🇺🇸Texas ordered its Commission on Environmental Quality to pause data-center permitting pending electricity-grid and water audits.

According to a governor’s-office statement reproduced by Financial_Express, Governor Greg Abbott directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to suspend issuance of permits for data-center project applications. The quoted statement says no such permits would be issued until the specified audits were completed.

The agencies named are the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB). Abbott’s stated requirements were that data centers pay their own costs, protect the electricity grid and water resources, and complete both agencies’ audits.

The reported action concerns TCEQ permitting, rather than an order to shut down existing data centers. The message does not provide an audit timetable, exemptions, affected project count, or the amount of proposed data-center capacity subject to the pause.