The Liberty Daily 
(Daily Signal)—As the Trump administration moves full speed ahead with artificial intelligence innovation, Texas state lawmakers are worried about unintended consequences for their constituents.
The AI boom is fueling the growth of hundreds more data centers, and Texas offers ample space for their construction. While Republican state lawmakers want Texas to support innovation so the United States can win the AI race against China, they are concerned about how the arrival of new data centers will affect rural communities’ access to water and electricity.
“We understand that AI infrastructure is about more than local economics, and we support it,” Texas state Rep. Helen Kerwin told The Daily Signal. “We have to support it to stay ahead in the race, but not at the cost of future generations having water issues and power issues.”
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Kerwin, the mother of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, represents a rural district where her constituents are concerned about the impact of data centers on their way of life.
She first engaged on the issue after talking to a 20-year-old third-generation farmer who was afraid he would lose his family’s land. He said he wanted to stay on the land, Kerwin said, but he told her “they are offering us a massive amount of money.”
“He wants to carry on the family tradition, but then he said to me, what happens if I turn them down but my neighbor accepts the offer?”
Texas Rep. Mitch Little said he sees a lot of fear about the impact of data centers on the lifestyle of rural Texans.
“There’s a rising fear generally about the use and deployment of AI and how it’s going to reformat our culture and employment of people writ large,” he told The Daily Signal. “So I think there’s that inherent fear, and then there’s the not in my backyard fear of I don’t want a giant glowing hum like right next to my house. So those are the primary concerns that I’ve heard.”
Data centers’ share of U.S. power use could jump from about 4.5% today to between 9 and 17% by 2030, according to a recent Electric Power Research Institute analysisopens in a new tab. As data centers continue to proliferate, Americans across the country worry that costs will drive up household utility bills.
In Texas, where resources are already scarce, this concern is especially pronounced among residents.
“Texans in general are always worried about electricity and water, and to the extent that they’re just mindful of that,” State Sen. Angela Paxton told The Daily Signal. “These are not unlimited resources for us here in Texas.”
While Texans are “no stranger to industrial booms,” data centers present a unique challenge to resources, Kerwin said.
“I’m getting calls and texts from landowners, families, local leaders, especially agriculture,” she said, “who are very concerned about what this level of rapid development means for their water, their land, their power, even their communities.”
A Republican delegation from Texas met with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick a few weeks ago at the White House and discussed data centers, among other topics. Paxton said she was encouraged by Lutnick’s “America First” view of data centers.
“He understands these companies that come, they need to bring value to Americans,” she said.
She praised Trump’s “rate-payer protection pledge,” which requires data centers to provide for their own energy and infrastructure. But she said it’s important that states maintain the ability to pass their own guardrails on emerging technology.
The White House introduced the first-ever framework for a National Standard on AI in March, which includes ratepayer protection. The framework is intended to preempt state AI laws in exchange for one national standard.
“I actually think the states continuing to regulate can actually help provide a great blueprint for federal legislation going forward, if we can all work together,” Paxton said. “But you know that the federal government, and the White House in particular, have been very aggressive in wanting to promote AI innovation.”
“I think we can have innovation and we can have regulation,” she said. “I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive.”
Kerwin suggested a pause on data centers to allow time for research on their effects.
“There is something that alarmed me to the point that I needed to take this on and try and see if there is any way that our state can do studies,” she said. “Take a pause to learn about what kind of impact these hyper-scale data centers are going to have for future generations.”
“Too often rural communities feel like they learn about large projects after the key decisions have already been made,” she said.
“I think it’s time that we establish just some guardrails so that we know how impactful they’re going to be,” Kerwin added.
