{"id":319068,"date":"2026-08-11T23:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T23:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/319068\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T23:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T23:36:08","slug":"n-y-data-center-tour-coming-to-a-stop-near-you-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/319068\/","title":{"rendered":"N.Y. data center tour coming to a stop near you?"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, New York state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez announced that from Aug. 22 \u2013 Aug. 30, she\u2019s embarking on a statewide tour to advance the Responsible Data Center Development Act<\/a>. It\u2019s the measure she sponsored and that was passed<\/a> by the state legislature at the end of this year\u2019s legislative session.<\/p>\n

It calls for a one-year moratorium to do environmental impact studies, includes labor standards for when data centers are built, and includes renewable energy standards since Gonzalez says a big focus has been on the climate conversation.<\/p>\n

The \u201cNY Fights AI Data Centers\u201d statewide tour is scheduled to visit 13 sites with data centers or proposed data centers across New York<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Stops include in Buffalo, Alabama, Seneca Lake and the Hudson Valley. Gonzalez says more details will be shared closer in the coming days.<\/p>\n

It will come just over a month after Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the nation\u2019s first one-year data center moratorium<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since then, the governor has made stops around the state, including in Long Island and in Albany, to hold roundtables to meet with leaders about it.<\/p>\n

While the two measures call for a one-year moratorium, Gonzalez and advocates say her measure covers a broader range of large facilities starting at 20 megawatts or more.<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s moratorium is more of a \u201cpause\u201d on hyperscale centers that use 50 megawatts or more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve worked with the governor\u2019s office,\u201d said Gonzalez on Tuesday. We\u2019re really proud to stand with her on announcing an executive order on the first-in-the-nation moratorium on these large data centers. However, while the executive order was an important first step in allowing us the time and space with a pause on the building and DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation) permitting of these large data centers, it did not give us all of the necessary frameworks that we have in the Responsible Data Center Development Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics aren\u2019t supportive of this legislative push against data centers.<\/a><\/p>\n

They say the argument surrounding data centers in New York doesn\u2019t line up with what\u2019s happening in other states and point to the state\u2019s climate law when it comes to grid support issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve heard the reasoning behind it is it\u2019s driving up the utility rates when that\u2019s simply not the case,\u201d said Justin Wilcox executive director of Upstate United. \u201cWe don\u2019t have enough data centers in New York to drive up rates. What we have effectively since 2019, we\u2019ve lost more generating capacity than we\u2019ve gained.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked if the governor was considering signing the legislation, the governor\u2019s office referenced remarks she made in July.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly, we’re still looking at the legislation, but as all of you know who ask me when I’m going to sign a bill, we go through a very arduous process of reading every word, examining the implications, and what is doable,\u201d said Hochul. \u201cAnd as that process unfolds with that and other bills, I want to make sure that we get ahead of this right now, which is why we took the steps we did.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Tuesday, New York state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez announced that from Aug. 22 \u2013 Aug. 30, she\u2019s embarking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[109,116,9,24,11,10,49,51,50,12,5304,112,87,200],"class_list":["post-319068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-ny-state-of-politics","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-nicole-neuman","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-politics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319068","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=319068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}