He really is trying to find the guy that did this.
Gov. Greg Abbott called for blocking new data center development in rural parts of the state during a campaign stop in East Texas on Tuesday.
“We must prohibit them from building AI data centers in rural Texas neighborhoods,” Abbott said at the Bullard event, which primarily discussed his plan to cut property taxes, adding that this issue “dovetails right into fighting for East Texas values.”
Abbott’s push for a prohibition in rural neighborhoods appears to go further than a sweeping regulatory framework he unveiled earlier this month, which called for data centers to add new power generation to the grid, pay for their own infrastructure costs, reuse their own water and implement measures such as setbacks, among other proposals aimed at limiting their impact on residential communities.
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“I made clear already: Any AI data center even thinking about coming here — they got to bring their own money, bring their own power, reuse their own water and do it in a way that reduces the cost of electricity for residents across our state,” he said. “We must eliminate the tax break they are getting. They must be responsible for funding their own projects here in Texas. We will get that done.”
In outlining his regulatory recommendations this month, Abbott instructed the Public Utility Commission to “guarantee any data center development does not come at the cost of Texans and our local communities” and to consider how to “minimize adverse impacts on local communities.”
The third-term Republican governor had previously been enthusiastic about the influx of companies seeking to build the facilities, calling Texas “the epicenter of AI development” when he announced in November that Google had made a $40 billion investment in cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure in the state.
Abbott has received over $2 million from people and companies linked to the tech and AI industries since last year, E&E News by Politico reported in April.
His call for a ban in rural neighborhoods Tuesday comes as many rural counties and activists have attempted to pass moratoriums and called for the Legislature to grant them greater local control to prevent the construction of the centers. Opponents argue that the oftentimes gigantic operations will put their water availability and air quality at risk and threaten to hike their power bills.
The Data Center Coalition, a trade group for the industry, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but it has argued that its members are providing a critical service that the digital world depends upon, bringing immense property tax benefits and helping the U.S. win the AI war over foreign adversaries. The group has also pointed to technological advancements that reduce the facilities’ water needs.
A Texas Tribune analysis earlier this month found that nearly half of planned data centers in the state are set to be built in unincorporated areas not governed by cities or towns, up from 12% now.
See here for some background. I don’t have any particular quibble with the proposed regulations, but the reason we’re here today is because Abbott had not thoughts or cares about the possible consequences of flinging the gates (and the tax breaks) wide open in the first place. We could have had this kind of framework in place much earlier on, when it was easy to foresee what the downstream effects were going to be, and we could have given cities and counties more tools and techniques to at least have a say in how this would play out in their own backyards. But that’s not how weak leaders like Greg Abbott operate. And so, as usual, he’s scrambling to limit the damage that he himself caused.