New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has signed a statewide moratorium that blocks new environmental permits for very large data centers for up to one year, making New York the first state to put such a pause in place.
The order applies to new data centers above 50 megawatts, according to the governor’s office. That means the state is using the environmental permitting process as the choke point: projects above that size cannot get new environmental approvals while the moratorium is in effect.
Hochul’s office said the pause is meant to give New York time to write rules aimed at protecting residents from higher energy costs and environmental effects tied to large data center development. The order targets hyperscale facilities, the kind of projects built to run large cloud and artificial intelligence workloads and which can draw power at the scale of industrial infrastructure.
The move does not settle the fight in Albany. State lawmakers have already passed a separate bill that could restrict more projects, but that measure still needs Hochul’s signature. The legislature’s version uses a lower cutoff, applying at 20 megawatts rather than the 50-megawatt threshold in Hochul’s order.
That difference matters. A 50-megawatt line leaves smaller large-scale projects outside the governor’s moratorium, while the bill approved by lawmakers would sweep in more developments. For communities worried about utility bills, grid strain, and local environmental impact, the threshold decides which projects face a timeout and which can keep moving through the approval process.
The governor’s action also gives the administration room to write regulations before more of these projects seek permits. Hochul’s office framed the moratorium as a temporary measure, not a permanent ban, and tied it to the state’s need to assess energy and environmental rules before allowing additional large facilities to proceed.
For developers, the immediate rule is narrow but consequential: new environmental permits for data centers above 50 megawatts are paused for up to a year. For state lawmakers, the unresolved question is whether Hochul will sign the broader bill they passed, which would lower the threshold and limit more data center construction.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge AI.
