August 3, 2026 · The Governor’s data center audit
Governor Abbott has ordered the Public Utility Commission and ERCOT to audit every data center in the grid connection queue, and says no project moves forward until it is finished. Headlines are calling it a moratorium on data centers in Texas.
It is a moratorium on one permission, and it is not the one that threatens a reservoir. A developer who takes the Governor’s own advice and brings his own power can keep buying land, keep negotiating for public water, and keep permitting gas turbines straight through the audit.
So ask him to widen it. Below is what the audit covers, what it leaves open, and a two-minute tool that writes your letter in your own voice.
On August 7, ERCOT tells every data center in the queue how it was classified. No completion date has been announced for the audit itself.
The standard · in his own words
“Bring their own money, bring their own power, reuse their own water.”Canton · June 29, 2026
“We must prohibit them from building AI data centers in rural Texas neighborhoods.”Bullard · June 30, 2026
“Simply put, Texans must come first.”Announcing the audit · August 3, 2026
Home / Tell Abbott
The gap, in one table
The August 3 directive went to the two agencies that control electricity. Here is everything else a hyperscale facility needs before it can operate next to a lake, and who actually grants it.
One paused. Four open. A developer who follows the Governor’s own advice and brings his own power may never enter the ERCOT queue at all, which means he is never audited, and nothing above stops him. We asked for a high bar. As written, it reads like a fast lane.
The record · two letters, same two agencies
Credit where it is due. The August 3 directive is the most concrete thing the state has done on data centers, and the disclosures it demands are exactly what communities could not get on their own. It is still a letter, not a rule.
June 10, 2026
The Governor directs the PUC and ERCOT to develop requirements for large data centers: bring their own generation, cover their own infrastructure costs, use water responsibly, and avoid harm to surrounding communities. He later said publicly this would be done before the election.
Status: no final enforceable rule adopted
August 3, 2026 · New
Building on June 10, the Governor orders a comprehensive verification and audit of every data center advancing through ERCOT’s interconnection queue. The audit must be completed before any project moves forward, and projects failing the requirements set by the PUC, ERCOT, and state law are to be denied access to the grid.
Status: in effect, no completion date announced
What every project must now disclose
Straight from the August 3 directive. This is the list communities have spent a year assembling by hand from county filings and open-records requests.
Every state and local tax abatement, grant, and dollar of public financial assistance requested or received.
Projected annual and peak electricity consumption, plus real progress on building or procuring on-site generation.
Projected peak water consumption, the supply sources it will draw from, and how the cooling system works.
Community impact measures, named specifically: noise controls, setbacks, lighting mitigation, and traffic management.
Full ownership and controlling interests, so an LLC cannot stand in for a name.
The letter cites operators who failed to comply with a state survey measuring their water and power usage, and legislative hearings on the effect of these facilities on municipal water supplies and neighborhoods.
Setbacks. Noise. Peak water and its source. Everyone who stood at a microphone in a county meeting room this spring and was told those were not the state’s business should read that list twice. It is a state disclosure requirement now. And it is still only a disclosure, attached to one permission. Ask him to attach it to the rest ↓
What to ask for
Not “cancel the audit.” Make it mean something, while the scope is still being decided. Letters land hardest in the days right after an announcement.
If a data center cannot get a power connection during the audit, it should not be able to get a raw water contract, an air permit for on-site generation, or a tax abatement either. Otherwise “bring your own power” becomes the way around the audit instead of the standard he said he wanted.
Put every project’s water use, peak draw, setbacks, tax breaks, and true ownership on a public page, sorted by county. An audit nobody outside Austin can read is not accountability. And name a completion date: none has been announced, and an audit that never finishes is indistinguishable from one that never happened.
Turn all five stated requirements, own money, own power, reuse water, real setbacks and noise limits, and full transparency, into enforceable conditions a project must meet together, and apply them to every pending project before the election, exactly as he said he would.
A directive can be revoked or narrowed by the same office that issued it, without notice, without a hearing, and without a single public comment. A statute cannot. If the agencies will not move fast enough, only the Governor can convene the Legislature early instead of leaving communities exposed until 2027.
The two-minute action
Staff sort identical form letters into a single pile. A message that sounds like you counts as one more real Texan holding him to his word. Make a few choices, add a sentence in your own words, and this builds a letter you can paste into his form, or print and mail.
Nothing you type leaves your browser. The letter is assembled right here on this page, and you can edit every word of it before you send it.
1 · What are you writing about?
Both versions work. A specific project makes the letter harder to file away, but a statewide letter about the audit itself is worth sending too.
2 · The project, and the water at stake
If the project has no public name yet, describe it (“the data center proposed off FM 316”). Naming the water body is the single most effective thing you can do here.
3 · How does it plan to get its power?
This is the question the August 3 audit turns on. A project that generates its own power may never enter ERCOT’s queue, which means the audit never reaches it. If you don’t know, that is itself worth telling him.
4 · Which of the Governor’s own standards does it violate?
The Responsible Data Center Standard, in Abbott’s own words. Check every one this project fails.
0 selected
5 · What should the Governor do?
Any of these works. If you’re not sure, leave it on the first one.
6 · In your own words (this matters most)
One or two honest sentences. How long have you been here? What do you stand to lose? Staff weigh personal messages far more heavily.
7 · Your details
The form asks for your name and where you live.
Nothing you type leaves your browser, the letter is built right here.
Your letter, click to edit, then send
Tap Copy my letter, then open the form and paste it into the comment box. On the form, choose “I want to share an opinion.”
Or mail a signed copy
Office of the Governor Greg Abbott
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, TX 78711-2428
Physical mail is logged separately from web submissions, so it is never a wasted stamp. Sign it by hand and add your town under your name. If you want it to count twice, send the same letter through the online form too.
Other ways to be heard, about 3 minutes
A call to the Governor’s office is logged by subject and counted. Written submissions leave a record on file. Doing both is better than doing one.
Tell the staffer who answers that you’re a Texan asking the Governor to widen the data center pause beyond the grid. The script below takes under a minute.
Call (512) 463-2000On the Governor’s website choose “I want to share an opinion,” then paste the letter you built above into the comment box.
Open the form ↗The most effective messages are personal. Add a detail about you: your town, your years there, your family. A few words in your own voice carry far more weight than a perfect argument.
Under a minute. Read it as written, and change the two highlighted parts to your own.
If you reach voicemail, leave the same message, it still counts.
Why bother writing
When a data center proposed near Cedar Creek Lake pulled out, the Governor’s office announced it as proof his standards were working. But the developer didn’t write to the Governor. It wrote to Henderson County’s judge and commissioners, and it named who actually changed the outcome:
“The perspectives shared by residents, local leaders and stakeholders led us to conclude that the site under evaluation, in particular its close proximity to the rural residential community of Cedar Creek Lake, does not meet the higher standard…”Diode Ventures, to the Henderson County Commissioners Court
No state rule stopped that project. No agency ruled on anything. A company looked at an organized community and made a business decision. That is the whole argument for writing today: the pressure works, and right now the scope of this audit is still being decided.