Model legislation provides local governments and state officials with a legal framework for responding to data center development while protecting consumers, utility grids, and natural resources

 

Today, the Model Climate Laws Initiative (MCLI), a joint project of Environmental Advocates NY (EANY) and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School (Sabin Center), in partnership with Climate Mayors and Climate XChange, released a legislative package of two model laws on responsible and sustainable data center development.

The legislative package includes a model state law designed for state governments and authorities, and a model local law tailored to the needs of mayors and city officials.

EANY and the Sabin Center co-launched the MCLI in 2025 to give governments and lawmakers across the country the legal tools they need to adapt public policy quickly amidst evolving climate challenges. Now, as data center development accelerates rapidly across the country, placing unprecedented demands on local electricity systems, water resources, and land usage, these two model laws provide policy leaders with a framework for accommodating the environmental and energy impacts of data centers in a climate-responsible way.

“As data centers sprout up across the country, state and local governments can draw on these model laws to craft strong climate and energy protections,” said Jon Binder, Executive Director of the Model Climate Laws Initiative. “We aim to give lawmakers the tools they need to reap the investment and revenue benefits without straining existing energy grids, depleting natural resources, or pushing costs onto consumers.”

The model local law, A Framework for Responsible Data Center Development, is designed specifically to support city mayors, who are often on the front lines of data center expansion, regardless of how state agencies choose to handle development. It outlines a strategy around planning for and responding to growth that protects their communities through provisions such as zoning regulations, renewable energy requirements, and caps on water use and noise.

The model state law, Creating Low Emissions, Accountability, and New Generation Rules for Infrastructure and Data Center (CLEAN GRID) Act, is designed to help state governments address issues such as ensuring data centers provide new, additional clean energy to satisfy their own energy loads.

Even in states like New York, where Governor Kathy Hochul signed the first statewide moratorium on new large-scale data centers in July, the model law supports agencies in ensuring future projects comply with statewide energy and environmental standards.

Both model laws, written by lawmakers, policy experts, and advocates, offer strategic implementation and regulatory guidance with a focus on five main policy areas:

• Siting and permitting: Establishes requirements for where data centers can be located and how projects move through state and local approval processes, including public notification, hearings, and assessments of water, energy, noise, and utility capacity.

• Operational standards: Provides standards for incorporating new renewable energy and storage, potable water use, groundwater, noise, landscaping and setbacks, building design, materials, and backup generators.

• Transparency: Establishes disclosure and public-access provisions related to water, stormwater, trees, noise, energy use, power purchase agreements, and grid impacts.

• Planning: Establishes a statewide Planning Commission tasked with assessing industry impacts, while identifying technical opportunities for data centers to support clean energy and efficiency, including by supporting thermal energy networks and virtual power plants.

• Community benefits: Provides a framework for community benefits agreements addressing measurable local benefits, workforce and community investment, environmental mitigation, decommissioning, and enforcement.

“It’s never been more important for state and local leaders to step up and protect their constituents from Washington’s disastrous climate rollbacks,” said Vanessa Fajans-Turner, Executive Director of Environmental Advocates NY. “The Model Climate Laws Initiative empowers lawmakers, agencies, and policy leaders across the country to meet the urgency of this moment by comparing and evaluating laws and policies that can be used to face a range of climate, environmental, and energy regulatory challenges.”

The new model laws are available on MCLI’s new website, which houses publicly available and ready-to-use climate policy examples from across the country that public agencies and private actors can use as models for their own laws and policies.

The website also offers an interactive search function to help users easily find model laws based on jurisdiction type and/or specific legislation topics, including power sector, cross-sector, transportation, buildings, carbon capture and removal, methane and non-CO2 pollutants, fuels, foundational policies and context, climate justice, and resilience and adaptation.