NY Renews Statement on One-Year Data Center Moratorium
Moratorium Could Be First in the Nation Pending Governor’s Signature
For Immediate Release: June 5, 2026
Contact: Marie Scarles, marie@nyrenews.org, (646) 389-8429
Web: www.nyrenews.org | Instagram | Twitter | Bluesky | Facebook
In response to the passage of the Responsible Data Center Development Act, NY Renews Executive Director Stephan Edel issued the following statement on behalf of the coalition:
Data centers represent a nexus of environmental and social harms: they use huge amounts of fresh water, dump tons of pollution into our air (at times exceeding the pollution emitted from entire cities), threaten our jobs, and raise our electricity bills. At the same time, they provide limited benefits to working people while enriching the tech oligarchy that already holds our economic system — and our lives — in its billionaire grasp. They’re also unpopular: according to polling from Embold Research, at least seven in 10 Americans would now oppose a data center being built near their home.
This is why the NY Renews coalition, which represents nearly 400 organizations from across the state, applauds the state legislature for passing the Responsible Data Center Development Act in the final hours of session. A moratorium on data center development is a common-sense step as the state assesses how best to regulate these toxic facilities. The tech advancements they offer pale in comparison to the harms that, unregulated, have the potential to cause to communities statewide, especially rural and Indigenous communities, where so many of these centers have been proposed to be sited.
We urge the Governor to sign this into law as we continue developing the critical safeguards we need to prevent a few tech oligarchs from destroying our air, water, land, and future.
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NY Renews is a coalition of nearly 400 environmental justice, labor, and community groups, and the force behind New York’s climate law, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. We fight for good jobs and climate justice for New Yorkers statewide.