Texas has become a hotspot for data centers, thanks to available land and business-friendly regulations. But as the number of centers grows, so too do concerns about their water and power consumption.
“People are really upset,” Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said to Fox 51 in Tyler. “[Data centers are] taking up our very valuable farmland. They’re using lots and lots of water.”
Miller has a solution to relieve some of the distress over data centers, though. He wants a temporary moratorium on new development so the state can establish new guidelines for the industry, he wrote in a recent op-ed.
“What I’m saying is hey, let’s take a pause, let’s put everything on hold, let’s figure this out,” Miller said to the Tyler TV station.
Miller isn’t long for the agriculture commissioner job, however. He was defeated in the Republican primary by challenger Nate Sheets.
Sheets is running against Democrat Clayton Tucker for the job. The Texas Standard’s Michael Marks discussed what Miller’s potential replacements think of a data center development pause. Listen to the interview in the player above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: First, can you give us more details on what exactly Commissioner Miller is proposing here?
Michael Marks: Yeah, Miller is proposing a temporary pause on all data center development in Texas so that the state can measure the impact of these current projects — what are they gonna mean in terms of power and water — and then put up some guardrails to govern future development.
According to the website [Cleanview], which tracks data center projects, there are over 150 of these in some stage of development right now, and Miller wants to know precisely how they’d affect the grid and groundwater before going forward.
So these two candidates to replace Miller, where did they stand on possible data center development moratorium? I guess let’s start with Republican candidate, the one who defeated Miller, Nate Sheets.
Michael Marks: Right, yeah, I don’t know exactly what Nate Sheets thinks about a data center moratorium. He did not respond to my calls or my text messages. And he doesn’t address the specific idea on his website.
I looked around for comments he’s made about data centers and he has concerns about power and water, but also emphasizes that, hey, these are here to stay and they ought to be part of the solution themselves when it comes to resource usage. This is Sheets talking to KRBC and Abilene in December:
Nate Sheets [recording]: The data centers are coming whether we like it or not. We need to take advantage of it, and what role can they play in helping to fund water programs that we can really work on, trying to take the 26 billion barrels of produced water that come out of the Permian Basin on a daily basis and clean that up and even be able to use it into agriculture. So if we can look at those data centers as a resourcing option for us, then it could be a good thing.
Michael Marks: Sheets has also emphasized that data center development is part of President Trump’s agenda, which he supports.
What about Clayton Tucker, the Democrat in the race?
Michael Marks: Tucker’s made data center regulation a key part of his campaign. I asked him what he thought about this idea of Commissioner Sid Miller’s this data center moratorium, and this is what he said:
Clayton Tucker [recording]: I’m 100% for it.
Michael Marks: Tucker says we should pause development to adopt better regulations and give the technology around data centers time to improve. For example, he says that data centers should be responsible for their own power.
Clayton Tucker [recording]: If they want to build these things, they should build the power plants first, build the power lines, pay for all that. And ideally, I would actually want the data centers to donate like maybe a portion of the power they generate to the public for free. So it’d actually lower our power bills, not increase them.
All right, Tucker’s for it, Miller’s for it, but does the agriculture commissioner have the power to do this? I mean, could they alone impose some sort of moratorium on data center development here in the state?
Michael Marks: Yeah, that’s kind of the million-dollar question here, right?
The Texas Agriculture Commissioner does not have any legal powers to impose a data center moratorium, no. I think their main means of influence is with doing just what Commissioner Miller has done with writing opinion columns and so on, using the bully pulpit.
But this is an idea that is taking hold among people who do have such powers. You know, Harlingen approved a 120-day break on data center development last month. Commissioners in Tom Green County, thinking about the same thing.
We spoke to the judge of Hill County here on the Texas Standard, who recently approved a moratorium. Worth noting, at the end of last week, the county was sued by data center developer, RCM Hill for $100 million over the policy.
So these pauses seem to be gaining steam and are controversial in some corners.
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