‘We’re gonna get sued.’ Texas county passes 1-year data center construction ban.

A Texas county southwest of Dallas this week passed the state’s first county-level moratorium on data centers, aimed at buying time for lawmakers to soften the blow of development ravaging rural areas.

The Hill County Commissioners Court voted 3-2 Tuesday to impose a one-year moratorium on data center and power plant construction in unincorporated areas, citing an influx of as many as eight data centers, many of which are planned to have their own power plants.

“I’m not trying to break the law, I’m not trying to thumb my nose at the governor or the Legislature, but my constituents, my people are literally begging for help right now, and I have no other mechanism than that,” Republican District Judge Shane Brassell, who led the commission and voted for the ban, said in an interview Thursday.

Opposition to data centers is spreading in districts led by both Democrats and Republicans as politicians try to balance economic development with increasingly vocal landowners seeking protection. A small town in Missouri isn’t happy with its city council approving a data center voted last month Removal of all four incumbents running for re-election. Governor Josh Stein (D) in North Carolina made a point It says sales tax exemptions for data centers cost the state up to $57 million each year.

Texas There are hundreds of data centers places in operation or development, second only to Virginia among U.S. states. The growth has sparked outcry from environmentalists and rural residents concerned about impacts on water supplies, the power grid and their quality of life. Officials in states across the country are starting to have second thoughts about data centers, and some are looking for ways to roll back tax incentives.

Hill County is the first state government in Texas to take action to slow data centers and related power plants, said Robert Paterson, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin who specializes in land use and planning.

County governments in Texas generally do not have zoning authority, and most counties have only limited authority to enforce public safety and floodplain regulations for construction.

“They’re pretty constrained, so all the data centers and battery energy storage systems are in unincorporated areas,” Paterson said.

President Donald Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) have made artificial intelligence based on power-hungry data centers an economic priority. Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Hill County on Thursday.

But opposition to data centers appears to be hardening, and politicians are paying attention. A Gallup poll carried out in March While 71 percent of survey respondents said they would not want to live near data centers, 48 ​​percent were strongly opposed.

At least one other Texas county, Hood County southwest of Fort Worth, has placed a moratorium on data center projects.

But the authorities there voted against after getting pushback from a state legislator earlier this year. State Senator Paul Bettencourt, Republican sent a letter On social media, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is being asked whether counties have the right to block data centers.

This question has come up before and the answer has always been “no,” Bettencourt said in an interview Thursday.

“If they had that power, we would already have a patchwork quilt of 254 counties, and we would literally have 254 mini-states being developed in Texas,” he said.

Bettencourt said the solution for Hill County and other rural areas is to wait for the Legislature. Texas Senate Business and Commerce Committee The hearing was held in April on how to allocate the costs of electricity generated by data centers.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick of Texas, a Republican who leads the state Senate, said in March that he wanted lawmakers to study how to balance the water and electricity needs of data centers, as well as the industry’s benefits, with “impacts on landowners, private property rights, water infrastructure and community integrity.”

Like Hood County, Hill County is close to the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area and has easy access to natural gas pipelines and electricity, making it attractive to data center developers.

Dozens of residents urged Hill County commissioners Tuesday to slow construction, saying they were concerned about road damage and water use, as well as intangible assets. The meeting was published online.

A man who lives 1,100 feet from one of the proposed projects near Blum, Texas, said he could see stars from his back porch and wondered if he would lose his view of the night sky if the project was built.

“If we don’t do something to put the brakes on, it will be too late,” Commissioner Jim Holcomb said.

Developers who spoke at the Hill County meeting said they want to be good neighbors and that the projects will increase local tax revenues with minimal downside.

Pervez Siddique, chief development officer at Prime Power, which builds power plants for the data industry, said water use in a planned data center would be equivalent to five digits and noise would be equivalent to a household refrigerator.

“We are honest and hard-working people trying to provide electricity to power the needs of our digital society,” he said at Tuesday’s meeting.

Siddique said the moratorium “would be a real blow to Hill County’s economic activity and tax revenue base.”

Brassell, the Hill County judge, said he started receiving lawsuit threats within 24 hours of the vote, making it hard to believe developers’ promises of good neighbors. He said he’s looking forward to seeing state lawmakers weigh in. Texas lawmakers meet in Austin for a regular session every two years and are set to return in 2027.

“We will file a lawsuit,” he said. “Ultimately, I hope that when the session starts in January the Legislature will take up the issue and perhaps take some of the pressure off of us.”