Rob Simpson Takes Part in Gov. Kathy Hochul's Roundtable on Data Center Development

Governor Kathy Hochul held a roundtable with state, business and local leaders from across the state to highlight her Executive Order that creates the nation’s first moratorium on new hyperscale data centers, establishing the strongest standards for data center development and creating a blueprint to support localities. The Governor is temporarily pausing state environmental permits for up to one year in order to build a nation-leading regulatory framework that protects ratepayers, the environment, the energy grid and communities across the state.

CenterState CEO Chief Executive Officer Rob Simpson took part in the roundtable, and advocated to create a policy framework that would require data center development to provide an adequate value proposition to communities, along with investments in the utility grid and commitments to sustainability. 

"New York needs to be in the game and should lead at the head of the table. New York has a demonstrated track record of holding partners, including corporate partners, to account for bringing the best-in-class sustainable technology and really innovating around how to minimize those environmental impacts and improve, frankly, hopefully accelerate our path along New York State's climate goals," said Simpson. "Finding a way to work with some of the most sophisticated and capable companies in the world to access that compute power and put it to work for local governments, for schools, for research institutions, for economic development, job creation, and innovation - that, I think, is the opportunity that I hear all of you talking about as we talk about this pause and building a forward-looking framework. You've done this before. You did it with the Micron project. As a result of that strong leadership, you put our community in a position to negotiate one of the largest community investment frameworks in the history of the country because New York state empowered us with a policy framework. And I think we should be doing that again."