WESTBROOK, Maine — Gov. Janet Mills said Friday that she hasn’t decided whether to sign a bill passed by the Legislature to impose a statewide moratorium on new data centers, outlining her critique of the legislation.
“It’s on my desk. I’m going to read it. Read it very carefully,” Mills, a Democrat, said in a wide-ranging interview with NBC News, adding that it doesn’t contain a “carveout” she wanted for a project in the struggling town of Jay in order to boost jobs.
Mills’ decision is being closely watched: The first-of-its-kind bill comes amid a national debate that features growing local opposition to the huge, energy-hungry structures that power the growing and disruptive artificial intelligence industry. The second-term governor is also running for the U.S. Senate.
The measure, passed earlier this week, would impose a moratorium on new data centers in Maine until the fall of 2027. Mills has 10 days to decide whether to sign the bill, veto it or otherwise allow it to become law without her taking action.
“I have already expressed publicly concerns for the project that’s proposed in Jay, Maine, which has lost actually two paper mills in that community in the last couple years,” Mills said.
“It was probably one of the worst days of my tenure as governor, when in the middle of the pandemic and the George Floyd demonstrations, protests, we saw a video of the digesters in Jay falling over,” she added. “At that moment, we all thought that 300 or more people probably had died in that explosion. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case, but it brought tears to my eyes, and I was saying to people in my office, bring on the locusts. Where are the locusts?”
“And that mill obviously closed and they lost all the jobs they had, pretty much other than service jobs, and those people deserve a good look at what that data center could do for the for the community. So I have said that I would want a carveout for Jay,” she continued.
“I’m also concerned about what data centers have done in other states — consumption of electricity and water usage, those kinds of things,” Mills said. “This one is right on the Androscoggin River, and that paper mill once used 40-something million gallons of water each day. So I’m looking at the comparison there, and whether or not it’s viable.”
Asked if she might veto the bill and ask the Legislature for a rewrite, Mills said it would be “difficult at this stage of the game.”
Lawmakers only “come back for one day,” she said, “for veto day.”
