{"id":263187,"date":"2026-06-11T14:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T14:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/263187\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T14:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T14:18:13","slug":"the-movement-to-stop-data-centers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/263187\/","title":{"rendered":"The Movement to Stop Data Centers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The backlash against energy-guzzling data centers has snowballed in recent months, prompting more than 100 proposed moratoriums<\/a> at the local, county, state and national level.<\/p>\n

Proposals for data center moratoriums fall into two categories: Most call for a short-term pause in permitting or construction to give local governments time to establish guidelines. A few others call for permanent construction bans.<\/p>\n

Cities including Tulsa<\/a>, Okla.; New Orleans<\/a>; Birmingham<\/a>, Ala.; and Ypsilanti Township<\/a>, Mich.; have all implemented temporary bans on permitting or construction, as have dozens of other counties and towns, according to a database<\/a> maintained by the hedge fund Interconnected Capital.<\/p>\n

Bigger state-level proposals have so far seen mixed results. Democrats and Republicans in 14 states<\/a> have proposed construction pauses. In April, Maine lawmakers passed a temporary statewide moratorium<\/a> on new data centers, but it was vetoed by Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat.<\/p>\n

On Friday, New York lawmakers passed their own statewide ban on large data centers.<\/p>\n

Today, we look at where this is happening, why the politics of the issue have shifted so quickly and why the issue does not fall neatly along party lines.<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s bill<\/p>\n

If all 28 of the big data centers currently planned for New York State were to fire up, they could expand the state\u2019s energy use by roughly a third, State Senator Kristen Gonzalez, a Democrat, told the Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

New York, like some other Northeastern states, is already struggling to follow through<\/a> on its plans to make deep emissions cuts by 2030, and the legislature recently watered down its climate goals<\/a>. Advocates for climate action worry that it could be impossible for renewable energy installations to keep pace with all the new demand, and that many of the new data centers might be powered by gas.<\/p>\n

The State Legislature approved a plan to pause construction of \u201chyper-scale\u201d data centers, or facilities capable of using of more than 20 megawatts of electricity, for one year. If signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, New York would be the first state to enact a statewide moratorium.<\/p>\n

In New York, momentum for the one-year moratorium built quickly, said Alex Beauchamp, northern regional director at Food and Water Watch, a nonprofit advocacy group that pushed for the bill. The N.A.A.C.P. and the League of Women Voters both supported the measure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe politics and the movement on data centers is just growing at a speed that is unlike anything else in the environmental movement, and maybe unlike anything else happening in the U.S.,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kristin Devoe, a spokeswoman for Hochul, said the governor would review the bill.<\/p>\n

Public opinion sours<\/p>\n

Voters\u2019 opinions on new data centers have done a U-turn in recent months, according to polling by Heatmap News<\/a>. Last August, four out of 10 respondents said they\u2019d oppose a data center being built in their area. By May, the number had risen to seven out of 10.<\/p>\n

The survey found that people don\u2019t just care about their own backyards. More than half supported a moratorium that covers the entire nation. (Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, have introduced legislation to enact what they call a \u201creasonable pause<\/a>\u201d on data center development.)<\/p>\n

Americans are blaming data centers for rising energy bills, and many are feeling pessimistic about the broader effects A.I. will have on society, the survey found. Opponents have also raised concerns about noise, water use and air pollution.<\/p>\n

Another factor driving opposition is the speed at which new facilities are opening. As Bloomberg News pointed out this month<\/a>, data center construction spending topped $50 billion in April, surpassing total U.S. public spending on transportation projects like airports and subways.<\/p>\n

Put another way, power demand from data centers is expected to double in 2027 compared with 2025, Goldman Sachs estimated in May<\/a>, even though about half of announced projects are expected to open late or get canceled.<\/p>\n

Local groups opposing data centers have notched some high-profile wins in recent weeks. A massive facility proposed by the \u201cShark Tank\u201d co-star Kevin O\u2019Leary cut its footprint in half last week<\/a> after intense blowback from residents and local politicians, Bloomberg News reported.<\/p>\n

Politicians in a tough spot<\/p>\n

Perhaps no state better exemplifies the strange political fault lines of the data center debate than Maine, where the Legislature, controlled by Democrats, passed a moratorium that was vetoed by the Democratic governor.<\/p>\n

In a statement to the Legislature<\/a>, Gov. Janet Mills wrote that while she supported a data center moratorium in general, she could not sign the bill because it would threaten the construction of a specific project that would bring jobs and tax revenue to the Town of Jay, which has about 4,600 residents.<\/p>\n

A similar tension was evident in Michigan last week after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, faced blowback from members of her own party for posing in a photo with Sam Altman, the OpenAI chief executive, at a groundbreaking for a $16 billion data center<\/a> in Saline Township.<\/p>\n

Asked about the criticism, Whitmer told an ABC affiliate that the facility was expected to create good jobs and run on a closed-loop water system. In the same interview, Whitmer said she would not support<\/a> a data center moratorium.<\/p>\n

In New York, Hochul faces the next data center test. Beauchamp said his group would push her to sign the bill. The politics of data centers are evolving quickly, he said. \u201cIt\u2019s less left versus right, and more whether you see yourself as an establishment person or a populist,\u201d Beauchamp said.<\/p>\n

Hochul has until December to make her decision.<\/p>\n

Renewables<\/p>\n

Welcome to the me-first era of energy<\/p>\n

From South America to Southeast Asia, governments and private companies are being forced to look inward and take steps to harness what they can domestically, even when doing so raises upfront costs.<\/p>\n

Call it the era of me-first energy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Guyana, a fast-growing South American oil producer, which ran short of fuel this spring, is discussing building its first refinery. Indonesia is accelerating plans to harness more power from the sun. Many other Asian countries have turned to coal in order to plug their energy gaps, at least for now. And in Europe, Belgium is trying to nationalize nuclear energy.<\/p>\n

Individuals are also taking matters into their own hands, buying electric vehicles to avoid rising fuel costs or installing rooftop solar panels to lower electricity bills. \u2014 Rebecca F. Elliott<\/p>\n

Pakistan ranks among the countries most vulnerable to climate change, and few of its districts have experienced as many climate extremes as Dadu. One temperature reading in the district, in southern Pakistan, reached 124.7 degrees Fahrenheit, or 51.5 Celsius, on May 28, the highest in the country this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels as if the sun has come down closer to the earth,\u201d said Abdul Khaliq, 48, a farmer.<\/p>\n

By midday, farmers abandon fields, brick-kiln workers gather in the shade and vendors pack away stalls. Children jump into ponds, while herders lead buffaloes into the water for relief.<\/p>\n

Recently, blinding sandstorms have swept across Dadu, a sign of the monsoon\u2019s onset and the possibility of floods. While monsoon rains have long been variable<\/a>, experts have linked the severity of devastating floods in 2022 to climate change.<\/p>\n

At one point during that catastrophe, Khaliq found himself chest-deep in water, trying to save his family and livestock. Much of Dadu had been submerged<\/a>. Villages became islands, accessible only by boat. Families struggled to find dry land even to bury their dead<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 2022 disaster caused about $30 billion in damages across Pakistan, and Khaliq\u2019s family is still recovering, as are many of his neighbors. \u2014 Zia ur-Rehman<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In case you missed it<\/p>\n

Trump offers funds for first new U.S. coal plants in 13 years<\/p>\n

President Trump last week announced $700 million in new federal funding<\/a> for the country\u2019s struggling coal industry, including money that would help build the first two new coal-burning power plants in the United States in more than a decade.<\/p>\n

Among the details in the announcement:<\/p>\n

Of the new funding, $425 million would be used to upgrade and extend the life of 12 coal plants that otherwise might have closed in the coming years. Trump invoked a Korean War-era law called the Defense Production Act, which gives the president sweeping powers to bolster domestic industries deemed essential to national security.<\/p>\n

The Energy Department separately announced that it would invest up to $350 million in coal projects, including funding for two companies to build the first new coal plants in the United States since 2013, one in Alaska and the other in West Virginia.<\/p>\n

It was the latest in a series of extraordinary efforts by the administration to improve the fortunes of coal, the most polluting fossil fuel and a favored industry of the president\u2019s. \u2014 Maxine Joselow and Brad Plumer<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More climate news from around the web:<\/p>\n

ProPublica reports<\/a> that the Trump administration ended a criminal investigation into coal companies owned by Senator Jim Justice, Republican of West Virginia, a close Trump ally.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past decade,\u201d ProPublica reports, coal companies controlled by Justice and his family, \u201chave racked up<\/a> tens of thousands of alleged violations of the Clean Water Act and have been sued repeatedly by state and federal prosecutors over their failure to properly follow environmental laws at their mining sites.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Guardian reports<\/a> that the world\u2019s first wind-powered underwater data center has started operations off the coast of Shanghai.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s nuclear energy capacity has nearly doubled since 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read past editions of the newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re enjoying what you\u2019re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The backlash against energy-guzzling data centers has snowballed in recent months, prompting more than 100 proposed moratoriums at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[12616,2053,4173,85671,1984,95539,5290,5315,9730,95538,9,11,10,49,51,50,1671,1707,85670],"class_list":["post-263187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-building-construction","tag-data-centers","tag-global-warming","tag-gretchen","tag-hochul","tag-janet-t-1947","tag-kathleen-c","tag-maine","tag-michigan","tag-mills","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-politics-and-government","tag-polls-and-public-opinion","tag-whitmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263187","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=263187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}