May 26, 2026

The Texas Power Grid, AI, and the Race for Data Centers with Rep. John McQueeney (# 416)

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In this episode, Chris sits down with John McQueeney, State Representative for House District 97 in Tarrant County, Texas and member of the State Affairs Committee covering power grid and electric policy.

In the last six weeks alone, John's committee has run three interim data center hearings. He is also drafting the Data Center Responsibility Act for the January 2027 session - the bill that will set the framework for how Texas handles the data center build-out for a generation. Texas has 440 gigawatts of applications in the queue against roughly 110 gigawatts of current peak capacity. Someone has to sort out what's real, what's speculative, and who pays for the grid when it all comes online. John is one of the people doing that work.

They discuss:

  • Why the data center industry is losing a PR battle it should be winning
  • The tax story hyperscalers haven't been telling
  • How the large load approval process works in Texas, end to end - from TSP submission to ERCOT study to Approved to Energize
  • What's real vs. speculative in the 440 GW pipeline
  • Behind-the-meter data centers as grid stabilizers
  • What the Data Center Responsibility Act will cover
  • The railroad analogy: why communities that miss this build-out will fall behind for decades

Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(02:27) Why Data Centers Are a "12 Out of 10" for Texas
(08:17) A Day Without a Data Center
(09:34) Inside Stargate: Lancium, Crusoe, Oracle & OpenAI
(14:34) When One Data Center Funds 30% of a City's Budget
(17:03) The Vicious Restudy Cycle & the Batch Zero Fix
(28:55) 440 GW of Applications Chasing 105 GW of Capacity
(35:53) The 75 MW Threshold & Going Behind the Meter
(48:36) Drafting the Data Center Responsibility Act
(54:19) North Texas's Hidden Risk in Batch Zero
(01:08:35) Who Actually Pays for the Grid Buildout?
(01:14:32) Data Centers Are a National Security Issue
(01:18:12) Data Centers in Space & the Long Arc

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