7JUL

New York freeze waits on Hochul

2 min read

09:27UTC

New York's data-centre permit freeze cleared both chambers on 4 June and now sits unsigned on Governor Kathy Hochul's desk; a North Country lawmaker urged a veto on 30 June.

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Key takeaway

New York's statewide freeze needs only a signature, but the backlash is already spreading below the statehouse.

New York's Responsible Data Center Development Act passed the Assembly 102-39 and the Senate 44-16 on 4 June and now waits on a single signature. ¹ The bill imposes a one-year hold on new permits from the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) for any data centre of 20 MW or more, with projects already under construction exempt.

It does more than pause building. The Act carves data centres into a separate large-load utility class so their grid-reinforcement costs cannot be spread onto household bills, orders an 18-month environmental impact study framework, and sets renewable-sourcing targets rising to one-third by 2030. Governor Kathy Hochul has neither signed nor vetoed it. She says she wants communities with pending projects to secure the best terms first, while a North Country lawmaker publicly urged a veto on 30 June. ² If she signs, it becomes the first US statewide freeze to actually take effect, after Maine's version fell to a governor's veto in April.

Seattle enacted its own 365-day freeze in June , and Indiana counties are now restricting data centres one board at a time. That is why New York's outcome, whichever way Hochul rules, no longer decides the direction of the backlash on its own.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

New York's legislature passed a bill weeks ago that would pause new data-centre permits for a year, but it only becomes law if Governor Hochul signs it, and she has not said yet. If she does, the freeze would only apply to new data centres of 20 megawatts or larger, roughly enough power for tens of thousands of homes; anything already under construction keeps going. Meanwhile at least one lawmaker in the state's north has publicly asked her to veto it instead.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

New York's environmental review process has no load-based trigger: a data centre is permitted under the same criteria as any industrial building, regardless of whether it draws 2 MW or 200 MW. The Responsible Data Center Development Act's substantive change is inserting a threshold, 20 MW, into a review framework that previously treated electricity demand as invisible to planners.

The bill also answers a data gap regulators have struggled with. New York, unlike Texas's ERCOT interconnection queue, has no public grid-level accounting of pending large loads, so the state has been assessing impact site by site rather than system-wide.

What could happen next?

Consequence
A Hochul signature would make New York the first US state to enact a data-centre moratorium since Maine's veto, reviving a model other legislatures had treated as dead.
Opportunity
Exempting projects already under construction lets developers who broke ground before the freeze keep building while newer applicants face the pause.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: Oregon has already converted the same cost-allocation principle, a separate rate class so a large load's grid costs don't land on household bills, into a live tariff now before its Public Utility Commission ; New York's bill borrows that instrument rather than inventing one.

Counter-parallel: Maine passed a functionally identical freeze on 22 April, but the parallel breaks at the signature.

Governor Janet Mills vetoed it two days later, saying she supported a moratorium in principle but the bill failed to exempt a $550m redevelopment already under way at the former Androscoggin Mill in Jay, a project she said carried strong local support after the mill's 2023 closure. The House fell seven votes short, 72-65, of overriding her on 29 April. Hochul faces the same test.

Consensus view: DLA Piper's legislative analysis reads the bill's separate large-load utility class as the more durable feature, since cost-allocation classification does not require distinguishing banned projects from grandfathered ones the way an outright freeze does.

Counter-view: Malaysian campaigners pressing Putrajaya for an outright freeze, after data centres absorbed 43% of utility TNB's contracted grid capacity, argue New York's freeze-plus-exemption model is too permissive for a load class growing this fast .

Key tension: Whether an 18-month environmental impact study can move faster than the projects it is meant to assess, or whether the exemption for anything already under construction makes the freeze largely symbolic by the time that study reports.

Sources:DLA Piper·North Country Public Radio

Mentions:New York State →Responsible Data Center Development Act →Virginia Department of Environmental Quality →Kathy Hochul →Janet Mills →Seattle →Maine →Oregon →Oregon Public Utility Commission →New York State Department of Environmental Conservation →

First Reported In

Update #9 · US data-centre backlash becomes law

DLA Piper· 7 Jul 2026

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Causes and effects

This Event

New York freeze waits on Hochul

Hochul's signature would make New York the first US statewide moratorium to take effect, reviving a model Maine's veto was thought to have buried.

Led to

New York freezes new permits by decree

A North Country lawmaker's earlier veto plea against New York's data-centre freeze preceded Hochul's decision to act via executive order instead of waiting on her legislature.

Occurred 13 Jul 2026

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Different Perspectives

Antel, Uruguay's state telecom

Antel will build a $70m AI data centre in Canelones, announced after an 11-12 August Council of Ministers meeting, with construction from Q1 2027 and roughly 250 direct jobs. Uruguay is putting a sovereign AI facility on the state balance sheet rather than courting a hyperscaler to build one.

Comtel

Comtel is building a Figline Valdarno data centre inside the H2-Era Green Valley complex, powered by an 84 MW solar plant and selling waste heat to on-site farming. Co-location with generation and a heat offtaker is the model regulators elsewhere are now writing into connection terms rather than negotiating case by case.

Greg Abbott, Texas Governor

Abbott directed PUCT and ERCOT on 3 August to audit every queued data centre's ownership, incentives and water use, saying projects that fail the state's survey should lose grid access. QTS's co-chief executives welcomed the review; Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller called it too vague and wants a special legislative session instead.

Government of Gujarat

Gujarat notified a Data Centre Policy on 7 August offering capital, interest, tax and duty subsidies for projects sourcing at least 51% green power, targeting 7.5 GW against a 74 GW installed base. Where other jurisdictions priced or restricted grid access this month, Gujarat is paying developers to come instead.

Taiwan's Legislative Yuan Economics Committee

The committee gave preliminary approval on 5 August to a self-generation mandate for large power users, including data centres, with fines up to NT$750,000. It agreed the obligation in principle while leaving the megawatt threshold that defines its reach to later implementing regulation.

Australian Energy Market Commission

AEMC advised ministers on 5 August that data centres should surrender renewable certificates against actual consumption, prove new demand with new firm capacity, and register as market participants. The advice would turn passive customers into obligated participants inside the market's dispatch and settlement machinery, ahead of an access-standards determination due in late October.