Maine Gov. Janet Mills vetoes ban on data center construction

Maine Gov. Janet Mills on Friday vetoed a hallmark bill that would have halted the construction of large data centers in the New England state for 18 months

Maine Gov. Janet Mills on Friday vetoed a hallmark bill that would have halted the construction of large data centers in the New England state for 18 months.

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The governor was debating whether to sign the bill, let the bill become law without her signature or veto the legislation after the state Legislature passed the law last Tuesday. The bill was the first data center moratorium in the nation to successfully make its way through both chambers of a state legislature.

“I believe it 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,” Mills wrote in a press release Friday. Yet Mills said that she would veto the bill due to its failure to allow a data center project in Jay, Maine, to go ahead. Jay had been hit with the closure of a paper mill in 2023 that wiped out several hundred jobs.