Texas Governor Directs Regulators to Shift Data Center Utility Costs to Companies, Review Tax Breaks
The Texas Governor has directed state regulators to ensure data centers, not households, bear the costs for power lines they require and to end certain tax breaks. The directive also mandates new reporting for electricity and water use, encouraging water-efficient cooling technologies to lessen community impacts.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has issued a directive to state regulators, aiming to shift the financial burden of data center power infrastructure from residential customers to the data center operators themselves. This action follows two years of advocacy from rural Texans regarding the costs associated with the significant electricity demands of these facilities.
The directive instructs state agencies to reduce the likelihood of ordinary Texans subsidizing data center growth and calls for comprehensive new reporting requirements on both electricity and water usage by data centers. Furthermore, it encourages the adoption of water-efficient cooling technologies and proposes the termination of specific tax incentives that initially attracted data center development to the state. The Governor's order also includes a mandate to study additional methods for mitigating the impacts of data centers on local communities.