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The Texas Public Utilities Commission (PUC) intends to begin collecting information from companies engaged in mining cryptocurrencies and operating data centers in the state. Starting this spring, these enterprises are expected to fill out special questionnaires that will help the authorities assess how much water this rapidly developing sector consumes.

Mining companies will need to specify how much water they use, what cooling technologies they use for servers, and where they get their electricity from. We will have six weeks to prepare and send responses.

Experts are already commenting on the situation. Margaret Cook, who holds the position of vice president at the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC), a center that studies water use issues, shared data from last year. According to her estimates, Texas data centers consumed about 25 billion gallons of water. This figure has attracted the attention of regulators, taking into account the peculiarities of the region's climate and periodic problems with water supply.

These steps by the PUC come amid general support for the crypto industry from the Texas authorities. Earlier, Senator Ted Cruz proposed making the state a center for the development of mining and digital currencies. Last year, Governor Greg Abbott signed a law creating a bitcoin reserve, which highlighted the state's desire to become a leading platform for the cryptocurrency business.

Thus, the PUC's decision to collect water consumption data opens a new page in the interaction of the Texas crypto industry with government agencies. Control over the use of resources is added to the attractive conditions in the form of tax benefits and favorable energy tariffs for miners. The information obtained during the spring survey will help regulators better understand how data centers affect the state's water resources.