It's the opposite of NIMBY. It's smart thoughtful policy and it is NOT a simple ban. Nobody bothers to read passed the title but the main piece of this legislation is the creation of the Maine Data Center Coordination Council.

Alongside it is a temporary (until Nov 2027) moratorium on data centers over 20 megawatts. This seems to be in place so they could establish a proper legal and environmental framework for building out data centers in the future.

This is exactly the kind of approach to legislation we should all hope our local representatives are competent enough to do.

> This is a recipe for creating dead retiree states.

Good news: lots of choice.

Is your argument that we should ignore the will of the people? Because this is what the people of Maine want. Why exactly should Maine be forced to have data centers in it when its citizens don't want that?

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I'm from Nevada, another state that people presume is all desert. (Really, it's all mountains.)

The only part of Texas I've driven is between Austin and S Antonio. It was perhaps the least-beautiful wilderness I've driven through. It really did just feel like desert and billboards - like if Walmart was a highway.

But I also presume Texas marketing itself as a less-regulated alternative (e.g. to California) is why it's easy to imagine Texas wanting infrastructure that Maine might not.

Folks have been conditioned to consider the deserts of West Texas, especially the Permian Basin, to be wastelands with no redeeming value.

Personally, while it isn't my favorite landscape or even my favorite desert landscape, I still think it is a landscape with intrinsic value and beauty.

Yeah, sorry that wasn't intended as a slight to Texas. Texas just does have a lot of barren landscape where datacenters wouldn't offend as much. I modified it to make that clear. Also, energy is playing a role here.

I've driven through all of Texas twice, and had to spend time in Austin and Houston for work, but never had to live there, so I'd like to think I'm informed without being biased.

Besides the heavily oak covered hill country west of Austin it's pretty much the ugliest landscape in the country. I will admit the west Texas desert is less ugly than the desert of southern Arizona/eastern California, but north/east Texas is the flattest, least interesting part of the Mississippi basin (Nebraska/Kansas/Oklahoma are similarly meh but you don't have the insane humidity).

What beautiful part do you live in?

or…have you never been?

Because it's Republican, obviously.

yes but they likely won't build datacenters by destroying national parks would they?

Because the other big expense in a datacenter: electricity. Texas has really cheap electricity compared to the rest of the country, sitting at second cheapest after North Dakota.

Long summers = tx actually has lots more Solar, but also biz friendly laws, biz friendly taxes, lots of corp HQ, cheap land, own power grid (for better or worse), cost of labor, etc.

And abolishing ICE! Why should states be forced to host armies they don't agree with?

Strange that suddenly they don’t seem to like this concept so much anymore :)

“I support the right of $state to ban $thing”

Wait, not like that!

Interesting that there’s sort of a blue line right down the middle. Wonder why

Data Centers would have made them sooooooo rich, very silly policies indeed, they’d be swimming in money