Texas Gov. Greg Abbott moved Friday to put state funding for DFW Airport and George Bush Intercontinental Airport under review after a proposal for Islamic washing facilities at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport drew a political fight. On the same day, DFW said it would not move ahead with the plan for ablution stations in Terminal D.
Abbott said he directed a review of state grants to the entities that operate both airports, with possible revocation and denial of future funding on the table. He also referred DFW and George Bush Intercontinental to the U.S. Department of Transportation for investigation. In a post on X, Abbott said government-owned airports cannot favor one religion over another and called the proposed wudu facilities illegal. He added that Texas would not allow what he described as illegal religious discrimination at taxpayer-funded facilities.
DFW said it had been evaluating an internal proposal for ablution washing stations on the pre-security side of Terminal D, the airport’s international terminal. The airport said it sped up its review after public attention increased this week and then decided not to proceed. In its statement, DFW said it weighed operational benefits, customer service effects, risks and costs before making that decision, and concluded the project would not deliver the expected benefits.
The project first surfaced in a filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation on July thirty-first. That filing listed the project as privately funded, placed the estimated cost at $300,000 and said construction would be finished by the end of the year. DFW later said its outside design firm had made administrative errors in the filing, including the funding designation, and stressed that the project had not received final approval.
The airport also said the $300,000 estimate was only a preliminary high figure and that the cost would likely have been closer to $120,000 if the project had advanced. DFW said the design firm mistakenly marked the proposal as privately funded when it should have shown that airport funds would be used, and the airport added that it does not use taxpayer dollars for airport operations, relying instead on revenue from parking and concessions.
