{"id":332555,"date":"2026-06-11T19:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T19:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/332555\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T19:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T19:10:12","slug":"abbott-issues-recommendations-to-lessen-data-center-impacts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/332555\/","title":{"rendered":"Abbott issues recommendations to lessen data center impacts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TEXAS \u2014 Gov. Greg Abbott issued recommendations on Tuesday regarding the oversight and operations of data centers in Texas.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/s3.documentcloud.org\/documents\/28225490\/thomas-gleeson-pablo-vegas-data-centers-directive-letter-to-puc-ercot-final.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">letter<\/a> to the state\u2019s Public Utility Commission (PUC) chairman and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas&#8217; (ERCOT) chief executive officer, Abbott said the proposals are for the next legislative session and \u201cdesigned to ensure data centers shoulder the costs of their growth rather than Texas ratepayers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Abbott said he plans to work with the legislature on requiring new centers to cover the costs of their electrical infrastructure. He wants to ensure they \u201cadd to Texas\u2019 electric capacity, not just its electric demand,\u201d his letter said.<\/p>\n<p>He also wants to require \u201cwater-efficient technologies such as closed-loop cooling systems\u201d for new data centers. Many Texans have <a href=\"https:\/\/spectrumlocalnews.com\/tx\/south-texas-el-paso\/news\/2026\/05\/19\/texas-counties-pushing-back-against-data-centers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">worried<\/a> about data centers\u2019 water usage in their communities.<\/p>\n<p>To monitor water and electricity usage, Abbott wants large data centers to send the PUC a required annual report on their usage data.<\/p>\n<p>Other recommendations include repealing sales tax exemptions for data centers and using \u201csetbacks, noise-reduction technology, and other measures\u201d to limit the impact on nearby communities.<\/p>\n<p>Abbott also directed the PUC and ERCOT to create a joint memorandum reviewing how they\u2019ve mitigated data centers\u2019 impact on Texans, both financially and communally, with a submission date of no later than July 17.<\/p>\n<p>The governor also expects the PUC to \u201cinitiate action to reduce residential ratepayer transmission costs by July 31.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014 Gov. Greg Abbott issued recommendations on Tuesday regarding the oversight and operations of data centers in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1658,2160,132,134,133,5604,102,138,116,30432,56,1063,223,287,82,3621,27,2053],"class_list":["post-332555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-austin-what-you-need-to-know","tag-dallas","tag-el-paso","tag-fort-worth","tag-hannah-maguire","tag-houston","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-san-antonio","tag-technology","tag-texas","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332555","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=332555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}