Hinojosa on Data Center Tax Giveaway: “Abbott Is Putting Billionaire Profits Over Our Power Grid and Our Water Supply”
Austin, TX — In response to reporting from the Texas Tribune that Texas is giving more than $1 billion per year in tax breaks to data centers — a figure projected to reach $1.8 billion annually by 2030 — Gina Hinojosa released the following statement:
“Greg Abbott is bending over backwards to build data centers that line the pockets of his donors, while raising our utility rates and depleting our water. These data centers are owned by the richest men in the world — they should pay for them themselves.”
This is just the latest chapter of the Greg Abbott Corruption Tax — the hidden cost Texas families pay when their governor puts his donors first. While Abbott rolls out the red carpet for his billionaire donors, communities across the state are fighting back, and even members of his own party are calling the giveaway “unsustainable.”
See more from the Texas Tribune below:
Texas Tribune: Texas is giving data centers more than $1 billion in tax breaks each year
- Texas will lose out on $3.2 billion in sales tax revenue over the next two years thanks to an exemption for the state’s booming data center industry, according to the comptroller’s office.
- That figure is likely a vast underestimate given the explosion of new facilities being built, but already makes the tax break one of the state’s costliest incentive programs and soon to be the most expensive of its kind in the nation…
- Lawmakers approved the tax break more than a decade ago, when data centers were smaller and required fewer resources. From 2014 to 2022, the exemption amounted to between $5 million and $30 million in lost state revenue per year. By 2023, that skyrocketed to more than $150 million, and this year Texas is forgoing at least $1.3 billion — a number that is rapidly increasing every year, based on state projections…
- Data centers are also exempted from paying state sales taxes on the cost of electricity, which is notable given the enormous energy demand of the facilities. By 2030, one in five data centers are expected to exceed 1 gigawatt in maximum energy demand, equivalent to the amount needed to power roughly 700,000 homes for a year…
- Cities like San Marcos, Amarillo, College Station, Waco and Harlingen have seen grassroots movements pressuring local officials to block data center projects. A recent Quinnipiac poll found 65% of Americans oppose the construction of a data center in their community…
- In Illinois, where the value of the state’s sales tax break for data centers recently reached $1 billion, Gov. JB Pritzker in February announced a two-year suspension of the state’s sales tax break amid concerns that data centers are causing energy costs to rise for residents.
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