BELL COUNTY, Texas (KXXV) — Bell County commissioners are continuing discussions on data center developments and their authority to prevent or oversee them.
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Commissioners voted to table proposed changes to the county's tax abatement policy regarding data centers. The tax abatement policy is the only legal authority the county holds over data center developments.
County Judge David Blackburn warned that removing data centers from tax abatement consideration would leave the county without any regulatory power.
"If we remove them from consideration for tax abatement, then it will truly be the wild, wild west in the county for data center developments. There will not be any regulatory that we can impose," Blackburn said.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson echoed those concerns and said he did not want to change the current policy.
"To the judge's point, to your point, we have no means of handling data centers or the solar farms or what else may come down later. Unless the state does give us some local enforcement capacity, um, so I'm the judge on that. I don't want to remove it from, I don't want to change the current policy right now," Whitson said.
Neighbors who spoke with commissioners during public comment noted their concerns about the impact of data centers, with several already planned for the Temple region. They applauded leaders for keeping the conversation going.
"I was hoping it was going to get voted on and approved today, but maybe not. All these issues that we're talking about, that it's too late in 2027, we need a special session now. These things are happening very quickly in central Texas," a neighbor said.
As leaders look ahead to the next Texas legislative session in January, they are calling on the state to reevaluate counties power over developments through a resolution. Blackburn outlined several requests directed at the state.
"Require data centers to pay their own electric infrastructure costs and resulting in lower, resulting in lower residential regulator costs. Um, we ask that data centers add electric capacity to the grid and not just demand to the grid. We asked that all the data centers be built with water efficient technologies such as closed loop systems," Blackburn said.
Commissioners will continue to discuss their tax abatement policy next month during a workshop and regular meeting.
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