State Rep. Gina Hinojosa (D-Austin) on Thursday called on Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to impose a data center moratorium in Texas.
“ He has the unique ability to issue a moratorium until the legislature can meet,” Hinojosa said at a press conference. “ He has the sole unique authority to issue an emergency executive order and call a special session of the legislature to take action to bring relief to Texans now. I am calling on him to do it. There is nowhere to hide, this problem is in his lap and in his lap alone.”
Hinojosa will face Abbott in the general election for governor in November at a time when it’s becoming increasingly clear that Texas’ artificial intelligence data center boom is an issue driving voters to the ballot box.
“ For the last three years, we have been under siege, we have been ignored,” Tom Weeks, a Granbury resident said during the press conference. “I have had high blood pressure issues, I had a pulmonary embolism in July of 2024 and nearly died. I was bedridden for over six months and had to sit here and listen to this Bitcoin mine, Marathon Bitcoin, scream across my property day and night. My wife and I are sleep-deprived. I think most of my neighbors are sleep-deprived.”
Granbury is home to a sprawling facility built in 2022 that’s owned by MARA Holdings, formerly known as Marathon.
“We are a neglected community, we are the bastard children of this county, and it’s sad. “I’m angry, and as every day goes by, I get even angrier. I have no rights, I feel like they’ve been taken away from me. I’m watching older people suffer, they can’t go anywhere, they’re trapped,” Weeks added.
Hinojosa said she wants to make sure any data center being built is built by American union labor that is licensed and experienced, and that there is local control over what is happening so that people have a seat at the table to decide if and how data centers come into their community.
“That seat at the table is missing for too many of our Texas communities. We need to have full transparency over the electricity consumption of these data centers, over the water consumption of these data centers—no more non-disclosure agreements. The people have a right to know,” she said. “When it comes to water, there should be no question that water is for the people, the residents, the citizens of Texas first.”
She’s also calling on Abbott to end ”generous taxpayer giveaways” to data centers that “lured all these data centers to come in droves.”
In November 2025, Abbott sat alongside Google CEO Sundar Pichai in Midlothian and announced a $40 billion investment in AI data centers in Texas, calling Texas “the epicenter of AI development.”
But as Texans on both sides of the aisle have raised their concerns about the environmental and economic impact data centers will have on their community, Abbott changed his tune. In June, he called for a ban on data center developments in rural Texas neighborhoods and released sweeping regulatory recommendations on data centers for the Texas Legislature to pass in 2027.
“We do not see Greg Abbott going to sit with the people of Texas, the residents of Texans,” Hinojosa said. “He has no problem sitting down with the CEO of BlackRock. We need that same kind of attention given to the people of Texas. Is this going to be a Texas that is by and for the people, or is this the billionaire’s world and we just live here?”
During Thursday’s press conference, Brooklyn Duvall, a 16-year-old from Lubbock, said this is one the first issues she’s witnessed that’s not a Democrat-versus-Republican issue.
“It feels like this is more of the people versus the big tech type of issue, and let me tell you, people here in Lubbock are speaking out. They’re worried about their health, they’re worried about their utility prices going up, they’re worried about the water usage. They’re worried about their cattle being affected by these data centers, and they’re worried about the noise and the pollution,” Duvall said.
State Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for US Senate, also announced plans to hold data centers more accountable during a press conference this week.
His plan includes a ban on giving AI companies sweetheart tax breaks to build data centers and repealing existing tax breaks, empowering local residents to weigh in on data center construction, protecting Texas water, and requiring AI companies to pay for their own electric and water infrastructure so that those utility costs are no longer passed on to working Texans.
“ Texas should be a leader when it comes to innovation and technology, but that only works if Texans get a say and get a share of that economic growth, and that’s not what’s happening right now,” Talarico said. “Right now, there is no transparency, there’s no accountability, there’s no community input.”
Other Democrats running statewide this midterm election year, including lieutenant governor nominee Vikki Goodwin and agriculture commissioner candidate Clayton Tucker, have also vocally opposed data centers going unregulated and are calling for moratoriums.
