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Five other states have introduced similar bills recently as data center development skyrockets:
On Friday, New York State Senators Liz Krueger and Kristen Gonzales introduced a bill that would stop the issuance of permits for new data centers for at least three years and ninety days to give time for impact assessments and to update regulations. The bill would require the Department of Environmental Conservation and Public Service Commissions to issue impact statements and reports during the pause, along with any new orders or regulations that they deem necessary to minimize data centers' impacts on the environment and consumers in New York.
The bill would require these departments to study data centers' water, electricity and gas usage, and their impact on the rates of these resources, among other things. The bill, citing a Bloomberg analysis, notes that, "Nationally, household electricity rates increased 13 percent in 2025, largely driven by the development of data centers." New York is the sixth state this year to introduce a bill aiming to put the brakes on data centers, following in the footsteps of Georgia, Maryland, Oklahoma, Vermont and Virginia, according to Wired. It's still very much in the early stages, and is now with the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee for consideration.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday February 09, @11:58PM (1 child)
Yeah, but not all money is money you want.
Data centers provide very few jobs per spend. Given the externalities on grid/water, it's not really a win for the local economy. The money that "comes in" to the owner of these places isn't spending it locally. The chips are manufactured elsewhere, there's no jobs, and while they are paying for energy, that tends to make the rest of the businesses in the area less profitable, and the lives of citizens less affordable.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Wednesday February 11, @12:42AM
Same thing goes for billionaires, they're a massive part of most things wrong with the US, and yet people seem to think that if they leave that nobody will replace them. Or that if we tax them down to only being worth hundreds of millions that it will discourage them from doing whatever justifies that.