New York, birthplace of the power grid, the transistor’s commercial triumph, and the modern corporation, just became the first state in America to ban the future for at least a year.
This week, Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order imposing a moratorium on new data centers. She has sold the policy as a prudent pause to protect electricity bills, water, and the grid. “As data-center development threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers, it’s my responsibility to take action and lead,” she said Tuesday. But strip away the press-release piety and you find something simpler, sadder, and short-sighted: pure political posturing.
Why sign this order now? Because the political winds shifted and Albany licked its finger. A recent Siena poll found that 46 percent of voters, squeezed by electric bills up nearly 68 percent since 2019, support a moratorium on data-center construction, and Hochul, facing a reelection battle this year, clearly thinks her anti-data-center stance is good politics.
