EL PASO, Tx., June 22, 2026: The El Paso City Council will be discussing two items during tomorrow’s city council meeting regarding datacenters. The first item seeks to amend the city’s state legislative agenda to include support for Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s call for state regulators to ensure that Texas utility ratepayers are protected from rising utility costs due to the datacenters being built in Texas. In a June 10th letter to the Public Utility Commission (PUC), Abbott tasked the utility regulator “to ensure everyday Texans are not burdened” by the datacenters.
The item was put on tomorrow’s agenda by Art Fierro, Alejandra Chávez and Ivan Niño. The three, who are facing reelection campaigns in November, voted last week against opening discussions with META over the datacenter it is building in Northeast El Paso.
The city’s State Legislative Agenda for the 90th Session outlines the city’s priorities for the legislative session that begins in January. The agenda, adopted in February, asks the city’s state elected officials to “support legislation that “strengthens” the “City’s Retirement Systems” and opposes legislation that “results in the loss of City’s revenues or negatively impacts the City’s authority to generate revenues,” among several other priorities. Among the other priorities includes funds for roads, the airport, funding for water-related infrastructure, public safety and other “core municipal services.”…