PUCT sued to shield two survey fields. Your load isn't one.

On October 5, 2026, the Public Utility Commission of Texas sued Attorney General Ken Paxton in Travis County. It seeks to keep two answers from its Energy and Water Use Survey out of public hands: each facility's county and its state regional water planning area. Those two fields are the whole suit. The Attorney General had ordered all of the answers it reviewed released, those two fields included. The exceptions were personal email addresses, records tied to an earlier pending case, and portions that individual respondents proved were trade secrets or commercially harmful to disclose. Contracted load, actual load, projected peak, cooling, water sources, the water provider and the interconnecting utility are not part of the case.

Eight respondents filed their own arguments and kept marked portions private. The ruling says every other respondent gave the Attorney General no basis to withhold anything on proprietary grounds. For a private company's operational data held by a Texas agency, there are two realistic routes to keeping it private. One is a statute that makes it confidential. The other is an exception proved with specific facts, on a clock that starts when the agency's notice reaches the company.

What the survey asked

The 89th Legislature's budget rider (Rider 6, General Appropriations Act) directed the PUCT to study water use in industries where energy and water use move inversely. The PUCT and the Texas Water Development Board scoped it to data centers and virtual currency mining facilities and opened the survey in Project No. 59281 on April 2, 2026, with answers due May 28. Staff reopened it from July 1 to July 10 for facilities that had not yet answered. The April 2 staff memo states: "Survey responses will be shared with the TWDB and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, as required by the Legislature."

Each facility answered separately. The questions asked for:

• county and state regional water planning area
• facility type and operating status
• the interconnecting electric utility, with the instruction "Include information about transmission or distribution service providers, if applicable."
• the water service provider's name and contact
• 2025 contracted peak load, actual average peak load and annual energy use
• anticipated peak load for each year from 2026 to 2030
• behind-the-meter generation and fuel
• cooling technology, described in detail
• 2025 water intake in gallons, water sources and the share from each

According to the PUCT's petition, the rulings ordered release of the interconnecting utility field including, in some responses, the specific substations and transmission lines serving the facility. A final free-text box invited context on any answer.

The survey FAQ addressed confidentiality directly. The PUCT's report to the Legislative Budget Board and the Governor, due December 31, 2026, "will not include any identifiable information from specific facilities. However, all survey data and responsive information are subject to the requirements of the Texas Public Information Act".

How the answers moved toward release

Between May 28 and June 30, 2026, five requestors filed six Public Information Act requests for the responses, including reporters at the Texas Tribune, the Texas Observer and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The PUCT asked the Attorney General for rulings. It argued that the entire set was confidential under Government Code §418.181, the Homeland Security Act provision covering "technical details of particular vulnerabilities of critical infrastructure," and asked in the alternative for de-identified release. It also notified affected respondents under §552.305(d).

That notice starts the respondent's clock. Under §552.305(d), a notified party has until the 10th business day after it receives the notice to send the Attorney General its reasons for withholding. Under §552.305(e), it must also send a copy of that brief to the requestor, and may redact the parts that contain the requested information.

On September 2, 2026, Open Records Letter Ruling OR2026-038988 decided the first three requests. On September 11, OR2026-040171 applied the same result to the other three without revisiting the arguments.

Note: the ruling does not list who raised §552.110. The "Raised by" entry for that row is inferred from the eight companies the ruling found had demonstrated §552.110 protection for portions of their information.

Personal email addresses were withheld under §552.137 unless the owner consents. Information already caught up in an earlier PUCT lawsuit was left to that court. Everything else was ordered released.

What the lawsuit covers

Section 552.324 gives an agency 30 calendar days from receipt of a ruling to sue in Travis County. An agency that does not sue "shall comply with the decision of the attorney general." The PUCT received the first ruling on September 3, and its petition counts the deadline forward to Monday, October 5. It filed that day in the 200th District Court. The file-stamped copy carries cause number D-1-GN-26-010018. The petition's own text says the court had not yet provided a number when notice went to the requestors.

The PUCT argues that load, cooling, water and utility fields "describe an unidentified facility somewhere in Texas" when they stand alone, and that county and water planning area make the facility locatable. It asks the court to declare only those two columns excepted from disclosure. Requestors may intervene under §552.325.

A related case is still open. The PUCT sued over an earlier ruling, OR2025-016557, on virtual currency mining registration records (Cause No. D-1-GN-25-004622, 353rd District Court), and the September 2 ruling describes that case as pending.

The rule for every state data request

For operational data like these answers, plan on public release of anything you give a Texas agency unless one of two things applies:

1. A statute that makes the specific information confidential. The PUCT and four respondents relied on §418.181, and the Attorney General found none of them had shown that it applied to these answers.
2. A showing under §552.110: that the information is a trade secret, or that disclosure would cause substantial competitive harm, "based on specific factual evidence," delivered within 10 business days of receiving the agency's notice.

A respondent can argue either. Four argued the first. Only the second turns on facts the respondent alone holds. Section 552.325(a) contemplates suits to withhold information by a person or entity other than the agency. As of October 9, 2026, we found no report of one.

The same disclosure risk applies to ERCOT's State and Community Impact RFI. Under Market Notice M-B091426-01, ERCOT issued it through each developer's TSP or DSP in RIOO. One group is developers of data centers conditionally classified as base load or studied load in Batch Zero that have not energized the facility or a facility addition at transmission voltage (60 kV or above). The other is developers of proposed data centers with a peak requested load of at least 25 MW but under 75 MW that have not energized at any voltage. A TSP or DSP reported each one in the August 19 Medium Load RFI and classified it as Substantiated Load. Answers are due by 5 p.m. CPT on October 12, 2026; if you read this after that deadline, the same risk applies to answers already filed. The notice says ERCOT will forward the Section C water answers to the Texas Water Development Board, a state agency. Water Code §16.012, which the notice cites for Section C, makes failing to return a TWDB water-use survey a Class C misdemeanor. Its only confidentiality clause covers groundwater field investigations on a landowner's property. We found nothing in §16.012 that makes water-use answers confidential.

Before you answer the next state data request

Counsel should decide what to argue, what to mark and what each answer requires. The steps below gather the facts for that decision. None of them is legal advice, and none of them calls for answering a required survey or RFI with less than it asks.

1. List every field you will submit and every agency that will hold it. The PUCT is required to share survey answers with the TWDB and the TCEQ. ERCOT will forward RFI Section C water answers to the TWDB.
2. For each field, collect any statute the agency or your team would cite for confidentiality. Decide with counsel whether any of them applies.
3. For fields you may want to defend, gather the facts a §552.110 showing needs: the measures that keep the information secret and the competitive harm disclosure would cause. Decide with counsel whether to argue, knowing a copy of the brief goes to the requestor.
4. Name one person to receive Public Information Act notices at the address the agency has on file. Count 10 business days from receipt and calendar the deadline the day the notice arrives.
5. The survey's utility question asked for transmission or distribution providers "if applicable," and some respondents went down to substations and lines (petition ¶30). Decide with counsel how much site detail each answer requires.
6. If the campus answered the PUCT survey, check whether you received a §552.305(d) notice and whether anyone responded. Then track Cause No. D-1-GN-26-010018 for the county and water planning area outcome.

What this piece does not claim

It does not say which answers the PUCT has released since September 2. The Texas Tribune reported on October 6 that this was unclear and that the PUCT does not comment on pending litigation. As of October 9, 2026, no hearing date had been reported, and we found none. It does not say whether ERCOT's own copy of an RFI answer is subject to Chapter 552. It does not predict the outcome of either suit. It is not legal advice.

What to answer in the ERCOT RFI is covered at https://sitebraid.dev/blog/ercot-data-center-state-community-impact-rfi-oct-12/ and the TWDB survey enforcement track at https://sitebraid.dev/blog/texas-twdb-data-center-water-survey-enforcement-oct-14/. This piece covers what happens to the answers after you file them.