Update, August 20, 2026: This post has been updated to add detail from federal lobbying disclosures and Arevon’s response to CWP. Heatmap has not retracted its reporting on the Townsite project.
The Bureau of Land Management has approved an AI data center on national public land that was originally approved for a solar energy project, without conducting a new review or taking public comment on the switch. The project is believed to be the first data center approved on BLM-managed public lands. However, the project is relying on prior approval for not a data center but a solar energy project, swapping out an energy-generating project for one that would consume more energy than the entire neighboring community of Boulder City, Nevada.
Townsite Solar 2, LLC, the project developer, originally received approval in 2023 to build a solar energy and battery storage project on a BLM-managed parcel within the city limits of Boulder City. Earlier this year, TS2 amended its application to develop a data center instead, which the BLM approved without seeking public comment on the new proposal. “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,” said Boulder City spokesperson Lisa LaPlante. “This feels so unprecedented for us to have a project placed in our city without the chance to weigh in.”
The BLM justified its approval by claiming that a solar project and a data center are “substantially the same,” noting similarities in acreage, perimeter, construction time, and the size and shape of the facilities. Relying on this rationale, the BLM used a Determination of NEPA Adequacy to transfer the 2023 analysis and approval to the amended project. “It’s an extraordinary and liberal interpretation of existing law and regulations,” said Mike Ford, a former high-level official at the BLM.
According to reporting by Heatmap, Arevon Energy, one of Townsite Solar’s financial backers, hired lobbyists from the Bernhardt Group, the firm led by former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, around the time Townsite Solar 2 was preparing to shift from a solar project to a data center. Federal disclosures show the Bernhardt Group registered to lobby for Arevon effective November 15, 2025, on “general issues related to energy and permitting,” and has reported lobbying the Interior Department on Arevon’s behalf in every quarter since, collecting at least $160,000. Arevon’s registered lobbyists include Cole Rojewski, who ran congressional and legislative affairs at Interior during Bernhardt’s tenure. No other firm has registered to lobby for Arevon. In August, a public relations representative for Arevon told the Center for Western Priorities that the company did not hire the Bernhardt Group to work on Townsite Solar 2 and did not direct the conversion to a data center. Asked what projects or issues the Bernhardt Group is working on for Arevon, she declined to say.
“This was a bait and switch,” said Olivia Tanager, director of the Toiyabe Chapter of the Sierra Club. “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.”
Quick hits
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Quote of the day
The question before us is simple: What kind of legacy will we leave? Will we choose short-term extraction, or will we choose to protect one of the most important Indigenous cultural landscapes in North America, a place whose meaning reaches far beyond any single administration?”
—Cochiti Pueblo Governor Phillip Quintana, High Country News
Picture This
High in the Olympic Mountains, the alpine tarns of Upper Royal Basin reflect some of the most rugged scenery at @Olympic_nps.
Jagged peaks and clear water = not a bad place to stop and stare for a while.
Photo by Hwei Ling Ng @thenomadicartist