Until yesterday, it looked like Maine would enshrine the country’s first state-level hyperscale data center moratorium into law. But late on Friday, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills announced she would veto the bill. Though a statement she issued claimed that she agreed a “moratorium is appropriate” in theory, Mills wrote that she would not sign the one passed by legislators in order to avoid jeopardizing a single data center being built in the town of Jay, which she said would bring 800 temporary and 100 permanent jobs to the area.

The data center industry’s lobby welcomed the move. “Enacting a statewide moratorium on data centers would have discouraged investment and sent a........

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