Judge halts Trump-backed data center on public land

A federal judge sided with the Sierra Club and other groups Sept. 1 to halt a controversial data center project outside Boulder City, Nevada, southeast of Las Vegas. Backed by the Trump administration, the project had come from Townsite Solar 2 LLC, a Houston-based company that had previously received approval for a solar farm in the same location.

Read more Legendary SF Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow is getting his own beer

The legal setback marks a high-profile failure for what would have been the first data center on federal land. Though both the Trump administration and the tech industry seek to build more data centers to support generative artificial intelligence technology like ChatGPT, public sentiment has largely turned against them, particularly in areas plagued by drought, and where people worry about rising energy bills and access to public land.

“We believe this is the test case for how all future data centers might be permitted on federal public land,” said Olivia Tanager, director of the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter, which filed the along with the Center for Biological Diversity. 

“What we’re seeing play out on the ground across the state of Nevada is folks of all political ideology raising concerns about data center development and how that’s going to impact our way of life in Nevada, from concerns about water usage in the driest state in the nation to concerns about air quality,” she said.

While Tanager and other Nevadans celebrate the legal victory they obtained so far, they expect court battles to continue.

Long legal fight

The convoluted story of the project began in 2023 when the Biden administration’s Bureau of Land Management approved the solar farm on public land from Skylar Energy Resources, a subsidiary of Houston-based energy hedge fund Skylar Capital Management. The solar farm and battery storage facility would have been significant for a largely arid state like Nevada, as it could eventually generate 19 megawatts of power in a state that currently has to import most of its energy and fuel from California and other neighboring states.

The same company later proposed a data center project within the limits of Boulder City, a town of 15,000 people that was originally developed in the 1930s to house workers building Hoover Dam. Residents first heard of the proposal at a city council meeting in March of this year. 

After considerable local opposition, the city’s planning commission in May voted almost unanimously against it. The company abandoned that idea, but quickly made a surprising and controversial move, attempting to build a data center on federal land — instead of the planned solar farm, which had yet to break ground.

Then in June, the Trump administration’s BLM gave the green light to the developer to use that land for a data center — both now called TS2 — without a new environmental review, arguing that its potential environmental impacts would be essentially the same as that of the solar project. 

Patrick Donnelly, the Center for Biological Diversity’s Great Basin director, described the move as “totally unprecedented” and a “five-alarm fire,” since he said public land has never before been used for a data center. 

“Public lands are our shared national heritage and they are obviously supported by a huge swath of Americans, particularly across the western United States,” Donnelly said. “It’s really crossing the Rubicon for them to start permitting data centers on public lands.”

In July, the local Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity filed an administrative appeal against BLM’s approval. A judge on the Interior Board of Land Appeals has now agreed with those appellants that a data center and solar facility could have “very different environmental effects.” He , pausing the data center project, pending appeal and a comprehensive environmental review.

A public relations firm working with TS2 responded to SFGATE’s requests for comment by pointing to its Sept. 1 news release, which stated: “TS2 is committed to meeting all environmental requirements and ensuring that the data center project is developed responsibly. The company will continue coordinating with the BLM, Boulder City, regional partners, and community members as the project advances.” 

Read more Another Calif. college was ranked above UC Berkeley this year besides Stanford

The BLM declined to answer additional questions, telling SFGATE only, “No comment at this time.”

Local resistance

Even before the judge’s stay, Townsite’s plans on Boulder City land raised the ire of locals, who now are largely opposed to data centers in the area, said Brynn deLorimier, a Boulder City resident leading that opposition.

“As soon as residents got word in this apathetic, politically speaking, town, all of a sudden people started showing up to city council meetings. They were packed,” she said. “The planning commission public comment period was over three hours long. I don’t think that has ever happened before.”

People throughout the community began actively campaigning against the data center, including speaking at council meetings, calling local officials, and displaying hundreds of anti-data center yard signs around town. “We’re a small community, so word gets out fast,” deLorimier said.

The growing opposition also drew the attention of Democratic Rep. Dina Titus, whose district covers Boulder City. In July, after news of the data center’s attempted move to public land, she sent a letter to BLM’s leaders with questions about water and energy use and about the lack of transparency and public consultation. 

“Public opinion shows that about 70% of people are opposed to data centers,” Titus told SFGATE. “That’s not just in Nevada but across the country.” 

On Sept. 1, Titus met with a few TS2 representatives, where she said they discussed the company’s intentions to push forward with the data center while following the law and conducting an environmental study. 

“They admitted that a data center would be much more lucrative than a solar facility, and that’s why they made the switch, but they did it kind of behind closed doors,” she said.

Battles over data centers could be just beginning. Boulder City limits extend farther into the arid area to the south, known as Eldorado Valley. Multiple data center companies beyond TS2 are eyeing that land, deLorimier said. In November, local voters will consider a ballot measure on whether to allow data centers on city land in the Eldorado Valley, where they’d still have to follow the usual permitting process. 

Throughout the second Trump administration, the White House has sought to accelerate the build-out of AI data centers. Last year, President Donald Trump issued an executive order stating, “It will be a priority of my Administration to facilitate the rapid and efficient buildout of this infrastructure by easing Federal regulatory burdens.” And in a post on Truth Social on Aug. 31, the president derided communities opposing data centers as “backwards and poor.”

But Titus is adamant: “The people of Boulder City don’t see it that way.” She and deLorimier note that Boulder City is neither a liberal nor conservative town, and people across the state oppose data centers. Elsewhere in Nevada, Nye County, which voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2024, passed a moratorium on new data centers. Reno, located in Washoe County, which went for Kamala Harris, also approved such a measure. 

“This has been an issue where it’s been bipartisan across residents,” deLorimier said. “People of all walks and all ages seem to be pretty united against data centers.”