SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
HARLINGEN — Days after Cameron County’s only data-center campus obtained a worksite permit to grade farmland, dig ponds, and install streets near Valley International Airport, Gov. Greg Abbott announced a statewide freeze on all remaining data-center permits, explaining that Texans must come first and that this obviously includes the dirt.
“Simply put, Texans must come first,” Abbott wrote in a letter that arrived in the Valley roughly one fence-post after the fence went up. “Data centers must pay their own way, protect our grid and water, and complete the ERCOT and TWDB audits. The dirt has not completed an audit. The dirt must wait until December.”
The company behind the Harlingen campus, which had pledged to follow the governor’s data-center standards from day one, followed the governor’s data-center standards from day one — at which point Austin printed a new standard requiring projects to also follow the standards Austin is currently writing.
Off-Grid Loophole Closed, Along With Everything Else
The freeze extends even to self-powered, off-grid projects that never touch ERCOT, closing what Austin called a loophole and Harlingen called “the entire business model.” State officials confirmed that while the graded land, the ponds, and the freshly paved streets are legally permitted, the state cannot be certain the dirt is ready to become a building until ERCOT finishes an audit of 474 gigawatts of queued projects — five times Texas’s record peak demand, 90 percent of it data centers, several of which are now reportedly just ponds with Wi-Fi ambitions.
The freeze follows an earlier pause imposed after only 28 percent of data centers responded to a state water-use survey. The other 72 percent are believed to have answered with the sound of excavators.
“We were told to come first,” said a man in a hard hat watching a grader idle beside a retention pond that is currently the most permitted body of water in Cameron County. “Turns out we were the Texans who had to come first. We came first so nobody else has to.”
County Clarifies: Roads Yes, Buildings Maybe, Dirt Under Review
Cameron County officials stressed that future permits are still required before any buildings go up, then clarified that no buildings may go up, then clarified that no one may clarify anything until TCEQ reports compliance to the governor’s office by Oct. 19, 2026 — a date locals note is after December minus two months, which is when the ERCOT audit ends, which is when the dirt question begins.
“We support the governor’s position that the Valley should wait,” said one county official, gesturing at a beautifully graded rectangle of former sorghum field. “That land has waited generations to be flat. It can wait two more months to find out if it’s allowed to have a roof.”
At press time, the ponds had begun evaporating, becoming the first component of the project to successfully complete a state water audit.
