AIBRIEF
Abbott's directive to the Texas Water Development Board routes non filers to local prosecutors and to the state environmental regulator, which can pull permits.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday directed the Texas Water Development Board, the state's water planning agency, to enforce the state's water-use reporting law against data centers that have not filed their surveys, the second half of a two-lever push that, last month, also threatened to deny non-respondents permission to connect to the state power grid (The Guardian, governor's office).
Texas Water Code Section 16.012 makes failing to return the survey a Class C misdemeanor. The directive tells TWDB to refer non-filers to the appropriate County or District Attorney and to notify the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state's environmental regulator, which can disqualify operators from permits under Chapter 11 (Texas Water Code §16.012, TWDB survey program). TWDB has said it is a non-regulatory agency with no prosecution authority, so the real teeth sit with local prosecutors and TCEQ (Texas Tribune).
Texas now has 335 data centers, the second-most of any US state, with at least 248 more in the pipeline. Operators consumed an estimated 25 billion gallons in 2025; a Houston Advanced Research Center scenario projects 161 billion gallons by 2030, roughly 2.7% of state water use and the demand of about 1.3 million households nationally (Houston Public Media). TWDB is due back to Abbott with an enforcement update by Oct. 14. The test case is which projects actually get referred or denied interconnection.