Mills Vetoes Data Center Bill, Proposes Council

0:00It's April 24th. This is Canada News Today, AI-powered stories from your city. I'm Cory with the story. Maine's Democratic Governor, Janet Mills, just vetoed a bill that would have been the nation's first statewide pause on building big data centers. The legislature, run by Democrats, had passed it to haul projects over a certain size for more than a year and set up a council to help town's review. But Mills killed it because it didn't make an exception for a job-bringing project in Jay, a town hit hard after its mill shut down. Proposes like this have popped up in about a dozen other states, but none made it through even one chamber until Maine's. Big tech firms, developers, business groups, unions, and power companies all pushed back hard. Instead of the bill, Mills plans to launch her own executive order creating a council to study data center effects. The veto sparked fire from her own party, including the bill's sponsor, Democratic State Rep, Melanie Sachs. She called it a slap in the face to most manors, warning a Kajaka power bills, strain the

1:04grid, hurt the environment, and mess with energy, plans long term. Meanwhile, some counties and cities nationwide have slapped on local moratoriums and critics say towns should handle these calls themselves. Resistance is growing fast as AI hype, fuels data center booms. Meanwhile leaders like governors and the Trump administration hype them for jobs, security, and beating China in the tech race. This move keeps the door open and Jay believes bigger questions hanging on how states balance growth with grid strain watch for that executive. People to drop some real answers soon.