Texas regulators approved permit for proposed Amp Z data center power plant after emissions reduction
Texas regulators approved an air permit for Verdant’s proposed power plant serving the Amp Z data center campus near Lufkin after the company reduced projected particulate emissions enough to avoid a more extensive federal pollution review. The approval and the regulator’s request have raised questions about public oversight and permit enforcement, while a statewide pause on data center-related permits has since been ordered as Texas reviews electricity and water demands.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality asked Verdant, the company developing a proposed 600-megawatt power plant for the Amp Z data center campus near Lufkin, to determine whether it could reduce projected particulate emissions below the threshold for a federal Prevention of Significant Deterioration review. Verdant reduced its estimated annual emissions by cutting one operating hour across its turbines, and TCEQ approved the plant’s air authorization in January 2025 as a minor pollution source. The approved documents nevertheless retained the higher operating-hours allowance, leaving a discrepancy the agency did not explain.
The permit allows the turbines to support data-processing facilities at the former Abitibi paper mill site. Separate wastewater and water-use questions remain unresolved, including a potential discharge of up to 5 million gallons per day and preliminary city estimates of the campus’s treated-water needs. Gov. Greg Abbott has since directed TCEQ to stop issuing permits for infrastructure supporting data center projects while ERCOT and the Texas Water Development Board review their electricity and water impacts.
The article also cites a federal lawsuit filed by Public Citizen and the Sierra Club against Vantage Data Centers companies and VoltaGrid over emissions permitting for two San Antonio campuses. The groups allege that the companies improperly treated related facilities as separate pollution sources and relied on inadequate limits to avoid major-source review.