, environmental groups had gathered more than 19,000 names on a petition opposing the Cayuga Data Campus proposal. And just weeks later, as protests against similar projects rippled across New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul stepped in with temporary relief: a one-year moratorium that pauses large data center plans like the one being fought in the Finger Lakes region.
Hochul’s July 14 order made New York the first state to halt data center projects and it set off a mixed response. Supporters cheered the governor for freezing the rush of projects until the state writes new rules for a rapidly expanding industry with huge electricity and water needs. Some Republicans — including President Donald Trump —and business groups criticized the move as anti-growth and said it will drive development to other states.
Leading the applause were environmental groups that have helped coordinate and amplify the mounting citizen opposition. But they’re also urging Hochul to sign a moratorium bill that lawmakers passed in June because it would go further than her order. She hasn’t acted yet on the legislation or said if she will sign or veto it.
“We must prevent communities from being steamrolled by the currently-unregulated, wealthy data center industry,” Eric Wood, senior environmental program coordinator for the New York Public Interest Research Group, wrote in a Daily Sentinel op-ed column advocating for the bill. “While the governor’s order begins to address these things, it leaves many things up in the air.”
Hochul and Blakeman clash on data center pause
Hochul touted her moratorium order on July 20 at an event in Erie County, home to one of the latest data center proposals to spark local opposition. It’s a $2 billion project that would draw 300 megawatts of power and rise from an industrial site in Tonawanda, just north of Buffalo.
Hochul, speaking to elected officials and others at a roundtable discussion, said she issued her order to give New York “some breathing room” as it drafts new regulations to protect the state and the many small communities where developers are seeking to build data centers.
She said she wanted to “slow it down because right now I have over thirty projects before us in the state of New York, and if I powered every one of them, you would not be able to turn on the lights tomorrow. That’s how serious this is. So we have to be thoughtful about this, really thoughtful.”
Politically, the order appeared a prudent move for Hochul as she runs this fall for a second full term as governor. A Siena University poll in June found 46% of New York voters in support of a one-year moratorium on data centers, while 21% were opposed and the rest had mixed feelings or no opinion.
Bruce Blakeman, the Long Island Republican and Nassau County leader who’s challenging her re-election bid, has denounced the moratorium and argued the state had better ways to manage the demands of data centers without putting them on hold for a year.
During a stop in Rockland County on July 17, Blakeman told reporters he’d enlist developers to work with local governments “as a partner” on data center projects. He said he would urge them to recirculate water to reduce the amounts they use, and require they be “self sustaining with respect to utilities and generation of energy.”
“So it’s a question of getting all the shareholders together and getting them to buy into a partnership where everybody gets a say, and where everybody gets an advantage and a benefit,” Blakeman said.
Which data center projects are affected?
Hochul’s order stops the Department of Environmental Conservation from issuing permits for up to one year for data centers using at least 50 megawatts of electricity. In the meantime, other state agencies will study the environmental impact data centers could have on New York and draft a model of various investments developers could be forced to make in the communities where they build.
It’s unclear how many projects of that size are currently being reviewed by local planning boards in New York. In response to a query from the USA TODAY Network, the DEC said it’s still researching which data center plans have pending permit applications that are now on hold due to the moratorium.
Here are two big projects that may be affected:
Other data center plans in New York fall below the 50-megawatt threshold in Hochul’s order, or are still in conceptual stages with no applications submitted yet to the host towns. In Dutchess County, for example, a developer is testing if the power grid could support a 1,000-megawatt data center in East Fishkill but hasn’t introduced any plans yet to the town.
And that project would face an even longer pause than Hochul’s if it did come before the local planning board. Town officials approved a three-year moratorium on data centers in June after a public outcry over the plans.
What would the bill do that’s not in the order?
The bill passed by lawmakers in June and awaiting Hochul’s decision also would put a one-year moratorium on state permits for data centers. But it would set a lower threshold of 20 megawatts and had a few other elements that environmentalists are seeking.
“Notably the bill that was passed included renewable energy targets for data centers, establishing a separate rate for data centers, and a whole section on community benefit agreements,” Alex Beauchamp, northern region director for Food & Water Watch, told the USA TODAY Network by email.
Some of those other goals could eventually be accomplished through Hochul’s order, Beauchamp said, but “it would be stronger to have all that stuff prescribed in law rather than leaving it to the agencies” carrying out the order.
Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA TODAY Network. Reach him at CMcKenna@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Inside political, environmental fights over NY data center moratorium
Reporting by Chris McKenna, New York State Team / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Chris McKenna, New York State Team | USA TODAY Network
