Maine LD 307

Maine L.D. 307 would have been the first US statewide moratorium on large data-centre development, banning new facilities consuming more than 20 MW until November 2027. The Maine legislature passed it on 22 April 2026, but Governor Janet Mills vetoed it on 24 April. The Maine House then failed to override the veto on 29 April by a 72-65 vote, two votes short of the two-thirds threshold required. Mills said she would have signed the bill had it carved out the $550 million Androscoggin Mill redevelopment in Jay — an 800-job construction project on a brownfield pulp site. She signed an executive order creating the Maine Data Center Advisory Council instead.

L.D. 307 drew on template language shared across at least 12 US states with active moratorium bills in the 2026 session, as documented by Good Jobs First. The coordinated drafting reflects a community-rights network strategy: move moratorium bills at state level to generate political pressure, while the more durable battleground shifts to municipal utility boards, county zoning, and courts where governors cannot exercise veto power.

The bill's failure demonstrated the structural limit of state-level moratoriums: governors weigh community concerns against economic-development logic. The Sanders-Ocasio-Cortez federal moratorium proposal, introduced in the same window, faces the same political calculus at a higher tier. L.D. 307's defeat does not represent the end of moratorium strategy; it marks the point where opponents concluded the municipal tier is more productive.