The portal, run by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, had been used to rubber-stamp construction approvals without human review. A message on the site now reads that the electronic filing application "has been temporarily shut down to ensure all applications are reviewed by agency staff to determine if they are related to data centers". Sam Law, a researcher at FracTracker, said the system had been happily approving new projects, including ones for OpenAI and Amazon that went through earlier in the week.

All 17 suspended permits cover stormwater construction, the ground-clearing and levelling work that is a vital early step for any construction project in Texas. That makes the suspensions a meaningful brake on the affected projects rather than a paperwork hiccup.

Texas is not alone in tightening the screws. New York's year-long ban on data centre projects larger than 50 megawatts came into force earlier this year, and Amazon dropped plans for four new data centres in Northern Virginia after community backlash, offering its land for housing instead. As AI demand drives more capacity, water shortages, deforestation and rising energy costs have become the flashpoints.