What's at stake:

Over the summer, New Yorkers won an important victory when Governor Hochul announced a pause on state permits for polluting hyperscale data centers. This moratorium gets lifted when an environmental review is complete. Now, Hochul is rushing the process and narrowing the review's scope, ignoring major impacts of data centers like e-waste, water pollution, and our ability to rapidly reduce pollution to meet our state's climate targets. 

We have until Thursday, November 4 to submit comments to Gov. Hochul's Public Service Commission, calling for a stronger review process that covers the full range of data center impacts. It will take the voices of thousands of New Yorkers to weigh in to keep data centers from poisoning our land, air, and water.  

The public comment you'll send:

As a NY Renews supporter, I am writing to urge the Public Service Commission (PSC) to expand the draft scope of the Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) for data centers in New York. Data centers pose significant health and environmental risks to New Yorkers, including higher electricity costs, increased air and noise pollution, and heavy demands on energy and water resources. 

Here are our top-line demands for this process:

1. We demand more time: 45 days without regional public hearings, given the profound implications of data center developments on all New Yorkers, especially disadvantaged communities, is wholly insufficient and nothing but a show of process. We request a 120-day comment period, including 5 regional public hearings. 
   
   
2. Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) needs to be more than an "interested" party assisting the Department of Public Service (DPS). DPS is an energy expert, it is not a climate impact expert, like DEC. DEC should not simply be "assisting" DPS but should be made a primary and co-leader in creating a sufficiently robust and adequate regulatory framework for such large infrastructure that has profound implications not only on New Yorker's energy rates but also all New Yorkers' air, water and natural environment.
   
   
3. DEC must institute a wholesale regulatory framework and institute a data center permit that captures ALL development proposals and associated permits upon a developer's application to connect to our electric grid. Absent this, New York communities would be torpedoed by developers' self-serving proposals designed to avoid any and all state permitting or regulatory oversight. DPS and DEC must implement a blanket data center permit to ensure New York communities are protected. 

And here is what the PSC must do to expand the scope of the environmental review to capture the range of potential impacts and the potential harms of data center development:

• The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) analysis must be specific, quantitative, and tied to policy decisions — particularly when it comes to preventing disproportionate impacts to Disadvantaged Communities and Indigenous Nations.
  • The draft expressly requires evaluation of impacts on Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act mandates and statewide greenhouse gas limits. However, it does not specify the modeling methods, assumptions, metrics, or decision criteria that will determine whether data center development supports or undermines those mandates. The review should compare a range of data center growth scenarios, including continued restrictions, lower growth, and higher growth, against a clearly defined baseline. Each scenario should assess emissions and electricity supply over time, including the relevant climate-policy milestones.
  • The scope should also examine whether increased electricity costs or infrastructure constraints could impede clean energy access and electrification for other customers, particularly low-income households. Environmental justice must be assessed alongside statewide emissions, as a scenario that improves an aggregate emissions measure could still prolong pollution at particular generating facilities or increase burdens in disadvantaged communities.
  • The final scope must ensure robust and culturally appropriate implementation of the CLCPA and EJ siting law to prevent disproportionate impacts to Indigenous Nations from data center buildout; such implementation must include a robust Disadvantaged Communities Analysis in consultation with any potentially impacted Nation.
  • Finally, the findings should lead to explicit policy choices. If a development scenario would undermine climate goals or increase burdens on disadvantaged communities, the review should identify the limits or conditions needed to avoid those outcomes.

• The draft scope of the Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) for data centers should include analysis of the potential benefits of maintaining, making permanent, and expanding the data center moratorium.
  • The environmental review should explicitly compare the consequences of allowing data center development to proceed against the benefits of maintaining or strengthening restrictions.
    
    
• Electronic waste and the full equipment lifecycle are missing from the scope.
• • Although the draft addresses land, contamination, and human health, it does not expressly require an analysis of electronic waste or the environmental consequences of equipment replacement and disposal. The scope should evaluate mandatory decommissioning plans and financial assurance sufficient to cover equipment removal, waste management, site assessment, and any necessary remediation.
    
    
• PFAS and other potentially hazardous chemicals need explicit evaluation.
  • General references to contaminants do not establish that the environmental review will identify PFAS, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or assess their potential use and release. The review should require a chemical inventory covering cooling fluids, refrigerants, water-treatment chemicals, fire suppression materials, batteries, and relevant equipment components. A facility’s potential contribution should be assessed alongside existing contamination, particularly where communities already face environmental and health burdens.
     
• The energy analysis should quantify whether data center growth prolongs fossil fuel and peaker plant operations.
  • The draft requires discussion of energy demand and the generation mix, but does not expressly require an assessment of whether additional data center demand would delay fossil fuel plant retirements, increase operation of existing peaker plants, or encourage new fossil fuel capacity. The final scope should require these outcomes to be evaluated explicitly. A statewide discussion of electricity supply alone would not adequately explain which generating facilities could operate more frequently, where additional pollution would occur, or which communities would bear the consequences. 
    
    
• Transparency requirements should explicitly address nondisclosure agreements (NDAs).
  • Without timely disclosure, communities may be asked to respond only after developers, utilities, or public entities have already made significant commitments concerning siting, electricity service, infrastructure, or financial incentives. The final scope should evaluate how confidentiality practices affect the completeness of environmental review, the assessment of cumulative impacts, and the public’s ability to influence decisions before those commitments occur. Thus, the scope should require evaluation of prohibiting NDAs that prevent utilities or public entities from disclosing information necessary to understand a project’s environmental and financial consequences.

Please prioritize the safety, health, affordability, and well-being of communities over tech billionaire profits. It's critical that the PSC revise the draft scope to ensure New York undertakes an expansive assessment of all impacts from data centers. 

Sincerely,
[Your Name]