Texas Gov. Abbott orders data center permit halt weeks after issuing moratorium

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday ordered the state's environmental regulator to halt all data center-related permits until the Electric Reliability Council of Texas completes an audit of the existing waitlist for data centers looking to connect to the state's grid. The audits were originally ordered by the governor's office in August, when Abbott also imposed a moratorium on new data center grid approvals. This directive expands the moratorium to environmental approvals through the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Texas was on track to surpass Virginia as the state with the largest data center market in the world by the end of the decade, according to a February report from JLL, but Abbott's Monday directive may slow that progress.