Such a law illustrates the beauty of federalism. Texas and other states can have them if they want them! Maine has not nearly as much space and much more natural beauty to protect [per square mile], so it can and maybe should have a different set of rules. That's cool.
This is a recipe for creating dead retiree states. Just NIMBY everything, NIMBY the power sources[1] [2], then complain about a lack of power so NIMBY any type of new industrial <anything>.
Now do this for housing, new sources of water anything a person younger than 40 would need and you basically get a state full of retirees..and oh would you look at that! [3].
Now the question is, why wouldn't all states eventually do this with the way our population pyramid is looking? It's basically rabid conservation and tragedy of the commons writ large.
I live in Maine. Commercial power is crazy expensive. I don't know why you would build an AI datacenter here in the first place. As an obsessive self-hoster, I've researched building one, and there is no universe in which it makes sense. New Hampshire and Massachusetts are so nearby latency-wise.
>Maine will go bankrupt?
No it’s a bunch of poor old stock Yankees. They have no money but they are still fiscally solvent.
>Maine will turn into a barren backwater?
It’s already a backwater. The goal is to keep it that way.
>There will be no jobs?
Unless working as a fisherman for half the year or a bartender for 3 months in the summer is counted as a job then nothing changes.
Maine has always been out of the way and poor. I doubt this bill will change much one way or the other. As per the local idiom: you can’t get there from here.
It's not a ban. It's a temporary moratorium (on data centers requiring over 20 megawatts) until 2027 to give them time to research and plan for how to do data centers in an environmentally responsible way
> The bill also creates the Maine Data Center Coordination Council, and instructs the council to provide strategic input, facilitate planning considerations and evaluate policy tools to address data center opportunities.
For people who support this kind of ban, I'd ask if you would support a similar ban on new factories for, say, car parts.
Like data centers, factories use a lot of power -- which drives up electricity bills -- and their construction can have local environmental impacts. Data centers have a reputation for not providing too many local jobs, but modern factories are often highly automated and also don't provide too many local jobs.
If, given all that, you'd support factory construction but not data center construction, I'd be curious as to why.
AI seems like it would advance the power of the capitalist class over labor more than new factories.
AI is allied with the tech oligarch faction which has allied itself with the fascists.
Datacenter manufacturers seem to have, at least lately, been particularly underhanded in their attempts to force themselves upon communities that don't want them.
If they fail (e.g. due to the AI bubble bursting or a recession), a factory seems like it would be more likely to survive or at least leave a facility and equipment that is useful.
Historically the factories in Maine were mills, which use water for power. Those days are long gone but in a different time you would find no resistance to more factories in Maine, it’s a wasteland now
It's far from a blanket ban. Nobody here reads passed the (admittedly, misleading) title
It's a temporary moratorium (on data centers requiring over 20 megawatts) until 2027 to give them time to research and plan for how to do data centers in an environmentally responsible way
> The bill also creates the Maine Data Center Coordination Council, and instructs the council to provide strategic input, facilitate planning considerations and evaluate policy tools to address data center opportunities.
This seems like smart and thoughtful policy and exactly the kind of stuff we should hope for from our elected officials.
How long until the AI companies start charging more to people who use AI services, but live in areas that do things like this?
NIMBY causes energy prices to go up in areas that won't allow drilling, refining, nuclear or nat gas development, or power lines. When will the same happen for things like AI services?
The people (through their elected representatives) have a right to do this. It is stupid, in my opinion, but they have every right to do so. If this is what they want, they should have it.
Personally, I see little reason to ban new taxpayers with few-to-none negative externalities from moving into your state, but what do i know?
It's not plain banning. It's a moratorium until 2027. I think it's sensible policy given this craze is at the peak of a hype cycle and there's been a lot of investigative reporting on shady deals around hyperscaler infrastructure
This is a natural response to the excessive pushiness and underhandedness that's been used to build many of these new datacenters, often in direct conflict with the wishes of the locals. Maybe the firms paying to get them built should take a more diplomatic approach instead of trying to railroad projects through.
This has gotta be the dumbest issue in politics today. By far, the biggest use of data centers right now is on streaming Netflix and YouTube and stuff, but you don't see any protests about that.
In terms of square footage there are few "businesses" which consume more resources (water, power, tax credits) and produce less onging local employment. More states and municipalities are going to do this, and rightly so.
I feel like this is always the case with new technology. People had the same reaction to the invention of the printing press. New is scary. It doesn't mean there aren't valid concerns, but unfortunately this feels a bit like an inevitability. The focus shouldn't be on stopping it, but how to maximize the gains and minimize the losses to the local communities where these are being built.
Data centers are hardly new technology... For the longest time, people had no idea where the cloud was because the footprint was pretty small. It's another golden goose moment where everyone is going to build DCs and we might end up like in the dotcom bubble where way too much fiber was deployed for what was necessary at the time.
<<If I just paint everyone who doesn't want to support my shitty AI start-up as a stupid Luddite, I can ignore everything they're actually saying and just demand I be allowed to do the thing I want the way I want, where I want! The people living in these communities I have never and will never go to are just too stupid to know what's good for them.>>
This shouldn't be read as a carefully considered policy with upsides and downsides. It's obviously silly to just ban datacenters from a policy perspective.
Read this instead as, people hate this shit. They don't want datacenters, they don't want AI, they don't feel like those things are doing anything for them.
You will win the policy debate by saying:
"a datacenter uses just as much electricity and provides just as many jobs as a car parts factory, so it's silly to ban the one and not the other when you can just as easily examine the externalities of the datacenter and blah blah blah"
But you will be missing the point, which is that people see building car parts as a solid, upstanding thing which has tangible and direct benefits to people; whereas building an AI datacenter means allowing some rich California surveillance czar to suck the water and power from your local community so that they can steal your job, fracture your community, and impoverish your family. One is good and one is bad and the voter's choice is to do the good thing and not the bad thing.
Even if car parts factories pollute more than datacenters do.
FFS did anybody in this thread read passed the title?
It's not just a plain ban. It's a moratorium until 2027 for data centers requiring over 20 megawatts. The temporary moratorium gives it time to build the infrastructure necessary to roll out data centers in an environmentally responsible way:
> The bill also creates the Maine Data Center Coordination Council, and instructs the council to provide strategic input, facilitate planning considerations and evaluate policy tools to address data center opportunities.
Maybe they will. They are not banning them permanently. They are placing a moratorium until 2027 so they can research and plan for how to do data centers responsibly
> The bill also creates the Maine Data Center Coordination Council, and instructs the council to provide strategic input, facilitate planning considerations and evaluate policy tools to address data center opportunities.
data centers drive up the cost of power. basic supply and demand.
instead of blocking data centers, we need to scale up energy production. the solution is to get rid of all the red tape that makes it so impossible to build in America.
quality of life metrics are highly correlated to the availability of energy.
It explains the intent (to protect consumers/grid from price changes and fluctuation), and bans 20MW+ loads. They forgot to define load, so a behind-the-meter datacenter (zero net load on the grid) still would likely not get permitted even though it does not violate the intent of the law, which is a bit odd.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 77.0 ms ] threadNow do this for housing, new sources of water anything a person younger than 40 would need and you basically get a state full of retirees..and oh would you look at that! [3].
Now the question is, why wouldn't all states eventually do this with the way our population pyramid is looking? It's basically rabid conservation and tragedy of the commons writ large.
[1]: https://www.mainepublic.org/politics/2025-04-08/bill-removin...
[2]: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/maine-voters-reject-q...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
Meanwhile CMP slow rolls connections to all the new Solar farms starting up trying to help our expensive power situation.
Why would anyone want to go to Texas to build a datacenter and worry about the cooling, when they could pick any other state?
Maine will go bankrupt? Maine will turn into a barren backwater? There will be no jobs?
>Maine will go bankrupt? No it’s a bunch of poor old stock Yankees. They have no money but they are still fiscally solvent. >Maine will turn into a barren backwater? It’s already a backwater. The goal is to keep it that way. >There will be no jobs? Unless working as a fisherman for half the year or a bartender for 3 months in the summer is counted as a job then nothing changes.
Maine has always been out of the way and poor. I doubt this bill will change much one way or the other. As per the local idiom: you can’t get there from here.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/25/datacenters-...
Nice to see some success for their ideas.
> The bill also creates the Maine Data Center Coordination Council, and instructs the council to provide strategic input, facilitate planning considerations and evaluate policy tools to address data center opportunities.
Like data centers, factories use a lot of power -- which drives up electricity bills -- and their construction can have local environmental impacts. Data centers have a reputation for not providing too many local jobs, but modern factories are often highly automated and also don't provide too many local jobs.
If, given all that, you'd support factory construction but not data center construction, I'd be curious as to why.
AI seems like it would advance the power of the capitalist class over labor more than new factories.
AI is allied with the tech oligarch faction which has allied itself with the fascists.
Datacenter manufacturers seem to have, at least lately, been particularly underhanded in their attempts to force themselves upon communities that don't want them.
If they fail (e.g. due to the AI bubble bursting or a recession), a factory seems like it would be more likely to survive or at least leave a facility and equipment that is useful.
It's a temporary moratorium (on data centers requiring over 20 megawatts) until 2027 to give them time to research and plan for how to do data centers in an environmentally responsible way
> The bill also creates the Maine Data Center Coordination Council, and instructs the council to provide strategic input, facilitate planning considerations and evaluate policy tools to address data center opportunities.
This seems like smart and thoughtful policy and exactly the kind of stuff we should hope for from our elected officials.
Does the move benefit companies with existing DCs whose competition can no longer establish a region there?
NIMBY causes energy prices to go up in areas that won't allow drilling, refining, nuclear or nat gas development, or power lines. When will the same happen for things like AI services?
Personally, I see little reason to ban new taxpayers with few-to-none negative externalities from moving into your state, but what do i know?
For a known amount of data enter power, dedicate 125% of power in solar and battery.
Need cooling? Use liquid geothermal loops. Or radiate energy back into space. We know frequencies that do not reflect in atmo.
Acoustic pollution is another area. Acoustic tiles, building plans, and natural noise barriers are also of utmost importance too.
We need more compute. Plain banning is not the way. Demanding highly ecological and conserving solutions is.
Given that, the bill is just for show, and not actually serious.
<<If I just paint everyone who doesn't want to support my shitty AI start-up as a stupid Luddite, I can ignore everything they're actually saying and just demand I be allowed to do the thing I want the way I want, where I want! The people living in these communities I have never and will never go to are just too stupid to know what's good for them.>>
Read this instead as, people hate this shit. They don't want datacenters, they don't want AI, they don't feel like those things are doing anything for them.
You will win the policy debate by saying:
"a datacenter uses just as much electricity and provides just as many jobs as a car parts factory, so it's silly to ban the one and not the other when you can just as easily examine the externalities of the datacenter and blah blah blah"
But you will be missing the point, which is that people see building car parts as a solid, upstanding thing which has tangible and direct benefits to people; whereas building an AI datacenter means allowing some rich California surveillance czar to suck the water and power from your local community so that they can steal your job, fracture your community, and impoverish your family. One is good and one is bad and the voter's choice is to do the good thing and not the bad thing.
Even if car parts factories pollute more than datacenters do.
It's not just a plain ban. It's a moratorium until 2027 for data centers requiring over 20 megawatts. The temporary moratorium gives it time to build the infrastructure necessary to roll out data centers in an environmentally responsible way:
> The bill also creates the Maine Data Center Coordination Council, and instructs the council to provide strategic input, facilitate planning considerations and evaluate policy tools to address data center opportunities.
> The bill also creates the Maine Data Center Coordination Council, and instructs the council to provide strategic input, facilitate planning considerations and evaluate policy tools to address data center opportunities.
instead of blocking data centers, we need to scale up energy production. the solution is to get rid of all the red tape that makes it so impossible to build in America.
quality of life metrics are highly correlated to the availability of energy.
It explains the intent (to protect consumers/grid from price changes and fluctuation), and bans 20MW+ loads. They forgot to define load, so a behind-the-meter datacenter (zero net load on the grid) still would likely not get permitted even though it does not violate the intent of the law, which is a bit odd.
I think the moratorium is a small part of this bill. I think the most important part is the creation of the Maine Data Center Coordination Council.
The title on this very partisan site is quite misleading.