DALLAS — For Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa, data center regulation became a major part of her platform leading up to her Tuesday win. From calling for a moratorium on data centers to speaking out against Gov. Greg Abbott’s policies on development, Hinojosa made the issue a focal point for her campaign. For North Texas residents, the issue hits close to home. In May, Dallas was named the No. 1 ...

Gina Hinojosa, speaks during her election night watch party at Assembly Hall on Nov. 3, 2026, in Austin, Texas.

Joel Angel Juarez/Getty Images North America/TNS

DALLAS — For Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa, data center regulation became a major part of her platform leading up to her Tuesday win.

From calling for a moratorium on data centers to speaking out against Gov. Greg Abbott’s policies on development, Hinojosa made the issue a focal point for her campaign.

For North Texas residents, the issue hits close to home.

In May, Dallas was named the No. 1 primary data center market in the world, according to a report from Cushman & Wakefield. And although there isn’t an official list of data centers in the region, a widely cited tracker, U.S. Data Center Map, estimated that as of October the Dallas-Fort Worth market had about 125 operational data centers.

In places like Red Oak, about 20 miles south of Dallas, the topic has been divisive. Residents have voiced concerns about the environmental and residential effects of an 830-acre data center campus, while the companies and local officials have touted the economic benefits.

With the issue on many North Texans’ minds, here’s a closer look at Hinojosa’s campaign promises around data centers.

—Moratorium on data centers

Hinojosa vowed on the campaign trail to implement a moratorium on data center development until laws are passed by the Legislature to protect Texans.

In August, Abbott called for an audit of data centers seeking to connect to the power grid. The following month, Abbott placed a temporary ban on new data center permits from being issued by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality until the audit was finished.

During her campaign, Hinojosa expressed concerns that the temporary ban would be lifted in early November if Abbott was elected.

In an Oct. 22 video posted on X, Hinojosa said her moratorium would give Texans a “seat at the table to decide if and how data centers come into their communities.”

—Stricter water, power regulation

Hinojosa’s platform called for stricter regulations on data center resource usage, as data centers are poised to place unprecedented increases in demand on the power grid and state water supplies.

The power demand for Texas data centers could reach nearly 78,000 megawatts by 2030, according to a 2025 report from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the group that operates the state’s power grid. For context, the group says 1 megawatt is enough to power about 200 Texas homes during peak demand periods, which would be about 15 million homes based on the 2030 projection.

The Houston Advanced Research Center also predicts that by 2030, Texas data centers could consume anywhere from 29 billion to 161 billion gallons of water, which could account for 0.5 to 2.7% of the state’s annual water usage.

That range is so broad because different data centers may use less water than others, or recycle water in their cooling systems to reduce usage.

“These hyperscale data centers have hyperscale impacts on our communities when it comes to our grid, our water, and just our way of life,” Hinojosa said in a Sept. 2 interview with CBS News.

According to a July news release, one of Hinojosa’s priorities was to protect Texans’ water and power by ensuring communities won’t pay more for either resource and by putting community water supply protections in place.

—Ending subsidies

In 2015, Abbott signed House Bill 2712, which expanded sales tax exemptions for hyperscale data centers.

This, Hinojosa said, “invited hundreds of data centers into Texas.”

One of Hinojosa’s Texans First Data Center Priorities was to end subsidies for data centers and make data centers pay for themselves, according to the July release. “Texans shouldn’t foot the bill.”

Hinojosa said in the CBS interview she did not fully understand the effect data centers had on communities in Texas until she sat down with people and talked to them about it.

“That's the only way you truly understand how they've been hurt,” she said.

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