The president’s push for data centers is driving a boom in gas-burning power plants. Texas is leading the way.
In March, a developer working on a Meta data center in El Paso applied to power the site with a gas-burning plant large enough to supply electricity to 300,000 homes.
Typically, approving a big power plant might require public hearings and months of detailed vetting. But Texas environmental regulators signed off in just 20 days.
They approved another project in three days. And an even larger data center power plant, also gas-burning, won approval in just two days.
“They’re going to fire up those turbines,” said Cynthia Crouse, who lives about a mile from the planned Meta data center and power plant in an upscale development with panoramic views of the desert. “I thought I’d bought my dream home, that I’d be looking out on the dark sky, hearing the coyotes call. Then I woke up to the biggest nightmare I’ve ever had.”
The first in a series on the Trump administration’s historic weakening of environmental protections, and the resulting increase in air and water pollution.
In the debate over data centers that is roiling the country, water use and noise are often cited as objections by neighbors and environmentalists. Less mentioned has been the pollution from the scores of gas-burning plants that will power these data centers.
Newly proposed gas plants just to power data centers are receiving permits in record time.
Notes: Data as of July 6, 2026. Plants with unknown capacity estimates are shown as dots without circles. Four plants without detailed locations, including one in Nebraska, are not mapped.
Note: Bar chart includes expansions to existing plants. “Other” states are Nebraska, North Carolina, Indiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Virginia, Nevada and South Carolina. Source: Environmental Integrity Project. Mira Rojanasakul/The New York Times
While on the campaign trail in October 2024, President Trump said: “I’m an environmentalist. I want clean air and clean water.”
Four months later as president, he launched a historic weakening of environmental protections dating back more than a half-century.
Each gas-burning generator at Meta’s El Paso data center will produce about as much pollution as 13 cars, according to the company installing them.
When this phase of the project is done, there will be 813 generators, all permitted to run around the clock.
There are 39 proposed plants in the state, nearly half the nationwide total.
