A Texas county southwest of Dallas this week passed what may be the state’s first county-level moratorium on data centers, seeking to buy time for lawmakers to soften the blow of development sweeping across rural areas.
Hill County’s Commissioners Court voted 3-2 Tuesday to put a yearlong moratorium on data center and power plant construction in unincorporated areas, citing an influx of as many as eight data centers planned there, many of which could have their own power plants.
“I’m not trying to break the law, I’m not trying to thumb my nose at the governor or the Legislature, but my constituents, my people, are literally begging for help right now, and I have no other mechanism but this,” County Judge Shane Brassell, a Republican who leads the commission and voted for the ban, said in an interview Thursday.
Opposition to data centers is spreading in regions led by both Democrats and Republicans, as politicians try to balance economic development with increasingly vocal landowners who want protections. In Missouri, one small town unhappy over its city council’s approval of a data center voted last month to oust all four incumbents running for reelection. In North Carolina, Gov. Josh Stein (D) has made a point of saying that sales tax exemptions for data centers cost the state up to $57 million every year.
