Texas Republicans at odds with Trump AI expansion goals into rural areas

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(The Center Square) – Texas Republicans are expressing growing opposition to a Trump administration plan to expand artificial intelligence, and data centers to support it, in rural communities. Data centers require large acreage, a large volume of water and electricity. 

Last year, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to expand AI and data centers, which is already being implemented. Trade deals have been struck requiring energy facilities and data centers to power AI, including in rural east Texas. 

The executive order says advancing AI “will promote United States national and economic security and dominance across many domains.” The order also revokes the Biden administration’s “attempt to paralyze this industry,” it says.  

The industry is led by major donors of Trump and congressional Republicans, including billionaires Peter Thiel (Palantir), businessman Richard Uihlein, Larry Ellison (Oracle), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Mark Zuckerberg (META) and Sam Altman (OpenAI), among many others.

In a move against what many argue ignores federalism and states’ rights, the order seeks to override state AI regulation, claiming “excessive State regulation thwarts this imperative."

“State-by-State regulation by definition creates a patchwork of 50 different regulatory regimes that makes compliance more challenging, particularly for start-ups. … State laws are increasingly responsible for requiring entities to embed ideological bias within models,” it adds, citing a new Colorado law banning “algorithmic discrimination.” State laws also “sometimes impermissibly regulate beyond State borders, impinging on interstate commerce,” the order states. 

As a result, Trump has rolled out a national framework to override “50 discordant state ones” that “must forbid state laws that conflict with the policy set forth in this order.”

The framework lays out a plan to preempt state law through legislation and litigation. It creates an AI Litigation Task Force with the Department of Justice designed specifically to sue states to challenge their laws and restrict federal funding for states that don’t comply. 

Exceptions to preempting state AI laws include those with child safety protections, AI data center infrastructure and permitting and state government procurement of AI.

The order was issued after several new Texas AI laws went into effect last September. One is HB 149, which regulates the use of AI and provides civil penalties. It established the AI Sandbox Program to allow developers to create an AI system to test under the regulation of the Texas Department of Information Resources. It also established the Texas AI Council to have oversight of the process. HB 2828 created an AI Division within the agency. Another is HB 3512, which requires state agency statff to complete AI training. 

Another is SB 2372, which regulates AI financial exploitation, including phishing and AI generated media, also creating civil fines. Another is HB 3185, which created a mechanism to investigate and prosecute cybercrime. Another is HB 4751, which established the Texas Quantum Initiative to advance Texas quantum computing and manufacturing, including allocating grants. 

None of the laws include protections from eminent domain, loss of water resources or strains on the Texas grid. The laws don’t address local communities incurring costs through increased energy bills or increased taxes through tax abatements likely to be given to multibillion dollar companies. 

As local rural farming communities learn of plans to build data centers, Republican lawmakers are speaking out. 

In Hood County, Republican county commissioners voted to postpone action on two data center projects proposed by MARA Holdings to expand AI digital infrastructure. 

Hood County Republican Party Chairman Greg Harrell on Wednesday pointed to OpenAI scrapping its plan to expand its Stargate data center in Abilene, a $500 billion project announced in January, due to funding concerns. “This signals just how turbulent the quickly evolving hyperscaler data center development business has already become,” he said.

“The bottom line - the data center development business is so uncertain right now due to external constraints and other factors that even the largest and best-financed players in the game are rapidly reconsidering their decisions and their strategies. Perhaps wisdom would dictate that we allow this entire business sector to mature some more before we rush into turning Texas into a data center desert.”

State Rep. Helen Kerwin has called for an immediate pause on data center proposals to allow for impact studies on rural Texas communities. In a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott, she said that while Texas must remain competitive in the global AI race, constituents are opposed to large scale data centers because of strains on local water and energy resources.

State Rep. Shelley Luther said after meeting with Trump officials she and others in the Texas House expressed opposition. “We made it very clear that although data centers were essential to America's future, they cannot come at the expense of rural communities. They cannot drain our water supply, drain our power supply, invade our neighborhoods with noise, lights and degrading property value.”