{"id":341996,"date":"2026-06-18T23:00:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T23:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/341996\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T23:00:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T23:00:48","slug":"fort-worth-mayors-husband-listed-as-lobbyist-for-data-center-group-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/341996\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Worth mayor’s husband listed as lobbyist for data center group"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor Mattie Parker<\/a>‘s husband David Parker is listed as a lobbyist for the Virginia-based Data Center Coalition<\/a> according to a filing with the Texas Ethics Commission<\/a>. He has been involved in the group since January, according to official filings.<\/p>\n

The organization describes itself as representing and advancing the interests of the data center community through policy advocacy, informing public officials and promoting the benefits of the industry.<\/p>\n

The coalition represents major tech firms like Google and Microsoft. Their public list<\/a> does not include the organizations currently developing data centers in Fort Worth.<\/p>\n

City ethics rules forbid officials or their partners from accepting benefits that could influence official duties. The mayor told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram<\/a> neither she nor her husband have received direct benefits or engaged in advocacy that would require recusal.<\/p>\n

Parker told the Star-Telegram that while an Austin-based member of her husband’s firm has handled state policy for the Data Center Coalition, her husband performs no direct advocacy for them.<\/p>\n

The Data Center Coalition is among 37 groups David Parker represents as a lobbyist, alongside the Dallas Regional Chamber, the Texas Association of Realtors and Uber Technologies.<\/p>\n

Data centers have faced increased scrutiny for high resource consumption \u2014 mid-sized hubs use up to 300,000 gallons of water daily, while large AI facilities can use 5 million gallons. While small centers require up to 5 megawatts of energy, large facilities operated by giants like Google or Amazon can consume 20 to 100 megawatts<\/a>. A single megawatt is capable of powering 200 Texas homes during peak demand.<\/p>\n

Residents remain concerned about noise and resource use and push for a moratorium on data centers.<\/p>\n

City Manager Jay Chapa prepared a report to ensure Fort Worth’s policies protect residents while meeting economic goals concerning data centers. This follow’s the council’s decision to table a 50% tax break for Edged Data Centers<\/a> on March 31.<\/p>\n

The city council is scheduled to vote Aug. 11 on new data center development regulations.<\/p>\n

Alexsis Jones is a reporter and producer for KERA News. Got a tip? Email Alexsis at ajones@kera.org.<\/p>\n

KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider\u00a0making a tax-deductible gift today<\/a>. Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Mattie Parker‘s husband David Parker is listed as a lobbyist for the Virginia-based Data Center Coalition according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-341996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341996","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=341996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}