L.D. 307 is a Maine bill that would have created a 13-member data center coordination council and imposed a temporary statewide moratorium on municipal and state permitting of data centers of 20 megawatts or larger. The legislature passed the bill, and Governor Janet Mills vetoed it on April 24, 2026, citing the bill's failure to exempt a $550 million data-center redevelopment in the Town of Jay. If enacted, it would have been the first statewide data-center moratorium in the United States, according to the veto message and reporting by the New York Times (Source: nytimes.com; L.D. 307 Veto Message — Gov. Janet T. Mills (Maine)).
Status and timeline
The legislature passed L.D. 307, and Mills vetoed it on April 24, 2026 (L.D. 307 Veto Message — Gov. Janet T. Mills (Maine)). An override requires a two-thirds vote of both Maine chambers; the outcome was pending at the time of writing. Mills has stated an intent to establish a coordination commission by executive order to pursue the bill's underlying coordination goals without the moratorium.
Scope and key provisions
| Provision | Detail |
|---|---|
| Coordination Council | 13 members; charged with studying data center siting and preparing a report by February 1, 2027 |
| Moratorium scope | Municipal and state permitting of data centers ≥20 MW |
| Moratorium duration | Effective on enactment through November 1, 2027 |
| Stated purposes | "Protecting ratepayers, maintaining electric grid reliability, minimizing environmental impacts and maintaining responsible and appropriately sited economic development" |
If enacted, this would have been the first statewide data-center moratorium in the United States (L.D. 307 Veto Message — Gov. Janet T. Mills (Maine); Source: nytimes.com).
Veto
In her published rationale, Mills stated that she supports the principle of a moratorium and the council's mission but rejected the bill's final form because it did not exempt the Town of Jay's $550 million data-center redevelopment of the former Androscoggin Mill site (L.D. 307 Veto Message — Gov. Janet T. Mills (Maine)). Mills wrote: "I supported the exemption and would have signed this bill if it had included it."
The veto message describes the context for the Jay project. The 2023 closure of the mill affected Jay and Franklin County, which had since sought a redevelopment. Jay town leadership, the Franklin County Commissioners, and the regional Chamber of Commerce wrote to Mills in support of exempting the project. According to the project's claims, the redevelopment would create roughly 800 construction jobs and more than 100 permanent jobs and would reuse existing industrial buildings, water, and electrical infrastructure on the brownfield site.
Mills's stated objection is to the bill's specific formulation rather than to a moratorium as such. Mills was also a candidate in the 2026 U.S. Senate primary, which reporting cited as relevant context for the local economic-development considerations (Source: nytimes.com).
Possible next steps
An override would require a two-thirds vote in both chambers, with the result dependent on the bill's original margins and on whether sponsors revise the bill or pursue an override. A substitute bill including the Jay exemption is possible; Mills has signaled willingness to sign such a version. Mills has committed to standing up an executive-order commission regardless, though such a commission would typically lack the permitting-pause authority of the statutory council. Reporters and advocates have noted that other states are watching whether the Maine episode serves as a template, with carve-out politics built in, or as a deterrent to state-level moratorium attempts given the political costs Mills cited (Source: nytimes.com).
Related developments
L.D. 307 was the first state-level moratorium attempt of its kind; the carve-out politics around the Jay project illustrate the tension between statewide moratoria and project-specific local economic development (Data Center Siting / AI Power Politics). The bill sits within a broader 2025–2026 wave of local data-center disputes, including cases in Apex, NC; Festus, MO; Sangamon County, IL; Pacific, MO; Denver, CO; and Appomattox County, VA, tracked by Data Center Watch (Data Center Siting / AI Power Politics). The ratepayer cost-shifting that L.D. 307 was responding to — including the PJM capacity-auction surge and commentary on Louisiana, Meta, and Entergy — is documented in Data Center Siting / AI Power Politics.
Relationships
- depends-on: Data Center Siting / AI Power Politics, AI Environmental Impact.
- related: L.D. 307 Veto Message — Gov. Janet T. Mills (Maine) (primary text), Janet Mills, (Source: nytimes.com) (reportage), Circular Financing in AI, Nuclear PPAs for AI.
- contradicts: federal-preemption arguments that state-level data-center politics is irrelevant — this episode shows it shapes hyperscaler siting calculus directly.