Since this outlet began tracking the national data center backlash — from Monterey Park's 86%-14% ballot ban to Amazon's $200 billion buildout drawing criticism from its own engineers — the political pressure has continued to fragment along state lines. Thursday brought two new developments pulling in opposite directions.

O'Leary Blinks — But Not Entirely

Kevin O'Leary sent a letter Thursday to Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams confirming he will remove 19,430 acres from Project Stratos, located in and around the Locomotive Springs Waterfowl Management Area. He's also cutting another 620 acres in the northeast section near the highway, according to The Verge.

Adams had asked for a 75% reduction — down to roughly 10,000 acres. O'Leary gave him about 50%.

The revised Project Stratos would still cover approximately 20,000 acres — an area larger than the entire island of Manhattan.

O'Leary says he'll "preserve a majority of the remaining acreage as open space" and implement water conservation technology, including diverting excess water to the Great Salt Lake, which has been shrinking for years.

A 20,000-acre data center still raises serious questions about water draw, power demand, and environmental impact. Adams wanted 75%. He got 50%. The negotiation isn't over — and O'Leary knows that offering a concession without meeting the demand is a classic delay tactic.

New York Tries a Different Approach: Just Ban It

While Utah negotiates, New York is moving toward prohibition.

The New York state legislature is advancing a bill to impose a moratorium on new data center construction. State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins is framing it as a temporary pause — "we believe we can get this right" — but the New York Post's editorial board is calling that framing out directly, pointing to how a near-identical promise played out with fracking.

That comparison deserves scrutiny regardless of where you sit politically. Then-Governor Andrew Cuomo sold his initial fracking ban as a temporary pause too. It became permanent. New York is now watching neighboring Pennsylvania collect billions in economic activity from the same industry it blocked.

Data centers are different from fracking in important ways — but the pattern of regulatory capture deserves scrutiny. "Temporary pause" has a track record.

The Economic Stakes Are Real

Amazon is spending $200 billion on AI data center infrastructure. Indiana just locked in $26 billion from Amazon alone — the largest single tech investment in that state's history. These aren't symbolic projects. They create construction jobs, permanent technical jobs, and local tax revenue.

New York's legislature is debating whether to opt out of that economy entirely.

Governor Kathy Hochul has NOT signed the moratorium and has NOT publicly endorsed it. At an Association for a Better New York breakfast in March, Hochul said she wanted New York to lead the nation in AI innovation and job creation. That statement is now directly in conflict with what her legislature is sending to her desk. She faces a clear choice.

Left and Right Are Both Oversimplifying

Left-leaning coverage — including from The Verge — treats O'Leary's half-measure concession as a meaningful victory and frames all data center opposition as environmentally motivated common sense. Right-leaning coverage — including the New York Post — dismisses ALL concerns as "ridiculous" and "imaginary."

The environmental concerns are genuine. Data centers at the scale of Project Stratos genuinely stress water systems and power grids. The Great Salt Lake is actually shrinking — that's not a talking point, it's a documented ecological crisis. Water-use commitments from O'Leary deserve scrutiny.

At the same time, a blanket moratorium on new construction carries real economic costs. The question isn't whether to have data centers — they're coming, somewhere. The question is whether New York and Utah want the jobs, the tax base, and the infrastructure investment, or whether they want to hand all of it to Texas, Indiana, and Virginia.

Where This Heads

O'Leary made a tactical retreat in Utah — big enough to claim good faith, small enough to preserve most of his project. He's still looking at one of the largest data center footprints ever proposed.

New York is heading toward a moratorium that its own governor may have to veto to avoid repeating a decade-old economic mistake.

The national data center battle isn't about being pro-AI or anti-environment. It's about whether local and state governments can negotiate competently — setting real conditions on water use, power supply, and community impact — instead of either waving everything through or slamming the door shut.

So far, the record isn't encouraging on either end.