NY A11560 S10642 Responsible Data Center Development Act / passed Jun 4 / Senate 44-16 / Assembly 102-39 / 20 MW threshold / 1 year DEC permit moratorium / awaits formal delivery to Hochul / 10 day signing clock / Hochul no position yet / chapter amendment possible / Maine LD 307 vetoed Apr 24 by Mills over Jay carve-out / 20 MW matches OR POWER Act Schedule 96 and federal S 4214 / first nation state level moratorium if signed

Plain-English background. There are two ways to legislate a data center moratorium. A 'county zoning moratorium' is local — a single county or city pauses applications in its own boundaries for 6-12 months while it writes rules. A 'state-level moratorium' is structurally different: the state legislature passes a law that suspends a specific state agency's permitting authority across the entire state for some defined period. State-level moratoriums are enormously more impactful per legislative-act because they cover every jurisdiction inside the state at once. As of today there is no state-level data center moratorium in effect anywhere in the United States. There have been two near-misses. Maine LD 307 (April 2026) and New York A11560/S10642 (June 2026). The structures are nearly identical — both define 'large data center' at 20 MW peak demand, both suspend state environmental-agency permits for one year, both establish a study council to produce recommendations during the pause. The two bills could have shared a coauthor. The difference is in the governor's response. **Maine — Gov. Mills vetoed April 24, 2026.** The veto wasn't ideological — Mills said she would have signed the bill if it had included an exemption for a specific data center project in the Town of Jay (population 4,841, Androscoggin County, central Maine, paper-mill town that lost its anchor employer and wants the project as economic development). The legislature didn't override. So Maine's moratorium effectively died — there are now no active large-data-center DEC-equivalent permits being blocked in Maine, though the policy debate continues. **New York — bill on Hochul's desk, awaiting formal delivery.** The Senate passed it 44-16. The Assembly passed it 102-39. Both votes occurred in the final hours of the legislative session on June 4. The bill is currently sitting in the legislative chamber awaiting formal transmittal to the Governor — a procedural step that the executive and legislative branches often coordinate on timing for political reasons. Once formally delivered, Hochul has 10 days to (a) sign it, (b) veto it, or (c) sign it contingent on the legislature agreeing to a chapter amendment (NY-specific tool where the governor signs but the legislature commits to passing an amendment in the next session that the governor pre-approves). Hochul has not announced a public position. Her office has said only that 'she will review it.' That's a holding statement. The fact that the bill has not yet been formally delivered suggests her office is negotiating with the Senate sponsor (Sen. Kristen Gonzalez, D-Queens) and Assembly sponsor over potential chapter amendments before the 10-day clock starts. Gonzalez publicly acknowledged during floor debate that she expected chapter amendments to follow. The bill's substance (assuming Hochul signs without amendment). One-year moratorium starting on the effective date, on new permits and approvals from the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) for any new data center with peak demand ≥20 MW. During the moratorium period, three things happen: (a) DEC produces an environmental impact assessment of data center buildout in NY; (b) Department of Public Service / NY Public Service Commission examines whether existing utility rate classes appropriately allocate costs; (c) the state develops mandatory renewable-energy use, ratepayer-protection, and community-benefits-agreement requirements that any post-moratorium data center will have to meet. The 20 MW threshold is the operational specification. Below 20 MW, the bill doesn't apply at all — colocation facilities serving traditional enterprise IT (financial services, retail, healthcare) continue to permit normally. Above 20 MW, the bill applies — that captures essentially every hyperscaler campus, AI training cluster, and crypto mining facility being proposed. **Why 20 MW shows up in two states simultaneously.** Oregon's POWER Act (passed June 2025) created a dedicated utility rate class for any large electricity user at 20 MW and above. The Oregon PUC's Schedule 96 implementation (PGE tariff, effective May 7, 2026) uses the same threshold. New York is now copying Oregon's number. So is the federal Senate AI Data Center Moratorium Act (S. 4214, Markey/Sanders), which uses 20 MW for federal-jurisdictional facilities. The 20 MW threshold is becoming the de facto legal definition of 'hyperscaler' in US data center law — much like 100 employees is the de facto definition of 'large employer' in federal labor statutes. This matters because the 20 MW number was not arbitrary. It was picked because it cleanly separates the 'serves a single tenant or one workload' facility (which is almost always hyperscaler / AI / crypto, the politically contentious category) from the 'serves many enterprise customers' facility (which is multi-tenant colocation, much less politically contentious). Every state legislature drafting a 2027 data center bill will face the choice 'do we use Oregon-NY-federal's 20 MW or invent our own?' Most will use 20 MW because it's safer politically and easier to defend in court.

Primary source · Greenberg Traurig — New York Legislature Passes Data Center Moratorium; Bill Awaits Governor's Approval (Jun 2026) + Harris Beach Murtha — New York State Legislature Passes First-in-the-Nation Data Center Moratorium + Mintz — New York Legislature Passes First-in-the-Nation Data Center Moratorium, Awaiting Governor's Signature (Jun 12 2026) + DCD — New York state legislature passes data center moratorium, awaits governor Hochul's approval + Earthjustice — NYS Legislature Passes Data Center Moratorium + Thompson Hine — Vetoed, Not Dead: Maine's Data Center Moratorium and What It Means for Developers + Maine Office of the Governor — Veto Message LD 307 (Apr 24 2026) ↗