On July 14, 2026, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed Executive Order No. 62, halting state permitting for large new data centers and making New York the first U.S. state to do so. It applies to facilities consuming or able to consume 50 megawatts or more, and was widely reported as a one-year moratorium (Source: reuters.com), though the order itself sets no fixed term (New York Executive Order No. 62 (Data Center Moratorium, July 2026)).
Status and provisions
The action is an executive measure by the governor rather than enacted legislation — Executive Order No. 62, signed July 14, 2026 (New York Executive Order No. 62 (Data Center Moratorium, July 2026); governor.ny.gov). Its recitals cite nearly 12 gigawatts of data-center load requests in the New York Independent System Operator interconnection queue as of May 2026, with more than eight gigawatts entering the queue in 2025 alone.
The order's operative mechanism is narrower than the "moratorium" label implies. It directs the Department of Environmental Conservation to hold in abeyance applications for any discretionary permit, approval, or license for constructing or expanding a covered data center that had not been determined complete before July 14, 2026 — expressly leaving local-government permissions untouched — and it ties the end of that abeyance to a deliverable rather than a date: the Department of Public Service's submission of a final Generic Environmental Impact Statement under SEQRA, assessing energy demand, water use and quality, air quality, disproportionate impacts on disadvantaged communities, and noise. No deadline attaches to that submission, and the order contains no fixed term; the sole twelve-month deadline in the text applies to a separate DEC assessment of whether its water-withdrawal program under 6 NYCRR Parts 601 and 602 accurately reflects large-user demand. The order likewise contains no tax provision: Hochul's stated intention to pursue repeal of the state's data-center sales-tax exemption was announced alongside the order rather than enacted by it (Source: reuters.com; wired.com; axios.com). Contemporaneous reporting described the measure as a one-year moratorium that pauses state environmental reviews and proposes an end to data-center tax incentives; the text supports none of those three characterizations directly, and Hochul's July 18 statement that she does not expect the moratorium to be permanent is consistent with the conditional structure rather than a fixed term.
Coverage. A covered facility houses computer servers or associated computing or telecommunications equipment that sits in facilities with uninterruptible power supply systems, specialized high-density cooling, or dedicated cybersecurity systems; provides data storage, cloud computing, or content delivery; and "consume[s] or can consume 50 megawatts of energy or more." Facilities primarily used for manufacturing, research (naming quantum computing and biomedical research), education (naming accredited New York colleges and universities engaged in academic research and the Empire AI consortium under Economic Development Law §361), or the provision of medical care are excluded.
Accompanying directives. Empire State Development was directed to publish a Community Investment Framework within 60 days, covering a developer-capitalized community investment fund usable for energy affordability and public services such as child care and K-12 programming, local infrastructure investment, prevailing-wage and project-labor-agreement frameworks giving organized labor "a seat at the table," and transparency reporting on key economic metrics. DPS was directed to consider a New York Grid Acceleration Fund — upfront developer capital contributions for grid improvements, demand-response participation, clean-supply procurement, and an insurance pool against stranded assets — and, within 60 days, to form a Data Center Interconnection Working Group charged with enforcing "beneficiary pays" principles on network-upgrade and resource-adequacy costs, with a transmission-owner methodology review due to the Commission within 90 days.
The order drew a response from President Trump, who attacked the pause on Truth Social on July 15, 2026 ("Both the Taxes and the Jobs amount to LIQUID GOLD!"); Hochul replied that "the communities powering AI should share in its success" (Source: cnbc.com). On July 18, 2026, Hochul said she does not expect the moratorium to be permanent (Source: theinformation.com). At a Finger Lakes roundtable on July 29, 2026, her office characterized the order as creating a statewide moratorium "of up to one year" that pauses state environmental permits, and Hochul repeated that she would pursue legislation to repeal the sales-tax exemption for large data centers — the second occasion on which the tax measure was stated as an intention rather than enacted (Source: governor.ny.gov). On July 20, Hochul defended the pause as a one-year opportunity to assess energy and other impacts and set the "rules of the road," while White House AI adviser David Sacks charged that the freeze rests on a "false accusation" against AI facilities (Source: insideaipolicy.com). Data Center Watch, a project tracking local data-center opposition, described the order as marking a new phase in data-center politics — a first statewide pause arriving while more than 12 GW of large-load projects seek New York grid connections (Source: datacenterwatch.substack.com). EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called the moratorium an easy way to "cop out," per July 16, 2026 reporting, reiterating that the EPA will not set nationwide environmental standards for data centers (Source: tennesseelookout.com; insideaipolicy.com).
A broader bill passed by the state legislature in June 2026 — the Responsible Data Center Development Act, a one-year moratorium on large data centers paired with new electric and water rate classes for facilities over 20 MW — remains unsigned (Source: reuters.com; route-fifty.com).
Relationships
- depends-on: New York Executive Order No. 62 (Data Center Moratorium, July 2026) — the primary text
- related: Data Center Siting / AI Power Politics — state and local moratorium wave
- related: AI Data Centers
- related: Kathy Hochul — issuing governor
- related: L.D. 307 — Maine Data Center Coordination Council and Temporary Limitation — earlier state-wide moratorium bill, vetoed April 2026