Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME) vetoed a bill that would ban the construction of new data centers in her state.
L.D. 307, “An Act to Establish the Maine Data Center Coordination Council and Place a Temporary Limitation on Certain Data Centers,” was poised to become the first state law to ban the new construction of artificial intelligence data centers, amid a wider panic. Mills vetoed the bill on Friday, telling lawmakers that she mostly agreed with it but that the failure to make an exception for a unique case made her unable to sign it.
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“A moratorium is appropriate given the impacts of massive data centers in other states on the environment and on electricity rates. But the final version of this bill fails to allow for a specific project in the Town of Jay that enjoys strong local support from its host community and region,” Mills’s letter to the legislature read.
The case in question revolved around a town that suffered the closure of the Androscoggin Mill following a devastating explosion in 2023. The town had finally found a replacement in the form of a new data center, which the bill would have canceled. Mills was a resident of Franklin County, where Jay is located.
“I know well how critical the mill was to generations of working families, and how important it is – and how challenging it has been – to promote reinvestment and job-creation at the former mill which is a brownfield site. After prior redevelopment efforts failed, the Town of Jay worked for two years on a $550 million data center redevelopment project to finally bring jobs and investment back to the mill site,” she said.
“The project developers are committed to revitalizing the mill site by utilizing its existing industrial buildings, water, and electrical infrastructure to avoid the adverse impacts cited in the bill, including impacts to ratepayers,” Mills added.
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The governor said she would sign an executive order to create a council to examine the impacts of data centers on Maine, a measure called for in the bill.
Mills’s move is sure to anger her party’s left flank, which has made a cause celebre out of halting the construction of data centers. Activists argue that the centers, which are vital for AI development, consume too much water and drive up electricity prices.
