{"id":125464,"date":"2026-02-06T19:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T19:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/125464\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T19:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T19:17:08","slug":"new-york-is-the-latest-state-to-consider-a-data-center-pause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/125464\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Is the Latest State to Consider a Data Center Pause"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers in at least five other states\u2014Georgia<\/a>, Maryland<\/a>, Oklahoma<\/a>, Vermont<\/a>, and Virginia<\/a>\u2014have also introduced bills this year that would impose various forms of temporary pauses on data center development. While Georgia, Vermont, and Virginia\u2019s efforts are being led by Democrats, Oklahoma and Maryland\u2019s bills were largely sponsored by Republicans. These bills mirror several moratoriums that have already passed locally: At the end of December, at least 14 states had towns or counties that have paused data center permitting and construction, Tech Policy Press reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are some signs that the data center industry is beginning to respond to the backlash. Last month, Microsoft, with a boost from the White House, rolled out a set of commitments<\/a> to be a \u201cgood neighbor\u201d in communities where it builds data centers. In response to questions on how the industry is responding to the slew of state-level legislation, Dan Diorio, the vice president of state policy at the Data Center Coalition, an industry group, tells WIRED in a statement that it \u201crecognizes the importance of continued efforts to better educate and inform the public about the industry, through community engagement and stakeholder education, which includes factual information about the industry\u2019s responsible usage of water and our commitment to paying for the energy we use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the states with moratorium bills have relatively few data centers: Vermont has just two, according to Data Center Map<\/a>. But Georgia and Virginia are two of the national hubs for data center development and have found themselves at the center of much of the resistance, in both public reaction to data centers and legislative pushback. More than 60 data center-related bills have already been proposed<\/a> in the Virginia legislature this year, according to Data Center Dynamics, an industry news site.<\/p>\n

Josh Thomas is a state delegate in Virginia who has been at the forefront of leading the legislative charge to put limits on the expansion of data centers. During his first legislative session, in 2024, the caucus of self-identified data center \u201creformers\u201d in both the House and Senate was just three politicians. That number grew to eight in 2025, \u201cand now, it\u2019s 12 or 13,\u201d he says, with many more politicians willing to vote on reform bills. His fellow lawmakers, he says, now \u201cunderstand that we need to negotiate where these things go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, a proposal introduced by Thomas which would have required data centers to perform more in-depth environmental, noise, and community impact site assessments passed the legislature, but was vetoed<\/a> by then-governor Glenn Youngkin. Newly-elected Governor Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat who talked about<\/a> making data centers \u201cpay their own way\u201d on the campaign trail, seems much more likely to reconsider this year\u2019s version of the bill, which has already passed<\/a> the House.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m much more optimistic that [Spanberger] will sign,\u201d Thomas says.<\/p>\n

Thomas, who was not involved in shaping the moratorium in the Virginia house, thinks that a moratorium on data centers is much more likely to pass in states where the industry has less of a foothold than Virginia. Still, he says, \u201cit\u2019s not a bad idea.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lawmakers in at least five other states\u2014Georgia, Maryland, Oklahoma, Vermont, and Virginia\u2014have also introduced bills this year that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[66,2053,4762,609,9,11,10],"class_list":{"0":"post-125464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-data-centers","10":"tag-energy","11":"tag-government","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}