The Movement to Stop Data Centers
Date Posted: June 11, 2026
Posted In: News,
From New York Times: The backlash against energy-guzzling data centers has snowballed in recent months, prompting more than 100 proposed moratoriums at the local, county, state and national level.
Proposals for data center moratoriums fall into two categories: Most call for a short-term pause in permitting or construction to give local governments time to establish guidelines. A few others call for permanent construction bans.
Cities including Tulsa, Oklahoma; New Orleans; Birmingham, Alabama; and Ypsilanti Township, Michigan; have all implemented temporary bans on permitting or construction, as have dozens of other counties and towns, according to a database maintained by the hedge fund Interconnected Capital.
Bigger state-level proposals have so far seen mixed results. Democrats and Republicans in 14 states have proposed construction pauses. In April, Maine lawmakers passed a temporary statewide moratorium on new data centers, but it was vetoed by Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat.
On Friday, New York lawmakers passed their own statewide ban on large data centers.
Today, we look at where this is happening, why the politics of the issue have shifted so quickly and why the issue does not fall neatly along party lines.
New York’s bill
If all 28 of the big data centers currently planned for New York State were to fire up, they could expand the state’s energy use by roughly a third, State Senator Kristen Gonzalez, a Democrat, told the Times.
New York, like some other Northeastern states, is already struggling to follow through on its plans to make deep emissions cuts by 2030, and the legislature recently watered down its climate goals. Advocates for climate action worry that it could be impossible for renewable energy installations to keep pace with all the new demand, and that many of the new data centers might be powered by gas.