Texas Republicans are running against data centres, and both Senate candidates want the same water rules

Texas Senate candidates Ken Paxton and James Talarico propose mandatory closed-loop water cooling, bans on Chinese-made equipment, and caps on AI-related safety violations for data centres; Paxton also backs a federal DATA Act. Gov. Greg Abbott cites existing water-use safeguards, while challenger Gina Hinojosa urges a moratorium and a special legislative session to limit data-centre expansion.