Maine is set to ban data centers, becoming the first state in the nation to do so

This article was originally published by The Daily Yonder.

The Maine Senate took a final vote on April 14, 2026, to enact first-of-its-kind legislation banning large data centers in the state until November 2027. The bill, LD 307, puts a moratorium on data centers with power needs of 20 megawatts or more, stymying proposed developments in several parts of the state, including in the rural mill town of Jay in Western Maine and at the former Loring Air Force Base in rural Limestone, Maine, near the Canadian border. 

The bill would also create a council to study future electric load projections on New England’s grid and identify strategies to protect Mainers from paying higher electricity rates, among other issues related to data center development and policy. 

The bill now heads to Maine Governor Janet Mills’ desk for a final decision. Mills, who is also a Democratic candidate for United States Senate in a primary race against oyster farmer Graham Platner, will have 10 days to sign the bill into law, announce a veto, or let the clock run out in what’s known as a pocket veto, which will kill the bill if the legislature adjourns during the 10 days. The bill passed final votes in the House on April 8 and the Senate on April 14, with most Democrats in favor of the ban and most Republicans opposed. There was some bipartisan support for the measure in the House. 

If enacted, the legislation would be the first in the U.S. to ban data center development. Maine’s bill represents one approach to data center regulation as lawmakers across the country grapple with growing community backlash over rising electricity prices and environmental impacts linked to the facilities that power artificial intelligence. At least 10 other states, including Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York, are considering similar measures to impose statewide bans on data centers, according to Axios research as of April 3.  

New England’s Power Struggle

Whether Mills will follow her party’s lead to support the data center ban is still an open question. 

On April 10, the governor said that a data center proposed at a retired paper mill in Jay, Maine, must be exempt from the ban while speaking to the press at an event in Bangor, Maine. An amendment with that carveout failed to pass the legislature, and the version now awaiting Mills’ signature does not exempt any existing projects.

The data center bill arrives on the governor’s desk on the heels of a March 31 commitment to address the growing demand for power in the state and region more broadly. Last month, Mills signed onto a bipartisan agreement from all six New England states – Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island – to explore advanced nuclear energy technology to address the region’s long-term power needs. 

Power demand from data centers in the U.S. could hit 106 gigawatts by 2035, according to BloombergNEF’s December 2025 projections, which rose 36% from an outlook published in April 2025, just seven months earlier. How much of that power demand will be supplied by New England’s grid is unclear – and rests on policy decisions like the one Mills will soon make about a data center ban. Currently, New England has 30 gigawatts of installed electricity-generating capacity on its regional grid. 

More than half of New England’s electricity is currently generated by natural gas, leaving the region vulnerable to price shocks during global conflicts. Supporters of data center development in Maine contend that the facilities provide a path for the state to wean off fossil fuels. 

“The method for advancing next-generation nuclear power is through the balance sheet of these new data centers,” said Patrick Woodcock, President and CEO of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce. He said he is “100% against” the blanket data center ban that doesn’t carve out exceptions for existing proposals, warning that the effect will be to scare away developers from communities that need investment dollars, including in rural places.

One such community is Jay. There, a $550 million proposal from New York City-based Sentinel Data Centers LLC has the support of the town government. The plan is to develop the former Androscoggin paper mill site, which closed in 2023, into a data center, generating up to 150 megawatts of power from an on-site solar system and drawing up to 25 megawatts of power from Central Maine Power, the electric utility. Yet under LD 307, the facility would be in jeopardy under the ban’s 20-megawatt limit. 

Still, not all data center proposals in rural parts of the state would be affected by the bill. At the former site of the Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, Maine, a small-scale data center being developed by LiquidCool Solutions plans to continue business-as-usual, with a slight adjustment to its electric load. Herb Zien, LiquidCool’s vice chair, wrote in a statement to the Daily Yonder that the development “is able to move forward with the 20-megawatt limit.” The site was originally slated to operate at 26 megawatts.

“There will be data centers someplace, no matter what Maine does,” said Tony Buxton, an energy and utilities attorney at Preti Flaherty, a legal and lobbying firm in the state. Buxton’s firm is representing a data center proposal in Sanford, a town in Southern Maine. It too would be affected by the data center ban. Buxton said he sees an opportunity for data centers to fill in the “holes” left in the grid by the exit of large industrial customers, like mills, that have shut down across the state over the years. 

What Mainers Want

Supporters of the data center ban praise it as a piece of legislation backed by Maine community members.

As of April 14, 4,900 Mainers had sent letters to state legislators and Governor Mills, favoring the bill through an online petition set up by Our Power, a nonprofit organization advocating for energy democracy in the state. Seth Berry, Our Power’s executive director and former House Chair of the legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology, called the response to the letter-writing campaign “unprecedented” and said Maine people “overwhelmingly support” the legislation. 

“I really don't think it’s fundamentally an issue that belongs to Democrats,” Berry said. “I think there’s growing concern among a broad swath of the American public about rising electricity costs [and] about the lack of employment that data centers offer.”

A March Quinnipiac University national poll of adults found that 65% of Americans oppose the building of AI data centers in their communities, compared to 24% who support the facilities. Of those in opposition, 72% listed electricity costs as a primary reason for their stance, followed by 64% who listed water use, and 41% who listed noise. 

In Maine, Berry sees a way for Mills to take action on some of these concerns. “By signing a first-in-nation pause, she has the chance to stand out as a real champion for ratepayers and for rural America,” Berry wrote in a statement to the Daily Yonder.