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New York's data center freeze may not hold up like its fracking ban did

New York and Texas have blocked data centers before studying them. Developers could seek compensation if a pause with no end date turns permanent

Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images

Pennsylvania kicked one fracking company out of the area for more than a decade. It just couldn't keep it out for good. It came back in late 2023, and by the next year, Texas-based company Coterra was running lines beneath dozens of homes in Dimock, Pa., including the one where local resident Victoria Switzer, a former schoolteacher, paints, according to Mother Jones. The noise from the construction and truck traffic have kept her up at night. "They are cutting up the valley like Swiss cheese," she said. "We came here to enjoy nature, and this has just torn our lives apart."

The gas-rich rock under Dimock, called the Marcellus shale, also runs under New York towns just over the state line, such as Dryden. New York spent years deciding whether to let fracking companies drill it the way Coterra drilled Dimock, but in December 2014 it said no. The state's ban has been in place since June 2015.

Now New York is freezing the construction of big data centers, and so is Texas. On July 14, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order telling the Department of Environmental Conservation to freeze state permit applications for data centers that use 50 megawatts or more. "As data center development threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers, it's my responsibility to take action and lead," Hochul said. In September, the Texas Tribune reported, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott $ABT ordered his state's........

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