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The legislation would have made Maine the first U.S. state to pause the construction of data centers.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) delivers her State of the Budget address Feb. 14, 2023, at the Statehouse in Augusta, Maine. | Robert F. Bukaty/AP
Maine Gov. Janet Mills on Friday vetoed a bill that would have established the country’s first statewide moratorium on data centers, preventing their construction until November 2027.
In a letter to the Maine Legislature, Mills (D) wrote that she broadly supports the idea of a moratorium due to the impacts of data centers on electricity prices and the environment in other states. Yet she said she could not sign off on the bill because it does not include an exemption for a data center project in Jay, a town in the southern part of the state that has weathered economic hardship after the closure of a local mill in 2023.
