Hoover Dam. Photo: Visit Boulder City
Apparently, a 19-megawatt (MW) solar farm and a 167-MW AI data center are “substantially the same” – at least according to the Trump administration’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
The Trump administration has approved what’s believed to be the first data center on BLM-managed public land by transferring an environmental review completed for an entirely different project. The agency didn’t conduct a new review or invite public comment on the switch.
Townsite Solar 2 received a federal right-of-way in 2023 to build a solar farm and a 35 MW battery storage system on an 80-acre parcel within the city limits of Boulder City, Nevada – known as “the city that built Hoover Dam.”
In late 2025, the developer applied to replace the clean energy project with an AI data center, and the BLM approved the amended right-of-way on June 26.
The original project would have generated 19 MW of solar power. The data center will consume up to 167 MW of power, or enough to power 75,000 homes, and have backup generators. Boulder City has a population of 15,000, or around 6,600 occupied households.
To approve the change, BLM relied on a Determination of NEPA Adequacy, which allows an agency to use an existing environmental review when a new proposal is sufficiently similar to what was previously analyzed.
BLM Las Vegas field office manager Bruce Sillitoe concluded that the two projects were “substantially the same,” citing their similar acreage, boundaries, construction timelines, and the size and shape of the structures. BLM’s online project record lists a decision record, a Determination of NEPA Adequacy, and a development plan for the data center.
That reasoning has gone over like a lead balloon in Boulder City.
“We’ve had no conversations, there’s been no chance for the community or for the city to provide any input to the federal government,” city spokesperson Lisa LaPlante said. “This feels so unprecedented for us to have a project placed in our city without the chance to weigh in.”
Townsite Solar 2 had initially sought permission to build on 88.5 acres of nearby city-owned land. When it applied to switch the project from solar and storage to a data center, Boulder City required the developer to begin a new review process that included public input, and the city’s Planning Commission voted 6-1 against advancing the proposal. Townsite Solar 2 then withdrew that application after securing approval for the adjacent federal site, less than a half mile away.
The Boulder City Council voted unanimously on July 14 to appeal BLM’s decision to the Interior Board of Land Appeals and is seeking to pause the project while the case is heard. The city says that despite being built on federal land, the data center would still depend on local utilities, roads, and emergency services.
Townsite Solar 2 says the data center would use waterless cooling, draw power from its own renewable energy sources, and fund local energy and water initiatives.
Heatmap reports that Arevon, which holds a minority stake in the project, hired lobbyists from the Bernhardt Group around the time Townsite Solar 2 began pursuing the switch. The firm is led by David Bernhardt, who served as interior secretary during Trump’s first term. Arevon says it owns less than 25% of the venture and did not hire lobbyists or consultants specifically for this project.
Conservation groups are sounding the alarm that this approval has created a shortcut that could be used to turn other clean energy permits into data center projects without a fresh environmental review or public scrutiny.
“This was a bait and switch,” said Olivia Tanager, director of the Sierra Club’s Toiyabe Chapter. “If we allow this precedent to stand, the fear is that this could promulgate throughout not just Nevada, but all over the country in the interest of expediting data centers.”
One consumes energy. One creates clean energy. There’s nothing “substantially the same” about a data center and a solar farm.
Read more: The Trump administration just killed the US’s largest solar project
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