Texas Land Commissioner candidate Benjamin Flores is announcing his plan for new data centers that’s people, farm and water friendly.

As Land Commissioner, Benjamin Flores will implement a plan that protects Texans from the negative impacts from data centers locating near residential communities or on workable farmland. It directs his General Land Office (GLO) to encourage data center developers to locate on state-owned land instead by offering lease incentives, single authority setting requirements, avoidance of costs and delays due to environmental challenges and community resistance, plus potential operating cost savings.

Flores says his plan, “is to attract new data center development to land managed by his General Land Office (GLO), land that’s far enough away from any residential and farm community that they’ll be protected from the quality of life and environmental impacts affecting too many Texans today.”

“In addition to the preserving their peace and quiet, people will not have their electric bills increase because my plan requires data centers to generate their own power and provide any excess power to the state’s grid,” adding that these centers will be compensated for the excess power they provide. “And going further”, Flores says, “lease incentives will be offered to data centers powered by renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal.”

“Water is too scarce to use for cooling, especially when it is not necessary”, Flores noted, saying his plan facilitates the use of treated wastewater from oil and gas extraction instead of fresh water for cooling – a trend gaining wider acceptance.

Flores stresses that all revenue from state land leases – like the existing leases for oil and gas extraction and the leases that will be offered for data centers – generate revenue, “and all that money goes exclusively into the Texas Permanent School Fund. So leasing land to data centers not only reduces the negatives of having a data center in your back yard or near your ranch, but it also earns money to better fund our public schools. And that’s something all Texans will benefit from.”