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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: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 10, @12:23AM (2 children)
Three years delay sounds about right, put the brakes on for now, plenty of time for the AI bubble to pop. After that crash, there will be more than enough data centers to serve the country--for quite a few years.
It's sort of like the huge push to install fiber optic everywhere...and just now (after, what, 20 years?) it's starting to reach capacity.
I'm in NY State (300 miles/500Km from NY City) and I think this is a good move. NY also banned fracking for natural gas and has saved the state a lot of environmental problems that are now all over Pennsylvania, for one example. The NY natural gas is still there, and maybe some day the frackers will clean up their act enough that they will be allowed here.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Bentonite on Tuesday February 10, @01:49AM (1 child)
Full gigabit fibre installation in the USA still hasn't been completed, even though ISP's have been paid 400+ billion USD to do so, which was more than enough to cover install costs several times over (according to "THE BOOK OF BROKEN PROMISES: $400 BILLION BROADBAND SCANDAL & FREE THE NET").
There's still dark fibre in many places available and when capacity is reached, you don't need to replace the fibre - you swap out the transceivers with faster ones and re-use the old ones elsewhere.
It is impossible to cleanly frack - once those proprietary fracking fluids are pumped down, they eventually end up in the water table, as well as whatever contaminants are in the gas too (it turns out that fracturing rock puts fractures in what used to be impermeable rock).
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 10, @02:05AM
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/permian-fracking-recycling-produced-water/ [texasmonthly.com]
Even Texas is concerned about fracking waste products.