The government put a data center on public land by reusing a solar permit.
In June 2026 the Trump administration’s Bureau of Land Management approved a 167-megawatt data center in Nevada’s Eldorado Valley — reported as the first data center on BLM-managed public land. To do it, the BLM carried a 2023 solar right-of-way at the same site onto the new project, so there was no fresh environmental review and no public comment.
The spine of this page is documented and graded FACT: the approval, the reused permit, the appeals. What we do not pre-judge is the appellants’ legal conclusion that the permitting shortcut was unlawful — that is a live claim before the Interior Board of Land Appeals, and we carry it as their contested theory, graded SOME SMOKE. The pattern is the classic one this hub tracks: a public asset — federal land and scarce Colorado River water — handed to a private hedge fund, with the public review step skipped.
The approval and the reused-permit mechanism are documented by Electrek and the Las Vegas Review-Journal; the appeal is the Center for Biological Diversity.
What this page is about
On June 26, 2026, the Bureau of Land Management approved an amended right-of-way for the Townsite Data Center, a facility drawing up to 167 megawatts of power on roughly 85–88 acres of federal public land in the Eldorado Valley near Boulder City, Nevada. The Center for Biological Diversity and Electrek report it as the first data center approved on BLM-managed public land ( Electrek).
The mechanism is the story. Rather than run a fresh environmental review with public comment, the BLM leaned on a prior authorization at the same site — the 2023 Townsite Solar 2 right-of-way — and issued a Determination of NEPA Adequacy (DNA), finding the earlier review “adequate for the new proposed action.” BLM found the projects “substantially the same,” citing similar acreage, boundaries, construction timelines, and structure size. That a solar-and-battery review was carried onto a 167-MW data center, with no new comment period, is documented in the agency’s own record — not merely the appellants’ theory ( Las Vegas Review-Journal).
On July 26–27, 2026, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club’s Toiyabe Chapter filed an administrative appeal to the Interior Board of Land Appeals seeking a stay, and Boulder City voted unanimously to file its own appeal. The site is designated desert tortoise habitat, and the facility’s water would be drawn from the over-allocated Colorado River Basin. Days earlier, Rep. Rashida Tlaib introduced H.R. 9939, the “No AI Data Centers on Federal Lands Act” ( Center for Biological Diversity).
The applicant of record is Townsite Solar 2, a subsidiary of a Houston-based energy hedge fund. The name, base, and natural-gas-and-power focus point to Skylar Capital Management, the energy-trading fund founded by Bill Perkins — a strong entity match, though we attribute the fund, not Perkins personally, and do not claim he signed the BLM paperwork.
So the defensible core is a Trump-administration agency approving the first data center on BLM-managed public land, using a reused solar permit to skip fresh review, and handing a public asset to a private energy hedge fund. Whether that shortcut was lawful is the contested question now before the IBLA, which we grade SOME SMOKE.
The verified spine of this page — the June 26, 2026 BLM approval, the 167-MW figure and Eldorado Valley site, its reporting as the first data center on BLM-managed public land, the Determination of NEPA Adequacy that carried the 2023 Townsite Solar 2 review onto the data center with no new public comment, the July 26–27 IBLA appeal by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter, Boulder City’s unanimous vote to appeal, Rep. Tlaib’s H.R. 9939, and the desert tortoise habitat and Colorado River Basin water source — is drawn from Electrek, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Center for Biological Diversity, and GovInfo, and is graded FACT. The claim that the DNA sidestep was unlawful under NEPA is the appellants’ contested legal theory, graded SOME SMOKE. The identity of the applicant as Bill Perkins’s Skylar Capital is graded PROBABLY TRUE.
We are not asserting that the permitting shortcut has been ruled unlawful. A Determination of NEPA Adequacy is a real tool agencies use, and whether its use here violated NEPA is exactly what the appeal asks the Interior Board of Land Appeals to decide. We carry the mechanism as fact and the illegality as the appellants’ allegation.
We are not asserting that Bill Perkins personally applied for or signed the BLM authorization. The applicant of record is the Townsite Solar 2 subsidiary; the tie to Perkins’s Skylar Capital rests on a strong name/base/sector match, which we grade PROBABLY TRUE, not on a document bearing his signature.
We are not asserting that this facility serves surveillance. The Center for Biological Diversity frames data-center buildout as feeding “AI and the surveillance state,” and the compute layer is a real thematic bridge to this hub’s surveillance work — but this is a generic hyperscale build with no named surveillance customer, and we do not invent one. We also carry the residents’ warnings about utility-rate hikes, water contamination, and property-value loss as their attributed concerns, not as proven harms.
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The Government Put a Data Center on Public Land — by Reusing a Solar Permit.
In June 2026 the Trump administration's Bureau of Land Management approved a 167-MW data center in Nevada's Eldorado Valley — reported as the first on BLM-managed public land — by carrying a 2023 solar right-of-way onto the new project, so there was no fresh environmental review and no public comment. A public asset handed to a private energy hedge fund.
A federal agency handed a hedge fund the first data center on BLM public land — and reused a solar permit so the public never got to weigh in.
What is settled: in June 2026 the Bureau of Land Management approved a 167-MW data center on federal public land in Nevada’s Eldorado Valley — reported as the first of its kind on BLM-managed land. That is FACT, and it is a consequential precedent: the federal estate opened to AI-compute infrastructure.
What makes it a Return-on-Investment case is how. Instead of a new environmental review with a public comment window, the BLM issued a Determination of NEPA Adequacy that carried a 2023 solar-and-battery right-of-way at the same site onto the data center, finding the projects “substantially the same.” A 19-MW solar review became the paperwork for a 167-MW data center. The public asset — federal land plus scarce Colorado River water — moved to a private energy hedge fund, and the public review step was skipped. That mechanism is documented in the agency’s own record, which is why we grade it FACT and do not soften it to an allegation.
What is contested is the law. The Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter, and Boulder City argue the DNA-reuse was an unlawful sidestep of NEPA’s review-and-comment requirements. That is a serious, specific legal claim in an active appeal — but it has not been adjudicated, so we hold it at SOME SMOKE: a real, documentable thread anchored to a formal filing, not a proven violation. The privatization-of-the-commons story does not depend on the appeal succeeding; it lives in the documented facts.
And it is a template. If the reused-permit route survives, it becomes the model for data centers across Western public lands. Rep. Tlaib’s bill to ban AI data centers on federal land is the legislative echo of exactly that worry.
2023 to July 2026: from a solar permit to a data-center approval to a stacked appeal.
- 2023The BLM authorizes the Townsite Solar 2 right-of-way in the Eldorado Valley — a 19-MW solar project with a 35-MW battery. This is the prior authorization the agency will later lean on. Review-Journal.
- June 26, 2026The BLM approves an amended right-of-way for the Townsite Data Center (up to 167 MW), finding via a Determination of NEPA Adequacy that the 2023 solar review is “adequate for the new proposed action” — no new environmental review or public comment. Electrek.
- July 23, 2026Rep. Rashida Tlaib introduces H.R. 9939, the “No AI Data Centers on Federal Lands Act,” to prohibit AI data centers on federal land. GovInfo.
- July 26, 2026The Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter file an administrative appeal to the Interior Board of Land Appeals, seeking a stay of the approval. Center for Biological Diversity.
- July 27, 2026CBD announces the appeal, calling the project the first data center approved on public lands and framing the DNA-reuse as an unlawful sidestep of environmental review. Center for Biological Diversity.
- July 2026Boulder City votes unanimously to file its own appeal to the Interior Board of Land Appeals, joining the challenge. Review-Journal.
The agency, the applicant, the appellants, and the fund behind the paperwork.
Approved the amended Townsite Data Center right-of-way on June 26, 2026 via a Determination of NEPA Adequacy that reused the 2023 Townsite Solar 2 review. Its Las Vegas Field Office found the two projects “substantially the same.”
The right-of-way holder is “Townsite Solar 2,” described as a subsidiary of a Texas/Houston-based hedge fund. The name and energy focus point to Skylar Capital Management, the energy-trading fund founded by Bill Perkins — a strong entity match we grade PROBABLY TRUE.
William Osborne Perkins III (b. 1969), energy trader (NYMEX, El Paso Energy, AIG Energy Trading, Centaurus Energy) who profited from the 2006 Amaranth Advisors collapse; founded Skylar Capital, a Houston energy-trading fund, in 2012; author of Die With Zero. We attribute the fund, not his personal role in this application.
Filed the IBLA appeal seeking a stay, arguing the DNA-reuse unlawfully skipped environmental review and public comment. Its Patrick Donnelly framed the approval as public land handed over to “suck down water for AI and the surveillance state.” An advocacy org; its legal conclusion is graded SOME SMOKE.
Voted unanimously to file its own appeal to the Interior Board of Land Appeals — a notable corroborator, since the challenge is not only advocacy-driven but joined by the affected municipality.
Introduced H.R. 9939, the “No AI Data Centers on Federal Lands Act,” on July 23, 2026 — the legislative response to the precedent this approval sets.
Eight claims, from the documented approval to the contested legal theory we hold at SOME SMOKE.
In June 2026 the BLM approved the 167-MW Townsite Data Center on federal public land in Nevada's Eldorado Valley.
FACTOn June 26, 2026 the Bureau of Land Management approved an amended right-of-way for the Townsite Data Center, a facility drawing up to 167 megawatts of power on roughly 85-88 acres of federal public land near Boulder City, Nevada. This is the settled, load-bearing fact of the page: a federal agency opening public land to an AI-scale data center.
It is reported as the first data center approved on BLM-managed public land.
FACTWe state this as attributed, because that is how the record supports it. Electrek calls it 'what's believed to be the first data center on BLM-managed public land'; the Center for Biological Diversity calls it 'the first data center ever approved on public lands.' The Review-Journal is more cautious, quoting former BLM official Mike Ford that it is 'unprecedented in my personal experience' and a 'test case for the nation,' without independently declaring it the first. So we carry it as widely reported / attributed, and avoid a flat unqualified 'first-ever' as our own assertion.
The BLM reused a 2023 solar authorization at the same site to approve the data center, via a Determination of NEPA Adequacy - so there was no fresh environmental review or public comment.
FACTThis is the mechanism, and it is documented in the agency's own record, not merely the appellants' theory. The BLM reused the 2023 Townsite Solar 2 right-of-way (a 19-MW solar project with a 35-MW battery) via a Determination of NEPA Adequacy. Its Las Vegas Field Office manager Bruce Sillitoe wrote that the prior review's 'public involvement and interagency review is adequate for the new proposed action.' Electrek reports the BLM found the projects 'substantially the same,' citing similar acreage, boundaries, construction timelines, and structure size. A solar-and-battery review became the paperwork for a 167-MW data center, with no new comment period.
“[The prior review's] public involvement and interagency review... is adequate for the new proposed action.”
The permit-reuse was an unlawful sidestep of NEPA's environmental-review and public-comment requirements.
SOME SMOKEThis is the appellants' contested legal conclusion, and we hold it apart from the mechanism above. The Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter, and Boulder City argue the Determination of NEPA Adequacy was an improper shortcut that denied the public any review of a 167-MW industrial facility on public land. That is a serious, specific claim anchored to a formal filing before the Interior Board of Land Appeals - a real documentable thread, not a fantasy. But it is unadjudicated: no tribunal has ruled the DNA-reuse unlawful, and agencies do use DNAs lawfully. So the mechanism is FACT; the illegality is SOME SMOKE until the IBLA rules.
An IBLA appeal was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter, and Boulder City voted unanimously to appeal as well.
FACTOn July 26-27, 2026, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club's Toiyabe Chapter filed an administrative appeal to the Interior Board of Land Appeals seeking a stay of the approval. Separately, Boulder City voted unanimously to file its own appeal to the same board. The municipal appeal matters: the challenge is not solely advocacy-driven but joined by the affected local government.
The applicant traces to Skylar Capital Management, the Houston energy-trading hedge fund founded by Bill Perkins.
PROBABLY TRUEThe right-of-way holder of record is 'Townsite Solar 2,' described by the Review-Journal as a subsidiary of a Texas-based hedge fund. Skylar Energy Resources is reported as a subsidiary of Skylar Capital Management, a Houston-based firm focused on natural gas and power markets, and the Center for Biological Diversity attributes the project to Skylar Capital Management. Bill Perkins founded Skylar Capital, a Houston energy-focused hedge fund, in 2012. The name, base, and sector make this a strong entity match - but we did not find a document tying Perkins personally to signing or directing the BLM application, so we attribute the fund and grade the identification PROBABLY TRUE, not FACT.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib introduced H.R. 9939, the 'No AI Data Centers on Federal Lands Act,' on July 23, 2026.
FACTH.R. 9939, sponsored by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, was introduced July 23, 2026 'To prohibit Artificial Intelligence Data Centers on Federal land.' It is the direct legislative response to the precedent the Townsite approval sets, and confirms the 'week of July 20' framing in the intake.
The site is designated desert tortoise habitat in the Eldorado Valley, and the facility's water would come from the over-allocated Colorado River Basin.
FACTThe Center for Biological Diversity describes the site as desert tortoise habitat in the Eldorado Valley southeast of Las Vegas, with water sourced from within the parched Colorado River Basin; the appeal also names the Mojave desert tortoise (threatened), southwestern willow flycatcher, yellow-billed cuckoo, and Ridgway's rail. The habitat and water-source facts are documented. Residents' further warnings - utility-rate hikes, water contamination, and tourism / property-value harm - are appellants' attributed warnings, carried as such and not stated as proven.
The agency calls the two projects “substantially the same.” The appellants call it a skipped review. The documented facts sit between the spin.
Agency’s account: the data center is a like-for-like successor to an already-reviewed solar project on the same footprint — similar acreage, boundaries, and construction timelines — so a fresh NEPA review was unnecessary and the 2023 analysis is “adequate.” Record: the BLM did make that finding, in writing, and DNAs are a real tool. But a 19-MW solar-and-battery project and a 167-MW data center differ enormously in power draw, water use, and cooling load, which is the appellants’ core objection ( Electrek).
Appellants’ account: the DNA-reuse was an unlawful sidestep that denied the public any comment on an industrial data center on public land in tortoise habitat drawing Colorado-River water. Record: the appeal is real, specific, and joined by Boulder City, which is why we grade the sidestep-happened facts FACT. What the record does not yet let us do is declare the sidestepunlawful — that is the question the IBLA will decide, so the illegality stays SOME SMOKE ( Center for Biological Diversity).
Who the applicant is: critics name Bill Perkins’s Skylar Capital as the beneficiary of a public-land giveaway. Record: the ROW holder of record is the Townsite Solar 2 subsidiary; the tie to Perkins’s Houston energy fund is a strong name/base/sector match, graded PROBABLY TRUE, and we do not assert Perkins personally signed the paperwork or that his fund’s assets under management are any particular figure — we dropped the unverified “~$500M AUM” number the intake carried ( Wikipedia).
The surveillance framing: CBD casts the approval as public land handed over to “suck down water for AI and the surveillance state.” Record: that is advocacy framing, and we keep it as a thematic bridge to this hub’s surveillance work, not a claim that this facility serves a named surveillance customer. It is a generic hyperscale build; we do not invent a customer.
The commons, converted to a private asset — with the public review step deleted.
The Return on Investment hub tracks the machinery by which public assets are moved to private hands and public costs are socialized while gains are captured. The Townsite Data Center is the physical, literal version: federal land and scarce Colorado River water, handed to a private energy hedge fund, for AI-compute infrastructure — with the environmental-review-and-comment step skipped by reusing an old solar permit.
It also connects to this project’s surveillance work. Data centers are the physical layer beneath the AI and surveillance stack — the compute that the Palantir / Flock / Paragon cluster runs on. We do not assert this specific facility serves surveillance, but the buildout of hyperscale compute on public land is the ground floor of that story, and the Center for Biological Diversity draws the same bridge in its own framing.
And it is a precedent machine. If the reused-permit route holds up at the Interior Board of Land Appeals, it is the template for data centers across the Western public estate — which is exactly why Boulder City joined the appeal and why Rep. Tlaib moved to ban the practice outright. The documented facts are enough to make this a Return-on-Investment case; the appeal will decide whether the shortcut was also illegal.
Questions worth taking seriously
If agencies are allowed to use a Determination of NEPA Adequacy, what's the problem?
Is this really the first data center on public land?
Did Bill Perkins personally get this land?
Does this data center serve the surveillance state?
If you are named on this page
If you are named on this page, or are a party materially affected by the claims made here, and you wish to respond, correct the record, or add context, use the Contact page. Responses are published verbatim alongside the original claim, with the sender identified and the date of receipt. The channel stays open for the life of the page.
This site aggregates and grades a record that other outlets and primary sources have already put on the record. Every FACT-graded claim above is sourced to court filings, government reports, sworn whistleblower disclosures, published investigative journalism, or named-source statements. The citations are the accountability mechanism; this section is how you get on the record too.
The approval, the reused permit, the appeal, and the bill.
Every claim on this page grades to one of FACT · PROBABLY TRUE · SOME SMOKE · PURE SPECULATION · FALSE / MISLEADING. The approval, the reused-permit mechanism, the appeals, the bill, and the habitat and water facts are graded FACT. The claim that the sidestep was unlawful under NEPA is the appellants’ contested legal theory, graded SOME SMOKE. The identification of the applicant as Bill Perkins’s Skylar Capital is graded PROBABLY TRUE.
- Electrek, “BLM approves what’s believed to be the first data center on BLM-managed public land” (Jul 29, 2026) — the June 26 approval, 167 MW, and the “substantially the same” finding
- Las Vegas Review-Journal, “Boulder City to appeal BLM approval of data center” — the DNA (BLM manager Bruce Sillitoe), the Townsite Solar 2 applicant, and the municipal appeal
- GovInfo, H.R. 9939, “No AI Data Centers on Federal Lands Act” (introduced Jul 23, 2026) — primary
- Center for Biological Diversity, “Appeal Challenges Public-Lands Data Center in Nevada” (Jul 27, 2026) — the IBLA appeal, tortoise habitat, Colorado River water, and the surveillance framing
- The IBLA appeal itself (PDF), dated July 26, 2026 — the appellants’ NEPA argument, anchored here as their contested legal theory
- Rep. Tlaib, “Rep. Tlaib Introduces a Bill to Ban AI Data Centers on Federal Lands”
- The appellants’ conclusion that the DNA-reuse was unlawful is held at SOME SMOKE pending the IBLA ruling; the mechanism itself is FACT.
- The “~$500M AUM as of 2023” figure for Skylar Capital is dropped as unverifiable (Wikipedia supports only $102M raised in 2012).
- Residents’ warnings of utility-rate hikes, water contamination, and tourism / property-value harm are carried as attributed warnings, not proven harms.
Full method: Methodology. Home hub: Return on Investment. Related: Surveillance State(s) and Self-Dealing.
Last updated August 24, 2026. The June 26, 2026 BLM approval of the 167-MW Townsite Data Center, its reporting as the first on BLM-managed public land, the Determination of NEPA Adequacy that reused the 2023 Townsite Solar 2 review with no new public comment, the July 26–27 IBLA appeal by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter, Boulder City’s unanimous appeal, Rep. Tlaib’s H.R. 9939, and the tortoise habitat and Colorado River Basin water source are graded FACT. The claim that the sidestep was unlawful under NEPA is graded SOME SMOKE, held short of proof by the pending appeal. The identification of the applicant as Bill Perkins’s Skylar Capital is graded PROBABLY TRUE. The unverified “~$500M AUM” figure is dropped. If a link 404s or a date is wrong, tell us and we will fix it publicly.