The Pause That Isn't: New York's Data Center Moratorium and the Holes Big Enough to Build Through

By Callahan Blackwood | October 12, 2026

On a Tuesday in early October, Governor Kathy Hochul stood on a farm in East Fishkill, Dutchess County, flanked by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Pat Ryan, and declared that New York had put its foot down. "Our job is not to protect the profits of billion-dollar corporations," Hochul told farmers, advocates and business owners gathered for the roundtable at Fishkill Farms. "My job is to protect New Yorkers."

It was a good line, and the photo looked great. The question is what the moratorium she was celebrating actually stops, and what it doesn't.

The answer, once you read the executive order and start calling county planners, is that the pause has more holes in it than a trellis.

What Executive Order 62 Actually Does

Executive Order 62, signed July 14, 2026, directs the state Department of Environmental Conservation to hold applications for discretionary state permits on new or expanded data centers at or above 50 megawatts, until the Department of Public Service completes a Generic Environmental Impact Statement, or for one year, whichever comes first.

That framing does a lot of work. "State permits" means the order doesn't touch local government permits. A developer who can navigate town and county approvals without triggering a state DEC review can, in theory, proceed. The 50-megawatt floor is also a clean exemption for smaller projects. Any application already deemed complete before the order was signed is not held.

Hochul chose this instrument instead of the one the legislature handed her. In June, the state legislature passed the Responsible Data Center Development Act, which would have paused permits for projects above 20 megawatts and required in-person public hearings. Hochul didn't sign it. She issued the executive order instead, which took effect immediately but drew a higher threshold and left the local-permit path open.

The difference between 20 MW and 50 MW is not a rounding error. It is the difference between catching a significant portion of the pipeline and letting the smaller end of the market through untouched.

The Town That Said No First

East Fishkill got there before Albany did. On June 25, 2026, the Town Board voted unanimously to impose a three-year moratorium on data centers above 20 MW, running until July 2029. The trigger was a project that appeared and then, publicly at least, disappeared.

Treetop Development of New Jersey, operating through a local entity called Donovan Drive Holdings LLC, had entered the NYISO interconnection queue in July 2025 for a roughly 1,000-megawatt facility on 137 wooded acres. The acreage had been slated for two warehouses totaling 765,000 square feet. No application was ever filed with the town. The proposal no longer appears on the NYISO queue.

To understand what 1,000 megawatts means at full load: roughly 8.76 billion kilowatt-hours a year, more than the entire city of Buffalo, a city of 275,000 people. East Fishkill has 30,000 residents. Town Supervisor Nick D'Alessandro was direct: about 50 MW is available in the area, and a data center "is not feasible... it would necessitate a new substation, a project at least five years away."

The site sits near homes, a daycare and a house of worship. At the town hearing that preceded the moratorium vote, residents chanted "We can't drink data!" Organizers included Food & Water Watch and For The Many. Resident Rosemary DaCruz spoke about the drinking water. Treetop has not returned multiple requests for comment.

The project's quiet exit from the interconnection queue is not the same thing as a project being dead. Developers reroute, rename and re-enter queues. The question of whether it returns is open.

The Holes

East Fishkill's experience illustrates a pattern playing out across New York: the developers the state was aiming at are not gone, and the exemptions in EO 62 are substantial.

Massena, St. Lawrence County. The NYDIG affiliate North Country Collocation Services wants a 1.5-million-square-foot, 635-megawatt facility at the former Alcoa East site along the St. Lawrence River. At full draw, that is roughly 70% of the output of the Moses-Saunders hydroelectric dam, which would make it one of the largest single electricity consumers in the state. It may be entirely exempt from EO 62: its permit applications date to 2020, predating the order. St. Lawrence County Planning Director Jason Pfotenhauer said the exemption could be legitimate. The Massena Town Board voted 3-2 against a six-month moratorium on September 16, clearing the path. The company says initial construction is slated for later this year.

Opposition is led by the Akwesasne group Mohawks United in Safety and Health. Marina Johnson Zafiris told reporters: "We need at least three years to do this research. We need a moratorium." They will not get one, at least not from the town.

Orangetown, Rockland County. The Town Board passed a six-month moratorium in August on new data center and battery storage projects, but the moratorium does not cover DataBank's second facility, already in the planning board pipeline. That expansion would raise DataBank's power draw by 50%, abuts homes, a drinking water reservoir and wetlands. Supervisor Teresa Kenny was candid: "This moratorium is not just about DataBank... it's about other potential data centers that want to come to Orangetown." Residents left dissatisfied. DataBank did not respond to requests for comment.

Photo: Choinowski / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Chateaugay, Franklin County. The town board is drafting a one-year moratorium after public comment, trying to stop a project proposed by a Plattsburgh developer. The state pause does not apply: the project is under 50 megawatts, below EO 62's floor.

Brookhaven, Long Island. Passed an 18-month moratorium. Local governments are moving because they don't trust the state review to move fast enough or reach far enough.

The Money Questions Nobody Is Answering

Hochul at Fishkill Farms said the Public Service Commission is developing rules to require data centers to supply their own power or pay a premium to use the grid. She also said she is pursuing legislation to end state sales tax exemptions for large data centers.

"Pursuing legislation" is not legislation.

The sales tax exemptions remain in place today. The PSC rulemaking has no published timeline. Meanwhile, Central Hudson's average residential rate climbed 86% between 2016 and 2025, with another $6.25 added to monthly bills this year. The utility serves much of the Hudson Valley, including the counties where the largest proposed buildout is concentrated.

As of May, nearly 12 gigawatts of data center load requests sat in the NYISO interconnection queue, with more than 8 gigawatts entering during 2025 alone. Those are requests for grid capacity that ratepayers will ultimately be asked to fund through infrastructure upgrades, new substations and transmission build-out, the same kind of substation that Supervisor D'Alessandro said East Fishkill is five years away from getting whether anyone wants it or not.

There is a separate question about who profits during the review period. Data centers already operating continue to operate. Exempted projects continue to move. The sales tax benefits continue to accrue. The moratorium, as written, does not freeze those financial arrangements.

The Clock

EO 62 gives the state one year, or until the Generic Environmental Impact Statement is complete, whichever comes first. A GEIS is a broad-scope environmental review meant to address a category of actions rather than a single project. They take time. Done well, this one could produce enforceable rules on grid costs, water use, siting proximity and tax treatment.

Done badly, or done under political pressure from an industry that has spent heavily in Albany, it produces a framework with the same floor problems as the executive order: high enough thresholds and enough carve-outs that the projects most communities are trying to stop can proceed anyway.

The national picture is not encouraging for the industry's critics. Loudoun County, Virginia, the densest data center market in America, voted 7-1-1 in September to draft a 12-month pause. Monterey Park, California enacted the first voter-approved data center ban, with 88% support. Texas is pausing new large-load interconnections. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found 77% of adults fear higher household bills from the AI buildout. One industry tally counts at least 20 dead projects in three months.

And yet: Amazon has announced a $1 billion "Built Together" community program, and AWS chief Matt Garman has warned that moratoriums could have "generational consequences." The lobbying infrastructure is intact and funded.

The Accountability Questions

Which projects are actually stopped by EO 62, and which are merely rerouted? The answer requires knowing what is in the DEC pipeline, which applications were deemed complete before July 14, and which developers are now pursuing local permits instead of state ones. The state has not published that list.

Who pays for the grid upgrades that large data centers require? The PSC is studying it. Ratepayers are paying it now.

Who keeps the tax breaks while the study runs? Everyone who already has them.

Hochul's farm visit was genuine politics: she stood with organized labor critics of the industry's labor practices, with farmers worried about water, with a congresswoman who has pushed a federal moratorium. The coalition is real. The order is narrower than the coalition's demands.

A pause that expires in one year, covers only state permits, exempts completed applications, and leaves the money questions for future rulemakings is not a moratorium in any sense that stops a developer with patience. It is a breathing space. Whether New York uses it to write rules with teeth, or to wait out the opposition, is the question the state still has to answer.