HOUSTON — The data center boom is hitting Texas. Data center politics haven’t been far behind.
The tech companies and electricity giants gathered here in the second-biggest state have heaped praise on the boom in construction of new data centers they see as the cure to everything from soaring power prices to sluggish economic growth.
But the pushback in communities that began in states like Virginia, home to the nation’s densest fleet of data centers, has spread to states like Texas, where it’s been taken up by lawmakers responding to a chorus of complaints that the giant facilities will drive up energy costs once they come online, consume water supplies and blight the landscape.
“All data centers are kind of around Virginia right now,” Robert Gaudette, the incoming CEO of Houston-headquartered power provider NRG, told POLITICO in an interview. “Well, Texas is going to be the next Virginia.”
