More than 70% of Texas data centers have failed to respond to a survey sent out by state regulators as they work to compile data on the resource-intensive facilities’ water and power usage, according to the state’s own numbers.
The inquiry, conducted by the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) and Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT), was intended to find out more about the massive computing facilities’ draw on the state’s limited natural resources. The industry has been opaque about such data, even as it undertakes a controversial and unprecedented expansion in the Lone Star State.
The initial deadline to respond to the survey was May 28, according to the PUCT website. But when almost all data centers in the state failed to respond by then, the due date was extended to July 10.
That date came and went with little additional compliance.
“The state has now on two separate occasions required any data center or any data center company that wants to create a data center, to provide information to the state,” Gov. Greg Abbott said last week at a campaign stop in Lubbock.
In November of last year, the Republican governor touted Texas as an “epicenter of AI,” a growing industry heavily reliant on data centers. However, he’s changed his tune on the facilities in recent months as he faces reelection amid bipartisan backlash to data centers — especially in rural Texas.
When the survey went out for the first time earlier this year, fewer than 10% responded, according to Abbott. The second time, less than 30% responded.
“There’s a complete lack of transparency about who they are, what they’re doing, which raises suspicions,” Abbott added in comments made at the Lubbock stop.
However, PUCT spokesman Rich Parsons told the Current via email that there are two separate surveys, one issued by the TWDB alone on water usage and a joint survey issued by both agencies asking for data on water and power.
Responses are mandatory for the TWDB’s water survey. However, the regulatory agencies’ joint survey — called Energy and Water Use Survey for Data Center and Virtual Currency Mining Facilities — is voluntary.
“The PUCT strongly encouraged all eligible facilities to participate,” Parsons told the Current.
That means for all of Abbott’s tough talk, data centers in Texas are only required to report water usage, not power usage.
Paltry fines
Further, the penalty for ignoring the mandatory TWDB survey is negligible, which leads environmental advocates to question how many companies will actually oblige.
Failing to respond to the TWDB water-usage survey is a Class C misdemeanor that only carries a $500 fine, Adrian Shelley, director of consumer watchdog group Public Citizen’s Texas chapter, told the Current.
For deep-pocketed tech businesses that rake in billions in revenue, what’s a $500 fine compared to keeping your proprietary information from your competitors and the details from a skeptical public?
“Texans don’t have a clear picture of how much water data centers use because their state government hasn’t tried hard enough to find out,” Shelley told the Current. “The fact is, corporations won’t do something unless they are forced. The Texas Legislature funded a survey with weak enforcement, then acted surprised when industry didn’t comply. They can blame bad actors, but lawmakers set a low expectation that most data centers were happy to ignore.”
The state also is expecting local district attorneys to enforce the fines, according to Inside Climate News.
The Current reached out to Bexar County District Attorney Joe D. Gonzalez’s office to see whether personnel there are aware of which data centers failed to complete the TWDB survey and whether any enforcement action has been taken.
We received no response by press time.
The Current also reached out to TWDB personnel to see whether they have distributed a list of noncompliant data centers to district attorneys and to check whether they plan to do so and when.
Again, we got no response.
Even for companies who do respond, environmental advocates warn the water usage data will be incomplete.
Since the state of Texas currently treats each data center and its power source as separate entities, the data center company is only required to report the water usage of the computing facility itself. That’s even though the sites’ power sources, such as gas-fueled plants, can use more than 20 times as much water as the data center itself.
‘Softer approach’
The directive to conduct the water survey was written into the state budget last year by State Rep. Armando Walle, D-Houston, who called it a “softer approach” than passing legislation demanding the information, according to Austin NBC affiliate KXAN.
State lawmakers said they backed the approach to avoid scaring away the burgeoning industry.
“These are new entities that are coming to the state of Texas. We want those jobs. We need those jobs,” Walle told the TV station in February. “However, we also have to be very good stewards of our water resources.”
The joint voluntary survey by the TWDB and PUCT is for every data center currently operating in Texas or planning to operate in the state by 2030. It also covers the state’s crypto-mining facilities.
The data collected in the voluntary survey will be compiled into a report by the end of the year that’s intended to help with statewide planning on water and power, according to the PUCT website.
But to complicate matters, officials with both regulatory agencies admitted at a Texas Senate hearing in early September that they don’t have a master list of contact information for the state’s data center operators and no way to reach some of them, Inside Climate News reports.
“We just collect information and are aware of who did not respond,” Temple McKinnon, the TWDB’s director of water supply planning, told the news outlet.
It’s also unclear whether state regulators have a mechanism for determining the accuracy of the self-reported surveys from data centers that do respond.
Some critics say that the survey approach was flawed from the beginning because lawmakers assumed industry officials would respond honestly without oversight.
“If there’s no verification, there’s no confidence in the results and no incentive to get it right,” Public Citizen’s Shelley told the Current.
Additionally, not all questions on the survey require a response, according to the PUCT’s own website.
“If some questions cannot be answered, provide an explanation either in the space provided next to the question or under the last question in the survey,” the PUCT said on the survey’s FAQs page.
But no matter how few data centers respond to either survey, PUCT’s Parsons told the Current that the regulators are still required to submit their findings — however incomplete or inaccurate — to the Legislative Budget Board and Abbott’s office by Dec. 31.
The deadline comes just ahead of the January start of the Texas Legislature’s next regular session. Lawmakers are widely expected to file bills, some with bipartisan support, calling for stricter regulation of the data center industry.
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