Battle lines being redrawn in New York state’s war on industry ⁠92%

By Bill Ponton⁠0%

7/20/2026, 12:00:00 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 27 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Confirmation Bias, and Anecdotal, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 54.2% saturation with 237 hits. Analysis detected 1,381 faulty-reasoning hits from 437 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 86.3% and a BS Rank of ⁠92% (1,829 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 91.60% of the article peer group.

New York State was one of the first states to ban fracking and refuse permission to expand gas pipelines. 
Now, the battle line—in New York’s continued war on fossil fuel—has shifted to opposing datacenter expansion in the state. 
State governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order last week making the state the first in the nation to implement a moratorium on new hyperscale data centers. 
With a flood of applications to build data centers awaiting approval, she decided to appease a coalition of environmental groups with a one-year moratorium obstruction. 
Hochul says applying the brakes to new data center construction will give the state time to establish “guardrails to reduce the risk to our energy grid” but the opposite is true. 
She is already hamstrung by prior state legislation, which has committed the state to attaining legislated clean energy milestones by as early as 2030. 
It is the data centers that will need the assurance that New York State’s energy grid will not falter. 
Considering NY state authorities’ commitment to meeting these clean energy targets and the reduction in firm thermal capacity that would accompany it, grid reliability may become a victim. 
New York state is not at a complete disadvantage in terms of power. 
It can draw on power from Niagara Falls hydro and has increased its transmission capacity to receive more power from Hydro-Québec, but it has prematurely retired much of its former thermal generation capacity and replaced it with intermittent renewable sources. 
In addition, a lack of natural gas pipeline access in NY state and a vocal constituency that wants to rid the state of natural gas all together makes it difficult for a datacenter to provide its own power with gas generators standing ready if the grid falters. 
Combined with a political environment in the state that is generally hostile to the interests of business, especially ones that are energy intensive, it is a wonder that anyone would want to locate a data center there. 
However, I suppose they have solid business reasons for wanting to do so. 
If one has taken a drive through upstate New York recently, except for resort towns in the Adirondack and Finger Lake region and college towns like Cornell University in Ithaca, one sees a great number of communities in economic decline. 
I am not saying that data centers would be a panacea for these communities, but it certainly might help. 
However, Governor Hochul seems content to manage decline in her state and stay true to her followers in the environmental movement. 
Image generated by ChatGPT. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 30.0%Bill Ponton: 8.4%American Thinker: 10.6%Confirmation Bias30.0%This article: 5.5%Bill Ponton: 0.4%American Thinker: 0.7%Anchoring Bias5.5%This article: 3.0%Bill Ponton: 6.2%American Thinker: 3.7%Availability Heuristic3.0%This article: 9.2%Bill Ponton: 4.2%American Thinker: 1.6%Representativeness Heuristic9.2%This article: 9.2%Bill Ponton: 1.5%American Thinker: 1.3%Hindsight Bias9.2%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 2.4%American Thinker: 2.7%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 4.3%Bill Ponton: 6.5%American Thinker: 7.1%Framing Effect4.3%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.7%American Thinker: 0.6%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.7%American Thinker: 0.6%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.0%American Thinker: 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 4.3%Bill Ponton: 1.4%American Thinker: 1.6%Optimism Bias4.3%This article: 13.5%Bill Ponton: 7.0%American Thinker: 2.6%Pessimism Bias13.5%This article: 38.9%Bill Ponton: 14.1%American Thinker: 13.0%Negativity Bias38.9%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 1.9%American Thinker: 1.1%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 10.5%Bill Ponton: 3.7%American Thinker: 2.9%Fundamental Attribution Error10.5%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.0%American Thinker: 0.2%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 8.5%Bill Ponton: 6.4%American Thinker: 3.9%In-Group Bias8.5%This article: 10.8%Bill Ponton: 10.8%American Thinker: 5.0%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias10.8%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 3.0%American Thinker: 2.6%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.5%American Thinker: 0.8%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.0%American Thinker: 0.1%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.7%American Thinker: 1.3%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.0%American Thinker: 0.7%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 3.0%Bill Ponton: 0.8%American Thinker: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias3.0%This article: 4.8%Bill Ponton: 8.6%American Thinker: 5.6%Ad Hominem4.8%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 2.4%American Thinker: 4.0%Straw Man0.0%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 1.2%American Thinker: 4.7%Appeal to Authority0.0%This article: 10.8%Bill Ponton: 2.9%American Thinker: 4.7%False Dilemma10.8%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 3.3%American Thinker: 3.3%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.0%American Thinker: 0.3%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 9.2%Bill Ponton: 27.2%American Thinker: 16.8%Hasty Generalization9.2%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.0%American Thinker: 0.6%Red Herring0.0%This article: 8.5%Bill Ponton: 2.1%American Thinker: 0.5%Bandwagon8.5%This article: 14.2%Bill Ponton: 9.3%American Thinker: 8.5%Appeal to Emotion14.2%This article: 7.1%Bill Ponton: 3.5%American Thinker: 2.7%Begging the Question7.1%This article: 6.4%Bill Ponton: 2.2%American Thinker: 3.9%Post Hoc (False Cause)6.4%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.2%American Thinker: 0.3%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 4.3%Bill Ponton: 0.7%American Thinker: 1.7%Burden of Proof4.3%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.2%American Thinker: 0.5%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.4%American Thinker: 0.8%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 18.3%Bill Ponton: 5.8%American Thinker: 3.6%Anecdotal18.3%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.3%American Thinker: 0.4%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 1.9%American Thinker: 2.0%Ambiguity (Equivocation)0.0%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.0%American Thinker: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 4.3%Bill Ponton: 0.3%American Thinker: 0.1%Middle Ground4.3%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.5%American Thinker: 0.2%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 3.0%Bill Ponton: 0.2%American Thinker: 0.2%Special Pleading3.0%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.4%American Thinker: 0.7%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 7.1%Bill Ponton: 2.4%American Thinker: 3.1%Unattributed Quote7.1%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 1.9%American Thinker: 1.9%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 54.2%Bill Ponton: 32.0%American Thinker: 22.9%Biased Writer Voice54.2%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 4.4%American Thinker: 5.9%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 0.0%American Thinker: 0.4%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 13.3%Bill Ponton: 24.3%American Thinker: 14.5%Politically Right Leaning Bias13.3%This article: 0.0%Bill Ponton: 1.7%American Thinker: 0.7%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

437 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers19%attributed speech354writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 11 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 19 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 19 words • 0.0% coverageKathy Hochul • 27 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 25 words • 100.0% coverageKathy Hochul • 31 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 24 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 19 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 28 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 13 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 40 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 47 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 37 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 13 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 40 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 19 words • 100.0% coverageKathy Hochul • 21 words • 100.0% coverageChatGPT • 4 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

Kathy Hochul

100%flagged-word coverage
79 attributed words95% of attributed speech92% writer coverage
0%32.5%65.0%Biased Writer Voice+7.4 ptsWriter: 53.4%Kathy Hochul: 60.8%60.8%Unattributed Quote+39.2 ptsWriter: 0.0%Kathy Hochul: 39.2%39.2%Politically Right Leaning +16.1 ptsWriter: 10.5%Kathy Hochul: 26.6%26.6%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.