Texas Shuts Down Automated Permit System After Data Center Approvals Continue Past Governor's Pause
Texas has revoked permits for 17 data center projects and taken its automated permitting portal offline after discovering that construction approvals were still being issued weeks after Governor Greg Abbott requested a halt.
An automated permitting system in Texas continued to greenlight data center construction projects even as state leadership moved to freeze new approvals. The discovery prompted officials to suspend permits for 17 ongoing data center ventures and disable the web portal responsible for the automatic authorization process.
Governor Greg Abbott called for a moratorium on new permits in September 2026, yet the state's electronic system kept issuing approvals. Watchdog organizations FracTracker Alliance and Public Citizen documented the problem in separate reports, each identifying more than two dozen permits that had been granted to Texas data center projects after the governor's request, according to 404 Media.
The automated filing system is now offline. A statement posted on the website explained the action: "TCEQ's electronic filing application used for automatic authorizations has been temporarily shut down to ensure all applications are reviewed by agency staff to determine if they are related to data centers."