TEXAS \u2014 In the next two years, Texas is expected to get a new No. 1 ranking: the state with the most data centers. With that growth comes pushback, and not just in Texas. Nationwide, more than a dozen states are currently considering bills to stop data center construction. State lawmakers have also taken up discussions ahead of the January start of the 90th\u00a0Texas Legislature\u2019s regular session.<\/p>\n
Committee meetings are being held at the Texas Capitol to discuss data centers and their potential effects on nearby communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen there\u2019s a concentration of these data centers, how does that impact the quality of air for residential persons living in and near around those data centers?\u201d asked state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, during the first meeting.<\/p>\n
Texas is not the only state looking more closely at data centers. More than a dozen states across the country are considering some sort of moratorium on these kinds of projects, with Maine being the first to send legislation to its governor\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a temporary, targeted pause only for projects over 20 megawatts,\u201d said Maine Rep. Melanie Sachs, D-Freeport.<\/p>\n
Sachs is the sponsor of what its state government calls Legislative Document 307. She says her constituents have concerns about the environmental impact of data centers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe pretty much have a consistent, I would say, culture of really making sure that our environment and our communities are protected, in a way, and we prioritize that,\u201d Sachs said.<\/p>\n
Maine Gov. Janet Mills ultimately vetoed the bill.<\/p>\n
Back in Texas, with Gov. Greg Abbott strongly supporting data center growth in the state, experts don\u2019t believe a ban on these projects will come to Texas.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as Republicans control the apparatus of state government, I think it\u2019s unlikely that we would see any sort of sweeping statewide action,\u201d said Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University.<\/p>\n
He also says where politicians stand on this issue could affect the midterms and the 2027 legislative session.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the state energy providers, like ERCOT, are saying that demand for power this summer could be at all-time records, in part because of the power needs of data centers, and if that results in blackouts anywhere in the state, all of a sudden this becomes a huge issue,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014 In the next two years, Texas is expected to get a new No. 1 ranking: the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1657,1658,1570,6364,287,3621,27,29,28,1569,835],"class_list":["post-273094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-app-latest-local-state-politics-stories","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-ctv","tag-geraldine-torrellas","tag-politics","tag-technology","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}