Texas, with its explosive growth, is facing surging electricity demand, rapid data-center growth, and water constraints. State leaders and policymakers are weighing ways to expand reliable baseload power while, at the same time, training workers fast enough to build and maintain the systems that keep the grid stable.
Tom Butler, the current vice chair of the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR), has an innovative, workforce-first approach that can help address energy reliability and explains why Texas needs to continue to make strides on licensing reform.
Butler started his career as a refinery electrician and now serves as the President of USI Federal Credit Union. He served in Harris County Adult Probation and in the 184th District Court, where he helped stand up Texas’s sex-offender registration processes in the mid-1990s.
He later joined the Texas Credit Union Commission in 2005, rose to chair, and led changes that reduced reliance on biennial legislative appropriations. He says he has served on the TDLR Commission for more than a decade and now helps oversee 38 licensing programs and more than a million licenses statewide.
“Texas leads the path to energy independence for this country,” he says. “We do a great job, and I want to make sure that continues because the impact lands in my community.”
He says that facilitating industry growth is important to families and communities across Texas. “The guys in the refineries are my baseball coaches and football coaches,” he says. “They are pillars in the community, and they need good jobs and good benefits.”
Regulatory balance matters, according to Butler. “I see it work well, and I see the folly of too much regulation,” he says, recalling how a simple battery spill once triggered an outsized response on a job site. “You would think this is a homicide investigation,” he says. “We need a system that protects safety without grinding work to a halt.”
Butler says part of TDLR’s mission is to help facilitate the job training and certification that is required for industry growth. “Our job is to make sure we have a good and ready workforce,” he says.
As an example, Butler touts a pilot with San Jacinto College that turns final exams into licensing exams for barbering, cosmetology, and massage. “We graduate 300 students in May, and they get to work the day they get their diploma,” he says. “The executive director signs licenses at graduation, and there are tears. Shaving off two or three months at one institution changes lives. We can scale that across Texas.”
He says the agency has grown and taken on troubled programs, then fixed and returned them. “The legislature gives us problem agencies because our DNA is policies and procedures that work,” he says, citing the veterinarian board transition. “We right the ship and prepare them to stand alone again if that is what the legislature desires.”
Data-center expansion in Texas has raised questions and concerns about energy capacity. “I am aware of a 300-acre data center in the Waco area with big companies coming in,” he says. “In the next 20 years our grid needs to be capable of 50% more electricity.” He urges practical focus. “We increase baseload with natural gas,” he says. “We look again at coal. We look at small nuclear. Water and electricity are the limiting factors for the growth of Texas.”
Small modular projects intrigue Butler, he says, especially for site-specific loads. “We start talking about small nuclear in the legislature. A system tailored for a data center or a small community makes sense if we train for it and set realistic standards.”
Butler says he has confidence in Texas labor even as automation spreads. “A lot of the jobs we license are resistant to AI. It is hard to program a plumber or an electrician. You still need someone to see a frayed wire and know why an air conditioner shorts to a frame.”
He sees room for AI in diagnostics but expects human judgment to remain essential. “Texans rise to the challenge when energy is involved,” he says. “We create and manage our own energy needs.”