New York lawmakers, advocates and community leaders rallied at the state Capitol Wednesday to push for a proposal that would put a temporary three-year moratorium on the construction of new data centers across the state.
“You want billionaires to come back to New York City to increase the tax base, stop giving tax incentives to billionaires to pollute our communities,” said Cheryl Cordes.
Cordes was one of nearly 100 people who demonstrated for the passage of proposed legislation with sponsors in both the Assembly and state Senate.
Supporters say enforcing a moratorium would allow the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Public Service Commission to study the impacts the centers would have on their surrounding communities and the environment.
Cordes lives in Alabama, New York. The town is the site of a proposed massive $19.4 billon, 2.2 million square foot stream data center.
It’s facing strong opposition due to environmental and energy concerns from some residents.
“I’m concerned about infrasound and infrasound in the scientific community concerning data centers is considered obnoxious noise,” said Cordes. “It’s detrimental to your health.”
“I don’t think every New Yorker necessarily is going to live in a community that is going to be sighted by a hyperscale data center,” said Democratic state Sen. Kristin Gonzalez. “This fight is bigger than just individual data centers. It’s literally a fight with big tech because they have been defining and setting the rules for how they operate and how they profit and we have been living with the consequences.”
Gonzalez, chair of the state Senate’s Internet and Technology Committee, is co-sponsoring this legislation in her chamber.
One of the proposal’s key points is that “data center electricity usage is projected to increase by more than 9,000 megawatts which is approximately double the electricity use of all New York households combined.”
“The idea that we can bring on hyperscale data centers, the biggest energy facilities aren’t what normal companies are using but really are for the big tech companies using it for large language models is a direct threat to our ability to continue keeping up and serving New Yorkers,” said Gonzalez.
The Data Center Coalition doesn’t agree, saying studies have shown some of these concerns are unfounded.
“When it comes to energy, we are seeing that energy costs are rising because of a variety of reasons,” said Khara Boender, director of state policy at the Data Center Coalition. “Looking at research that’s coming out of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, they’ve attributed these rising costs to a myriad of factors and that includes the need to update and harden the grid due to extreme weather events.”
Boender also says a three-year moratorium is a long time and it could signal to data centers that they’re not welcome in New York state.