Texas Continued Data Center Permitting After the Governor's Pause

A records review by FracTracker and Public Citizen found that, despite Governor Abbott’s September 21, 2026 directive to halt all data-center permitting while ERCOT, the PUC and the Texas Water Development Board audit grid and water impacts, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality continued moving many projects forward. Between Sept. 21 and Oct. 16 TCEQ mailed three major-source air permit notices, issued seven emission-limit certifications, approved 11 construction stormwater coverages and allowed 14 gas-plant or generator applications to advance - often expedited. Examples include notices for VoltaGrid’s ABI-1 (serving Vantage), Nexus’s Hubbard site and NRG Prairie, stormwater approvals for Caldwell Valley Technology Park, Crusoe’s Abilene campus and EdgeConneX’s Cedar Creek, and an emission certification for Decennial’s San Antonio center. Public-notice mailings restarted comment clocks the day after the pause, and stormwater approvals legally enable clearing and grading.

The review highlights loose agency definitions of “infrastructure supporting data centers” - for example, LCRA’s Misty substation and a 4,000-bed construction workforce camp had permits advance without being labeled as data-center projects - and poor public transparency because applicants use opaque LLCs. The findings call for a statewide moratorium to permit cumulative-impact studies, a centralized public tracker linking campuses, owners, permits and infrastructure, and strict compliance by TCEQ with the governor’s pause while ERCOT, the PUC and the Texas Water Development Board complete audits.