New York State legislature has passed a law imposing a two-year moratorium on the use of fossil-fuel power plants for crypto mining.
The State Assembly passed the bill in April and the Senate passed it late last week as part of the state’s effort to reduce statewide greenhouse gas emissions by 85% by 2050.
Despite the bill’s progress, New York Governor Kathy Hochul remains undecided on whether to sign it into law.
“There is a balancing act involved here, very much a balancing act. We have to balance protection of the environment, but also protect the opportunity for jobs that go to areas that don’t see a lot of activity, and making sure that the energy that’s consumed by these entities, is managed properly,” the governor said in a statement on Monday.
The bill argued that cryptocurrency mining operations “are an expanding industry in the state of New York” that “will greatly increase the amount of energy usage”
The bill will therefore impose a moratorium to prevent the mining of cryptocurrencies from increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and the moratorium will include the issuance and renewal of air permits for an electricity generation plant that uses carbon-based fuel and supplies energy used by cryptocurrency mining operations.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.