Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has ordered a halt to all environmental permits tied to data center construction, deepening a pause on the AI industry that has sought to grow throughout the state.
CNBC reports that the directive, issued Monday, tells the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to stop processing data center permits until the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) finishes auditing the backlog of data centers waiting for grid connections. TCEQ has to report back to the governor’s office on its compliance by Oct. 19.
It builds on an earlier order. In August, Abbott’s office had already directed the audits and put a moratorium on new data center grid approvals. Monday’s order extends that freeze to environmental permits, too, closing off another route developers had been using to keep projects moving.
Breitbart News reported earlier in September that Abbott is targeting data centers that have refused to report their water usage via mandatory surveys:
The directive follows a rough stretch of compliance numbers: less than 30 percent of data centers responded to the state’s water usage survey last year, and response rates dipped as low as 28 percent over the past three years. Abbott wants an update from the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) on compliance and enforcement by the middle of October.
“Data centers must share the duty to protect Texas water,” Abbott said. “The Texas Water Code requires a complete and accurate water use survey. I direct the Texas Water Development Board to use its enforcement authority to penalize past failures and to impose legal consequences for any future failure to comply.”
The data center industry is running into real resistance in Texas, and the numbers attached to it are big. BloombergNEF analysts found last month that nearly 20 percent of the country’s 253-gigawatt data center pipeline, close to 50 gigawatts of proposed capacity, is at risk because of the Texas pause. The same analysis puts possible revenue losses tied to the delay at $8 billion by the first quarter of 2027.
Texas isn’t an isolated case, either: a report from Data Center Watch found $68 billion in data center development was delayed or cancelled nationwide last quarter alone because of local opposition.
AI data centers and the integration of this technology is changing the political landscape. Breitbart News social media director Wynton Hall has written his New York Times bestseller Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI to serve as the definitive guide on how the MAGA movement can create positions on AI that benefit humanity without handing control of our nation to the leftists of Silicon Valley or allowing the Chinese to take over the world.
Read more at CNBC here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of AI, free speech, and online censorship.