This week, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) sent a letter to the Texas Water Development Board in which he wrote major water users, including data centers, "appear to have committed civil and criminal violations" by failing to provide information required under the Texas Water Code.
He asked the state agency, which is responsible for statewide water planning, financial assistance for water and wastewater infrastructure, and data collection, to use its statutory authority to compel major water users to comply with water-use reporting requirements and to impose legal consequences for past and future failure to comply with state law.
Larry French of the Texas Public Policy Foundation said that the board, which is a resource agency and not a regulatory one, is in the practice of collecting water-use data surveys from the largest users.
"The level of response from the data centers was not what was hoped," he relays. "At one point, it was 17% compliance."
Though he thinks it went up after the due date, French estimates that maybe more than half of the data centers did not return their completed surveys.
"That's kind of drawn the ire of the governor," he tells AFN.
The law carries several possible penalties for noncompliance, including misdemeanor charges and referral to local prosecutors. Abbott's letter specifically says failure to submit the survey can be a crime, can be referred to a county or district attorney, and makes a data center ineligible for certain Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) permits, amendments or renewals.
Violators could face criminal charges and could lose access to certain state water funding or permits.
The data-center industry has previously said it supports responsible water use and has committed to Abbott's broader data-center standards, but no major industry group appears to have issued a public response yet to Abbott's Sept. 14 directive.
The board must provide the governor's office with an initial update on its enforcement efforts within 30 days and continue providing updates through completion of a data center audit.
