![\"Gov.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/070626-freeport-ny-ny-state-133508289_89dbf0.jpg\")
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Tuesday that New York state regulators will not issue environmental permits for large-scale data centers for the next year. Dennis A. Clark for NY Post<\/p>\nShe\u2019s zapping data centers \u2013 for now.<\/p>\n
Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday issued a first-in-the-nation ban on large-scale data centers in the Empire State \u2013 a moratorium that managed to tick off both supporters and opponents of the artificial intelligence projects.<\/p>\n
The executive order Hochul signed will pause new permits for so-called \u201chyperscale\u201d data centers trying to tap into New York\u2019s electrical grid for up to a year \u2013 after the gubernatorial race this fall in which she\u2019s running for re-election.<\/p>\n
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Tuesday that New York state regulators will not issue environmental permits for large-scale data centers for the next year. Dennis A. Clark for NY Post<\/p>\n
Hochul argued she pursued a middle-ground course between protecting the state \u2013 and its already-strained power grid \u2013 and helping to incubate the rapidly developing AI industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want New York to just be first. I want New York to be first in the right way,\u201d she said during a news conference in Brooklyn touting the ban.<\/p>\n
Follow live updates on Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s socialist agenda and the latest in NYC politics<\/a><\/p>\n But Hochul\u2019s unilateral, election-year move accomplished a rare feat: uniting groups that are sharply divided over data centers in shared dislike for her solution.<\/p>\n Business and tech groups warned the Democratic incumbent risked jeopardizing jobs and economic development, arguing companies will be forced to move data centers elsewhere \u2014 leaving New York in the dust as the AI industry expands.<\/p>\n The Data Center Coalition argued the yearlong moratorium would \u201cundermine New York\u2019s economy and send a signal that the state is closed for business.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhile states like Virginia and Texas are far more likely to be approached by possible developers, the fact of the matter is that a statewide moratorium strips away local control and a community\u2019s ability to decide on projects that could be pivotal to their economic growth and job creation,\u201d said Justin Wilcox, executive director for the upstate New York business group Upstate United.<\/p>\n \u201cWe simply cannot claim to be a state at the forefront of AI innovation if we preemptively turn down opportunities that would help ensure that to be true.\u201d<\/p>\n Data centers could end up becoming a windfall for many upstate counties stuck in a long economic decline, outlined in vivid detail by a shocking new Citizens Budget Commission report<\/a> released Monday.<\/p>\n The CBC report<\/a> specifically found that areas like the North Country, Southern Tier, and Central New York continue to see population decline, job growth below the national average and tepid GDP growth. Many of those areas have access to ripe conditions for data center development such as relatively inexpensive power and access to water.<\/p>\n But Hochul\u2019s fellow Dems in the state Legislature fumed that she had snubbed their legislation setting a more-restrictive moratorium than the one year pause.<\/p>\n A spokesman for state Senate Democratic Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Westchester) got testy with Hochul\u2019s office on X<\/a> Tuesday, snarking: \u201clook forward to her signing our legislation!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe our legislation goes further and deals with the issue more directly. We hope she signs our bill, which has bipartisan support,\u201d the spokesman, Mike Murphy, added to The Post.<\/p>\n Demand for data centers \u2013 massive, computer-packed complexes \u2013 exploded in recent years with the rise of AI and other high-intensity services.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n But the centers also spurred a nationwide backlash, with skeptics in arms over their massive electricity and water requirements \u2013 as well as the tax breaks they often receive.<\/p>\n Roughly half of New York voters polled by Siena University<\/a> last month said they believed a one-year moratorium on large data centers was good for the state, while 21% said they thought it was a bad idea and 17% indicated they were somewhere in the middle.<\/p>\n Hochul\u2019s attempt to thread the needle between embracing the AI industry and mollifying critics only applies \u201cup to a year\u201d on new applications \u2013 as well as those currently in the approval process \u2013 for data centers that\u2019ll draw more than 50 megawatts of power.<\/p>\n She proposed to draft a study on the impacts of data centers during that year, along with suggested frameworks for localities to craft public benefits agreements with those operations that include green energy requirements and union-friendly prevailing wage standards.<\/p>\n The move falls short of a far more restrictive<\/a> proposal passed by the state legislature<\/a> this year that would\u2019ve applied to data centers consuming more than 5 megawatts. The bill included additional requirements that 20-megawatt or more centers draw certain amounts of power from renewable sources by 2040.<\/p>\n North Country Assemblyman Scott Gray (R-Jefferson), who opposed the legislation, said he considered Hochul\u2019s order an effective veto of the bill. He added that she should formally do so immediately.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the legislation it\u2019s a partial win, right. I think it answers a political issue and has a chilling effect not only on data development but also energy development,\u201d Gray said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should be leveraging this type of development and not turning out backs on it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013 Additional reporting by Haley Brown<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She\u2019s zapping data centers \u2013 for now. Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday issued a first-in-the-nation ban on large-scale…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4241,66,252,426,57,9,24,55,54,56,32382,58],"class_list":["post-296042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-albany","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-data","tag-kathy-hochul","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-siena-college","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296042","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=296042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Hochul](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/connection-network-dark-servers-data-134311959.jpg\")
Hochul will sign an executive order implementing a \u201cmoratorium\u201d on new air permits for so-called \u201chyperscale\u201d data centers trying to tap into the Empire State\u2019s electrical grid for up to a year. sdecoret \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n