Texas Lacks Statewide Record of Water Use, Local Tax Breaks for Data Centers - thetexan.news

During a hearing at the Texas Capitol, members of the State Affairs Committee learned that agencies do not comprehensively track data centers' water consumption or the local tax incentives extended to them. The state currently relies on survey responses submitted by the developers themselves, meaning the Legislature is shaping policy around self-reported numbers.

Pablo Vegas, CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, and Thomas Gleeson, chairman of the Public Utility Commission of Texas, both appeared before the committee. Their agencies manage Texas' electric grid, which is already under pressure from rapid data center growth across the state.

For Lubbock residents, this matters. The South Plains sits on the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the most stressed freshwater sources in the country, and large-scale data centers are notoriously water-intensive operations used to cool servers. If the state cannot accurately account for how much water these facilities pull, local water planning gets harder for every city in the region.

Texas is one of the fastest-growing states for data center investment, and right now nobody in state government can say precisely what that growth is costing in water or tax revenue.