Texas Data Centers Used Minor Permits to Skip Pollution Reviews
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- OpenAI's Stargate data center in Abilene, part of a $500 billion OpenAI-SoftBank-Oracle joint venture announced in January 2025, was built next to Omaira Garcia's ranch without prior notice, with its 360-megawatt gas plant sitting roughly 500 yards from her kitchen window.
- Texas regulators approved "minor air permits" — typically used for dry cleaners and gas stations — for at least 38 data centers since 2024, sanctioning more than 2,100 backup diesel generators and bypassing environmental review and public comment periods.
- Stargate's developers secured minor permits for 10 turbines and 62 diesel generators allowed to emit 1.6 million tons of greenhouse gases and 1,000 tons of harmful air pollutants annually, then filed for a major permit to add 41 more turbines and 18 more generators.
- Nine data center-linked gas plants in Texas could collectively emit more than 130 million tons of greenhouse gases per year — equivalent to 35 coal-fired power plants — according to a Floodlight review of permits and Cleanview research.
- Texas has placed more than 80 gigawatts of new gas plants in its construction pipeline — second only to China globally — with roughly half reserved for data centers, per Global Energy Monitor researcher Jenny Martos, who called the trend "enormous" and said it risks "locking in fossil fuel for the foreseeable future."
- Former EPA air enforcement chief Bruce Buckheit said Stargate's staggered "small first, big later" permitting could violate EPA "aggregation" policies, noting the agency's own handbooks label minor permits that precede major ones as "sham permits."
Why it matters: Texas has approved more than 80 gigawatts of new gas capacity — half earmarked for data centers and second globally only to China — and Martos warns this "locks in fossil fuel for the foreseeable future." For residents like Garcia, the loophole means facilities are already built by the time major permits trigger public comment; former EPA officials say the staggered approach amounts to sham permitting.
