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Slate News

Slate Podcasts

News Commentary, Politics, News

4.5 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2026

⏱️ 5 minutes

🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ah, New York—where it’s hot, loud, and the air is barely breathable. So it’s not especially surprising that Governor Kathy Hochul is opting out of adding to all of that and announcing a moratorium on building new data centers in the state.

Guest: Nitish Pahwa, Slate staff writer

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Podcast production by Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and happy Friday Slatesters.
0:07.2	This is the moment when we go off the record, just for you, our Slate Plus friends and neighbors.
0:13.5	If you're listening to this, you're a Slate Plus member, we love you, et cetera, et cetera.
0:18.9	Over in the regular What Next Universe, we have talked about Todd Blanche, we've talked about
0:24.1	gerotocracy, and my favorite story of the moment, explosive diarrhea.
0:34.7	We've been talking about the cyclospora outbreak that is not funny, and yet saying the word diarrhea is unfortunately very funny.
0:42.8	But we're not talking about any of those today. I hope we're not talking about any of those today, Tish.
0:46.7	I did find out. A friend of mine in Michigan did get the virus. It's a parasite. It's a parasite, not a virus.
0:53.3	Parasite, yes. Thank you for correct to me. He's pretty much fine, though. Like he said, he just had mild symptoms, thankfully, and didn't find out until getting tested. So, so just offering that anecdote out there. I'm going to Michigan soon, and I am extremely worried about it. There will be no lettuce. I will have no lettuce in Michigan.
1:12.8	But that is not what we're talking about today.
1:15.2	We're not.
1:16.9	Natish Pawah, we are here to talk to you about business, technology, the things you cover, not diarrhea.
1:22.4	Welcome back, Tish.
1:23.5	Thank you so much, Lizzie.
1:24.9	Always happy to be here.
1:26.5	Thank you.
1:48.8	All right. So today, actually, we are here to talk about data centers. The big news this week, Governor Kathy Hogle, of this state that we are currently in, New York, surprised us, frankly, with an announcement of a first of its kind data center moratorium here in the Empire State. Let's lay it out. Say what's going on here, Tish. Talk me through it. Absolutely. Yeah. So,
1:55.4	this was an interesting situation because the legislature in Albany had passed by pretty commanding
2:06.3	majorities a temporary pause on data centers and had sent it to the governor's desk. Right now,
2:13.4	she's going through her normal cycle of deciding which bill she wants to sign, veto, et cetera.
2:19.0	And instead of signing the legislature's bill, she decided to go with her own executive order.
2:27.5	The explanation from her office was that the bill that made it to her was a little too complex
	...

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