Congresswoman Dina Titus today applauded a decision by the Interior Department's Board of Land Appeals to halt development of a data center on federal land adjacent to Boulder City.
"The judge ruled for transparency and public accountability in granting a stay based on the BLM's misuse of an environmental impact statement for a solar farm as justification for a data center. The two are vastly different." Congresswoman Titus said. "I've said since day one that this was not only improper but illegal."
Congresswoman Titus was the first public official to criticize BLM's rubber stamp of approval, sending a letter to the BLM in early July stating, "Residents of Boulder City and other communities in Southern Nevada have a right to know about any proposal to transfer federal land to data center developers. Data centers potentially can affect our scant water resources, energy usage, and the overall environment. The BLM allowed a private developer to switch from developing a solar farm on city-owned land in Boulder City to building a data center on adjacent federal land without any public review. This is unacceptable."
Boulder City and several environmental groups filed an appeal with the Interior Department's Board of Land Appeals. The proposed data center project would be the first data center built on BLM land, setting a precedent for how data center decisions will proceed across Nevada and the Western United States. There are currently 76 built or planned data centers in the Silver State.
Administrative Judge David Gunter wrote in granting the stay, "Appellants have made a persuasive showing that BLM violated NEPA and acted arbitrarily or capriciously when it determined that the data center project is 'substantially the same' as the solar plant project for purposes of its NEPA analysis."