Maine House Passes Bill to Halt Large Data Center Projects, Senate Review Next
April 8, 2026
A legislative proposal to impose a temporary moratorium on major data center developments in Maine has cleared a key hurdle, advancing to the state Senate after receiving approval from the House of Representatives. The move reflects growing national scrutiny over the rapid expansion of energy-intensive digital infrastructure and its societal impacts.
The bill, LD307, sponsored by Representative Melanie Sachs, seeks to establish a pause until November 1, 2027, on accepting applications for data center projects proposing more than 20 megawatts of capacity. During this approximately year-and-a-half period, state agencies would conduct a comprehensive study on the impacts of data centers.
The legislation also mandates the creation of stricter controls and the establishment of a "Maine Data Center Coordination Council" to provide strategic input and evaluate policy tools for managing future development. If enacted into law, the moratorium would directly impact ambitious projects like the proposed Northern New England Energy Company campus, which envisions a capacity between 100 and 300 megawatts.
The bill's progression underscores a significant shift in regulatory approach, prioritizing assessment over rapid approval. Maine's action is part of a broader trend across the United States, where at least a dozen states have seen calls for similar statewide restrictions on new data center construction in the past year. This state-level momentum was notably amplified two weeks ago by U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who introduced federal legislation seeking a nationwide pause on data center development until safeguards for workers, consumers, the environment, and civil rights are established.
The bill now moves to the Maine Senate, the upper chamber of the state legislature. Any amendments made by the Senate would need to be reconciled with the House-passed version before the legislation could be sent to the governor's desk, determining the future trajectory of large-scale digital infrastructure in the state.
Source: datacenterdynamics
