Over the past few weeks, Queens Democrat, State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez has visited Buffalo, Niagara County, Genessee County, the Finger Lakes, the Hudson Valley and Albany to highlight local resistance to data centers, while urging Gov. Kathy Hochul to go further than the one-year moratorium she put into place last month. 

Her next stop is Central New York. 

Gonzalez wants the governor to sign a data center moratorium bill (S10642 / A11560) that advocates say fills in gaps left by the governor’s executive order.

“So, we’re not talking about the average data center. We have thousands of those. And when I worked in technology, we had enterprise data centers, which are basically data centers that are on the premises,” Gonzalez told Capital Tonight. “What we’re talking about are hyperscale data centers, which are on a literal scale that we’ve never seen before.”

Gonzalez, who chairs the Senate Internet & Technology Committee, described these super data centers as being the size of multiple football fields.

There are some key differences between Executive Order #62 that the governor signed, and what Gonzalez has dubbed the “Responsible Data Center Development Act.”

While the EO only applies to data centers that would use 50 MW or more, the bill has a lower threshold that would impact data centers that use 20 MW or more.

While the EO gives the state time to study the issue and build a regulatory framework, the bill would require the New York State Department of Public Service to establish a new utility classification for data centers. The bill would also mandate specific energy efficiency targets and possibly force data centers to provide their own power.

While the EO is only a one-year pause that impacts new environmental permits, the bill would impact existing data centers, which the business community strongly opposes.

Before the bill was passed, the New York State Business Council had issued an opposition memo to it.

Just one of the Council’s multiple criticisms of the bill covers its renewable energy requirement:

“The bill requires any data center with a peak load of 5MW or larger to procure one-third of its electricity consumption from renewable energy systems by 2030, with the mandate rising to 90% by 2040…For many locations the co-location of renewables would be simply infeasible.”

In an interview with Capital Tonight, Republican candidate for governor Bruce Blakeman also criticized any curb on data centers, saying that he simply required a data center in Nassau County to install a water circulation system.

Gonzalez argues that’s not enough.

“What I’ve seen in my data center tour in Republican areas, and Bruce Blakeman is a Republican, is that they are asking for a seat at the table,” she said.

Hochul has until the end of the year to signs the data moratorium bill.