Oregon Department of Environmental Quality

The department issues the permits a data centre needs to discharge water or run on-site generators. Kotek's letter of 9 October 2026, addressed to director Leah Feldon, asked the department to use the discretion it already has and hold off processing or issuing those permits for data centres, new or expanding, until 1 July 2027. Water permits under NPDES and WPCF, air permits under ACDP and Title V, and municipal wastewater-plant permits that would accept data-centre discharge all fall inside it. No megawatt threshold applies, and pending applications get no exemption.

Created in 1969 to succeed the Oregon State Sanitary Authority, the department is based in Portland and answers to the Environmental Quality Commission. It administers the state's pollution laws, including programmes delegated under the federal Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.

The pause would give the state's Data Center Advisory Committee time to report before the 2027 legislative session. It came three weeks after Texas froze data-centre work at its own environmental-permit desk in September 2026, and after Amazon's $20.5m settlement over nitrate pollution linked to its Boardman, Oregon campus.