Read more here
First, let’s get the basic fact out of the way: yesterday the governor did not sign the data-center moratorium act the legislature passed in the waning days of the session. Instead, she issued an executive order. And the growing consensus is that the EO, while positive in some ways, is Hochul’s attempt at a clever end-around play to avoid signing the stronger moratorium act (which itself was already weaker than the 3-year moratorium we had originally called for).
As the Times Union reported yesterday (sorry about the paywall):
“Officials with the governor’s office contend issuing an executive order, rather than working to implement the legislative bill, would serve as a quicker way of putting a moratorium in place. ‘Frankly, the bill is complicated,’ one official said. ‘It’s going to take some time to work through with the Legislature, and this felt like the fastest way to be able to act.’
Under the governor’s executive order, data centers serving hospitals and academic institutions would be exempt from the moratorium. It also raises the threshold of energy consumption required to be affected by the moratorium to 50 megawatts, up from the 20-megawatt threshold in the legislative bill. While the legislative moratorium mandated a delay of at least one year for the issuance of permits, the governor’s executive order states the moratorium shall last for ‘up to one year.’ [yikes!]
The executive order calls for assessing the environmental impact of data centers on “energy demand, water use and quality, and air quality.” The legislative moratorium also called for an impact report, but goes much further in its definitions, including monitoring the effects of data centers on farmland, disadvantaged communities and recognized indigenous nations located in their vicinity. ….
The language of the legislative bill required utility companies to create a new, separate classification for data centers that would allow any costs associated with connecting them to the grid to be paid for by their operators. That language is absent in the announcement of the governor’s executive order.”
Note that issuing the EO does not preclude Hochul from signing the moratorium bill into law at some point in the future – but it certainly takes some pressure off of her for now.
We expect a coordinated call/email campaign about this will be mounted in the next few days. For now, stay tuned!