What The Records Show
A pause on data center permits in Texas did not stop the paperwork, according to two watchdog groups. FracTracker Alliance and Public Citizen went through the records of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and counted 35 permitting actions for data center projects between 21 September, the day Governor Greg Abbott told the agency to halt such permits, and 16 October. They published their findings on 19 October.
The governor's letter told TCEQ to stop issuing data center permits until the grid operator ERCOT has finished its review of data center projects, and said no other state agency should move on related approvals until then. FracTracker's breakdown of what happened afterwards:
- three preliminary decisions on major-source air permits, mailed on 22 September;
- 11 construction stormwater coverages approved;
- seven air emission-limit certifications recorded as issued;
- 14 applications for gas plants or generators that kept moving through review, some expedited or assigned to an engineer.
The Power Plants On The List
The three major-source notices cover VoltaGrid's ABI-1 plant, which is to serve Vantage's campus in Shackelford County, the Nexus self-powered data center in Hubbard, and NRG's Prairie Energy Center in Hill County. Each notice opens a 30-day comment period, and the groups worry that residents who believed in the pause will miss it. Further down the list are a generator registration for Edged in Dallas, filed and expedited on 6 October with its first review done by 9 October, and Tract's Caldwell Valley project, which the report says plans 360 MW of initial load in 2028 and has a proposed 1,500 MW gas plant attached.
TCEQ's position, given to FracTracker on 14 October, is that it has paused issuing air and water permits for data center construction, and that companies may still file applications which will not advance. The groups say the records contradict that. Public Citizen's Kathryn Guerra called it business as usual and asked the legislature for binding rules; FracTracker wants a statewide moratorium, reopened comment periods and a public database linking campuses to their power plants and permits.
Reading It As A Project Schedule
Leave the politics aside and this is a planning problem. As the list shows, a good part of what is waiting in Texas is generation that data centers build for themselves, and those plants live on air permits. A developer with engines or turbines on order now has to plan around a pause whose end depends on an ERCOT review with no published date, and on a dispute over whether the steps already taken will hold. We have seen in Georgia what happens when generating plant goes up ahead of its air permit, and Oregon has stopped such permits outright (our earlier report).
The practical advice is old: do not let equipment delivery dates get ahead of the permit, and keep the emission and noise data of the chosen generating plant ready, because a reopened comment period is when it gets read.
Sources: FracTracker Alliance, Public Citizen
