Gov. Tina Kotek ordered every state agency on Tuesday, Sept. 8, to halt unapproved data center projects on state-owned land through July 1, 2027.

The directive freezes easements, leases, land-use permits and property sales tied to data centers that have not yet been approved. It lands in the backyard of Washington County's tech corridor, where between a dozen and three dozen data centers operate or are planned, according to the Portland Tribune. Hillsboro, the corridor's hub and one of just two West Coast locations with undersea fiber cable landing stations, already passed its own 120-day moratorium on new data center approvals on Aug. 2.

"Data center corporations are asking communities to absorb enormous demands on our water, energy, infrastructure, and natural resources, and we need to know what that means for Oregonians," Kotek said in a news release reported by KGW.

Kotek's office called the pause "essential" to evaluate data center impacts on infrastructure capacity, environmental sustainability, water usage and job creation. The governor lacks authority to impose a statewide moratorium on all data center construction. Her office said the directive reflects what she can do within her executive power.

Rate shifts hit close to home

The directive follows a 2025 law known as the POWER Act, which created a separate electricity rate class for data centers and other very large energy users. According to Kotek's office, the law has already produced a 29% rate increase for data centers and rate decreases for all other Portland General Electric (PGE) ratepayers.

PGE is not done raising rates.

The utility proposed on July 31 a 3.9% residential rate increase averaging $8.33 a month, to take effect next July, according to KGW. Data center operators would face an additional 7.7% hike on top of the recent 29% increase. That proposal is subject to an 11-month Public Utility Commission review.

Cedar Mill News reported in August that PGE and Pacific Power rates have climbed roughly 50% over the past five years. One estimate puts PGE's planned resource additions for data centers at around 26% of its total.

Escalation beyond the advisory committee

Kotek's action goes further than her own advisory committee recommended. That panel, which met since February, declined to call for a moratorium. Co-chair Margaret Hoffmann said at the committee's Aug. 7 meeting that a moratorium "was not our charge."

The committee's draft report is due by mid-September, with a final public meeting set for Sept. 23 and a final report expected in October. Data centers in Oregon are projected to receive nearly $500 million in property tax breaks in 2026 alone.

Meanwhile, four Democratic state lawmakers plan to propose a three-year moratorium on new large data centers during the 2027 legislative session beginning in January, according to the Portland Tribune.

In July, Kotek canceled a land sale for a proposed $5 billion data center in Salem after neighbors opposed the project at a city council meeting. The Sept. 8 directive extends that approach statewide on public land.