Senate Democrats are asking Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to cease efforts to build data centers on public lands in light of The Washington Sun’s reporting that revealed the extent of the development the Trump administration is considering.
Sens. Ron Wyden (Oregon), Jeff Merkley (Oregon) and Alex Padilla (California) wrote in a letter to Burgum that the “complete lack of transparency” over his meetings with data center developers and investors over the past year and a half is compounding their concerns. The senators asked the Interior Department to provide information about Burgum’s role in the agency’s handling of public lands.
The Sun reported that the Trump administration was considering proposals for at least a dozen data center projects on federal public lands across six Western states — Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.
According to The Sun’s review of Burgum’s calendar, the Secretary met with dozens of technology and energy executives last year. Those meetings included a conversation with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy about permitting, infrastructure and technology “to support data center growth.”
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The senators also wrote that they had concerns over “numerous risks posed to communities” by data centers, including water use that could exacerbate drought conditions in the West.
“Effectively privatizing public lands owned by American taxpayers sends a clear message that the Trump administration continues to prioritize the profits of tech CEOs and shareholders over the American people that rely on public lands for hunting, fishing, recreation, and livestock grazing,” they wrote.
The Center for Western Priorities has identified 17 applications to build data centers on federal public lands, along with 13 “likely” applications for infrastructure that could support those developments.
No data centers are currently located on federal public lands. Kate Groetzinger, communications manager at the Center for Western Priorities, has surfaced concerns that the Bureau of Land Management has not established a legal basis for allowing data centers on public lands, as they have done with technologies like wind and solar. Instead, BLM would have to rely on a provision that allows for facilities that are “necessary” and “in the public interests” to be on public lands.
“Whether AI data centers serve the ‘public interest’ is an open question—but poll after poll suggests that Americans think they do not,” she wrote.
The Interior Department declined to comment, saying they “do not comment on congressional correspondence through the media.”
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