Lubbock City Council passed a motion last month to begin the procedure to adopt a pause on large-scale data center development. The vote came after two different orders from Texas Governor Greg Abbott effectively halted the approval of new facilities, pending an audit from the state’s electric grid operator and regulatory agency.
On Sept. 22, Lubbock’s city council initiated the procedure to adopt a 90-day pause on the request and approval of large-scale data centers. Two council members voted against the moratorium: District 4’s Tim Green and District 6 representative Tim Collins.
In the meeting, Green explained that his reason for voting against the pause was the potential economic benefits of data center projects.
“I'm telling the data center industry: bring us a project, show us the technology, show us a water plan, show us a power plan, show us the investment, show us what it does for the taxpayers of Lubbock. Then we can make the decision,” Green said.
He acknowledged that there are “legitimate concerns about data centers,” but said he believes in the city’s ability to determine if a project is appropriate.
“I don't believe the answer is simply to shut the door on data centers for basically 270 days, when you do the math,” Green said. “We need to set the standard, protect the grid, protect our water, and protect the taxpayer, and then let the private sector determine whether it can meet those standards.”
The procedure to initiate a moratorium takes about 90 days. If given final approval, the pause itself would also be 90 days, with the option to extend for another 90 days.
The city’s potential 90-day moratorium is separate from the 18-month moratorium put before the city council by a citizens’ petition.
The main push from Lubbock citizens for the city to put a moratorium in place came before Texas Governor Greg Abbott had taken action to pause data center developments on a state level.
On Aug. 3, in between the deadline for the citizens group Save Lubbock to collect signatures to put the moratorium before council and the validation of that petition, Abbott issued a directive. That order said no data center projects will move forward until the completion of an audit of projects looking to connect to the statewide energy grid from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT).
Abbott’s directive did not establish a deadline for the audit, but ERCOT has given developers until Oct. 12 to complete their request for information documents. Along with the PUCT, it expects to release its analysis of that information before the end of the year.
The day before the city council voted to initiate a local moratorium procedure, Sept. 21, Abbott directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to stop issuing new permits for data center developments until the audit is complete. He has ordered a compliance update from the TCEQ by Oct. 19.
With these new restrictions in place from the state, Lubbock Mayor Mark McBrayer said at the Sept. 22 city council meeting that there likely would not be any new developers approaching the city with a project proposal anytime soon.
“But we are staking a position that we want to wait for our legislators at the state level to give some direction, to give some further guidance in areas that only they can give guidance,” McBrayer said.
The next regular session of the Texas Legislature begins on Jan. 12, 2027.
KTTZ sat down with District 6 councilman Tim Collins. He explained his reason for voting against the moratorium was not because he does not want one in place, but that he wants the city to be careful about when they initiate it.
“Throughout all of the things that are being studied and going to be examined by the legislature, I feel like we're going to see more changes,” he posited. “The legislature may give us more tools to use. They may limit the tools that we have today. There's no telling what might come out of that legislative session and whether or not there'd be a special session called at the end.”
Under the state’s local government code, the city cannot adopt another moratorium addressing the same types of property and concerns until two years after the previous moratorium has expired.
Collins said he does not know what to expect from the legislative session, but does not think the lawmakers will be ignoring data centers altogether.
“I feel like it's fairly easy for the legislators to go to Austin and say, ‘Cities, you need to create growth.’ And at the same time, those of us here at home have to contend with the desire to create growth and what the constituents are expecting and asking. And then really the bigger point of this is the preservation of the resources that our city has – our citizens – have bought and paid for for years,” he explained.
Water preservation has been a priority investment for the City of Lubbock. Collins points to 2011, which was recorded as Lubbock County’s driest year on record according to the National Weather Service. The U.S. Drought Monitor reports that Lubbock County is still in a severe drought.
“And then you couple their needs with the enormous, enormous costs associated with treatment plants, pipelines, acquiring water rights, and it makes it very, very difficult for a small community to manage that,” he described. “And so if you've got a $25-30 million treatment plant that you have to build, and you've got 3,000 citizens, that's a big burden for each of those citizens to put onto their tax bill over the course of 30 years or shorter.”
Another widely-held concern when it comes to large-scale data centers is electricity usage.
According to the governor’s order for an audit, the grid connection requests that ERCOT is currently considering are “more than five times Texas’ record peak electricity demand for ERCOT.” About 90% of those requests are data centers.
“I think also just for the legislature: We're going to create a whole set of laws for one industry, and not apply it to other industries?” Collins asked. “It just becomes a very tricky business as they try to control this growth. And I do think they want to control this growth. I don't think our electrical capacity is nearly adequate, and I don't think that our ability to manage behind-the-meter electrical capacity exists in any form today.”
In its Sept. 9 meeting, Lubbock City Council passed a resolution that it would not consider any large-scale data center developments until after the city had adopted what it considers adequate regulations to protect resources and citizens.
Two days later, Lubbock’s Planning & Zoning Commission met to discuss the standards recommended by city staff, but postponed a vote on the recommendations until November.
“It's a complicated change, and then it's complicated to change it again,” Collins argued. “And so I think they go through with what's been presented and what we know today – back to why I asked for a wait is – if this changed dramatically through the session, then it's going to take a minute to get back through it.”
Collins stressed that how to proceed with data centers is a “shared concern” with many different perspectives, approaches, feelings, and information.
“There's a lot of misinformation out there. There's a lot of good information out there. How to get between the two is challenging for all of us. Hopefully my constituents, citizens of Lubbock, would recognize that I'm trying my best to learn all I can,” he said. “The moratorium still gives me plenty of time to continue my studies.”
Currently, we do not know how long the governor’s pause on data centers will last. ERCOT has said that it intends to publish its data center report with the PUCT by Dec. 10.
Putting a moratorium in place now could buy the city time through the legislative session, but leave the council without the ability to pause proposals once it’s over and new state regulations may be in place.
For now, though, Councilman Collins said he wants to make sure the city is cautious with its timing and that it has as much information as possible to protect itself.
“My game was a long game. I want to see what comes of new statutory requirements, if there are any, and there may not be any, but there may be a whole list of them. But that would have been my plan, and the rest of the council didn't agree, and I'm okay with that,” he said. “And if people can appreciate at least that ‘Councilman Collins put a lot of thought into this. I don't agree with his opinion, but I can recognize that it was thoughtful. It wasn't a knee-jerk reaction. It wasn't made out of anger or frustration.’ Then I've done all I can do.”
The moratorium requires two public hearings before it can be instated. Once it goes back before the council for a vote, it will require at least three-quarters of the council’s approval to pass under Texas’ local government code – for the current city council, that will be at least 6-1. The city council is expected to hold its first public hearing in November.