{"id":9758,"date":"2026-11-01T11:22:28","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T11:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=9758"},"modified":"2026-11-01T11:22:28","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T11:22:28","slug":"what-democrats-can-learn-new-york-data-center-moratorium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=9758","title":{"rendered":"What Democrats Can Learn From New York\u2019s Data Center Moratorium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><em><span class=\"lead-in-text-callout\">Welcome back to<\/span><\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/tag\/power-play\/\" class=\"text link\">Power Play<\/a><em>! Each week, senior writer Molly Taft tackles a topic around this midterm season\u2019s biggest issue: data centers. If you\u2019ve got a question or thought for the column, feel free to shoot Molly an email at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#55383a39392c0a2134332115223c2730317b363a38\" class=\"text link\"><span class=\"__cf_email__\" data-cfemail=\"791416151500260d181f0d390e100b1c1d571a1614\">[email\u00a0protected]<\/span><\/a> or reach them securely on Signal at mollytaft.76.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">When New York became the first state in the country to enact a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/new-york-governor-signs-first-statewide-data-center-moratorium\/\" class=\"text link\">moratorium on data center development<\/a>, Adrienne Yocina was excited. For the past two years, the mom of three has been organizing in western Genesee County to stop a 600-megawatt data center from coming to a site close to the Tonawanda Seneca Nation\u2019s reservation and a federal wildlife refuge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">But almost four months after the one-year moratorium began, Yocina tells me that she\u2019s \u201cgetting nervous.\u201d She\u2019s worried that Democratic governor Kathy Hochul won\u2019t sign a stronger bill to impose a stricter moratorium, and is concerned that the state Department of Environmental Conservation is not adequately involved in the process of evaluating data centers in New York.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cI feel like she\u2019s just trying to shut us up,\u201d she says of Hochul.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Data centers are at the center of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/midterm-races-decide-data-centers-political-fate\/\" class=\"text link\">midterm races across the country<\/a>, with politicians of both parties making promises to enact regulations or moratoriums on development. After next week comes the tough part: Newly elected officials must either break their word or follow through on those promises as they weigh large infrastructure projects coming to their states and residents who say they\u2019ll reject data centers no matter what.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">How will those compromises go\u2014and will they appease voters? New York\u2019s moratorium, and the continued opposition from some groups, may offer clues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">In July, just two months after dismissing the idea of a <a data-offer-url=\"https:\/\/www.wxxinews.org\/new-york-public-news-network\/2026-10-27\/gov-hochul-once-resisted-a-data-center-pause-now-its-central-to-her-campaign\" class=\"external-link text link\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.wxxinews.org\/new-york-public-news-network\/2026-10-27\/gov-hochul-once-resisted-a-data-center-pause-now-its-central-to-her-campaign&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wxxinews.org\/new-york-public-news-network\/2026-10-27\/gov-hochul-once-resisted-a-data-center-pause-now-its-central-to-her-campaign\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">data center moratorium<\/a>, Hochul signed the nation\u2019s first executive order to put a pause on development. Her order was a compromise. Just weeks prior, the state legislature had passed an omnibus bill that would have implemented a one-year moratorium throughout New York. The bill contained several provisions that made it more aggressive than Hochul\u2019s moratorium, including stricter limits on the size of data centers and a mandate that the Department of Environmental Conservation conduct a thorough environmental impact review of data center operations. Rather than sign the bill, Hochul issued her own order. (The governor has until the end of the year to sign that bill, and her office says they are still looking at it.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">One of the bill\u2019s State Senate sponsors, Democrat Kristen Gonzalez, has been publicly supportive of Hochul\u2019s moratorium. The governor\u2019s office, Gonzalez says, proactively reached out to her after her bill passed to help design the moratorium for more immediate relief for New Yorkers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/what-democrats-can-learn-new-york-data-center-moratorium\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome back to Power Play! Each week, senior writer Molly Taft tackles a topic around this midterm season\u2019s biggest issue: data centers. If you\u2019ve got a question or thought for the column, feel free to shoot Molly an email at [email\u00a0protected] or reach them securely on Signal at mollytaft.76. When New York became the first [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[574,419,192,1359,388,842],"class_list":["post-9758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-activism","tag-data-centers","tag-new-york","tag-power-play","tag-protests","tag-tech-policy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What Democrats Can Learn From New York\u2019s Data Center Moratorium - Silvybrand Lifestyle Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With a number of anti-data-center candidates poised to win on Tuesday, New York provides a glimpse at the tensions around actually having to do something about the digital infrastructure.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=9758\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Democrats Can Learn From New York\u2019s Data Center Moratorium - 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