The Maine legislature has upheld the governor’s veto of what would have been a first-in-the-nation moratorium on large data centers.
The vote on Wednesday in the Maine House came as lawmakers return to Augusta to take up the governor’s vetoes.
The measure would put a temporary ban on new data center projects of at least 20 megawatts.
A vote to overturn the veto failed to get a two-thirds majority in the House.
Supporters of the legislation said it would give the state time to study the impacts of new data centers on infrastructure and the environment.
Gov. Mills has said she agrees that the rapid expansion of data centers should be carefully evaluated but rejected the bill because it didn’t make an exemption for a proposed $500 million data center at the former paper mill in Jay.
