Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Highlights First Statewide Moratorium on New Hyperscale Data Centers as Support Continues to Grow

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul held a roundtable with state, business and local leaders from across the state to highlight her Executive Order that creates the nation’s first moratorium on new hyperscale data centers, establishing the strongest standards for data center development and creating a blueprint to support localities. The Governor is temporarily pausing State environmental permits for up to one year in order to build a nation-leading regulatory framework that protects ratepayers, the environment, the energy grid and communities across the state.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor’s Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

 Good to see everyone. Please be seated.

Welcome back to Albany post session. Nice to be here this time of year. I want to thank Assemblymember Didi Barrett for joining us here today and for her vision that has, in part, led to why we're here today. So I want to — I'll give you a moment to speak in a little bit, but I want to thank you.

And we have different representatives from around the state with very different perspectives on this issue, and we'll be leading a conversation led by our great Director of State Operations, Jackie Bray. So I'm looking forward to getting into the conversation. I wanted to gather all of you because each and every one of you, you represent a perspective and ideas for us and how we're handling the advent of this invasion of hyperscale data centers around the state.

I'm very focused on AI for public good. AI can be a tremendous force of good, so this is not hostility to the technology behind it, but it is simply saying we want to take a pause, we want to step back and make sure that New York is not only just first, but we're the first to get it right. And this is important, and I think going forward after this period is up, people appreciate the thoughtfulness that is being worked on during this interim period to make sure that we're not disrupting our communities, that they feel the stake, that they're getting benefits, substantial benefits, that there's more conversation about the use of energy — limited energy that we have, particularly Upstate — as well as the impact on the environment.

So I know there's farmers represented here — farm community, agriculture community represented here — and I thank you for joining us. We’re concerned about preserving farmland. We also have leaders here concerned about the impact on the environment. Local officials have joined us talking about the communities where some of them may choose to be host communities.

Again, this will be a decision made by the localities. This is not what we're saying. You have that decision after this period of study. And also business leaders and energy leaders who want us to make sure we're striking the right balance, and that's what we're doing here.

So as artificial intelligence is literally transforming every sector of our economy, and I want New York to lead that transformation. It's our DNA, we always lead. And I'm excited about that, and we've shown many areas with our investments in artificial intelligence, whether it's Empire AI, the first-in-the-nation to allow universities and researchers to harness the incredible power, computing power that is only right now in the hands of private companies.

And we've democratized this. It is now in the hands of the public, and private institutions and public institutions across the state now have access to this, and I'm really proud of that initiative. We've done that a few years ago, and a lot of states were looking at us with envy, wondering how we could do that.

I've also realized the extraordinary disruptive effects of artificial intelligence on the workplace. And yes, you can't hold back progress. You talk about the different Industrial Revolution and how disruptive that was, and the fact that many of us from Upstate know the impacts of when the smokestack legacy companies had to leave town because technology had changed or there was foreign competition.

You always have to keep reinventing yourself, and we're very good at that here in New York. And I want to make sure that we're poised to capture not just the future that it seems to have already arrived, but the future of tomorrow.

So we're dedicating an — I created an organization, a group called the Future Works Commission, studying the future of work in the era of AI — how we can harness this power, how we can make sure that our students are AI competent in the workplace, a basic skill that seems to be critically important. But also the disruptive effects, how we're going to manage that in a thoughtful way so we can do what was not done when people like my hometown lost their jobs at the steel plant. No one thought about them and their families and their lives and the [disruptiveness].

Or we saw in Rochester and Syracuse, some of our major cities that lost these — I don't want to be in that position having lived through the ill effects of that and how devastating it is for a community. So I want to make sure that we're smart about this, identify the industries that are most exposed, but how we think about transferring people into other jobs or what does that do to college degrees and what does that do to the next generation of kids coming up? What skills do we want them to have?

So I'm excited about this. We already launched it. Knowing how ambitious I am and how impatient I am, I've said I want the answers by this fall so I can incorporate them into our State of the State. So again, I'm just pointing out the different ways in addition to, I'll just lastly talk about this: really excited about how we used AI to look, examine, 18 million words of laws and policies and regulations and fees in our state government. Everything that governs how we live and how businesses conduct themselves.

And I studied all that — not me, my AI magic and my extraordinary team — and came up with literally thousands of recommendations that are now in the hands of our agencies to execute or to make the human decision about how we use that data and do things smarter, more efficient, cut red tape and cut fees.

So I just want to say we're using AI in a positive way, but across the country, there seems to be a recent surge in applications to communities, and I'm not sure they're going to fulfill all of them. But they seem to have just done this shock and awe effect. They're really applying all over the states.

And before that goes further, I want to work with our communities and make sure that they have what it takes to get as much as they can. And some communities have the power and the wherewithal to negotiate better than others. I want to make sure that every community in New York that wants to do this — again, this is a choice. If your community wants to embrace this after the moratorium is over, I want to make sure that you have literally a template, a framework. We call it our community investment framework being developed by Empire State Development.

All the things that we've seen that they've done in other parts of the country — and it is extraordinary. The benefits that can go to schools and community centers, helping others on the energy grid and making sure they pay their fair share. So we're going to do that. We're going to make sure that they do either come with their own energy source, which I said in my State of the State months ago. I said, "Come with your own energy source." No one has done that yet, okay? I'm expecting that, or you have to pay a premium to tap into our limited grid already.

And I don't think there should be tax breaks. Our residents work hard enough, our businesses work hard, and if you want to take advantage and benefit from our natural resources, our land, our talent, then we should not be using taxpayer dollars to support that effort.

So they have plenty of money — plenty of money. My residents would like to keep more of their money in their pockets. And that's why we talk about, for all these reasons, and again, asking all of them to contribute into a larger grid fund because we do have to make massive investments in the transformation of our energy grid so we can deliver not just for the families and businesses of today, but those of tomorrow.

So all these are part of why we put this pause in place, this nation's first moratorium on hyperscale data centers. So I just want to say, I want to hear from all of you. We've got some questions from people all the way from the White House on down, but I'm going to posit this, that after this time is up, the companies that are asking for certainty, they want to know the rules of the road, tell us how it's going to be.

And we've heard from a number of them, the ones who build this, who are saying, "We're okay with this. Tell us what we have to do to be successful and get approvals, and that's more beneficial than putting us in limbo."

And so we're going to be the ones that are the thought leaders in this space, we already are. And if the President thinks handing over taxpayer dollars without conditions and just saying, “Come on in," and somehow that's considered liquid gold I just disagree with that assessment. We have a different interpretation of what the benefits can be. And so, we do things differently.

I'm not letting these big corporations call the shots in our state. We welcome you. We want to benefit from your success, but you also make sure all New Yorkers are successful as well in the process. That's how we do things in New York. And so, I'm feeling good about this. I'm excited to continue to talk about this around the state. This is my first of many conversations with people who really do care about this issue and are concerned and responding to the public sentiment, which says, "Please step up and help us. Don't let this just happen to us."

And I have one more thought I want to share before we turn over. I woke up today thinking about my hometown again. Thought about the skeleton of the huge Bethlehem Steel plant that went on for a mile over pristine prime waterfront land, forever destroying that. It shut down, maybe 1982. That skeleton is there and it's still just decaying.

It is a haunting reminder of an industrial past — hired 20,000 people, and I knew a lot of them; they were family members. But when a company takes up that space and the water and consumes our resources, then turns out the lights and walks away one day, communities are left with this. That's not the future I want for New York going further, and that's also very much on my mind: how we manage what happens when the next technologies, the next innovations that say, “That's no longer required.”

What happens to the facilities they created? That's what I want answered as well.