Ban AI Data Centers on Public Lands

The Trump administration is opening up federal public lands and military bases to private companies for AI data center development, bringing heavy water use, air and light pollution, and rising electricity costs to the surrounding communities and military families. Last year, Trump issued an executive order directing the U.S. military to identify sites to be used for AI infrastructure, prompting the Air Force and the Army to make deals with private companies building commercial data centers.

Earlier this year, a small town in Nevada became the first data center approved on BLM-managed public lands when the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approved the building of a new data center without any input from the community. The 76-acre plot of land controlled by the BLM was originally approved for a solar energy project, but BLM quietly swapped the plans, with residents only learning of the change after the fact.

All of this is consistent with the Trump administration’s broader pattern of treating public lands as assets to be sold off rather than preserved for public use. Rep. Rashida Tlaib has introduced a bill in the House, H.R. 9939 the No AI Data Centers on Federal Lands Act, that would permanently ban large AI data centers on all federal land, require the removal of existing facilities, and mandate site remediation. Congress must support this bill and other legislation ton ensure that public lands remain in the hands of the public, not private developers.