Attorney General Ken Paxton said September 24 that his office is investigating hundreds of data center developments in Texas that have not responded to the Texas Water Development Board’s water use survey. Data centers in 18 counties are under initial investigation, among them Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Travis, Bexar, Lubbock, Midland, Ector, Potter, Tom Green and El Paso. Paxton is demanding that every data center in the state file a response that fully complies with the law.
“It is our responsibility to steward our state’s land well, and we cannot do that if companies are blatantly disregarding their legal obligations to Texas and to our citizens,” Paxton said. “We cannot sacrifice our resources, water, or energy supply, and I will continue to fight for our communities across this state.”
The investigation follows three orders on data centers from Gov. Greg Abbott in eight weeks. Abbott ordered the Public Utility Commission and ERCOT on August 3 to audit every data center seeking a connection to the grid. On September 14 he directed the water board to punish data centers that had skipped the survey, and his office said major water users, data centers among them, “appear to have committed civil and criminal violations” by withholding the information. On September 21 he told the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to issue no data center permits until the audits are finished.
The survey carries two penalties under Section 16.012 of the Texas Water Code. A user who fails to complete and return it commits a Class C misdemeanor. A user who fails to return it on time loses eligibility for water permits, permit amendments and renewals from TCEQ under Chapter 11 of the code, which governs the right to use state water. For a project that needs a water right to cool its buildings, the second penalty reaches further than the first.
Abbott’s September 14 letter tells the water board to refer noncompliant data centers to the appropriate county or district attorney and to notify TCEQ for possible permit disqualification. The board owes the governor a report on its enforcement by October 14. Paxton’s office now runs its own inquiry alongside that referral process.
A separate investigation, opened September 17, concerns a single site in Taylor, in Williamson County. In 1999 the Bland family conveyed the land to the Texas Parks and Recreation Foundation “to be held in trust for future use as parkland” by Williamson County, for $10. It passed to the City of Taylor in 2003 and to the Taylor Economic Development Corporation in 2009, which sold it in April 2025 for $10 million to NCP Travis TPP Project, LLC, the Delaware entity behind the proposed Blueprint Projects data centers. Paxton is examining whether the parkland trust was ever lawfully released, and said he will ask a court to enforce it if the restriction still binds the property.
“If the Taylor data center development is unlawful, I will do everything in my power to stop it and hold those who have violated the law accountable,” Paxton said.
The water board uses the survey to write the state water plan, and Abbott’s September 14 directive says the board cannot do that work if it is denied detailed information on existing and anticipated water consumption. Section 11.021 of the Water Code declares the water of every flowing river, natural stream and lake in Texas, and the rainwater and floodwater of every watershed, to be “the property of the state.” Every gallon a data center draws from a Texas river or lake is drawn under a right that Texas granted, and Texas is entitled to know how much is taken.
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