Texas will stop issuing environmental permits for data centers, Gov. Abbott says - Community Impact Newspaper

The order expands an existing pause on data center development across Texas, coming after months of public pushback against the industry's rapid growth. Abbott is seeking a fourth term as governor.

The halt gives the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the agency that runs the state's power grid, room to audit proposed data center projects before regulators approve anything new. ERCOT manages the grid that keeps lights on from the Panhandle down through the South Plains, so any slowdown in how it evaluates massive new power draws touches every corner of the state, Lubbock included.

For folks here, the freeze means any data center proposal looking to break ground in Texas right now hits a wall at the state level, regardless of local zoning or economic development interest. Data centers pull enormous amounts of electricity. Abbott's letter signals state leaders want a clearer picture of what that demand does to grid reliability before more projects get greenlit. The pause applies everywhere in Texas, not just the big metros usually associated with the AI boom.

A governor who once branded Texas the epicenter of AI development just told his own environmental agency to stop letting more of it get built.