Texas voters organize against data centers before midterms
Original title: Voters in Texas agree: They hate data centers
An August poll found 57 percent of Texans oppose new data centers, including 43 percent of Republicans.
Local fights over data centers in Taylor, Temple and San Marcos have become a statewide election issue, with San Marcos the first Texas city to ban them. The Texas NAACP and other groups formed We the People Texas, which president Gary Bledsoe estimates could represent as many as 1 million voters. Grievances include water use, tax subsidies and power plants built for rising demand. A 2015 expansion of a data-center tax exemption is now estimated to cost $3.2 billion in lost sales tax over two years, while average electricity bills rose 35.4 percent over five years.
Unconfirmed: The one-million-voter coalition size is Bledsoe’s estimate, and the article’s 2030 demand figures are operator or study projections.
- Save Rural Texas delayed a proposed data center in the Texoma area.
- Qualifying developers can avoid state tax on equipment and electricity for up to 20 years.
- The exemption was first expected to cost $14.6 million in 2014 and 2015.
- Texas data centers used about 25 billion gallons of water last year, HARC said.
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From the original article
11 min read at theverge.com
Ask Texas NAACP president Gary Bledsoe what it's been like to see data center developers descend upon Austin and its surrounding suburbs and he can rattle off project after project facing opposition from locals. There's the fight in Taylor over plans to build a data center at a site that's supposed to be a park. Temple, around 40 miles away, is another sore spot, Bledsoe says.
By Justine Calma · theverge.com
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