Interior Judge Stays the First Data Center Approved on BLM Public Land After a Solar Right-of-Way Was Amended Without Environmental Review

Interior Administrative Judge David Gunter issued a stay on September 1, 2026 halting construction of the Townsite Data Center in Boulder City, Nevada — the first AI data center approved on Bureau of Land Management land. BLM had approved the project in June 2026 by amending an existing right-of-way granted in 2023 for a solar farm, without completing a new environmental assessment and without opening a public comment period. The amendment converted a facility that would have produced power into one that consumes 167 megawatts, roughly the draw of 75,000 homes, on an 88.5-acre site. Conservation groups and Boulder City residents challenged the amendment process. The Interior Board of Land Appeals is now considering the case. At least 12 additional data center proposals on BLM land are in the pipeline.

The procedural move is the finding, and it is reusable. Amending an existing right-of-way rather than granting a new one is what let BLM skip the environmental assessment and the comment period — the approval inherited a 2023 record built for a solar farm, which is to say a record that never contemplated a 167-megawatt load because the facility it described was a generator. That the same acreage can carry either designation without triggering fresh review is the gap Gunter’s stay tests, and with twelve more proposals queued on federal land the IBLA’s answer sets the template for all of them. It is worth noting what the stay is not: an administrative pause pending appeal, not a merits ruling that the amendment was unlawful.