WATERTOWN, NY — Assemblyman Scott Gray (R-Watertown), ranking Minority member of the Assembly Standing Committee on Energy, today called on the governor to veto A.11560, the Responsible Data Center Development Act, and announced that he has sent the governor a letter detailing the case for a veto. Assemblyman Gray was joined on the letter by Assemblymembers Matthew Simpson, Joseph Angelino and Brian Mahar.

In the letter, Assemblyman Gray makes clear that he shares the concerns that motivated the legislation and that those concerns deserve a serious response.

“Residents are right to ask hard questions about noise, water use and what these facilities mean for their electric bills. I hear those same questions in my district, and they deserve real answers, not a shrug,” said Assemblyman Gray. “But a statewide moratorium is the wrong answer to the right questions. It freezes investment, takes decisions away from the communities that should be making them and duplicates or ignores work the governor’s own administration already has underway. The responsible path is to set clear, firm standards and let willing communities decide for themselves. That is exactly what my proposed legislation does.”

A veto would place New York in line with governors of both parties who have rejected similar statewide measures. In April, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, vetoed what would have been the nation’s first statewide data center moratorium, citing the jobs, tax revenue and economic revitalization a blanket pause would have put at risk in communities that wanted the investment. The Maine Legislature sustained her veto. In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has flatly rejected proposals for a statewide pause, with her office making clear that any legislation standing in the way of economic growth and job creation would be vetoed. Just recently, she joined the groundbreaking for one of the largest data center projects in the nation. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore likewise vetoed data center study legislation due to concerns about costs and regulatory burdens. The pattern is clear. Governors across the country are concluding that broad statewide pauses are the wrong tool and that standards, oversight and local decision-making are the right ones.

“Governor Mills faced this same choice and chose jobs, local control and responsible standards over a blanket freeze. Governor Whitmer has pledged to do the same before a moratorium ever reaches her desk,” Gray said. “I am asking the governor to make the same choice for New York.”

In his letter, Assemblyman Gray lays out several reasons a veto is warranted:

The work is already underway. At the governor’s own direction, the Public Service Commission opened the Energize NY Development proceeding in February to reform interconnection, cost allocation and tariff structures for large energy loads, including data centers, built on a beneficiary-pays principle. A.11560 legislates over that open record and second-guesses an expert process before it has even been reported.

The existing process already provides years of review. Between the New York Independent System Operator interconnection and reliability studies, utility engineering, procurement and construction, no large data center can be energized in New York in under three years. The bill’s pause, stretched by its own study timeline and comment period, adds nearly two years of additional delay on top of a process that already provides ample scrutiny, and it sends exactly the wrong message to the economic development community.

Siting belongs to local communities. Albany’s job is to set the regulatory framework, facilitate interconnection and protect ratepayers and grid reliability. It is not Albany’s job to decide for a town or village whether it wants one of these projects. That is a local decision, and it should remain one.

The bill runs counter to the governor’s own initiative on nuclear energy development. By requiring renewable energy rather than clean, zero-emission energy, the bill excludes nuclear power from the equation, even as nuclear provides roughly 20% of New York’s carbon-free electricity and the governor pursues one of the most consequential nuclear energy advancements in a generation. Large, steady baseload customers like data centers are exactly what can help make new nuclear projects bankable.

Additionally, the bill’s renewable mandate undermines its own aspirations of farmland protection. These facilities operate around the clock and require reliable power. Meeting the bill’s on-site renewable energy requirements could consume hundreds of acres of the very farmland the bill aims to protect.

Assemblyman Gray emphasized that a veto would not leave residents’ concerns unaddressed. His High-Energy User Act, A.11419, establishes a beneficiary-pays structure so that the costs of serving these facilities are borne by the facilities themselves rather than residential ratepayers, requires closed-loop cooling to protect water resources, preserves local siting authority with residential setbacks and provides for private generation options.

“My bill takes every legitimate concern in this moratorium and answers it with a standard instead of a stop sign,” Gray said. “Protect ratepayers, protect water, protect communities and stay open to the infrastructure that powers everyday life and the well-paying trade jobs that come with it. Those goals are not in conflict, and New York does not have to choose between them. I stand ready to work with the governor and her team to get this right.”

The full text of the letter is available upon request.