Texas has suspended 17 data center construction permits and shut down automated portal that rubber-stamped projects — site was left running for a month after Greg Abbott called for a pause on approvals
The state's automated system had continued issuing construction permits even after Governor Greg Abbott had called for a pause a month ago.
Texas has suspended the construction permits of 17 data center projects and disabled a web portal that automated filing for new permits after it was discovered that they were still being issued a month after calls for the process to be paused. Governor Greg Abbott asked for new permits to be halted in September 2026, but watchdog groups FracTracker Alliance and Public Citizen both published reports detailing more than two dozen permits issued to Texas data center projects, reports 404 Media.
Now, the portal that previously automatically authorized permits is unavailable. “TCEQ’s electronic filing application used for automatic authorizations has been temporarily shut down to ensure all applications are reviewed by agency staff to determine if they are related to data centers," a message on the website reads.
The portal, called STEERS, is used to rubber-stamp construction approvals. But despite Governor Abbott's call for no new permits to be approved, it seems that nobody thought to take STEERS offline. Sam Law, a researcher at FracTracker, says that it's been happily approving new projects, including those for OpenAI and Amazon that went through the system earlier this week. All 17 of the suspended permits are for stormwater construction, a process that sees construction companies raise and level the ground. It's also a process that is a vital part of the approval process for all construction projects in Texas.
Governor Abbot put the brakes on 1,800 data center projects while work was done to audit them. Concerns were raised about their power use and generation, how much water they would consume, and the impact that they would have on their communities. “Our top priority is to protect Texans’ safety and quality of life,” Abbott wrote in a statement provided at the time. “Any project that fails to comply with the requirements set forth by the PUCT and ERCOT, and by state law, must be denied connection to the Texas grid. Simply put, Texans must come first.”
The situation in Texas follows New York's year-long ban on data center projects larger than 50 megawatts that came into force earlier this year. The Responsible Data Center Development Act was signed into law as Senate Bill S10642 by New York Governor Kathy Hochul in July. It was another instance of a change in stance on data centers that is gathering momentum in the United States. While President Trump announced an "AI Action Plan" to accelerate adoption of AI tools and infrastructure rollout in July 2025, he announced a mandate forcing AI data centers to pay dividends to communities in October 2026. In Northern Virginia, Amazon bowed to a community backlash to plans to build four new data centers — going so far as to offer its land up for housing instead.
While the continued focus on AI tools helps drive demand for more capacity and more data centers, communities and local officials are increasingly concerned about the impacts they have on their surroundings. Water shortages and deforestation have become key issues affecting the communities in which data centers are being placed, as has the increase in the cost of energy.
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Oliver Haslam has written about technology of all shapes and sizes for over 15 years, both online and in print. He's fascinated by how personal computing continues to change as tower PCs give way to foldable phones and beyond.
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King_V I have a sneaking suspicion that the rubber-stamp portal wasn't left up on accident. I also suspect there will be much hand-wringing and "oh, but we approved it, so we can't do anything about it" for all the applications that went through the rubber-stamp system after Gov Abbot's halt order in September.Reply -
MobileJAD I'm still baffled over the intense push to build all of these data centers, it's as if the entire economic system that we all depend on will completely collapse unless we build as many data centers as possible...Reply
Oh wait, all of the tech bros dumped billions into investing in AI, and if those investments don't produce something worthwhile, then they are all screwed. -
Conradb Surprised that no heads have rolled. This is an oversight as old as the hills, how do these people keep getting voted in if they are not on top of their game at all. You just cannot make up the repeated mistakes in Texas can you, or is it becausethe mistakesup till now have not been big enough to be Texan?Reply -
bill001g What a lie you can't "rubber stamp" electronic documents. :)Reply
Again more clickbait titles. This system was introduced to reduce the physical paper that was still being used. It was mostly started to try to reduce all the paperwork needed for new housing developments.
Nothing is automatically approved there are still lots of bureaucrats. The issue is more political. Look at california they still are using their environmental regulation to delay people rebuilding their houses that were burned in a wild fire years ago. Someone from california would say anything more than 5yr to get approved was rubber stamping something. -
Bigshrimp The USA has over 5400 data centers in the country. The second country with the most is Germany with over 500 data centers. We need to stop building more, as we have more than enough already, lol. This insanity needs to stop before we turn the whole world into one giant Cybertron planet.Reply -
artk2219 I don't see what all the fuss and worry is about. /sReply
https://de9o6n2ujz7l.cloudfront.net/uploads/facebook_share/262/photo.jpg -
King_V Reply
Well, if you're claiming that the article is lying, please link to evidence they refutes the claim, rather than complaining about an unrelated topic in a completely different state.bill001g said:What a lie you can't "rubber stamp" electronic documents. :)
Again more clickbait titles. This system was introduced to reduce the physical paper that was still being used. It was mostly started to try to reduce all the paperwork needed for new housing developments.
Nothing is automatically approved there are still lots of bureaucrats. The issue is more political. Look at california they still are using their environmental regulation to delay people rebuilding their houses that were burned in a wild fire years ago. Someone from california would say anything more than 5yr to get approved was rubber stamping something. -
bill001g Reply
Easy a rubber stamp is a physical device used to mark paper there is no paper here. How can that statement possible be true. If that statement is untrue how does not bring any other statement made by the author into doubt.King_V said:Well, if you're claiming that the article is lying, please link to evidence they refutes the claim, rather than complaining about an unrelated topic in a completely different state. -
King_V Reply
Are you . . . unfamiliar with the English language, and EXTREMELY commonplace idioms?bill001g said:Easy a rubber stamp is a physical device used to mark paper there is no paper here. How can that statement possible be true. If that statement is untrue how does not bring any other statement made by the author into doubt.
That your "evidence" of the article being false relies on you following a strict, literal definition of "rubber stamp" and completely ignoring the well-known idiom of its meaning reveals not only do you have no evidence to the contrary, but that you were just using this as an excuse to do some "California bashing" and, thus, NOT sticking to the topic.