After the Sweep, Texas Environmental Reform Moves to the Appointments: New Commissioners, a Railroad Commission Seat, and Data Centers in the Crosshairs

AUSTIN — The environmental fight in the new Texas starts with personnel. As governor, Gina Hinojosa will appoint commissioners to lead the state's regulatory agencies — the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Public Utility Commission and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department — and every current commissioner was appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott, according to an Inside Climate News analysis republished by the San Antonio Current on November 10 and read in full by this desk. New appointees might take a more aggressive approach to enforcing air quality standards, limiting industrial water pollution or expanding land conservation, Environment Texas executive director Luke Metzger said. "Pretty much everyone who won the statewide level is a champ on the environment," Metzger said. "That's really exciting." Adrian Shelley, state director of Public Citizen, called the moment "a generational shift in leadership" and predicted "a real appetite for reform."

One seat has already changed hands at the ballot box. Democrat Jon Rosenthal defeated former Tarrant County GOP chair Bo French for one of three seats at the Railroad Commission, the state's oil and gas regulator — a result with a direct Fort Worth root, won by a candidate from the Metroplex's own county politics. The analysis also records the longer record behind the incoming governor: in 2021, Hinojosa and 15 Democratic colleagues proposed a "Texas Climate Plan," a package of 41 bills aimed at reducing carbon emissions and increasing regulation of the fossil fuel industry, including proposed legislation she celebrated that sought a 25 percent tax on gas flared in production fields — a bill authored by Lt. Governor-Elect Vikki Goodwin that never reached a House floor vote. Cyrus Reed, legislative director of the Sierra Club's Lone Star Chapter, said Texas has never taken methane pollution very seriously — there are no state rules on it — and that the combination of a new Railroad Commission member, potential new TCEQ commissioners and emboldened legislative Democrats creates a potential to act on pollution.

Nowhere does the argument land closer to this station's readers than in its own coverage area. The Dallas-Fort Worth region has the largest concentration of data centers in the state, and the most rapid expansion is in Ellis County, some 30 minutes south of downtown Dallas, the analysis reports. On Election Day in Red Oak, members of Save Our Red Oak — a group tracking seven data-center campuses in the city — waved at voters in bright yellow "No More Data Centers" shirts; several members crossed party lines over the issue in a county where nearly two-thirds of residents voted for President Donald Trump in 2024, member Lacey Hamel said. "This is one of those issues where it's affecting our air, it's affecting our land, it's affecting our water, it's affecting our kids," Hamel said. A University of Houston Hobby School survey published a week before Election Day found nearly 80 percent of Texas voters would support limiting the number of data centers that can be built in the state. The industry's answer, from the Data Center Coalition's Jess Heck, is engagement: members will continue to work with residents and local leaders, he said, because "enhancing affordability, creating jobs, and keeping the state's economy strong are top priorities for Texans." Colin Leyden of the Environmental Defense Fund put the voters' expectation plainly: "Voters made clear that they expect their governor to put the health, safety, and well-being of Texas families first." The appointments that test all of it begin when the new administration takes office in January.