# How Texas Built the Data Center Boom — methodology **Research cutoff:** August 3, 2026 **Geographic scope:** Texas **Status:** Published on LocalInsights.ai on August 3, 2026 ## What is included The timeline includes dated, data-center-specific actions by the Texas Legislature, governor, Comptroller, Public Utility Commission, ERCOT, local governments and utilities, plus major project announcements, documented local siting conflicts and measurable fiscal, grid or water consequences. A general incentive program is excluded unless an executed agreement or official action expressly covered a data center. The five lanes describe the kind of record—not a proven causal effect: 1. State incentives and legislation 2. PUC, ERCOT and utility actions 3. County and city approvals 4. Data-center projects and expansions 5. Grid, water, tax and infrastructure consequences ## Evidence and language rules - **Sequence is not causation.** A project appearing after a law or abatement does not, by itself, prove that the earlier action caused the project. Event descriptions use “followed,” “enabled,” “approved,” “announced” and similar record-based verbs; causal language is reserved for explicit evidence. - **Official records first.** Enrolled bills, certified votes, fiscal notes, agency filings, executed agreements, ordinances, minutes and annual financial reports are preferred. Company sources are used for company announcements and project milestones. A local-news source is used only where an official vote record was not yet located and is labeled as such. - **Unknown is not zero.** “Not specified” means the detail was not found in the retrieved record. It does not mean no term, benefit, job, megawatt or vote exists. - **Announcements are not expenditures.** Announced investment and capacity are reported as commitments or plans until completion is documented. - **Tax values need a period.** A projected tax expenditure, an annual amount abated and a lifetime agreement ceiling are different measures. They are never added together here. - **Request queues are not forecasts.** ERCOT interconnection requests, planning forecasts, committed load and system peak demand are kept distinct. - **Map precision is visible.** Pins use a city or county centroid unless a project site was verified and safe to publish. They identify the relevant jurisdiction, not a parcel boundary. ## Policy-shift and local-conflict line The policy-shift module synchronizes two different records from September 2025 through the August 3, 2026 research cutoff. They are not merged into one score. The stepped line counts **cumulative distinct jurisdictions with a documented local data-center siting conflict**. A jurisdiction enters the count when a retrieved source records organized public opposition, opposition voiced at a government meeting, or a formal local action responding to community, water, grid, land-use, noise or infrastructure concerns. One local dispute is counted once per jurisdiction; later meetings, votes, litigation or withdrawal do not add another count. The earliest milestone located in this review of the current siting wave is the **September 11, 2025 College Station** meeting and unanimous land-sale rejection. That is not a claim that no Texan objected to any data center before that day. The count grows from **1 to 12 jurisdictions** by July 23, 2026, so the visualization describes a **12-fold cumulative footprint within this source-bounded review**. It is not a statewide census of opposition, a poll, or a measure of the intensity of sentiment. The state-posture line remains categorical: - **Promotion:** the governor's November 14, 2025 Google announcement. - **Countercurrent:** the earliest contrary statement located here from a statewide elected official, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller on January 12, 2026. - **Abbott actions and proposals:** the June 10 directive, June 30 rural-neighborhood prohibition proposal, July 23 project-withdrawal announcement, and August 3 comprehensive audit directive. Proposals are labeled as proposals. The June 30 statement did not itself enact a rural ban. The August 3 directive requires PUC and ERCOT to audit queued projects before progression and says noncompliant projects must be denied grid connection; it does not establish that all queued projects had already been audited or denied at the cutoff. The complete entries, definitions, deduplication rule and source links are available in [`data/policy-shift.json`](data/policy-shift.json). ## Research reconciliation The underlying research report attributed Tax Code §151.3595 to SB 1104 in the 84th Legislature. Texas Legislature Online shows that SB 1104 was referred to Senate Finance and did not advance. The enacted source was **HB 2712**, signed June 10, 2015. The visualization uses HB 2712, its enrolled text and certified votes. This correction illustrates why the public module links each core claim to its governing record instead of treating the research narrative as a final authority. ## Current-officeholder vote matrix This investigation reports certified chamber totals for HB 1223, HB 2712 and SB 6. It does not label how “current officeholders” voted. That crosswalk remains withheld because membership changes, same-name collisions, special elections and chamber transfers require a separate identity review. ## Deal ledger boundaries The deal studies separate: - the public entity and project subsidiary; - the authority used; - the stated performance commitment; - the vote found in the record; - projected, annual and realized public values; and - unresolved exhibits or confidentiality limits. No “total subsidy” is calculated where the records provide only percentages, where multiple governments may overlap, or where actual taxable value and compliance are unknown. ## Source availability note The City of Red Oak's direct URL for its July 10, 2023 council minutes returned a 404 during publication QA after the record had been retrieved and reviewed. Public links now point to the city's live City Council archive search page; the event and deal descriptions retain the limits documented in the retrieved record. ## Accessibility and correction path The map is paired with an HTML timeline and searchable table. Every interactive event is keyboard focusable. Reduced-motion preferences disable map and timeline transitions. Source links are available in each record. Corrections should identify the event or deal, the disputed field and a source link, then use the Local Insights contact page at https://localinsights.ai/contact/. The package received source, editorial, accessibility and explicit website-publication review before release. No social post, newsletter send, video publication, paid promotion or external outreach is authorized by the website release.