Hochul Touts Data Center Pause at Long Island Roundtable

Gov. Kathy Hochul took her campaign to put the brakes on large-scale data center development directly to Long Island on Wednesday, hosting a roundtable at Babylon Town Hall alongside local elected officials, conservation advocates, farmers and business representatives to make the case for a moratorium she signed earlier this month.

The executive order — the first of its kind nationally — freezes new construction of hyperscale data centers, defined as those consuming more than 50 megawatts of power, for up to 12 months. During that window, the state will examine how such projects affect utility bills, water resources and grid reliability before putting a regulatory framework in place.

"As a former local official, my initial default position is to defer to locals on these decisions," Hochul said during the panel. "Do you want this? It is up to localities to make that determination. Full stop, nothing goes anywhere unless the locality wants it."

Babylon Town Supervisor Rich Schaffer offered his support for the governor's stance. "By pausing new projects while the state conducts a comprehensive review, the governor is ensuring that we get this right before decisions are made that could have lasting impacts on our communities, our electric grid, and our environment," he said.

It isn't clear whether Mr. Schaffer or Governor Hochul voiced their support for or attempted to institute a moratorium on the construction of wind and solar farms, or the closure of gas and coal plants, all of which led to the electrical grid being strained and now allegedly incapable of supporting state investments in AI.

Hochul's appearance on Long Island unfolded amid escalating local tensions over energy infrastructure. Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine has demanded the closure of a battery storage facility in East Hampton after testing revealed concentrations of a PFAS chemical — PFPrA — in nearby drinking water wells reaching as high as 1,170 parts per billion, a figure dramatically above the 3 parts per billion preliminary screening threshold established by the state Health Department. Those wells supply drinking water to communities in the Hamptons.

The East Hampton facility, a 5-megawatt plant operating under a contract with the Long Island Power Authority, is at the center of a federal lawsuit filed by the Suffolk County Water Authority, which connects a toxic plume to a fire at the site in 2023. East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen, a Democrat who backs Romaine's call for closure, argued that the reasoning behind the data center moratorium "absolutely should be applied to battery storage plants."

Hochul stopped short of weighing in on the East Hampton situation. "That's not something I'm going to get ahead of the investigation, because I don't know the results just yet," she said.

In a parallel move, the Islip Town Board has set a public hearing on its own local data center moratorium, aligning with Hochul's executive order. Also at Wednesday's roundtable, North Shore community groups pressed the governor on a proposed high-voltage undersea cable slated to pass through their area, with some critics contending that her emphasis on local control is not being applied evenly.

Hochul also indicated she plans to seek legislation that would eliminate sales-tax breaks for large data centers across the state.