Texas Energy Report NewsClips
Friday August 28, 2026
Asterisk (*) denotes news stories that may be inaccessible because portions are behind a paywall
Good morning! Here are today’s Texas Energy Report NewsClips
Oil prices fell on Friday and are on track to snap a two-week winning streak, despite settling higher in the previous session following a that U.S. President Donald Trump is not interested in returning to previous deal terms with Iran.
West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 22 cents, also 0.3%, to $83.31.
Brent crude futures were down 25 cents, or 0.3%, to $89.45 a barrel by 0035 GMT.
Both benchmarks were poised to end the week lower, with Brent down 5.3% and WTI falling 4.3%.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal report said the Trump administration has repeatedly told mediators it has no interest in reviving the June memorandum of understanding, complicating diplomatic efforts to restart talks.
Earlier on Thursday, Washington said it was not in talks with Iran despite diplomatic efforts by other countries to re-engage the two sides.
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Top Stories
Bloomberg – August 27, 2026
Enbridge secures nearly US$2 billion partnership to expand Westcoast gas lines
Canadian energy company Enbridge said on Thursday it had agreed to form a joint venture with KKR KKR.N and Apollo to invest about $2.7 billion (US$1.95 billion) in expansions of its Westcoast natural gas pipeline system in British Columbia. Asset managers are increasingly investing in generation and pipeline assetsas demand for natural gas infrastructure grows rapidly amid rising LNG exports and the proliferation of data centers.
Demand for natural gas infrastructure in Western Canada and the U.S. Pacific Northwest is also growing, with Enbridge’s Westcoast system providing a route to international LNG markets. Under the agreement, KKR and Apollo will fund the Aspen Point and Sunrise expansion projects, while Enbridge will receive $700 million in cash at closing and retain majority ownership and operational control of the pipeline.
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Texas Tribune – August 27, 2026
After years of hardship, Texas agriculture faces a new threat: data centers
Lubbock — Cheyenne Buerger can look outside the window of his Stamford home and see a cherished commodity in Texas: thousands of acres of farmland. His family farmed the land for more than a century, and Buerger is the fourth generation to watch over the 6,000 acres of cotton, wheat and milo. Combined with a few hundred acres of rented land near Haskell, Buerger had a good-sized farm. Then his landlord sold 600 acres to a third-party buyer for a Google data center. Buerger was told to get off the land immediately.
“When I explained I had a crop on it, they said ‘You can finish it, but that’s it,’” Buerger said. “‘You’ve got to be done in 60 days, and you’re out.” As data centers continue to encroach on open land in rural areas, the agricultural community fears it will struggle to survive as it competes with data centers for the same resources — land, water and electricity. At least 248 data centers are planned in the state, and the easiest place for them is rural Texas, where the land is vast, cheap and flat. According to the Pew Research Center, 67% of data centers nationwide are in rural areas.
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Laredo Morning Times – August 27, 2026
Cuellar’s Ratepayer Bill of Rights outlines 10 protections for communities facing data centers*
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar announced federal legislation this week aimed at preventing residents and other utility customers from bearing infrastructure and resource costs created by large data centers. “When a data center comes to South Texas and needs enormous amounts of electricity, water, wastewater capacity and public infrastructure, our families should not be handed the bill,” Cuellar said. “And they should not be kept in the dark.”
Cuellar discussed the proposal at San Agustin Plaza alongside Laredo Mayor Dr. Victor Trevino, District III Councilmember Melissa Cigarroa and state Rep. Richard Raymond. The proposed Ratepayer Bill of Rights Act of 2026 outlines 10 protections addressing data center costs, transparency, water and electricity use, infrastructure and public participation.
“The basic promise of this bill is simple: If a data center creates the cost, the data center pays the cost,” Cuellar said. “The family ratepayer does not.” The first right would require data centers to disclose their projected electricity and water use, where the water would come from and their actual consumption once operating. The second would require disclosure of utility agreements, infrastructure costs, potential effects on customer bills, permits, tax benefits and other public assistance tied to a project.
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MSN – August 27, 2026
$900 million from a canceled wind deal will benefit a Trump donor
The Trump administration’s latest deal to cancel offshore wind projects and boost fossil fuel energy development instead is generating a huge payday for one of the president’s million-dollar donors. Behind the windfall is a settlement stipulating that German energy giant RWE will receive $1.2 billion from a federal fund on the condition that it gives up its offshore wind leases in New York, California and Louisiana and invests in unspecified oil, gas or nuclear “conventional energy” projects.
Most of the payout — $900 million — will be spent by RWE to buy a stake in a massive Louisiana liquefied natural gas project, according to statements from RWE and Woodside Energy, the majority owner of the gas project. What hasn’t been previously reported is that the stake is being purchased from a private equity fund run by Australian billionaire Michael Dorrell, who owns a mansion on a private island near Mar-a-Lago and has boasted of socializing with President Donald Trump’s inner circle at the club. Dorrell personally gave $926,300 to the Trump Vance Inaugural Committee two weeks after Trump was elected for a second term in late 2024 and another $73,700 a few weeks later, according to federal filings. (The Australia native also has U.S. citizenship.)
The Latest TERse Tips
Ross fire grows to 85,000 acres (now one of the largest ever in North Texas), as 2 new fires creep closer to D-FW area — the massive Ross fire was 21% contained Thursday as crews battled flare-ups and shifting winds across Palo Pinto and Jack counties — Dallas Morning News* — also, the Ross fire is affecting the air in Dallas
US to tell partners they must pick sides in AI race with China — Business Standard
A multi-billion-dollar SpaceX facility will be built about 45 miles southwest of Lafayette — the land for the development was previously owned by Exxon Mobil before being turned over to the state — KLFY
A startup bet on Kalshi that Houston will hit 103 degrees this summer. It hopes to lose — Houston is at the center of a first-of-its-kind deal to protect companies against fallout from the city’s punishing summer heat: a bet that the temperature will hit 103 degrees in August, and if it does, risk-management startup Discrete will walk away with $25,000, almost four times what it put into the trade brokered by Houston-based Greenlight Commodities. The company’s leaders think they’ll come out ahead, even if they lose the bet — Proponents say companies like energy retailers can use these trades to hedge against the risk that soaring temperatures will strain the grid and spike wholesale electric prices — a company bets money that the worst-case scenario will happen. If it does, the company gets cash to fall back on — Houston Chronicle*
Video: The growing data center industry could reverse growing public opposition to projects by offering direct financial incentives to residents whose communities are affected, says U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz — NewsNation
President Donald Trump is expected to convene U.S. refiners and fuel retailers next week to highlight efforts to lower gasoline prices, as his administration seeks to ease pressure on consumers from the Iran conflict ahead of November’s congressional midterm elections, people familiar with the matter said — US News
The Trump administration is in talks with Venezuela’s interim government about taking an ownership stake in the South American country’s enormous oil resources, two U.S. officials tell Axios — the historic deal would more than double U.S. oil reserves by drawing from a country that has the world’s largest proven reserves — Axios
Any investigation into emissions from the Marathon Petroleum Refinery credited with causing a foul, sulfurous odor earlier this month, will be in the hands of the state of Texas — KTSM
Industrial giant Caterpillar is digging further into its Irving headquarters expansion, and the work is now expected to top $50 million, according to recent state filings — Dallas Morning News*
Matador Gas completed the acquisitions of Action Propane Inc., based in Leander, Texas, and Ozark Mountain Propane Co., headquartered in Garfield, Arkansas — LPGas Magazine
How did data center skepticism impact elections in southeastern Wyoming? — in Wyoming hot spot for data center development, many candidates who touted tough positions against the boom fell to those with more moderate positions — WyoFile
Soluna has secured 397 acres in Briscoe County, Texas, for Project Dorothy 3, giving the planned AI computing campus a larger footprint and direct access to infrastructure tied to the company’s own 150 MW wind farm — the land purchase closed August 24 and expands the site beyond the approximately 300 acres Soluna originally planned for the project — Construction Review
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Oil & Gas Texas
The Texan – August 27, 2026
Here’s a Look at Texas’ ‘Rainy Day Fund’ and How Democrats are Campaigning to Spend It
Taxes on the oil and gas industry have filled a statewide piggy bank to the brim, and Democratic candidates are lining up to bust it open. The Economic Stabilization Fund (ESF), colloquially known as the Rainy Day Fund, is an emergency reserve administered by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. The comptroller expects the balance to reach $27.4 billion by the end of the fiscal year and exceed its legal cap for the first time in history. Statewide Democratic candidates see potential in that money.
State Rep. Gina Hinojosa (D-Austin), this year’s Democratic nominee for governor, wants to spend almost two-thirds of the fund on direct payments to Texas households. The Democratic nominee for comptroller, state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt (D-Austin), suggested using the money to pay off public school district debt. State Rep. Vikki Goodwin (D-Austin), who’s running for lieutenant governor, proposed a new state health insurance program.
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Energy Now – August 27, 2026
Sempra Begins Permitting Process for Major LNG Expansion in Texas
Sempra Energy’s unit Port Arthur LNG has started the federal permitting process for a major expansion of its liquefied natural gas export operations in Southeast Texas, according to a regulatory filing made on Wednesday. The proposed Port Arthur LNG North Project would add four liquefaction trains capable of producing up to 27 million metric tons per annum (mtpa) of LNG, significantly expanding the company’s export footprint on the U.S. Gulf Coast, the filing showed.
According to the filing, each train would be capable of producing up to 6.73 mtpa of LNG under optimal conditions. The project would also include three LNG storage tanks and marine facilities with up to two LNG berths for loading cargoes onto tankers. If approved and constructed, the project could begin exporting LNG in the second half of 2034, the filing showed. The facilities would be built on land already owned by Port Arthur LNG, the filing said.
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Energy Digital – August 27, 2026
Exxon Bets on Robot Rigs to Unlock More Permian Basin Oil
ExxonMobil and its predecessor companies have operated in the Basin for almost a century now, though the era of shale saw its presence expand significantly. Today, the company has more than 30 drilling rigs across the plains which together produce around 1.8 million barrels of oil and three million cubic feet of natural gas each and every day. But while this site is the cornerstone of American hydrocarbon production, the time has come for it to be modernized.
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Bloomberg – August 27, 2026
Soap Is Shale’s Latest Breakthrough to Boost US Oil Production*
Forget AI-assisted drilling, U-shaped wells and round-the-clock fracking. One of the hottest technologies to squeeze more oil from US shale fields is better soap. Companies have long used detergent-like additives, called surfactants, to coax oil from underground rocks in much the same way that dish soap lifts grease from dinner plates. But in the past few years, shale producers have discovered dozens of new methods to mix the surfactants with other chemicals to get a bigger boost in crude output — as much as 20%, in some cases — without a major increase in spending.
Upward of 90% of crude is left behind in shale wells, leaving a significant opportunity for producers to boost recovery rates. Brendan McCracken, chief executive officer at shale driller Ovintiv Inc., said in an interview that surfactants are a real “needle mover” for improving output, increasing Ovintiv’s oil productivity by about 9% compared with wells that hadn’t been treated with its new chemical mix. The advances in surfactants are part of the industry’s years-long campaign to improve technology and lower costs, an effort that helped the US to overtake Saudi Arabia and Russia as the world’s largest crude producer. More than a decade after the shale boom began, that push has become more urgent as many of the best drilling sites are tapped and investors pressure companies to keep spending in check.
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Pipeline & Gas Journal – August 26, 2026
Filings show project Jupiter natural gas pipeline delayed until 2027
A proposed natural gas pipeline intended to serve the Project Jupiter data center in southern New Mexico has been delayed until at least early 2027, according to recent federal regulatory filings. A proposed natural gas pipeline intended to serve the Project Jupiter data center in southern New Mexico has been delayed until at least early 2027, according to recent federal regulatory filings.
Energy Transfer’s Green Chile Project was originally expected to enter service this month, Source NM reported, but now has an anticipated in-service date of February 2027, filings with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission show. The roughly $60 million project would transport natural gas from El Paso to Project Jupiter, the Oracle and OpenAI data center development planned for Doña Ana County.
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Inside Climate News – August 27, 2026
Corpus Christi Withholds Water to Wetlands While Lifting Restrictions on Lawns
Environmental regulators in Texas issued an emergency order on Tuesday evening suspending requirements for the drought-stricken city of Corpus Christi to release water from its reservoir system in support of coastal wetlands. On the same day, Corpus Christi lifted restrictions on watering lawns that had been in place since 2024, when its reservoirs remained below critical levels until a dramatic rebound in July. “The city has chosen lawns over the bay,” said Larry McKinney, a former senior director of aquatic resources for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department who lives in Corpus Christi. “Without freshwater inflows, the bay becomes basically a giant sewage treatment pond.”
The emergency suspension of requirements for environmental flows is the latest episode in a fight over water that has consumed Corpus Christ, an industrial hub on the semi-arid South Texas coast, during years of intensifying drought. Corpus Christi hasn’t released water into the Nueces River Delta and Nueces Bay since 2024 while its reservoirs remained below 30 percent full, the trigger point for environmental flows established in a 2001 administrative order by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
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Midland Reporter-Telegram – August 26, 2026
Anyone who has worked in the Permian Basin knows that every barrel of oil we bring to the surface arrives with company. On average, for every barrel of oil, our wells produce five barrels of water, which adds up to more than 20 million barrels of produced water every day. I have spent a career in oil and gas, and I have watched this issue move from just another part of upstream operations to now one of the most consequential obstacles facing Texas energy production. Last Tuesday, I chaired the Texas Senate Natural Resources Committee, where we heard testimony from produced water regulators, researchers and industry experts, and the message was consistent: our old approach to managing this water needs reform.
For years, deep underground injection was the preferred disposal method because it could absorb large volumes and was relatively cheap. But injection into those deep formations has brought trade-offs and significantly increased pressure throughout the Permian. The pore space we have relied on for decades in our core producing counties is now forcing alternatives. If drilling activity is to continue at the historic levels we are currently experiencing, improved utilization is necessary. That is why the Legislature has spent recent sessions building a different path forward. In 2021, the state created the Texas Produced Water Consortium at Texas Tech University to study whether treated produced water can be safely used for beneficial reuse applications and traditional water disposal options such as surface discharge and land application.
In the consortium’s most recent water quality report in April, researchers analyzed 60 water samples from five pilot systems in 2024-25 and found that polished desalinated produced water treatment removed more than 99% of salinity, radioactivity and organics and that the treated water cleared the bar on safety and regulatory measures, with 75 of 76 comparable quality parameters meeting TCEQ drinking water limits, a more than 98% success rate.
Oil & Gas National & International
The Guardian – August 24, 2026
China is the biggest buyer of Iran’s oil. Could US sanctions threaten those ties?
The US has unveiled an expansion of sanctions that it says will cut off Iran’s economic lifeline but stopped short of the most punishing measures, instead putting the world on notice to cease doing business with the Islamic republic. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent warned other countries would need to sever business ties with Iran or risk being forced out of the dollar-based financial system. He previously urged cooperation from China – the biggest buyer of Iranian oil for several years – although the US blockade of Iran’s ports, renewed in mid-July, has already cut much of the Iranian oil flows to China.
Experts say Washington is wary of Chinese retaliation for any sanctions on its banks ahead of expected talks next month between US president Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, with any curbs on China’s exports of critical minerals especially sensitive.
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Fox News – August 27, 2026
DOJ plans to revive maritime prize courts to seize Iranian oil tankers as war prizes: report
The Department of Justice is planning to reactivate maritime prize courts in an effort to make it easier to claim Iranian oil tankers as war prizes to help offset the cost of the war, according to a new report. Utilizing prize courts would give the government a clearer path to legally claiming ships seized by the U.S. Navy in the course of its enforcement of a naval blockade of Iran as the government’s property.
That process would allow the government to sell oil or other cargo from the ships that violated the blockade, and the proceeds would be provided to the Treasury Department. The plan was first reported by Bloomberg Law, citing three people familiar with the matter. “Our national security interests may require the United States military to seize vessels or cargo supporting the enemy during military conflict,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas Aaron Reitz said in a statement provided to FOX Business by the DOJ.
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Axios – August 27, 2026
U.S. close to striking “massive” deal for Venezuelan oil fields
The Trump administration is in talks with Venezuela’s interim government about taking an ownership stake in the South American country’s enormous oil resources, two U.S. officials tell Axios. The historic deal would more than double U.S. oil reserves by drawing from a country that has the world’s largest proven reserves.
- “Calling this deal huge would be an understatement,” one of the officials said. “It is massive.”
- Adding pressure to get the deal signed: the wars in Iran and Ukraine, which have disrupted global oil supplies and raised prices.
- The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is now at a 40-year low.
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Bloomberg – August 27, 2026
Alaska Pipeline Aims to Renew Land Rights Early Under Trump*
The owners of the 800-mile Trans Alaska Pipeline System are seeking to renew its federal land authorization more than seven years before it expires, a move that could capitalize on President Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for US oil production. At stake are essential rights-of-way that would enable three decades of additional operation for the pipeline that’s a vital conduit for North Slope crude. The early maneuver could ensure the Trump administration will make that determination rather than the president’s successor in the White House.
The US Interior Department on Wednesday said it is launching a formal review of the reauthorization application from Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., which operates TAPS, on behalf of owners Hilcorp Energy Co., ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil Holdings Corp. The process will begin with an environmental review, as the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management gives the public 15 days to weigh in on the scope of the government’s analysis.
If Alyeska’s bid is successful, it would result in 30 more years of federal land authorizations, offering more certainty for a critical piece of US oil infrastructure. While the government review of Alyeska’s application is no guarantee of an eventual reauthorization, Trump has been an unabashed champion of the US oil and gas sector and has deployed top cabinet officials to Alaska to back the state’s energy development. By contrast, leaving the reauthorization to a future president — one who might not share Trump’s pro-oil views — could create an opening for a more restrictive renewal or even a phase-down of the pipeline.
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Bloomberg – August 27, 2026
Petrobras Considers Exporting LNG as Asian Demand Surges*
Brazil’s national oil company is exploring the prospect of exporting liquefied natural gas from its giant offshore fields as demand for the fuel surges in Asia and elsewhere. Petroleo Brasileiro SA Chief Executive Officer Magda Chambriard said the company has been in talks with Singapore-based shipbuilder Seatrium Ltd. about ways to liquefy and export gas from deepwater basins in the Atlantic.
“We see room to export gas through LNG vessels,” Chambriard said during a joint news briefing Thursday in Singapore with Seatrium. The effort comes as nations in Asia and elsewhere are pushing to find new sources of LNG beyond Qatar, which has been largely blocked from exporting the fuel during the Iran war. Chambriard didn’t provide a timeline for when Petrobras might start exporting LNG or say how much the company would invest in the effort. It would need to build a facility to liquefy the gas first. Brazil is one of South America’s biggest producers of natural gas, thanks to ultra-deepwater oil and gas reservoirs beneath a thick layer of salt off the nation’s Atlantic coast. But rather than being sold, more than half of its gas is re-injected into oil wells to increase crude production. “We export a lot of crude oil for the Asia-Pacific — It is our first destiny,” Chambriard said. “When we look forward, we see that maybe it will be the first destiny for gas as well.”
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CNBC – August 26, 2026
U.S., Russia vie for a bigger slice of the world’s third-largest energy market
India is becoming a prime market for the U.S. and Russia, as the two adversaries seek to gain a larger wallet share of the world’s third-largest energy consumer. The South Asian country is the world’s third-largest importer of crude, fourth-largest buyer of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, and the second-largest importer of liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG. While Russia wants India to continue buying its crude, despite mounting pressure of harsher U.S. tariffs, Washington has been pushing New Delhi to purchase Venezuelan oil to replace Russian barrels.
Experts told CNBC that replacing Russian crude at a time when supply from the Middle East is constrained would be “challenging” for New Delhi, even as the country ramps up purchases of Venezuelan crude. “If U.S. and Venezuelan crude are combined, the Americas are becoming more important to India’s crude basket,” Sumit Ritolia, lead research analyst at market intelligence firm Kpler, told CNBC.
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CBS News – August 27, 2026
Trump’s oil and gas stock trades continued during Iran war, filings show
President Trump’s investment accounts have continued to purchase and sell stock holdings in oil and natural gas companies while he oversees the U.S. war with Iran, according to his financial disclosure filings through the second quarter of 2026. As the Iran war continued, paused for a ceasefire and then restarted, Mr. Trump has purchased and sold oil and gas stocks worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the most recently available data from the Office of Government Ethics.
Mr. Trump has a vast portfolio with holdings in all 11 sectors, and a CBS News investigation showed that in the first three months of the year, his accounts executed about 3,600 stock or securities trades, worth a total that ranged between $212 million and $695 million. Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee estimated this week that the president’s holdings in oil and gas companies have jumped in value from a range of $13 million to $46 million at the start of this year, to $17 million to $61 million by mid-August. Filers are only required to report ranges of transactions, not specific dollar amounts. The estimates were based on his stock holdings in 2025, and didn’t take into account the trades that he’s made since then.
Utilities, Electricity & Renewables
Newsweek – August 27, 2026
Texas’ Fight Against 1 Million-Square-Foot Data Center Explained
As the use of artificial intelligence continues to grow and the data centers needed to power it become increasingly unpopular among Americans, a fierce battle is being waged in Texas to stop the development of a 1.1-million-square-foot data center just outside Dallas. The project by Virginia-based developer PowerHouse consists of four buildings on an 87.9-acre site along Denton Highway in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Westlake.
City officials have greenlit the project, saying in a social media announcement last month they expect it to generate an estimated $5 million annually in revenue for the first 10 years and $7 million annually after that. They say the facility would also create 75 jobs, while using 54 million gallons of water per year. That is a rather small number compared to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) estimates that a medium-sized data center can consume up to roughly 110 million gallons of water per year for cooling purposes—the equivalent of the water used by a town with a population of 10,000-50,000 people.
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National Review – August 27, 2026
Data Centers Use Little Water, So Where Does It All Go?
One of the top reasons Americans cite for opposing data centers is their excessive water use. Yet the notion that data centers are guzzling the nation’s reservoirs is, to put it softly, a fiction. Based on the most recent figures, data centers consume 17.4 billion gallons of water each year. That sounds like an enormous amount, until you realize the nation consumes tens of trillions of gallons. Even including data centers’ indirect water consumption via the electricity generation needed to power them, they account for less than 1 percent of the country’s total water consumption. Data centers use less water than the nation’s golf courses or California’s almond industry.
Yes, data centers’ water demands are expected to grow dramatically over the coming years, but it will remain a tiny percentage of overall use, and they are becoming more water-efficient through recycling techniques. More importantly, data centers must go through the same process of acquiring water as any other business or development, either by buying water rights from existing holders or by applying for a new withdrawal permit, depending on the location.
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San Antonio Express-News – August 27, 2026
Massive Taylor data center, gas plant faces resident opposition
Central Texas residents are raising concerns once again about a data center set for a small town outside of Austin. Residents of Taylor are pushing the city to adopt new regulations before officials consider annexing land for a 665-acre data center and natural-gas power project. The issue has already produced a 1,400-signature petition and a potential court challenge as residents argue Taylor’s existing development rules aren’t equipped for projects of this scale.
The Halt Taylor Data Center Coalition held a press conference on Tuesday, August 25, protesting the proposed site. The press conference comes two days before the City of Taylor City Council is expected to meet to consider annexation of land for the data center next month. The presser was also held the same day as City of Austin council members announced their intent to ban large scale data centers in the city.
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Houston Chronicle – August 27, 2026
Gov. Greg Abbott says data center companies “dug their own grave” by failing to rally public support, but in truth the governor and his allies set the industry and Texans up for failure with a decade of policies that put profits ahead of people. Abbott publicly invited data center companies to build in Texas, promising the state will become the national leader in artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency mining. He promised low taxes and regulations along with cheap electricity and water. The governor was continuing the “Texas is Open for Business” strategy set in motion by his predecessors, former Govs. George W. Bush and Rick Perry. For decades, the motto defined GOP politics.
Perry and Abbott bragged about Site Selection Magazine’s ranking Texas #1 among the states to locate a business. Republican lawmakers passed multiple laws, which Abbott signed, to provide property tax cuts for data centers. State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, pushed through legislation limiting city governments’ local authority. He also rejects that counties can regulate them. Counties formally asked Attorney General Ken Paxton what power they might still retain over proposed data centers, and six months later, he still hasn’t answered. Corporations do what for-profit businesses are going to do: whatever the law allows. Abbott and his Republican allies told them, encouraged them even, to leverage all of Texas’s weak laws around zoning, water use and subsidized electricity prices.
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San Antonio Express-News – August 27, 2026
Grid in revolt: Texans realizing what leaders haven’t told them about growth: Tony Quesada*
In May 2023, Texas lawmakers didn’t foresee they were putting themselves in a future bind politically as they enacted legislation presented as forward-looking operationally. A little more than two years before then, much of Texas suffered during freezing temperatures in February of 2021 as an unprepared electric grid experienced blackouts during a storm that resulted in $80 billion to $130 billion in damage and an estimated 246 deaths. The public demanded action to prevent a recurrence.
That led to House Bill 5066, which called for streamlining approval of new infrastructure and the creation of a reliability plan for the Permian Basin. It was touted as a measure “to spur a bolder, more proactive approach” to planning and building electricity transmission infrastructure that would better align with “the dynamic needs of Texas customers,” according to a bill analysis. To achieve this, it required the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the Public Utility Commission of Texas and utility companies to incorporate information those providers have about load growth in their regions to plan. The bill passed unanimously in the Texas Senate and 139 to 3 in the Texas House — a victory for responsiveness and bipartisanship. If only it were that simple.
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Inside Climate News – August 19, 2026
Shannon Vanden Heuvel said she doesn’t believe a word they say. A marketing designer and proud mom, she’s seen the seemingly endless television advertisements from Alabama Power, the state’s largest electric utility, an effective monopoly in much of the state. The ads say that Alabama Power has made a commitment to customers like her. As data center developers eye Alabama in droves, the state’s largest electricity provider has made that claim clear: Don’t worry about your power bills. They won’t go up because of data centers.
The truth is more complicated. Whether the energy company will be able to keep that promise is an open question. The answer—a consequential one in the company’s service area, where average residential bills are the highest in the nation—is hidden among regulatory filings and secretive contracts, often obscured by heavy redactions or non-disclosure agreements signed by public officials. A new Inside Climate News analysis shows at least a dozen proposed data center developments across the state, from Bessemer to the Black Belt. If built to full capacity, these data center campuses would consume more energy than all of the homes in Alabama combined. But who will pay for it?
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Power Magazine – August 20, 2026
The Forgotten Generation: Why Cogeneration is Re-Emerging in the Age of AI: Giuseppe Fiorella, AB Energy USA
My conversations with data center developers, manufacturers and industrial operators that once focused on energy costs and efficiency now begin with: How quickly can we secure reliable power? The answer is shaping where and how projects are built. To supplement grid power, more operators and developers are turning to a range of distributed generation resources as part of their long-term energy strategy.
This growing need for distributed generation is making an established technology newly relevant: combined heat and power (CHP), or cogeneration. Cogeneration has quietly powered manufacturers, hospitals, universities and other mission-critical facilities for decades. Nearly 80 GW of CHP capacity operates across more than 4,000 sites in the U.S.
At its core, CHP is a more efficient way to use fuel, and in North America, that fuel is most often natural gas. A cogeneration plant generates electricity onsite while capturing heat that conventional power generation would otherwise waste. Instead of letting energy escape through exhaust, it puts heat to work as useful thermal energy.
Regulatory
San Angelo Live – August 27, 2026
Darby in Public Spat With Railroad Commission
House Energy Resources Chairman Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, has opened a public fight with Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian over a new Railroad Commission policy that drops the automatic public-comment slot from monthly open meetings. Darby sent Christian an Aug. 25 letter calling the change a rollback of a 21-year practice. Christian answered the next day that public input “has not been canceled, banned, restricted or censored.” Darby then issued a follow-up statement saying staff listening sessions are not a substitute for speaking to the three elected commissioners who actually vote.
The House Energy Resources Committee already has an RRC oversight hearing on the calendar for Tuesday, Sept. 15. Darby wrote that he will add the comment policy to that agenda and “expect[s] you to be prepared to address it on the record.” The Railroad Commission of Texas is the state’s oil and gas regulator. Despite the name, it has not regulated railroads since 2005. The three elected commissioners oversee oil and gas production, pipelines, natural gas utilities, critical energy infrastructure, and surface coal and uranium mining.