San Marcos, TX

July 9, 2026

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89% of New Power Requests Are Datacenters. Abbott Wants Guardrails.

San Marcos became the first Texas city to ban data centers in June via a 4-3 council vote, citing Edwards Aquifer strain.

July 7, 2026

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The Permian Gets Texas's First 765 kV Backbone, and CREZ Wrote the Playbook

San Marcos became Texas' first city to attempt a datacenter moratorium.

July 6, 2026

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The April Deadline Beats the Rulebook by Three Years

That sentiment now has teeth: San Marcos is implementing a municipal prohibition, and El Paso Electric's proposed $500 million plant for Meta's 1 GW, 11-building complex faces objections at the PUCT from the City of El Paso, the Texas Office of Public Utility Counsel, and Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid.

July 3, 2026

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Shared Interconnection Buys Speed. Disciplined Developers Already Underwrite the Curtailment.

San Marcos became the first Texas city to attempt a data center ban via a 4-3 vote; two counties tried bans and lost legal challenges per the Texas Tribune.

June 30, 2026

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Home-Rule Authority Faces Its First Real Test in San Marcos

San Marcos became the first Texas city to ban them outright, passing a 4-3 zoning ordinance on June 16, and state Sen. Paul Bettencourt is already signaling a direct challenge under House Bill 2559 and the 2023 Death Star Law.

June 1, 2026

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Tax Abatements Lose the Room. Power, Water, and Cost Causation Take Over.

A San Marcos Record op-ed cites Hill County's one-year rural data center pause as Texas precedent and benchmarks against Texas agriculture's $900 billion annual output.

May 3, 2026

The risk: Texas's permitting clarity is the competitive moat, but Cloudburst's $14.5 billion Guadalupe County campus needed a second commissioner vote after February's failure, and San Marcos already rejected a $1.5 billion project on water grounds.

April 14, 2026

In Texas, the pattern is emerging. Hays County/San Marcos rejected a $1.5 billion project 5-2.

April 9, 2026

Community opposition is organized in Glen Rose, Fort Worth, San Marcos, Amarillo, Hutto, and El Paso.

April 8, 2026

San Marcos, Amarillo, College Station, Waco, and Harlingen all face organized pushback.

March 10, 2026

From San Marcos, Texas (where a $1.5 billion campus was killed by a 5-2 council vote) to Virginia (where voters elected a governor who campaigned on forcing the sector to pay more) to Ohio (where moratoriums are spreading), the pattern reflects a resource-driven political realignment.

February 26, 2026

San Marcos City Council voted 5-2 to reject Highlander SM One's $1.5 billion, 380 MW datacenter campus, blocking rezoning for a five-building complex on Francis Harris Lane near the Hays Energy Power Station.

February 25, 2026

Separately, San Marcos City Council rejected a $1.5 billion data center project after hundreds of protesters mobilized.

February 24, 2026

That model works in open rangeland, though it leaves the hundreds of operational water-cooled facilities already built unaddressed. Can Altman's dismissal hold as San Marcos,

February 22, 2026

San Marcos killed a $1.5 billion datacenter at 2:14 a.m. after eight hours of public testimony dominated by water and aquifer concerns.

February 21, 2026

Separately, San Marcos city council rejected a second proposal from Highlander SM One LLC for a 200-acre datacenter campus.

February 20, 2026

In San Marcos, Texas, the city council rejected a datacenter rezoning plan, reinforcing a pattern of local resistance overriding state-level permissiveness.

February 17, 2026

San Marcos City Council prepares to vote Tuesday on a $1.5 billion, 380 MW data center campus that already failed once.