After hours of testimony from dozens of residents, Hood County commissioners voted down a proposed temporary pause on new industrial development, including data centers, after a letter from a state senator threatened legal action saying the county did not have the power to issue moratoriums.
The 3–2 vote comes as Texas faces a wave of data center proposals fueled by the AI boom and strong backing from state and national Republican leaders, prompting warnings from experts and residents about the state’s already strained water supply. Hood County, which sits about 40 miles southwest of Fort Worth, already has at least four proposed data centers. Residents say they were informed the night before the vote that two more are on the way.
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Data centers have become a flashpoint in Texas’ looming water crisis. Residents warn the county lacks sufficient water to support multiple facilities and the power plants that typically accompany them. Texas doesn’t holistically track water use by the industry because there is no uniform way for reporting or tracking water usage.
The debate grew heated over whether counties even have the authority to pause development. One commissioner argued the county has a duty to protect public health, including shielding residents from unchecked data center expansion. Others countered that the county lacks legal power to halt construction or that state law is murky.
Eight hours into the meeting, the county attorney revealed a letter from state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, chair of the Senate Committee on Local Government, sent to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The letter warned that counties have no constitutional or statutory authority to impose development moratoriums. In a post on X, the senator urged the state to intervene if Hood County attempted to do so.
Bettencourt wrote that county commissioners “cannot claim any powers unless it is expressly conferred by the Constitution or statute” and pointed to House Bill 2559 by Frisco Republican Jared Patterson, which he sponsored in the Senate. He asked the attorney general to investigate any county efforts to enact similar pauses.
The disclosure sparked outrage among some commissioners.
“I can’t tell you how disappointed I am,” said Commissioner Dave Eagle. “You’ve got to wonder what kind of backroom stuff was going on. … This is just a threat letter to us.”
The failed moratorium would have paused new data center development for six months while the county studied impacts to water supplies, energy demand, air quality, wildlife and residents’ quality of life. Had it passed, it would have been among the first such measures in Texas, according to environmental advocacy groups.
Advocates said the pause would have given local leaders more time to assess a rapidly expanding industry. Data centers need county approvals for zoning and infrastructure.
“Hood County is facing the potential buildout of four data centers,” said Rita Beving, an organizer with the environmental watchdog group Public Citizen, in a press release.
“Failing to pass a moratorium will trigger the construction of several natural gas plants alongside these projects. The Hood County region may not have the water required to support these developments, and the county commissioners are putting vital resources at risk.”
Beving added that the late evening vote was particularly troubling given the community’s existing noise issues from cryptocurrency mining operations nearby, which residents blame for their health problems.
Opposition to data centers is growing nationwide. Communities in at least 14 states have enacted temporary pauses and lawmakers in New York, Georgia and other states have introduced bills to slow new development.
Last year, more than 200 environmental groups called for a national moratorium. The push was later backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
“Communities are seeing how data center development can impact their air quality because of backup generators running on diesel. Data centers can impact their water supplies, which is a pressing issue in Texas,” said Jim Walsh, policy director at the nonprofit Food & Water Watch, one of the groups pushing for the national moratorium.
Dan Diorio, vice president of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, a membership association for the data center industry, said data centers supported more than 363,000 jobs in Texas and generated $3.2 billion in state and local tax revenue in 2023.
“Data centers are committed to being responsible and responsive neighbors in the communities where they operate, and we will continue to work with residents, communities, and policymakers to enable the continued responsible development of this critical industry” he said.
In Hood County, the moratorium could have affected four projects in early planning, including the proposed Comanche Circle development.
The Comanche Circle project, proposed by Sailfish Development, would span roughly 2,600 acres near the rural town of Tolar, population of about 1,300. The project plans call for nine data center campuses with a combined capacity of up to five gigawatts, located near Vistra’s Comanche Peak nuclear plant. The project would be larger than the city of Glen Rose and comparable in size to the Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth.
Residents say the site would sit in a recharge zone for the Upper Trinity Aquifer and within the Paluxy River watershed, which feeds Dinosaur Valley State Park. They warn the project could consume up to 1 million gallons of water per day at full buildout, worsen air quality in a region, pave more than 1,000 acres and increase noise, light and traffic.