Maine Gov. Janet Mills vetoed what would have been the nation's first statewide moratorium on large data centers, citing the need to preserve a $550 million project in Jay that would repurpose a shuttered paper mill and create roughly 900 jobs in a distressed region. Mills supports a temporary moratorium but said this specific project deserves exemption because the host community backs it and the infrastructure reuse minimizes grid impact. The veto reflects a broader tension in state legislatures nationwide between environmental concerns and AI-driven economic development, complicated by Mills' own underdog U.S. Senate campaign.