Texas Politicians and Billionaires vs. The People
To the editor: Bigger is not Better
We hear a lot about billionaires relocating their companies to Texas and state leaders and the Texas Legislature trying to lure them here and make it easier for them to expand operations. Why does Texas need to attract more billionaires and their companies? Texas already has the 8th largest economy in the world and the corporate headquarters of 57 Fortune 500 companies, more than California (56) and New York (53). Don’t those companies create enough jobs and revenue for Texas? It’s not just data centers that create problems but all the related and similar large-scale, commercial development.
Texas loses about 1,020 acres of land every day to development and urban sprawl.
https://southernlivestock.com/ 8-20-26
Tax Breaks for Billionaires
Since 2013, the Texas Legislature has given data center companies sales tax exemptions which the Texas Comptroller’s Office says have cost the State (the people) $1.4 billion in revenue since 2014 and will, due to the data center boom, cost $1.3 billion in 2026 alone. (Texas Tribune 4-8-26) Texas families get one “tax-free” weekend every year. Billion-dollar tech companies have gotten 13 “taxfree” years. That’s not right.
Our Patriotic Duty to Big Tech Supporters of AI data centers claim the public’s concern with water and electricity usage is over-blown and the real issue is “national security” – if data centers are not built, the Chinese Communist Party is going to win “the AI technology race” and then the U.S. will never catch up.
Maybe so, but it sounds a lot like the same argument made in the 1960s that if the U.S. didn’t build enough nuclear bombs to destroy the world several times over, the Russian Communist Party would win “the arms race” and the “Ruskies” could then hold a gun to the head of America and Europe while it put more countries behind the “Iron Curtain.” Is this the “Red Scare” all over again? Is this build-up just billions for defense or really billions for billionaires?
The AI supporters seem to suggest that it’s “downright un-American” to oppose AI data centers. They don’t talk much about the rural landowners who have their quality of life ruined by a 400-acre data center complex and/or a 765-kilovolt transmission line with 150+ foot towers built across the road/ fence from where they live or from farm property that has been in family for generations or the resulting inflated land prices that drive farmers and ranchers out of business.
They don’t talk about “local control,” self-determination and “getting the feds and the bureaucrats in Austin off the backs of the people.” If the state and federal regulators tell us everything will be “just fine,” we are all just supposed to accept that. We just have to “sacrifice a little more for the greater good.”
What exactly is it that the billionaires and politicians are sacrificing in this? It’s hard to not see the billionaires (and trillionaire) behind these projects who stand to make billions more dollars off the projects. Not just the tech billionaires but the billionaires who own the oil and gas companies and pipeline companies that supply natural gas to generate electricity, and those who build and operate electricity transmission lines and water pipelines to data centers. Back-peddling Politicians For years, state politicians have taken campaign contributions (and still are) from these billionaires and big tech companies wanting to build data centers and other big industrial projects. They had to know what they were doing. On August 4th, Governor Abbott told the PUC to start auditing the grid use of planned data centers. ( Rueters.com 8-4-26) Now, with the public outrage that 300+ data centers have already been built in Texas (with no real limits to protect local residents) and hundreds more planned, those same politicians are back-peddling like crazy and wanting to “assess the impact” that AI data centers will have on water, electricity and land use. They now say residents and local governments “should have input into where data centers are built” but not that city councils and county commissioners should have actual, real control to restrict build sites or ban them altogether. Words like “assess” and “input” can be pretty meaningless.
Feuding Politicians
Sid Miller, the Texas Agriculture Commissioner, was defeated in the GOP primary in May by Nate Sheets. (Miller carried Fayette County with 54% of the vote.) He was a state representative for eight years, has been Ag Commissioner for 12 years and was running for his fourth term.
Miller got “crosswise” with Governor Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Abbott and Patrick then supported Nate Sheets. The biggest donations to Sheets’s campaign were $207,000 from Abbott’s campaign PAC and $294,000 from Texas Republican Leadership Fund PAC (funded by Alex Fairley, a very wealthyAmarillo businessman).
Miller says AI data centers are bad for Texas farmers and ranchers and that Abbott took campaign donations from big tech companies and “opened the door” for them. He wanted Abbott to call a special session of the Legislature to deal with data center growth before the regular session starting in January 2027. That won’t happen.
Miller says Abbott should donate the campaign money that he received from Elon Musk and other data center builders to programs that benefit Texas farmers and ranchers. That won’t happen either. Texas Ethics Commission records show that Elon Musk donated $500,000 toAbbott’s campaign, $1 million to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s campaign and $250,000 to House Speaker Justin Burrows’ campaign in the last 24 months. www.ethics.state.tx.us/ search/cf/SimpleSearch.php Texas Regulatory Consistency Act – NO Local Control In 2023, the Legislature passed the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act to make sure rural counties can’t regulate large-scale, non-agricultural commercial development. That law (HB 2127) ties the hands of local government and basically enables big companies to sue county commissioners and underground water conservation districts for millions of dollars if they try to control or prevent building data centers or other large-scale industrial projects in their county. HB 2127 was introduced in the House by Rep. Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock), now the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.
On his website, Burrows brags that he got the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act passed by the Legislature. Included in his “Interim Charges” issued this last March to Committees of the Texas House of Representatives is the requirement to “investigate and identify local ordinances that conflict with the Act and determine whether local governments are unlawfully enforcing such ordinances.” He wants “the law” enforced against local officials.
The Act makes no exceptions to its “blanket” prohibition against counties (urban and rural) from regulating anything over which State agencies (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Railroad Commission, Water Development Board, Public Utility Commission, etc.) have regulatory authority. Texas law doesn’t give counties authority over land use planning or the ability to adopt restrictions on commercial development or requirements to address specific, unique needs of a county, except in very limited circumstances.
The Legislature hasn’t passed laws to give state agencies sufficient regulatory authority or made budget appropriations to ensure adequate funding and staffing of the agencies to be able to determine the impacts of multi-billion dollar tech/industrial projects in rural areas. The Legislature wants to make Texas “business friendly” – to billionaire-owned businesses.
Ignoring the Law
Back in June, the Texas House Natural Resources Committee held a public hearing after constituents started complaining loudly about data centers. A representative of the Texas Water Development Board called to testify told the legislators that only 17% of tech companies responded to the Board’s requirement to report water usage. TWDB said it could not make good assessments due to the low response rate but that it didn’t “re-ask” the companies for responses. Why should it? State law requires it and says non-response is a Class C Misdemeanor. The maximum punishment is a $500 fine. That’s a joke.
Why doesn’t AG Paxton enforce state law against big tech companies that violate it – weak though it is? Why didn’t the Legislature put “teeth” in the law? Knowing where the State stands on water supply is real important to us all.
Nothing forAg People
In the two special sessions in 2025, the Legislature passed the “bathroom bill” and laws on regulating cannabis, over-thecounter ivermectin, congressional redistricting, flood safety, replacing the STAAR test for public schools, allowing individuals to sue anyone who distributes abortion pills and giving AG Paxton more authority to prosecute election crimes.
How about the Legislature stop giving “handouts” (billiondollar tax cuts) to billion-dollar corporations and change state law so local elected officials and residents of rural counties and towns can decide if, what and where they want large-scale commercial development? In another generation, Texas farmers and ranchers in the best agricultural areas in Texas will be pushed out, priced out or will have run out of water and land. How about Texas lawmakers focusing on protecting rural underground water and land that produces food? They should spend less time politicking and more on the people’s business.