Meta Platforms agreement with the city of El Paso to receive multiple millions of dollars in tax breaks for construction of its huge El Paso data center complex won’t change despite the company’s recent pronouncement in support of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s new guidelines for data center development.
Those guidelines include a directive to Texas electric utility regulators to ensure Texas data centers “eliminate reliance on outdated taxpayer-funded incentives,” Abbott said in an Aug. 10 news release announcing Meta’s compliance with his standards and guidelines.
Meta officials, in a statement released Aug. 13 to the El Paso Times, said: “Meta’s recent newsroom post (about supporting Abbott’s standards) does not change anything with regard to our 380 Agreement (tax incentives) with the city of El Paso.”
Abbott’s press office did not respond to El Paso Times’ emailed requests last week (Aug. 10 and 11) for clarification on what the governor’s data center guidelines mean for Meta’s tax incentives in El Paso.
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Several other companies have agreed to comply with Abbott’s guidelines, according to news releases from the governor’s office. That includes Oracle, which is building the Project Jupiter data center complex in the Santa Teresa, New Mexico area on the outskirts of El Paso.
El Paso City Council is scheduled to vote at its Tuesday, Aug. 18, meeting on sending a letter to Abbott asking him to clarify which of his standards for data center developments apply to Meta’s $14 billion El Paso data center complex, well under construction in far Northeast El Paso.
The item was added to Tuesday’s agenda by West-Central District 2 City Rep. Josh Acevedo, who unsuccessfully tried to get the City Council to revoke the Meta tax incentives, much to the chagrin of dozens of opponents of the project.
The proposed letter has a list of 12 questions, including whether the governor’s new directives apply to Meta’s tax incentives agreement with the city. El Paso County also has a tax incentives agreement with Meta.
The city will forego $365 million in property taxes over the first 25 years of the Meta complex’s operation, or about $14.6 million per year, because of the tax abatements and rebates the city promised as incentives, according to city information.
The project is being built on previously city-owned vacant land that wasn’t generating property revenue. It’s unclear what impact the Meta project will have on the city’s sales tax revenue during construction.
Nonetheless, Meta, operator of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is to become the city’s largest taxpayer once the complex opens, projected for 2028.
Several questions in City Council’s proposed letter are tied to how the governor’s directives will affect Meta’s plans for meeting the complex’s huge electricity needs and how water consumption for electric generation will be measured and monitored.
The city and others are opposing El Paso Electric’s plan to have a new power plant built for the Meta complex. It would use 813 natural-gas-fueled generators to help meet the project’s massive electricity needs.
The proposed letter also requests copies of any documents in which Meta committed to comply with the governor’s standards, including documents showing how the standards will apply to Meta’s El Paso project.
El Paso state Sen. Cesar Blanco also sent a letter Aug. 12 to Meta, asking it to clarify how the company’s support of Abbott’s directives will apply to its El Paso project, including “whether it will affect Meta’s use of any existing or future tax incentives or abatements.”
Blanco asks many of the same questions that are in the proposed letter from the El Paso City Council.
In Meta’s Aug. 10 news release headlined “Meta Upholds Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s Data Center Standards,” it states that Meta pays “the full costs of our data centers’ energy and water use so they aren’t passed on to consumers.”
The Meta statement does not mention tax incentives for data center projects.
“We support Governor Abbott’s efforts to conduct a comprehensive review of data center growth in Texas and look forward to being a collaborative partner with state and industry officials, utilities, and local communities,” according to the news release.
Meta has two other data centers in Texas, but El Paso is the only one under construction. It opened its newest data center in Temple, Texas in July. It received tax breaks from Bell County for that facility.
Meta has nine other data centers in construction in other areas of the United States. It has 18 data centers in operation across the nation.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta founder and chief executive officer, also announced Aug. 10 that Meta is creating the Future Is For Everyone Fund, a $1 billion fund to invest in U.S. communities where Meta owns and operates data centers.
Meta officials said more details about how the fund will work will be released soon.
Meta has also just released a new TV advertising campaign that highlights its investment in El Paso through short testimonials from two El Paso workers at the Meta site and an El Paso restaurant manager.
It also has launched new websites in English and Spanish (meta.com/es-la/actions/building-el-paso-texas) highlighting its investments in El Paso.
Vic Kolenc may be reached at 915-546-6421; vkolenc@elpasotimes.com; @vickolenc on X, and @vkolenc.bsky.social on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Meta backs Gov. Abbott data center standards, won’t end El Paso tax deal
Reporting by Vic Kolenc, El Paso Times / El Paso Times
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Vic Kolenc, El Paso Times | USA TODAY Network
