SACRAMENTO — California’s Durazo data-center moratorium bill heads to the state Senate floor this week with the data-center industry having quietly conceded the bill’s 200-megawatt threshold provision following the May 14 publication of Treasury’s federal grid-impact disclosure rulemaking and the threshold alignment that has emerged between state and federal frameworks.

The bill, formally numbered SB 1097 and authored by Senator Maria Elena Durazo, D-Los Angeles, will receive Senate floor consideration during the week of May 18, with the Senate Rules Committee having placed the bill on the active calendar Friday afternoon. The bill’s substantive content has not been further modified since its May 13 Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee passage, which narrowed the moratorium’s applicability to facilities exceeding the 200-megawatt threshold.

The 200-megawatt threshold concession represents a substantive shift in the data-center industry’s negotiating posture. Industry trade associations had previously argued that any threshold below 400 megawatts would impose substantial operational disruption on the California data-center buildout, but the alignment of the state threshold with the federal Treasury rulemaking’s 200-megawatt threshold has shifted the industry’s calculus toward acceptance of the lower threshold in exchange for procedural protections.

A senior official at the California Chamber of Commerce, contacted Sunday afternoon, said the chamber’s posture toward the bill had shifted to “constructive engagement” following the threshold narrowing and the alignment with the federal framework. The official said the chamber would not formally oppose the bill at the floor stage but would advocate for several specific amendments that would clarify the bill’s procedural provisions.

The bill’s substantive content imposes a twenty-four-month moratorium on the issuance of state-level land-use approvals for new data-center facilities exceeding the 200-megawatt threshold, with a procedural pathway for case-by-case exceptions through a state-level review board. The bill’s purpose, as stated in the legislative findings, is to permit the state to “develop a substantive regulatory framework” for the next generation of large-scale AI compute infrastructure before additional facilities of that scale are committed to specific California locations.

Senator Durazo, in a Sunday-afternoon briefing for sacramento-area reporters, said the bill’s floor passage was “the substantively important next step” in establishing California’s regulatory posture on AI infrastructure. Durazo noted that the bill had been “deliberately structured” to align with the emerging federal framework rather than to create a duplicative state regime. The senator said she expected the bill to pass on the floor with bipartisan support.

The Senate’s floor consideration will likely include several amendments. Republican senators have signaled their intention to offer amendments that would shorten the moratorium’s twenty-four-month period and that would expand the case-by-case exception pathway. Democratic senators in the Senate Energy committee have signaled their intention to offer amendments that would strengthen the state-level review board’s substantive criteria.

Governor Gavin Newsom’s office, contacted Sunday afternoon, said the governor would “evaluate the bill on its merits” if it reaches his desk and indicated that the governor’s office had been “in substantive dialogue” with Senator Durazo on the bill’s framework through the past two weeks. The governor’s recent statements on AI infrastructure have emphasized the importance of state-federal alignment and have expressed broad support for the substantive direction of the bill.

The California Public Utilities Commission, which would have substantial implementation authority under the bill’s framework, filed a formal observer comment to the federal Treasury rulemaking Friday that emphasized the alignment between the state and federal threshold provisions. The commission’s chair, in a Sunday-afternoon statement, said the commission would “engage constructively” with the implementation framework if the bill is enacted into law.

The data-center industry’s principal trade association, the Data Center Coalition, in a Sunday-afternoon statement, said the association would “engage substantively” with the Senate floor process and would advocate for “procedural clarifications” while acknowledging the substantive policy framework that has emerged. The association’s statement represents a substantive shift from its prior posture, which had been characterized by broad opposition to the bill’s framework.

A senior official at one of the four largest U.S. data-center developers, contacted Sunday afternoon, said the company had reached an internal determination that “the threshold alignment between state and federal frameworks provides the operational predictability that the industry needs” and that the company would not actively lobby against the bill’s floor passage. The official said the company would continue to advocate for specific procedural improvements through the legislative process.

The Sierra Club’s California chapter, in a Sunday-afternoon statement, characterized the bill’s substantive framework as “an appropriate first step” toward state-level AI infrastructure regulation but said the chapter would advocate for “substantial strengthening” through the floor process. The chapter’s principal substantive concern is the bill’s case-by-case exception pathway, which the chapter has characterized as “potentially substantially undermining” the moratorium’s policy purpose.

Several other state legislatures have been monitoring the California process closely. New York’s State Assembly Energy Committee has been preparing similar legislation that is expected to be introduced during the New York legislative session’s final weeks. Texas legislators have signaled interest in a substantively different framework that would emphasize state-level incentive structures rather than moratorium provisions.

The bill’s floor vote is expected Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on the Senate’s substantive amendment process and the rules-committee’s scheduling decisions. The bill would then advance to the state Assembly for parallel consideration, with the Assembly’s substantive process expected to conclude in early June.

If enacted, the bill would establish California as the first state with a binding statutory framework for the regulation of large-scale AI compute facilities, providing a substantive complement to the federal Treasury rulemaking and to the pending Hennessey-Blackburn statutory framework at the federal level.