NEW: Hinojosa Calls on Greg Abbott to Put Moratorium on Data Centers Until a Legislative Session That Puts Texans First

“Greg Abbott talks a big game about what he will do after the election. The thing is, he has the power to do it today.”

Austin, TX – Today, Democratic nominee for Texas Governor Gina Hinojosa called on Greg Abbott to sign an emergency executive order putting a moratorium on data centers until the legislature meets to give Texans a seat at the table.

“The people of Texas are being taken advantage of, in a big way, by corporations who are operating under no rules,” Hinojosa said. “Data centers are coming in and doing as they please – they are guzzling up all our water, guzzling up all our electricity – and the people have no say. They have no power. That is the Wild West of data centers that Greg Abbott has created in Texas. People need relief.”

“I’m calling for a moratorium until a legislative session that puts Texans first so that we don’t have any more communities in Texas who are powerless against these global corporations,” Hinojosa added.

Hinojosa was joined by impacted Texans to discuss their first-hand experiences and how Greg Abbott’s policies have put billionaires first and left them behind. Cheryl Shadden, a nurse practitioner who lives across from a Granbury data center, said, “We are bombarded with noise 24/7. My entire community is sick, and [data centers] are taking 2.5 million gallons of water per day off the Brazos River and Lake Granbury. This is what my community has lived through for three years.”

Hinojosa outlined her Texans First Data Center Priorities for the next legislative session, which Abbott could call today:

• Requiring American union jobs so operators hire skilled, licensed, union labor, and undoing the fast-track rollbacks that let corporations cut safety corners. When corners get cut on builds this size, workers die.
• Giving Texans a seat at the table to decide if and how data centers come to their communities.
• Creating full transparency by stopping data center companies from using NDAs.
• Lowering costs for Texans by ensuring data center companies prove households won’t pay more for electricity or water, including the hidden costs passed through for grid upgrades, transmission, and new capacity.
• Make data centers pay for themselves by stopping subsidies. These data centers are owned by the richest men in the world; Texans shouldn’t foot the bill.
• Putting water and power for Texans first by ensuring any water contract with data centers becomes unenforceable if it threatens a community’s water supply. 

The event follows Hinojosa’s recent swing in the Panhandle, where she met with rural Texans about their concerns on data centers at a series of roundtables, a town hall, and by visiting one of the world’s largest planned data center sites.

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