The Governor of Maine, Janet Mills, has vetoed a bill that would have enacted the first statewide moratorium on data centers in the US.

LD307 passed through both houses, receiving support from the House of Representatives in April and the Senate on April 14. The bill would have imposed a temporary moratorium on the government accepting any applications related to data centers offering more than 20MW of capacity, which would have remained in place until November 1, 2027.

In her letter confirming the veto, Mills said that she remains in support of a temporary moratorium and would have signed the legislation into law if it had included an exemption for a project now underway at the former Androscoggin Mill in Jay, located in Franklin County.

“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,” Governor Mills wrote to the Legislature.

“The 2023 closure of the Androscoggin Mill dealt a devastating blow to the Town of Jay and its surrounding area. As a long-time resident of Franklin County, 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.”

Mills argued that the project had already received several permits and is set to support significant job creation within the town. Despite the veto, Mills said that she intends to issue an executive order establishing a council to examine the impact of data centers in Maine, as called for in LD307.

“I believe it is necessary and important to examine and plan for the potential impacts of large-scale data centers in Maine, as the use of artificial intelligence becomes more widespread. Given the serious conversations about data centers here and around the country, I believe this work should commence without delay,” the governor wrote.

In addition, the governor announced that she signed LD713, which will prohibit data center projects from the State of Maine’s business development tax incentive programs.

Although moratoriums have long been used at the local level, officials in Minnesota, New York State, Virginia, New Hampshire, Vermont, Oklahoma, Maryland, Georgia, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Michigan have also introduced bills calling for state-wide bans on new developments.

A bill proposing a national moratorium was also introduced by US Senators Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in March 2026.

Dubbed the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act, it would prevent data center construction until the government enacts laws to protect workers and consumers, the environment, and civil rights from the impacts of AI.