Despite ultimately seeking to build a gas plant that could power every home in Abilene more than 20 times over, Stargate’s developers started out much smaller on paper. In 2024, they secured permission to operate on-site power sources through minor permits known as “permits by rule” and “standard permits.”
Widely understood to be used by low-level polluters across the country, these permits don’t require environmental studies, public notice, or public comment periods.
Bruce Buckheit, a former EPA air enforcement chief who served under multiple Republican administrations, says state agencies typically use the permit-by-rule process “for small things that happen a lot,” like gas stations or dry cleaners, so “they don’t have to waste their time reinventing the wheel for common stuff.”
But Stargate “isn’t common stuff,” he says. Under the minor permits, Stargate’s fleet of 10 turbines and 62 backup diesel generators are currently allowed to emit more than 1.6 million tons of greenhouse gases and 1,000 tons of combined harmful air pollutants every year. Despite being permitted for continuous use, Stargate’s developer, Crusoe, tells Floodlight that the turbines will only be used for backup power.
“Normally that permit by rule was conceived of and implemented in a case where an operator wanted a backup generator or three backup generators. When you get to 62, you start thinking, ‘Well, wait a minute, maybe the scale is wrong here,’” Buckheit says.
Stargate is far from alone. Since 2024, at least 38 data centers across Texas have received minor permits to operate onsite power sources, according to a Floodlight analysis. As a result, Texas regulators quietly sanctioned the use of more than 2,100 backup diesel generators across the state.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality did not answer specific questions relating to Floodlight’s findings. Instead, a representative wrote that “TCEQ only issues air permits that comply with applicable state and federal air permitting rules and regulations including applicable public participation requirements.”
