Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa used a Monday campaign stop in El Paso to call for an emergency legislative session to address data center developments.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, and Hinojosa have exchanged barbs and competing plans to respond to the intense public anger over data centers throughout the state, largely over concerns about water and electricity consumption, noise and public subsidies.
After Abbott last month issued a set of directives for state officials to closely review data center projects, Hinojosa on Monday said she promised to intervene if the massive facilities threaten water supplies for Texas residents.
“This is the fight of 2026 to decide, again, is Texas going to be a state that is by and for the people, or is this the millionaire’s world?” Hinojosa said during a news conference in Downtown with area data center opponents.
The news conference was among several El Paso campaign stops for Hinojosa, who also visited the University of Texas at El Paso and was scheduled to participate in a town hall Monday evening. This marked her second stop in El Paso since announcing her candidacy – with the first being in January.
Hinojosa, a 52-year-old civil rights attorney who serves as a state representative in Austin, is looking to unseat Abbott in the Nov. 3 general election.
Seeking a fourth term in office, Abbott, 68, made two recent campaign stops in El Paso – one to tout what he called housing affordability proposals and another to announce proposed education initiatives.
Abbott – who promoted Texas as a destination for data centers before public concerns about the facilities mounted over the last year – announced agreements last month with Meta and other technology companies that said they would pay for the electric infrastructure for their data centers, conserve water and avoid shifting utility costs to residential customers.
Abbott’s directives referred to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which operates the power grid covering most of the state. Investor-owned El Paso Electric operates outside ERCOT, and Abbott’s announcement appeared to have no effect on Meta’s data center under construction in Northeast El Paso or on the hundreds of millions of dollars in city and county tax incentives local officials approved for the project in 2023.
Hinojosa criticized Abbott’s approach but offered few specifics Monday about what regulations she would seek beyond calling lawmakers into a special session. If elected, she would be sworn in after the Texas Legislature begins its next regular session on Jan. 12, 2027. Only Abbott has the ability to call a special session before then.
“We need to have an emergency legislative session just on this issue so that we can hear from community members all the different ways that they are being impacted,” she said. “Because the law currently does not contemplate any of it.”
Water concerns
Hinojosa said she would invalidate agreements to prevent data centers from using so much water that household taps run dry, although it’s not clear how that might work in practice or whether any existing El Paso agreement would meet that threshold.
“As governor, I would make null and void any contract that denies Texas residents the water that they need to live,” she said.
El Paso Water executives for months have repeatedly said the utility can accommodate Meta’s expected water demand without affecting water service for existing household and commercial customers.
The utility estimates Meta will use roughly 400,000 to 500,000 gallons per day on average, although the water supply agreement between Meta and city-owned El Paso Water authorizes a maximum daily consumption of 2.5 million gallons.
By comparison, El Paso Water pumped an average 108 million gallons to customers each day during its last fiscal year, and the utility reported peak demand of 155 million gallons June 18 last year.
El Paso Water chief executive John Balliew has said Meta wanted to secure a high maximum daily allowable usage to ensure the facility can operate in extreme heat, but the data center is unlikely to approach that level of consumption except on the hottest days of the year. That’s why the utility estimates average daily usage of about 480,000 gallons instead of the maximum 2.5 million gallons.
Crystal Martinez, a nurse and organizer with the Amanecer People’s Project who spoke alongside Hinojosa, said even the possibility of that much demand is troubling in a desert community.
“Our way of life here is to conserve water,” Martinez said. “We’ve been raised in this manner because this is a finite resource.”
Despite Hinojosa claiming she would nullify any contracts associated with data centers that threaten residential water supplies, she also said she wouldn’t supersede local officials that determine they can handle supplying water to a data center.
“Then, that’s fine. Then, that’s their determination,” Hinojosa said in response to questions about whether she would nullify legally executed water supply contracts. “But I will not tolerate, as governor, turning off the water to communities, the households, so that these corporations can come here and guzzle all of it up.”
Balliew of El Paso Water has said in public presentations this year that the water utility would not prioritize supplying Meta’s data center over other customers if there is a major water outage.
And despite the utility consistently arguing Meta will not threaten the city’s water supplies, El Paso Water has also cautioned that it can’t accommodate many more data centers, particularly in Northeast El Paso where the Meta facility is under construction and there’s limited capacity to deliver more water via existing pipes.
El Paso Water’s long-term plans call for billions of dollars in infrastructure projects as drought and outward growth place increasing pressure on the region’s water supply. The utility is in the middle of building a new water treatment plant in the Lower Valley to produce 10 million gallons of water per day, as well as expanding the Kay Bailey Hutchison Desalination Plant to be able to produce an additional 5.5 million gallons per day.
Emissions and electricity
Hinojosa also criticized how operational facts about some data center projects change over time for various reasons. Meta initially said in 2023 it would spend $800 million on its El Paso facility before increasing the investment to $14 billion last year and recently partnering with asset manager BlackRock to help finance construction. El Paso Electric also signaled early in the development process that it would power the data center with solar fields instead of a natural gas power plant.
“One of the big challenges that we are hearing with the data centers all over the state is that the information is constantly changing,” she said. “Initially, it’s a certain amount of water, then it’s more water. Initially it’s a certain amount of electricity, then it’s more electricity. Same thing is going on with emissions.”
Jay Mania, an organizer with Amanecer, said Abbott’s recent actions have had no impact on Meta’s El Paso data center project.
“What Abbott has done as far as guardrails has not changed a single thing about Meta or our data centers here,” he said. “It has not impacted the power plant, Meta’s water usage or the tax breaks.”
Public Utility Commission – who were appointed by Abbott – will decide in the coming months whether El Paso Electric can build an onsite power plant for Meta.
El Paso Electric is seeking approval from the PUC to build the 366-megawatt McCloud power plant to supply Meta’s facility, as well as to implement special rates for data centers designed to force data center developers to pay the cost of new infrastructure and issue a credit guarantee.
Hinojosa also said she would look to change the makeup of the PUC, whose members serve staggered six-year terms. The next governor could appoint three new commissioners in 2027.
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