(The Center Square) – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has issued another directive requiring data centers to follow the law, this time calling for penalties to be enforced by the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB).

“Data centers must share the duty to protect Texas water,” Abbott said. “The Texas Water Code requires a complete and accurate water use survey. I direct the Texas Water Development Board to use its enforcement authority to penalize past failures and to impose legal consequences for any future failure to comply.”

The directive was issued as many Texans continue to express widespread opposition to data centers being built across the state, citing water usage among other concerns.

In his directive to the TWDB, Abbott said data centers “appear to have committed civil and criminal violations by failing to provide” the TWDB with information about water usage as required by Texas Water Code.

He directed the TWDB to use its statutory authority to compel data centers to comply with water use reporting requirements and to impose legal consequences for past and future failure to comply with state law. He also directed the TWDB to partner with the Public Utility Commission and Electric Reliability Council of Texas on their audits of data centers and obtain additional water use information.

The audits require data centers to provide detailed information about their water consumption, sources of water supply and implementation of water-efficient technologies. Any data center project that fails to complete the audit process must be denied interconnection to the state grid, Abbott said.

The TWDB is required by state statute to develop a state water plan but can’t do its job if it’s “denied the detailed information necessary to assess both existing and anticipated water consumption across Texas,” Abbott said. “That is why state law obligates entities to respond to a TWDB survey that provides state and regional planners with complete and accurate information.”

A data center that fails to complete and return the survey to the TWDB commits an offense punishable as a crime, according to state statute. Failure to timely complete and return the survey also results in ineligibility for TCEQ permits, amendments, or renewals under Chapter 11 of the Texas Water Code, Abbott’s directive states.

The statute also requires the TWDB to enforce the law and refer bad actors to appropriate county or district attorneys and notices to TCEQ for possible permit disqualification.

This isn’t the first time data centers have complied with the law. Last month, Abbott issued two data center directives and temporarily paused data center development after he learned that only 10% of companies responded to a PUC survey requesting information about electricity and water usage.

Abbott’s temporary pause impacts roughly 1,800 projects seeking regulatory approval to connect to the Texas grid, requiring nearly 474 gigawatts of power – five times Texas’ record peak electricity demand, The Center Square reported.

“For every data center that’s operating or that’s trying to operate in the state of Texas,” he said his directives require four things. The companies “have to make sure they are not taking water needed by local communities. They must not take power that’s needed by the Texas power grid. They must operate in a way that lowers the cost of electricity and they must not operate in neighborhoods or in rural communities that’s disruptive. Those are very common-sense principles that Texans by and large agree upon.”

Prior to issuing the directives, ERCOT “was on a pathway where they were considering adding to our power grid through data centers five times the amount of power that we have available. This simply is not going to work,” Abbott said at a campaign event. “To make matters worse, the PUC had requested every data center either currently operating or seeking to operate in Texas to give data to the state about how much power they are currently using and how much they would be using. The PUC got less than a 10% response.” That lack of response “was untenable,” he said.

Abbott’s directives ordered state regulators to audit the companies prior to approval and ensure they “pay for their electric infrastructure instead of shifting costs onto Texas families and small businesses, reuse their own water, reduce the cost of electricity for Texans, do not disrupt residential neighborhoods to preserve Texas’ quality of life, and pay their own way and eliminate reliance on outdated taxpayer-funded incentives,” The Center Square reported.

The state legislature established the TWBD in 1913 to regulate appropriations of water. From 1954-1956, Texas suffered the most severe drought in state history. In 1957, the legislature enacted a law, and voters passed a constitutional amendment, authorizing $200 million to be spent toward water conservation efforts. Fast forward to 2023, and the legislature and voters increased funding to $1 billion to support the Texas Water Fund, The Center Square reported.

The TWDB also published the first state flood plan in 2024, which found that one in six Texans, more than five million people, live or work in a known flood hazard area. Texas leads the U.S. in flood deaths led by Flash Flood Alley in central Texas.