Texas is set to overtake Northern Virginia as the nation's largest data center market. I’ve had 1,279 submissions to the Brockovich AI Data Center map.
In this live conversation, Rep. Vikki Goodwin and fourth-generation cattle farmer Clayton Tucker join us to talk about what that growth means for water, farmland, and the families caught in between, and what real accountability could look like.
The constant hum and buzz of data centers is not good for the birds, the bees, or the cattle. More and more people are showing up to city council meetings to their express concerns, but not every council is hearing them with open ears….
Public polling has shown that data centers are extremely unpopular amongst all Texans and especially those living in rural areas, nearly two-thirds of which opposed construction of the facilities in their community, according to a recent University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll.
Rep. Vikki Goodwin is serving her fourth term in the Texas Legislature, representing parts of Austin and the Lake Travis area, and is currently running for Lieutenant Governor of Texas. Raised in Dallas, she earned her BBA from the University of Texas and her MPA from the LBJ School of Public Affairs. As a member of the Appropriations Article III Subcommittee overseeing education funding, her legislative priorities include public school funding, housing affordability, water infrastructure, and access to healthcare.
Clayton Tucker is a 35-year-old, fourth-generation cattle farmer from Lampasas, Texas, and serves as secretary of the Texas Farmers Union. He is currently a Democratic candidate for Texas Commissioner of Agriculture. Tucker has been an outspoken voice on the strain that drought, land loss, and now data center development are placing on Texas agriculture, and has called for stronger state oversight of data centers’ water and power use.
