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Should You Trust a Politician’s Pivot on Data Centers?

heatmap.news · 22h · first reportShare

In November 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced a $40 billion Google investment in his state and declared , “Texas is the epicenter of AI development, where companies can pair innovation with expanding energy.” At a campaign stop in East Texas seven months later, he had a different message : “We must prohibit them from building AI data centers in rural Texas neighborhoods.” Last week, Abbott instructed Texas’ environmental agency to stop issuing permits to data center projects until the state’s grid operator completes an audit of all data centers in the interconnection process. Abbott is not alone. In the past week, three other candidates for governor moved toward limits. On September 23, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, a Democrat, signed an executive order tying state incentives for large projects to a new review process , pledged that “the state will not go around a local community’s ‘no,’” and announced that he would ask lawmakers to repeal the state’s data center tax exemption,