Statewide. The #1836Project is a statewide legislative initiative proposing nine specific bills to the 90th Texas Legislature on behalf of every Texan in every county.

It is organized by Grayson Conservatives, a Texas private club with a registered General Purpose PAC. The name reflects where we are from — not the scope of what we are doing. Data center development is happening in counties across Texas, not just Grayson County, and the legislation we are proposing applies statewide.

Any Texan in any county can sign the open letter. Every signature is delivered to that signatory’s own state representative and senator — not just to Grayson County representatives. This is a Texas fight, organized by Texans, for Texans.

Because the Legislature took away most of their tools. Texas counties have had no general zoning authority in unincorporated areas since 1969. HB 2127 — the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act — further restricted local regulation, and the Attorney General confirmed in 2023 that counties cannot impose moratoriums on large industrial projects.

Local commissioners may want to help — but current state law does not give them the authority. Only the Legislature can restore what the Legislature took away. Read: How Texas Got Here ↗

Because unlimited capital can overcome almost every other form of opposition — except the will of an entire county’s voters. A county-wide popular vote, paid for by the developer, is the one protection that cannot be quietly negotiated away in back rooms or overridden by lobbying.

The other bills in the package are important, but without meaningful voter consent, the buildout will continue regardless of local objections.

No. These bills do not ban data centers.

• A county that votes yes gets the project.
• A developer who meets reasonable noise and light standards can operate cleanly.
• A developer who posts a bond and causes no measurable harm to neighboring property values pays nothing extra.

The bills simply require consent, accountability, and transparency — not prohibition.

It is the opposite. When a hyperscale data center’s operations cross property lines — through noise, constant lighting, groundwater drawdown, or reduced neighboring property values — it affects other Texans’ quiet enjoyment of their own land.

Conservative property rights tradition has always held that one person’s use of their property does not include the right to impose significant harm on their neighbors. The #1836Project seeks to protect all property rights, not just the developer’s.

Because they are not typical private businesses. They consume enormous amounts of public water and electricity, rely on public roads and infrastructure, and generate industrial-scale impacts that cross onto neighboring private property. When a private activity creates large public costs and externalities, Texas law has long allowed reasonable community accountability.

Data centers create far fewer permanent local jobs than their promotional announcements suggest. Most facilities are highly automated, with modest on-site staffing. While construction brings temporary jobs, the demands on water, electricity, and roads are permanent. [Source: Data Center Staffing Levels] [Source: Brookings Institution, May 2026]

Responsible development can still occur — it simply shouldn’t come at the expense of unwilling neighboring Texans and local taxpayers.

The free market works best when all affected parties can negotiate voluntarily. Neighboring landowners, utility customers, and water users are not at the table when a developer buys land and begins construction. They bear the costs without any real recourse. That is not a free-market outcome — it is an externality. The #1836Project restores reasonable accountability for those externalities.

Yes — and business-friendly should mean businesses earn community support, not that they can override local self-governance by default. Requiring basic consent and accountability is not excessive regulation. Texas already requires voter approval and public review for many major decisions that affect taxpayers and local communities.

We want America to win the AI race. But building massive infrastructure without local consent is not the American way — it is closer to the Chinese model of top-down development. Our strength has always come from individual rights and voluntary consent, not centralized power overriding communities.

Requiring transparency and local approval actually strengthens our position by protecting against opaque foreign-linked ownership as well.

The threshold definition is part of what the draft legislation will specify — and getting it right matters. The intent is to capture hyperscale and large-scale commercial data centers that impose significant demands on local water, grid, and infrastructure, while excluding small business server rooms and enterprise facilities. Common benchmarks used in other state legislation include power consumption thresholds (e.g., facilities drawing 100 MW or more) and total investment thresholds. We are researching the right statutory definition and welcome input from legal partners and policy experts.

Technically yes — but in practice, common-law nuisance claims against industrial operators are expensive, slow, and extremely difficult to win. A rural Texas landowner would need to fund years of litigation against a corporation with unlimited legal resources, prove causation for noise, light, or water impacts, and survive motions to dismiss before ever seeing a jury. Existing law offers almost no effective protection for most affected landowners. That is precisely why 1836-3 creates a private right of action with enforceable standards, and 1836-6 requires a developer-funded bond — to give individual Texans a realistic legal remedy, not just a theoretical one.

Possibly some. But the question isn’t whether Texas can attract data centers — it clearly can. The question is whether Texas should attract them on any terms, at any cost, with no community consent. What Texas is currently trading away for that investment is rural water supplies, grid stability, neighboring property values, and the democratic sovereignty of county voters — with no compensation and no voice.

Virginia — the state with more data center experience than any other in the nation — has begun requiring noise assessments and giving localities stronger tools. Texas can lead on responsible development without surrendering all leverage to developers.

Under 1836-3 as currently conceived, enforcement runs on two tracks. The primary track is a private right of action — neighboring landowners can sue the operator directly for documented violations and seek actual damages. This puts enforcement in the hands of the people most affected rather than depending on a state agency to act. TCEQ serves as a secondary regulatory backstop. The private right of action is the stronger mechanism — it creates a direct financial incentive for compliance without relying on agency resources or political will.

Rep. Money’s bill and 1836-1 address the same problem from complementary angles — and both could operate together as a two-stage framework. The permit process governs how a data center may operate: technical compliance, infrastructure conditions, road impact, and health and safety standards set by the commissioners court. Voter ratification governs whether it may operate at all: a county-wide popular vote that no amount of lobbying can easily overcome.

A developer who meets every technical permit condition still has to earn the consent of the voters. A developer who wins the popular vote still has to meet the county’s conditions. That is a stronger protection than either mechanism alone.

There is also a practical difference worth noting. A commissioners court permit can be influenced by five people. A county-wide popular vote requires winning over an entire electorate. If only one mechanism passes, voter ratification is the harder one for a well-funded developer to circumvent.

Grayson Conservatives welcomes Rep. Money’s commitment to refile in the 90th session. Multiple Republican members filed data center-related legislation in the 89th session — none made it to the floor, but the legislative groundwork is being laid. The #1836Project stands alongside those efforts and encourages the Legislature to consider the full package — including the rollback bills that give any county-level authority legislation its best chance of surviving a legal challenge.

State-level regulations on water reporting, grid accountability, and ownership transparency are welcome — and the #1836Project supports them. But they are not the same thing as local control. A state agency setting uniform standards for water consumption reporting does not give the voters of Hill County a say in whether a 300-acre data center belongs next to a third-generation ranch. Those are different questions.

State standards govern how a data center may operate. Local voter ratification governs whether it may operate in a given community at all. One without the other leaves Texans with accountability but no voice.

Be alert to legislators who support the technical accountability bills — water, grid, noise, property bonds — but oppose voter ratification and the rollbacks. Supporting 1836-2 through 1836-6 while opposing 1836-1 and the rollbacks is a centralizing position. It gives Texans data and fees. It does not give them a vote.

The one-word difference between a state regulatory framework and the #1836Project is decentralize. The Legislature can set the rules. Texans should decide.

For technical standards — grid interconnection, water reporting, ownership disclosure — uniform state standards make sense. The #1836Project does not oppose those. What the state cannot do better than a local community is decide whether a specific industrial facility belongs on a specific rural road next to specific neighbors who have worked that land for generations. That judgment requires local knowledge, local values, and local consent. Austin does not have those.

The argument that the state manages things better than communities is the same argument used to pass HB 2127 — the bill that stripped local authority in the first place. It is a centralizing argument dressed up as efficiency. The #1836Project is the conservative counter: the closer a decision is to the people it affects, the better it will be made. That is what decentralization means.

A legislator who supports water reporting and grid fees but votes against voter ratification and the rollback bills is telling you exactly where they stand: with the state over the citizen, with the developer over the landowner, with centralization over local control.

Ask your representative directly: does your bill give Texas voters a direct voice over whether a data center may break ground in their county — yes or no?

1836-1 — Voter Ratification of Hyperscale Data Centers. Every other bill in the package matters. But without 1836-1, centralizers will do what they always do: pass technical regulations that look like accountability, take credit for addressing the issue, and leave the fundamental decision-making exactly where it was — in Austin, away from Texans.

Water reporting, noise standards, grid fees, and property bonds can all be supported by a legislator who wants to appear responsive while leaving Austin in control. Those bills are important — but they operate within the existing power structure. 1836-1 breaks it. It moves the decision out of commissioners courts that can be lobbied and out of a Legislature that takes developer money, and puts it in the hands of every voter in the county.

Data center developers have essentially unlimited capital. They can outlast opposition, fund lobbying campaigns, and negotiate with five commissioners. What they cannot do is buy off an entire county’s electorate. A county-wide popular vote is the one mechanism that money cannot simply outspend.

1836-1 is the bill centralizers cannot support without actually giving power back to Texans. That is exactly why it is the most important bill in the package — and the one most likely to face the strongest opposition. Watch who opposes it and you will know exactly whose side they are on.

Hill County’s vote on May 12, 2026 was an act of courage — and we applaud it. Commissioners heard from their constituents, stood up, and voted. That matters. A moratorium buys Hill County time to study the impacts and gives the community breathing room while the Legislature considers what to do.

But a moratorium is a temporary reprieve, not a permanent solution. It expires. It carries legal risk. It applies only to one county for one year. And it does nothing for the neighboring landowner whose property is already being targeted, or for the county down the road facing the same pressure next month.

The real solution is state legislation that returns permanent authority to local governments and voters. Legislation can stop wayward data center efforts for good — with legal standing, with enforceability, and with protections that apply across every county in Texas. A moratorium cannot do any of that.

Hill County showed that Texans are willing to fight. The #1836Project is building the permanent legal framework that makes that fight winnable.

Because four commissioners is a manageable lobbying target. Thousands of voters is not.

Data center companies have virtually unlimited lobbying budgets. A commissioners court can be reached with campaign contributions, consulting contracts, and private meetings. A county-wide popular vote cannot. Every voter would have to be individually persuaded — and in the communities where these facilities are proposed, that is a fight the developers cannot win on the merits.

This is why 1836-1 is the cornerstone of the #1836Project. It is the only mechanism in the entire legislative package that corporate money cannot simply outspend. County judges can be lobbied. Commissioners can be pressured. State legislators can be funded. The voters of a county cannot.

Because current Texas law does not require them to be public until after they are approved. Commissioners courts can negotiate abatement agreements with data center developers in executive session — outside the public eye — and approve them with minimal notice to affected taxpayers.

The result is that communities often learn their county gave away a decade of tax revenue — sometimes worth tens of millions of dollars — after the deal is already done. The school district that loses funding has no formal role. Neighboring landowners receive no formal notice. The full terms may never be published.

Bill 1836-2 addresses this directly. It requires county-wide public notice, full disclosure of abatement terms, no closed-session negotiation, school district notification, and annual public reporting of what the developer actually delivered — all before any abatement may be approved. If a data center company is proud of the deal they negotiated with your county, they should have no objection to making it public.

Each bill stands completely independently. Supporting one does not require supporting the others. A legislator who passes only 1836-3 has still done something real for Texas landowners. That said, the nine bills are organized around three principles that together address the full scope of the problem:

• I — Texans Decide. One cornerstone bill. County-wide popular vote before any hyperscale data center breaks ground. The only mechanism no lobbyist can buy.
• II — Texans Come First. Five bills establishing that abatement deals are transparent and public, that Texans have priority on water, power, and grid capacity, and that developers bear the financial risk of damage to neighbors.
• III — Restore Local Authority. Three bills correcting legislation from previous sessions that stripped counties and cities of the tools they once had to protect themselves.

A legislator who supports II and III but opposes I is not supporting local control — they are supporting the appearance of it. The test is simple: does your bill give Texas voters a direct voice? Yes or no?

Because the impacts are not limited to nearby neighbors. A Chapter 312 tax abatement reduces tax revenue for every taxpayer in the county — including school funding. Water drawdown from a large data center can affect aquifers county-wide. Grid load affects the entire service area. These are county-wide fiscal and resource impacts, not just local nuisance issues.

Bill 1836-2 uses a two-tier notification approach: county-wide notice for fiscal and resource impacts, and certified mail within 5 miles for direct physical impacts like noise, light, and property values. The notification radius matches the impact radius.

If a developer can afford a 10-year tax break worth tens of millions of dollars, they can afford to notify every taxpayer who will subsidize it.

Three things, stated clearly in the open letter:

1. Author or co-author one or more of the nine bills during the 90th Legislature.
2. Publicly state their position — for or against — on each of the nine bills.
3. Engage with the Texans in their district who have signed the open letter.

We are not asking legislators to oppose data centers. We are asking them to represent the voters who elected them. Texans are watching — not for gestures, not for half-measures, but for the kind of leadership that actually returns power to the voters who elected you.

Yes — and we encourage it. A physical letter from a constituent carries significant weight in a legislative office. It signals that you are engaged, that you live in the district, and that you are willing to put your name on record.

You can download a printable PDF version of the open letter from the signature page. Print it, sign it, and mail it directly to your state representative and senator. To find their mailing addresses, visit wrm.capitol.texas.gov/home — the official Texas Legislature “Who Represents Me?” tool.

You can also add your name digitally at graysonconservatives.com/1836project-open-letter/ — every digital signature is compiled and delivered to your representative at the start of the 90th Legislature in January 2027.

The AI preemption provision in the Big Beautiful Bill prohibits states from enforcing laws that regulate artificial intelligence models, systems, or automated decision systems. That language targets state AI liability laws, algorithmic bias regulations, and AI disclosure requirements — not physical infrastructure.

Data centers are physical industrial facilities. They consume water, draw power, emit noise, affect property values, and receive taxpayer-funded tax abatements regardless of what they are computing. A bill requiring a county-wide vote before construction is a land use and infrastructure bill — not an AI regulation. Texas has always regulated industrial facilities. Data centers are industrial facilities. That authority does not disappear because the server inside is running a language model.

The preemption language is broad and untested in court. A creative legal argument could be made that regulating data centers indirectly regulates AI. That is a real litigation risk worth acknowledging — and exactly why acting now during the 90th session matters, before any federal preemption argument gets tested in court.

Water consumption is not AI. Grid impact is not AI. Noise at a property line is not AI. Texas authority over physical infrastructure on Texas soil does not evaporate because Washington says so.

That is the right question — and the answer is almost certainly no. The 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution is explicit: powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states. Land use, water rights, local infrastructure approval, and property protection are textbook state and local powers that predate the Constitution itself.

The federal government will likely invoke the Commerce Clause — arguing that AI crosses state lines and therefore falls under federal jurisdiction. But that argument has been stretched far beyond its original intent for decades. A county vote on physical construction is not interstate commerce. Water drawn from a Texas aquifer is not interstate commerce. Noise at a Texas property line is not interstate commerce.

This is not a new argument. In the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798-1799, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison articulated the doctrine that states have the authority to declare federal acts that exceed constitutional boundaries null and void. Jefferson wrote the Kentucky Resolutions. Madison wrote the Virginia Resolutions. The principle: the federal government cannot be the sole judge of the limits of its own power.

Jefferson wrote in the Kentucky Resolutions: “whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.” That principle applies directly here. A federal law that strips Texas of authority over physical infrastructure on Texas soil — water, land, grid, and property — assumes powers never delegated to Washington.

If Washington can tell Texas counties they have no say over what gets built on Texas soil, what Texas aquifers get drained, and what Texas taxpayer abatements get granted to foreign corporations — then the 10th Amendment is functionally dead.

Pass the #1836Project. If the federal government wants to challenge Texas property rights and local authority in court, that is a fight worth having — and a fight Texas can win.