EL PASO, TEXAS – AUGUST 13: In an aerial view, the Meta El Paso Data Center is seen on August 13, 2026 in El Paso, Texas. Meta Platforms continues construction on its more than $10 billion Meta El Paso Data Center in Northeast El Paso, Texas. Occupying approximately 1,000 acres, Meta has expanded the project to 1 gigawatt of computing capacity, allowing the facility to support a growing range of AI workloads and the training and deployment of increasingly sophisticated AI models and technologies. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (TNND) —Texas is at the center of a rapidly growing fight over the expansion of data centers, as farmland is converted into industrial server sites and rural communities compete for water and power resources that support the state’s $900 billion agriculture industry.
The debate has cut across party lines, with Republicans divided, Democrats raising concerns and rural communities pushing back over whether Texas and other states should prioritize long-term protection of land, water and electricity infrastructure over continued growth. (TNND)
Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Sid Miller said the projects often target the “very best, most productive farmland” because it is flat and already has key infrastructure such as water, electricity and roads.
“So they can just come in and start,” Miller said. “They don’t have to do anything. All the infrastructure is there.”
Miller said he has pushed an idea he calls “agriculture Freedom zones,” which would steer development such as data centers to less productive land. “Because once they pave over this good farmland, it’s gone,” he said. “We won’t ever get it back.”
He said the concept could also apply to “solar farms, crypto mines, wind farms,” arguing those projects are needed but should not take up top farmland.
Miller has repeatedly called for a moratorium on new hyperscale data centers and said Texas has surged in new data center designations. “
Here in Texas, we just passed Virginia to be the number one state for the designation of new data,” he said, adding, “We got over 500 just in Texas. We have 5000 in the United States.”
Miller argued Texas should slow down and put guardrails in place, saying counties lack authority to regulate the developments. “Our counties have no authority,” he said. “These companies come in, they can just do whatever they want.”
He also pointed to water shortages.
“We’re running real time on water,” Miller said. “A lot of places. We’re out of water in Texas.”
Asked what national standards on water use data centers should meet, Miller said they should use “produced water” from oil and gas production for cooling.
“That’s water that comes up from oil and gas production that we can’t do anything with,” he said. “No one’s using that.”
He also said data centers could eventually use “deep earth water,” adding, “There’s oceans of water in the core of the Earth. We now have technology to find and tap into that water.”
Miller said a one-year moratorium would provide time to develop those options and advance “smart, small modular reactors,” which he said could help with electricity needs.
He warned that the state’s power grid cannot support the scale of demand he believes could be coming. Miller said Texas has “a 109GW of capacity,” and claimed that if the state’s 500 data centers were all approved to connect to the grid, “it’ll be a 500GW,” adding, “We can barely do 100. Our grid almost went down a week ago.”
As the political debate intensifies, Miller said he does not oppose data centers but wants a more controlled approach.
“I don’t disagree with the president,” Miller said. “Matter of fact, I think we need data soon. But we got to be smart how we do it.”
Miller criticized state incentives offered to attract the projects, saying,
“Our governor gave way $300 million in tax incentives to get them here in two years,” and added, “That’s not bringing in tax money. That’s paying them to get here.”
Miller said he called on Gov. Greg Abbott to impose a one-year moratorium but said Abbott declined. Miller said a moratorium would have given lawmakers time to pass laws and put them in place “September 2027.” Without it, Miller said he has urged Abbott to call a special legislative session.
“They could call the legislature in today or tomorrow,” he said. “We could do this in a week, give it immediate effect, and we would have the guardrails we need.”
Miller also alleged Abbott’s decision-making is influenced by campaign money from the industry.
“Now, the reason he’s refusing to do that is he’s taking millions and millions of dollars from the data center industry,” Miller said. “So I said, governor, you got a conflict of interest. You just need to give that money back because it was all for data centers recruiting them here.”
Miller said he believes the issue is not partisan.
“We got to be smart about this in Texas,” he said.
