1 00:00:00,500 --> 00:00:04,293 There's a phrase in the federal file I've now read about nine times, 2 00:00:04,293 --> 00:00:07,215 and it gets worse every single time. 3 00:00:07,215 --> 00:00:09,676 That's substantially the same. 4 00:00:09,676 --> 00:00:12,658 On june twenty sixth, twenty twenty six, 5 00:00:12,658 --> 00:00:14,299 the Bureau of Land Management, 6 00:00:14,299 --> 00:00:19,233 BLM, the agency that runs the public acreage across the western part 7 00:00:19,233 --> 00:00:23,956 of the United States, approved a data center on public land outside of Boulder City, 8 00:00:23,956 --> 00:00:28,429 Nevada. eighty acres, one hundred and seventy megawatts, 9 00:00:28,429 --> 00:00:29,470 the first 10 00:00:29,661 --> 00:00:34,583 Data center ever authorized on Bureau of Land Management ground in 11 00:00:34,583 --> 00:00:36,183 the history of the United States. 12 00:00:36,183 --> 00:00:39,124 No new environmental assessment, 13 00:00:39,124 --> 00:00:42,466 no public comment period. And here's how this was legal. 14 00:00:42,466 --> 00:00:46,347 The developer, a company called Townsite Solar two, 15 00:00:46,347 --> 00:00:49,448 already held a right of way grant on that federal parcel. 16 00:00:49,448 --> 00:00:53,410 Got it in September 2023 for a solar project. 17 00:00:53,410 --> 00:00:59,342 In June 2026, BLM amended the grant to allow a data center instead. 18 00:00:59,984 --> 00:01:03,885 And treated the new project as substantially the same as the old one 19 00:01:04,125 --> 00:01:08,266 for purposes of the National Environmental Policy Act or NEPA. 20 00:01:08,266 --> 00:01:12,747 That's the 1970s law that requires the federal government to look before 21 00:01:12,747 --> 00:01:14,888 it leaps on anything that it approves. 22 00:01:14,888 --> 00:01:21,710 A solar farm, a 170 megawatt computing facility with its own backup fuel. 23 00:01:21,710 --> 00:01:25,090 Substantially the same. Now, 24 00:01:25,090 --> 00:01:27,321 the obvious read is that somebody was lazy. 25 00:01:27,780 --> 00:01:29,861 Overworked field office, sack of paper, 26 00:01:29,861 --> 00:01:33,243 initial, you know, your signature there and go home, 27 00:01:33,243 --> 00:01:34,905 but I don't buy it and here's why. 28 00:01:34,905 --> 00:01:39,147 The man who signed it, Bruce Silito, 29 00:01:39,147 --> 00:01:41,769 manages BLM's Las Vegas field office. 30 00:01:41,769 --> 00:01:43,690 He knows what a data center is. 31 00:01:43,690 --> 00:01:45,972 And on september first, twenty twenty six, 32 00:01:45,972 --> 00:01:49,254 an administrative judge at the Interior Board of Land Appeals, 33 00:01:49,254 --> 00:01:53,416 that's the appeals body inside the Interior Department that reviews BLM decisions. 34 00:01:53,416 --> 00:01:57,249 A judge named David Gunter stayed the whole project. 35 00:01:57,701 --> 00:02:03,733 His findings were that BLM likely acted arbitrarily or capriciously because 36 00:02:03,733 --> 00:02:06,424 the environmental review it leaned on had been done before 37 00:02:06,424 --> 00:02:08,055 the project changed locations. 38 00:02:08,055 --> 00:02:11,796 Different site, different type of facility entirely, 39 00:02:11,796 --> 00:02:15,778 the same file. Two and a half weeks later that stay, 40 00:02:15,778 --> 00:02:19,719 on september eighteenth, reported showing the administration weighing 41 00:02:19,719 --> 00:02:23,881 at least twelve data centers and related infrastructure projects covering 42 00:02:23,881 --> 00:02:27,242 at least seventeen thousand six hundred acres of 43 00:02:27,480 --> 00:02:30,512 of BLM land across Arizona, Idaho, 44 00:02:30,512 --> 00:02:33,694 Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming. 45 00:02:33,694 --> 00:02:36,696 Most of them had never been disclosed to the public. 46 00:02:36,696 --> 00:02:38,957 So that's the question we're going to chase today. 47 00:02:38,957 --> 00:02:42,400 How did seventeen thousand six hundred acres of land that belongs 48 00:02:42,400 --> 00:02:48,153 to every person listening to this podcast become the path of least resistance 49 00:02:48,153 --> 00:02:51,665 for the most capital hungry industry on the planet? 50 00:02:51,665 --> 00:02:56,108 And who benefits from a filing that calls a computing plant and a solar farm 51 00:02:56,228 --> 00:02:57,228 the same thing? 52 00:03:16,626 --> 00:03:18,067 This is the overlap. 53 00:03:18,567 --> 00:03:20,409 The podcast where we talk about business, 54 00:03:20,409 --> 00:03:23,473 labor, systems of power, and American injustice. 55 00:03:23,473 --> 00:03:24,795 How are you, Joshua? 56 00:03:25,651 --> 00:03:27,942 Just fine, thanks for asking. But let's hop into it. 57 00:03:27,942 --> 00:03:30,944 So here's the episode in one sentence. 58 00:03:30,944 --> 00:03:35,117 The federal government has decided that public land is the cheapest place 59 00:03:35,117 --> 00:03:40,310 in America to put AI. And the people who live next to that land are about 60 00:03:40,310 --> 00:03:42,591 to find it out about it after the fact, 61 00:03:42,591 --> 00:03:44,312 and they're organizing anyway. 62 00:03:44,312 --> 00:03:48,044 So let's give the strongest version of the case for actually doing this, 63 00:03:48,044 --> 00:03:52,627 because it's a real case, and some of it actually 64 00:03:53,181 --> 00:03:55,682 Holds a special place in all of our hearts. 65 00:03:55,682 --> 00:03:58,882 Compute is infrastructure now, 66 00:03:58,882 --> 00:04:03,363 right? The binding constraints on building it are land and power in that order. 67 00:04:03,363 --> 00:04:09,245 And the West has federal acreage sitting next to existing transmission lines. 68 00:04:09,245 --> 00:04:11,585 On November fifth, twenty twenty five, 69 00:04:11,585 --> 00:04:14,386 the Department of Energy under Secretary Chris Wright, 70 00:04:14,386 --> 00:04:18,567 picked four federal sites to invite private partners onto 71 00:04:18,987 --> 00:04:20,748 the Idaho National Laboratory, 72 00:04:20,748 --> 00:04:22,618 the Oak Ridge Reservation. 73 00:04:23,292 --> 00:04:28,115 The Paducah gaseous diffusion plant and the Savannah River site. 74 00:04:28,115 --> 00:04:31,757 Those are nuclear legacy industrial sites, 75 00:04:31,757 --> 00:04:35,620 fenced, already degraded, already wired into the grid. 76 00:04:35,620 --> 00:04:40,683 If you told me the choice was between a decommissioned uranium enrichment plant 77 00:04:41,043 --> 00:04:43,394 and somebody's farmland in Virginia, 78 00:04:43,394 --> 00:04:45,426 I'd take the enrichment plant every time. 79 00:04:45,426 --> 00:04:47,457 And I wouldn't feel conflicted about it. 80 00:04:47,957 --> 00:04:49,674 Right, and that's really the sales pitch. 81 00:04:50,485 --> 00:04:56,327 It is the sales pitch partly. So what breaks is basically what we opened with. 82 00:04:56,327 --> 00:04:59,609 The town site project is nothing like Paducah. 83 00:04:59,609 --> 00:05:04,070 It sits on federal land at the edge of a very small Nevada city. 84 00:05:04,070 --> 00:05:08,792 And the city council learned out about the approval after it was already signed. 85 00:05:08,792 --> 00:05:13,214 And the mechanism that let that happen runs far past that one file. 86 00:05:13,214 --> 00:05:17,996 Executive Order one hundred four three one eight signed on july twenty third, 87 00:05:17,996 --> 00:05:18,996 twenty twenty five. 88 00:05:19,361 --> 00:05:24,345 Defines a quote qualifying project for expedited federal permitting 89 00:05:24,505 --> 00:05:30,510 at 100 megawatts and up. So the review you get out of scales with 90 00:05:30,510 --> 00:05:33,011 the amount of power you need, the bigger the load, 91 00:05:33,011 --> 00:05:36,014 the lighter the look. And by the end of this, 92 00:05:36,014 --> 00:05:37,955 you'll know who signed the first one, 93 00:05:37,955 --> 00:05:41,798 what statute he used, and which company holds the grant, 94 00:05:41,798 --> 00:05:46,802 what machines that back these things up are earning for the people who sell them, 95 00:05:46,802 --> 00:05:48,804 and what happened when 5,000. 96 00:05:49,184 --> 00:05:53,966 Gallons of diesel came out of a data center tank in New Jersey twelve days ago. 97 00:05:53,966 --> 00:05:58,668 You'll know about the number that has not been reported anywhere until this month, 98 00:05:58,668 --> 00:05:59,728 which is the acreage. 99 00:06:18,464 --> 00:06:20,567 from a news outlet in Washington DC. 100 00:06:20,567 --> 00:06:23,662 They later sent a letter to BLM about it, 101 00:06:23,662 --> 00:06:26,466 which was today, September twenty third, 102 00:06:26,466 --> 00:06:28,279 twenty twenty six. 103 00:06:28,779 --> 00:06:32,201 Which leaves the question of what it is about public land specifically that makes 104 00:06:32,201 --> 00:06:35,423 it worth all this trouble. These companies can buy private land, 105 00:06:35,423 --> 00:06:37,244 they do buy private land constantly. 106 00:06:37,244 --> 00:06:40,386 So why the federal parcel and why the amended grant, 107 00:06:40,386 --> 00:06:42,497 and why the review that was written for something else? 108 00:06:42,997 --> 00:06:47,029 And that's because the federal parcel doesn't require something. 109 00:06:47,029 --> 00:06:50,161 So let's break that down. If you start with the order, 110 00:06:50,161 --> 00:06:53,123 because everything kind of downstream you know runs on it, 111 00:06:53,123 --> 00:06:57,065 Executive Order 14318, Accelerating Federal Permitting 112 00:06:57,065 --> 00:06:58,505 of Data Center Infrastructure, 113 00:06:58,505 --> 00:07:00,737 signed into law July twenty third, 114 00:07:00,737 --> 00:07:03,938 twenty twenty five, published in the federal register after that. 115 00:07:03,938 --> 00:07:06,710 It creates a category called qualifying projects, 116 00:07:06,710 --> 00:07:10,302 which sets the floor at a hundred megawatts of new load. 117 00:07:10,910 --> 00:07:14,661 And directs federal agencies to identify federal land suitable for what 118 00:07:14,661 --> 00:07:17,302 it calls expeditious data center development. 119 00:07:17,302 --> 00:07:19,543 That's the architecture. A threshold, 120 00:07:19,543 --> 00:07:23,345 a category, and an instruction to find land. 121 00:07:23,345 --> 00:07:28,307 Then the energy department did its version on November 5th, 122 00:07:28,307 --> 00:07:32,068 2025. Writes four sites: the Idaho National Lab, 123 00:07:32,068 --> 00:07:33,769 Oak Ridge, Paducah, Savannah River, 124 00:07:33,769 --> 00:07:38,371 all offered up to private sector partners. 125 00:07:38,902 --> 00:07:41,474 For data centers plus the power to run them. 126 00:07:41,474 --> 00:07:46,298 Now these are DOE, Department of Energy lands under DOE control. 127 00:07:46,298 --> 00:07:48,720 And if that's where the story stayed, 128 00:07:48,720 --> 00:07:51,973 this would be a completely different episode about a completely different 129 00:07:51,973 --> 00:07:56,089 set of problems. BLM land is is a different kind of place from 130 00:07:56,089 --> 00:08:01,151 a fenced federal reservation. BLM land is the land you drive past. 131 00:08:01,151 --> 00:08:05,655 It's grazing allotments and desert and like the ridge behind a subdivision. 132 00:08:06,179 --> 00:08:10,160 And BLM has one specific tool that it hands out constantly, 133 00:08:10,160 --> 00:08:14,422 the right of way grant, authorized under Federal Land Policy and Management 134 00:08:14,422 --> 00:08:19,724 Act of nineteen seventy six. That's FLPMA, 135 00:08:19,724 --> 00:08:24,306 the statute that governs what BLM is and what it's allowed to let people 136 00:08:24,306 --> 00:08:29,107 do on public land. A right of way is how a power line crosses public ground. 137 00:08:29,107 --> 00:08:32,708 It's how a pipeline crosses, how a road crosses, 138 00:08:32,708 --> 00:08:35,079 how a solar array gets sited out. 139 00:08:35,579 --> 00:08:40,980 Townsite Solar 2, TS2, an affiliate of Skylar Capital Management, 140 00:08:40,980 --> 00:08:43,381 and the name kind of tells you what it was originally for, 141 00:08:43,381 --> 00:08:48,412 has held a right-of-way grant on 80 acres of federal land near Boulder City since 142 00:08:48,412 --> 00:08:52,703 September of 2023. Solar and battery storage. 143 00:08:52,703 --> 00:08:56,044 Totally normal. Thousands of those exist. 144 00:08:56,044 --> 00:08:58,915 Now what ha watch what happens on the city side, 145 00:08:58,915 --> 00:09:01,466 because that's the part that decides everything after it. 146 00:09:01,466 --> 00:09:02,926 TS2 147 00:09:03,394 --> 00:09:07,276 Also had an option to lease eighty-eight point five acres of land owned 148 00:09:07,276 --> 00:09:09,467 by Boulder City itself, right next door, 149 00:09:09,467 --> 00:09:11,899 you know, and in January of twenty twenty-six, 150 00:09:11,899 --> 00:09:14,800 it applied to put the data center there. 151 00:09:14,800 --> 00:09:17,442 Now city land means city process. 152 00:09:17,442 --> 00:09:22,284 And in May of 2026, Boulder City's own planning commission voted six 153 00:09:22,284 --> 00:09:27,587 to one against even adding data centers to the city's land management process. 154 00:09:27,587 --> 00:09:31,589 That's the local rule book for what can be built and where. 155 00:09:31,589 --> 00:09:32,610 Six to one. 156 00:09:33,038 --> 00:09:37,721 A resident named Brynn Delorimer had organized a petition against it, 157 00:09:37,721 --> 00:09:40,123 their neighbors showed up, and the commission said no. 158 00:09:40,123 --> 00:09:43,105 And on june twenty sixth, twenty twenty six, 159 00:09:43,105 --> 00:09:48,633 BLM amended the federal right of way grant on the adjacent parcel to permit 160 00:09:48,633 --> 00:09:53,873 a one hundred seventy megawatt data center instead of a solar project. 161 00:09:53,873 --> 00:09:58,035 Bruce Silito signed it, no new environmental assessment, 162 00:09:58,035 --> 00:09:59,035 no public comment. 163 00:09:59,532 --> 00:10:03,746 On the theory that it was substantially the same as the solar project that they 164 00:10:03,746 --> 00:10:06,908 had already reviewed. And in early July, 165 00:10:06,908 --> 00:10:09,620 when the federal approval was in hand, 166 00:10:09,620 --> 00:10:11,922 TS2 withdrew its application to the city. 167 00:10:11,922 --> 00:10:15,965 Same developer, a parcel, one fence line over, 168 00:10:15,965 --> 00:10:19,068 and no local approval required because the land's federal, 169 00:10:19,068 --> 00:10:21,610 and the city just doesn't have any jurisdiction on it. 170 00:10:21,610 --> 00:10:25,733 I want to flag one thing right away because it's better to, 171 00:10:25,733 --> 00:10:26,733 you know, say it up. 172 00:10:26,785 --> 00:10:28,135 Front rather than catch it later, 173 00:10:28,135 --> 00:10:33,317 but the the paperwork and the coverage give slightly different megawatt numbers, 174 00:10:33,317 --> 00:10:35,937 right? Some documents say 167, 175 00:10:35,937 --> 00:10:38,628 the developer filing says 170, 176 00:10:38,628 --> 00:10:41,889 I've been saying 170. It's the same place either way, 177 00:10:41,889 --> 00:10:43,640 and the gap really doesn't change anything. 178 00:10:43,640 --> 00:10:47,611 It's three megawatts. But you should know that this record specifically 179 00:10:47,611 --> 00:10:51,162 is not perfectly clean. But here's what I could not find, 180 00:10:51,162 --> 00:10:52,872 and I looked for it, believe me. 181 00:10:53,832 --> 00:10:57,544 What does TS two pay the United States for that acreage? 182 00:10:57,544 --> 00:11:00,105 A right-of-way grant comes with rent. 183 00:11:00,105 --> 00:11:06,769 There's a schedule. the public documents I could get don't actually state 184 00:11:06,769 --> 00:11:09,280 the number on this one. Now BLM has it, 185 00:11:09,280 --> 00:11:14,353 I assume, but BLM didn't post it and nothing required BLM to post it 186 00:11:14,854 --> 00:11:20,116 in the approval that made this the first data center ever on American public land 187 00:11:20,116 --> 00:11:21,177 that belongs to all of us. 188 00:11:21,677 --> 00:11:23,471 So we know the acreage, we know the megawatts, 189 00:11:23,471 --> 00:11:28,043 we know who signed it. The price is the thing that is not there. 190 00:11:28,543 --> 00:11:31,924 And that gap is the oldest feature of public land law in this country, 191 00:11:31,924 --> 00:11:34,034 which is why it doesn't read to me as an oversight. 192 00:11:34,034 --> 00:11:37,875 ~ the original arrangement was the general mining law of eighteen seventy-two, 193 00:11:37,875 --> 00:11:39,696 way back in eighteen seventy-two. 194 00:11:39,696 --> 00:11:43,947 ~ the Congressional Research Service wrote it up late last year in a report 195 00:11:43,947 --> 00:11:47,848 on hard rock mining. ~ the eighteen seventy-two law let individuals 196 00:11:47,848 --> 00:11:49,588 and companies explore, develop, 197 00:11:49,588 --> 00:11:53,609 and then actually purchase federal land containing mirror minerals through 198 00:11:53,609 --> 00:11:57,280 a process called patenting. Not not don't think 199 00:11:57,549 --> 00:11:59,730 Like intellectual property, it's a different process there. 200 00:11:59,730 --> 00:12:03,501 but it was for nominal sums. Like I mean truly nominal, 201 00:12:03,501 --> 00:12:04,832 like to pennies on the dollar. 202 00:12:04,832 --> 00:12:06,923 ~ you found something on public land, 203 00:12:06,923 --> 00:12:09,253 you filed, you got title, you paid effectively nothing, 204 00:12:09,253 --> 00:12:10,794 and there was no rent or no royalty. 205 00:12:10,794 --> 00:12:14,555 That was what the eighteen seventy two law was working exactly as written. 206 00:12:14,555 --> 00:12:16,096 I was basically 207 00:12:14,774 --> 00:12:16,138 It was about gold, by the way. 208 00:12:16,916 --> 00:12:21,378 right. ~ basically about encouraging people to to you know facilitate their 209 00:12:21,478 --> 00:12:23,499 discovery of these r ~ resources. 210 00:12:23,499 --> 00:12:25,630 The reform came in nineteen twenty. 211 00:12:26,440 --> 00:12:28,411 Woodrow Wilson signed the Mineral Leasing Act, 212 00:12:28,411 --> 00:12:31,701 which ended ~ patenting for oil and coal and replaced it with leasing. 213 00:12:31,701 --> 00:12:35,863 So now under the 1920 law, you lease the ground, 214 00:12:35,863 --> 00:12:38,283 you pay rent, and you pay the public a royalty on production. 215 00:12:38,283 --> 00:12:43,264 Seems fair. ~ WyO History's account of that statute, 216 00:12:43,264 --> 00:12:46,045 which draws on the public lands scholar John Leslie, 217 00:12:46,045 --> 00:12:50,026 treats it as the thing that ~ changed Wyoming's economic destiny. 218 00:12:50,026 --> 00:12:53,247 And the number that they use is Wyoming's federal mineral royalties. 219 00:12:53,865 --> 00:12:57,497 Hitting $948 million in fiscal year 211. 220 00:12:57,497 --> 00:13:02,301 So nearly a billion dollars in one year to one state because 221 00:13:02,301 --> 00:13:04,892 in 1920 Congress decided the public was a landlord, 222 00:13:04,892 --> 00:13:09,065 not a donor. So there are two available postures for public land. 223 00:13:09,065 --> 00:13:11,846 He can give it away for a nominal sum and collect nothing, 224 00:13:11,846 --> 00:13:14,768 or lease it and collect a royalty on what the land produces. 225 00:13:14,768 --> 00:13:18,050 A right-of-way grant for a data center is neither of those. 226 00:13:18,050 --> 00:13:20,502 It's a permission slip with rent attached, 227 00:13:20,502 --> 00:13:22,103 and the rent is set against the acreage. 228 00:13:22,529 --> 00:13:24,552 with nothing charged on what's produced on the acreage. 229 00:13:24,552 --> 00:13:28,998 A hundred and seventy watt ~ megawatt facility could run compute compute worth 230 00:13:28,998 --> 00:13:32,323 whatever compute is gonna be worth in twenty thirty on ground priced 231 00:13:32,323 --> 00:13:33,525 is essentially desert land. 232 00:13:34,497 --> 00:13:37,749 Yeah, so let's put a a tip to that to that pen, 233 00:13:37,749 --> 00:13:42,321 if we will, in the eighteen seventy two comparison before we kind of lean harder 234 00:13:42,321 --> 00:13:44,612 on it than the evidence might allow us to. 235 00:13:44,612 --> 00:13:49,014 The number you hear thrown around for the the mining law giveaway is 236 00:13:49,015 --> 00:13:53,117 two hundred and thirty one b b billion dollars. 237 00:13:53,117 --> 00:13:58,109 The Cato Institute, now they're a libert libertarian think tank, 238 00:13:58,109 --> 00:14:00,821 ~ so they're pretty much pro development, 239 00:14:00,821 --> 00:14:03,572 no, you know, friend to environmental litigation. 240 00:14:04,140 --> 00:14:09,212 Published a policy analysis arguing that figure is unrealistic, 241 00:14:09,212 --> 00:14:14,214 and estimating the actual subsidy across a hundred and twenty-five years 242 00:14:14,555 --> 00:14:17,856 at somewhere between three million and sixteen billion. 243 00:14:17,856 --> 00:14:23,239 Now that's a range so wide that it's almost a confession that like nobody 244 00:14:23,239 --> 00:14:28,181 has any idea, right? At all. But the low end of it is three million dollars. 245 00:14:28,181 --> 00:14:30,862 So if a if Cato is closer 246 00:14:31,126 --> 00:14:34,566 to write than you know the environmental activists are, 247 00:14:34,566 --> 00:14:38,406 then the eighteen seventy two law gave away two hundred and thirty 248 00:14:38,406 --> 00:14:42,632 one billion dollars is a sentence I should stop repeating. 249 00:14:43,132 --> 00:14:46,694 Okay, I'll take that. ~ and I'll keep the structural point because Cato isn't 250 00:14:46,694 --> 00:14:49,736 disputing the structure. Nobody disputes the structure. 251 00:14:49,736 --> 00:14:52,578 Patenting for n nominal sums with no royalty happened. 252 00:14:52,578 --> 00:14:55,809 What's contested is how much it's worth and which is a different argument. 253 00:14:55,809 --> 00:15:00,082 And the fact that the ~ data centers are not under either category, 254 00:15:00,082 --> 00:15:03,334 right? Because you're not extracting something essentially from the land itself. 255 00:15:03,719 --> 00:15:06,880 Yeah, it's not really I mean it's a it's a service really not a product. 256 00:15:06,880 --> 00:15:10,431 And I'll I'll agree on that. Now the the part where somebody gets paid, 257 00:15:10,431 --> 00:15:14,001 right, the because none of this actually runs on land alone. 258 00:15:14,001 --> 00:15:18,483 A data center needs electricity every single second. 259 00:15:18,483 --> 00:15:20,863 When the the grid has a hiccup, 260 00:15:20,863 --> 00:15:22,614 when a diesel generator, you know, 261 00:15:22,614 --> 00:15:24,964 carries the loads, when you see your lights flashing, 262 00:15:24,964 --> 00:15:29,455 kind of, you know, blinking, that is one generator picking up where 263 00:15:29,455 --> 00:15:30,996 the second generator shuts down. 264 00:15:30,996 --> 00:15:32,846 Like that's a that's a pretty common thing. 265 00:15:33,346 --> 00:15:34,346 But 266 00:15:34,193 --> 00:15:39,376 All of these facilities also has a a whole tank full of fuel, 267 00:15:39,376 --> 00:15:42,628 usually diesel, sometimes natural gas, 268 00:15:42,628 --> 00:15:44,459 depending on where they are located in the US. 269 00:15:44,459 --> 00:15:49,182 Caterpillar actually makes those generator sets and the turbines, 270 00:15:49,182 --> 00:15:51,583 and in the second quarter of twenty twenty six, 271 00:15:51,583 --> 00:15:56,586 Caterpillar reported twenty point five four billion dollars in revenue. 272 00:15:56,586 --> 00:16:00,188 That is up twenty-four percent from year over year. 273 00:16:01,045 --> 00:16:05,569 Their power generation retail sales grew seventy two percent year over year. 274 00:16:05,569 --> 00:16:10,512 Nine point four billion dollars in orders in the quarter. 275 00:16:10,512 --> 00:16:14,325 Order backlog is about seventy two point one billion and they're putting 276 00:16:14,325 --> 00:16:18,819 two hundred seventy five million into expanding the plants in Lafayette, 277 00:16:18,819 --> 00:16:20,740 Indiana to build more of them. 278 00:16:20,740 --> 00:16:23,285 Cummins, you might 279 00:16:22,109 --> 00:16:23,206 Nice pronunciation there. 280 00:16:23,763 --> 00:16:25,444 yeah, you know you have to separate it. 281 00:16:25,444 --> 00:16:27,816 ~ Will and I both lived in Lafayette, 282 00:16:27,816 --> 00:16:30,078 Louisiana, and it's very much a flat A. 283 00:16:30,620 --> 00:16:35,416 Lafayette, ~ Indiana is a much different place and it's often confused when we're 284 00:16:35,416 --> 00:16:37,148 telling it to strangers from out of state. 285 00:16:37,981 --> 00:16:39,034 And they fancy up there. 286 00:16:39,336 --> 00:16:43,727 Yeah. So Cummins, which you might be familiar with Cummins Diesel 287 00:16:43,727 --> 00:16:47,728 or Cummins Trucking, ~ they're another really big name in that market. 288 00:16:47,728 --> 00:16:52,689 And they posted record profits in the power system segment in the first quarter 289 00:16:52,689 --> 00:16:56,700 of twenty twenty six, right? On data center backup demand. 290 00:16:56,700 --> 00:16:59,581 So if you follow the money, right, 291 00:16:59,581 --> 00:17:02,221 the land comes from all of us, 292 00:17:02,221 --> 00:17:05,652 the public, at a price that nobody can know. 293 00:17:05,652 --> 00:17:08,743 It's just a secret number except to a very select group of people. 294 00:17:09,341 --> 00:17:13,712 Then the computing power belongs to whoever is setting up the data center. 295 00:17:13,712 --> 00:17:16,553 In this case, maybe it's the equity partners, 296 00:17:16,553 --> 00:17:20,194 maybe it's anthropic, maybe they're hoping to contract with Google. 297 00:17:20,194 --> 00:17:23,675 Nobody nobody really can know that information because it's in 298 00:17:23,675 --> 00:17:25,565 a contract somewhere that we're not allowed to see. 299 00:17:25,565 --> 00:17:28,776 Right? And then the reliability, 300 00:17:28,776 --> 00:17:33,287 right? Like the thing that makes the whole thing actually work gets bought from 301 00:17:33,287 --> 00:17:36,828 Caterpillar with a seventy two percent sales jump and it burns diesel. 302 00:17:37,392 --> 00:17:39,240 In whatever part of the US it lands in. 303 00:17:39,740 --> 00:17:43,522 So I'm going try to build the case for for the data data centers in favor 304 00:17:43,522 --> 00:17:47,175 of Davis data centers, because I think the people making it believe it, 305 00:17:47,175 --> 00:17:49,196 and some of it's not wrong, right? 306 00:17:49,196 --> 00:17:53,769 ~ argument number one that they make compute is national infrastructure. 307 00:17:53,769 --> 00:17:58,332 you can argue about whether the current AI build AI build out is a bubble. 308 00:17:58,332 --> 00:18:01,434 ~ maybe it is, maybe it isn't. 309 00:18:01,434 --> 00:18:03,395 I mean, some chunk of it is probably, 310 00:18:03,395 --> 00:18:06,868 who knows how much. But there's no version of the next 20 years where 311 00:18:06,868 --> 00:18:09,079 the United States needs less computing capacity. 312 00:18:09,579 --> 00:18:13,071 And the two things that can cap that are electricity and land, 313 00:18:13,071 --> 00:18:17,342 power and dirt. So that's that's the first thing we need, 314 00:18:17,342 --> 00:18:21,784 right? ~ argument two, federal industrial sites are genuinely the best place 315 00:18:21,784 --> 00:18:25,636 to put it. Paducah gaseous diffusion plant enriched uranium, 316 00:18:25,636 --> 00:18:27,937 the Savannah River site made weapons material. 317 00:18:27,937 --> 00:18:30,769 Those places have transmission infrastructure, 318 00:18:30,769 --> 00:18:33,760 security parameters, industrial zoning and everything but name, 319 00:18:33,760 --> 00:18:36,171 and no neighborhoods outside inside the fence. 320 00:18:37,067 --> 00:18:40,190 So putting a load-heavy facility there instead of on farmland outside 321 00:18:40,190 --> 00:18:42,521 a growing town is the right call on the merits. 322 00:18:42,521 --> 00:18:46,264 And I think it's defensible. Argument three is speed. 323 00:18:46,264 --> 00:18:50,067 The full environmental review on a major federal action takes years. 324 00:18:50,067 --> 00:18:52,969 ~ and sometimes it's decades, it seems like. 325 00:18:52,969 --> 00:18:57,553 ~ the competitors, our competitors in the the AI race, 326 00:18:57,553 --> 00:18:59,314 whatever that is, and wherever it ends up, 327 00:18:58,589 --> 00:18:59,589 Yeah. 328 00:19:00,195 --> 00:19:02,257 our competitors don't run a NEPA process. 329 00:19:02,257 --> 00:19:04,839 If the choice is a faster review or no facility, 330 00:19:05,309 --> 00:19:07,247 The fast review is the serious answer. 331 00:19:07,247 --> 00:19:08,985 Finally 332 00:19:07,785 --> 00:19:09,136 Hold on, I wanna I wanna hitch 333 00:19:09,136 --> 00:19:13,989 up there just real quick. I think it's also important to remember that in 334 00:19:13,989 --> 00:19:15,610 a place or I mean, and let's be honest, 335 00:19:15,610 --> 00:19:17,251 our biggest competitor right now is China. 336 00:19:17,251 --> 00:19:21,584 And and it's because they're producing AI models much faster than we can. 337 00:19:21,584 --> 00:19:25,346 ~ and it's but it's for for public from their perspective, 338 00:19:25,346 --> 00:19:27,268 public good goods purposes, right? 339 00:19:27,268 --> 00:19:32,261 They don't have a NEPA process because ultimately their entire nation takes 340 00:19:32,301 --> 00:19:36,774 I mean they're communist, so they take part in the active 341 00:19:36,936 --> 00:19:39,269 profit of these AI data centers, 342 00:19:39,269 --> 00:19:45,198 of these AI models, that is complete public ownership of those facilities and those, 343 00:19:45,198 --> 00:19:49,685 you know, capabilities. So I I do want to point just add that in there 344 00:19:49,685 --> 00:19:50,685 to the point three. 345 00:19:50,936 --> 00:19:54,398 Yeah. Unfortunately those costs don't fall equally across the entire population. 346 00:19:54,398 --> 00:19:58,109 They tend to fall on the people that ~ have the bridges or buildings collapse 347 00:19:58,109 --> 00:20:01,781 on them or the ~ glaciers melt and form a tidal wave. 348 00:20:01,781 --> 00:20:05,782 But ~ neither here nor there. Argument four, 349 00:20:05,782 --> 00:20:09,724 ~ this is the last of these arguments that are often made in favor of data centers. 350 00:20:09,724 --> 00:20:13,516 ~ this is the one actually supported by evidence rather than just vibes. 351 00:20:14,420 --> 00:20:17,532 there's a peer-reviewed analysis written up in the conversation this year, 352 00:20:17,532 --> 00:20:20,713 finding that data centers do measurably help local economies. 353 00:20:20,713 --> 00:20:25,856 Employment up about 0.9%, wages up 1.1%, 354 00:20:25,856 --> 00:20:29,078 business establishments up 1% in the first three years, 355 00:20:29,078 --> 00:20:34,701 growing to roughly 3.5%, 5%, and 4.7% over the longer run. 356 00:20:34,701 --> 00:20:38,323 That's a published result from people with no brochure to sell. 357 00:20:38,323 --> 00:20:41,165 So anybody telling you these facilities are all cost and no benefit 358 00:20:41,445 --> 00:20:43,616 is arguing against it. Now, whether that's enough benefit, 359 00:20:44,180 --> 00:20:45,261 is another part of the debate, 360 00:20:45,261 --> 00:20:48,283 but at least there is some some economic value there. 361 00:20:48,283 --> 00:20:51,075 ~ and in Boulder City specifically, 362 00:20:51,075 --> 00:20:54,638 the city stood to receive almost one point five million dollars from the lease, 363 00:20:54,638 --> 00:20:56,880 plus property taxes, permit fees, 364 00:20:56,880 --> 00:21:00,963 and administrative charges, roughly two point three million a year in new revenue, 365 00:21:00,963 --> 00:21:03,655 which in a city that size pays for police, 366 00:21:03,655 --> 00:21:05,666 fire, emergency response and utilities. 367 00:21:05,666 --> 00:21:08,369 So that's the case in favor of data centers. 368 00:21:08,869 --> 00:21:12,861 And I'm gonna say which of the legs of that argument just broke because argument 369 00:21:12,861 --> 00:21:16,192 two and argument three are load carrying for me and one of them cannot hold on, 370 00:21:16,192 --> 00:21:18,582 cannot hold the weight. the second argument, 371 00:21:18,582 --> 00:21:20,613 put it on degraded federal industrial land, 372 00:21:20,613 --> 00:21:23,874 requires that somebody actually evaluate whether a given part of parcel 373 00:21:23,874 --> 00:21:25,545 is degraded federal industrial land. 374 00:21:25,545 --> 00:21:28,066 That evaluation is the environmental review. 375 00:21:28,066 --> 00:21:31,707 It's the thing that distinguishes Paducah from the ridge behind somebody's house. 376 00:21:31,707 --> 00:21:36,529 And my third argument, speed, is an argument for removing exactly that evaluation. 377 00:21:37,289 --> 00:21:38,531 So I've been holding them attention, 378 00:21:38,531 --> 00:21:41,216 ~ both arguments and tension, but they really don't fit. 379 00:21:41,216 --> 00:21:43,159 If the review is what makes the site defensible, 380 00:21:43,159 --> 00:21:46,274 then a threshold that exempts the largest projects from review takes 381 00:21:46,274 --> 00:21:50,481 the defense away. ~ so I'd rather just say which leg broke than pretend 382 00:21:50,481 --> 00:21:51,481 I mean something narrower. 383 00:21:51,863 --> 00:21:56,175 Sure. And the the evidence on that is is actually from a USGS, 384 00:21:56,175 --> 00:21:58,607 US Geological Services Report, 385 00:21:58,607 --> 00:21:59,927 or government services report, 386 00:21:59,927 --> 00:22:04,400 sorry, which might actually be useful because no one actually reports on that. 387 00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:07,142 ~ so July twenty-second, twenty twenty-six, 388 00:22:07,142 --> 00:22:12,385 the United States Geological Survey publishes Scientific Investigations Report 389 00:22:12,665 --> 00:22:17,648 2026-5035, titled Co locating 390 00:22:17,768 --> 00:22:19,999 AI data centers with 391 00:22:20,159 --> 00:22:23,271 energy infrastructure on federal public lands. 392 00:22:23,271 --> 00:22:26,823 Not only is that a mouthful, I think it's it's pretty interesting that 393 00:22:26,823 --> 00:22:29,995 it tells it all right there. So it's that's government scientists 394 00:22:30,095 --> 00:22:33,057 axy asking where this stuff like is, 395 00:22:33,057 --> 00:22:38,520 like actually. And the findings were that six percent of the AI data centers 396 00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:44,483 in the Western part of the country and 22% of the Western power plants 397 00:22:44,924 --> 00:22:45,924 sit either 398 00:22:46,004 --> 00:22:50,226 on or directly within one mile of BLM land. 399 00:22:50,226 --> 00:22:56,300 Like 22%. That's almost a quarter of the power generation in the western part 400 00:22:56,300 --> 00:23:00,932 of the United States is already sitting on or propped right up against 401 00:23:01,213 --> 00:23:03,534 the land that is owned by all of us. 402 00:23:03,534 --> 00:23:09,517 So when the executive order says fine federal land for expeditious data center 403 00:23:09,517 --> 00:23:14,470 development, the natural target is the ground where the power already exists, 404 00:23:14,470 --> 00:23:15,470 right? 405 00:23:15,049 --> 00:23:18,022 Which is the ground that people already live next to. 406 00:23:18,022 --> 00:23:22,246 Four fenced nuclear sites are a very small slice of that. 407 00:23:22,746 --> 00:23:25,218 And that's unfortunately where the argument collapses, 408 00:23:25,218 --> 00:23:28,950 because the clean version where we're talking about just the Paducah sites described 409 00:23:28,950 --> 00:23:31,291 four sites. The actual program, 410 00:23:31,291 --> 00:23:32,952 as of reporting on September eighteenth, 411 00:23:32,952 --> 00:23:36,755 is at least twelve projects. So going from four to twelve, 412 00:23:36,755 --> 00:23:40,147 tripling the number of projects on at least seventeen thousand 413 00:23:40,147 --> 00:23:42,038 six hundred acres across six states. 414 00:23:42,538 --> 00:23:45,100 I have a list, right, because that's where this stops being kind 415 00:23:45,100 --> 00:23:49,883 of a policy argument and turns into something funnier and dumber at the same time. 416 00:23:49,883 --> 00:23:56,338 RIA data filed with BLM's Four Rivers Field Office in Idaho 417 00:23:56,338 --> 00:24:00,951 in August of 2025 for a large scale data center campus with its 418 00:24:01,011 --> 00:24:05,774 own power plant built on the public land right next to it, 419 00:24:05,774 --> 00:24:09,927 like directly alongside it. Prometheus hyperscale. 420 00:24:10,449 --> 00:24:14,630 Submitted right of way proposals in Wyoming for an access road, 421 00:24:14,630 --> 00:24:19,472 a telecommunications line, and a water pipeline across public land 422 00:24:19,512 --> 00:24:23,893 to support data centers. And the biggest one in Utah, 423 00:24:23,893 --> 00:24:28,704 Valar Atomics, or Valor V A L A R Atomics, 424 00:24:28,704 --> 00:24:34,196 applied for survey access on ten thousand two hundred acre federal site near Green 425 00:24:34,196 --> 00:24:37,797 River for nuclear power development and a data center. 426 00:24:38,297 --> 00:24:39,701 Ten thousand two hundred acres. 427 00:24:40,215 --> 00:24:46,837 of public land for a nuclear reactor to run a giant AI computer. 428 00:24:47,337 --> 00:24:49,590 And the company is named Velar Atomics, 429 00:24:49,590 --> 00:24:52,554 which is from Tolkien, right? The Velar are the gods. 430 00:24:52,554 --> 00:24:56,259 ~ so we I think we know who's behind that. 431 00:24:57,098 --> 00:25:00,021 Yeah, ~ it's pretty much always the same guys. 432 00:25:00,021 --> 00:25:02,738 We did a whole episode about them. 433 00:25:00,726 --> 00:25:03,825 Palantir, you know. Yeah. 434 00:25:03,825 --> 00:25:04,825 Yeah. 435 00:25:04,385 --> 00:25:07,888 It's it's all from the eBay from the eBay acquisition. 436 00:25:07,888 --> 00:25:10,691 The the other one is actually Prometheus, 437 00:25:10,691 --> 00:25:14,784 right? The titan who stole fire from the gods and had his liver eaten 438 00:25:14,784 --> 00:25:17,557 by an eagle every day until Heracles freed him. 439 00:25:18,057 --> 00:25:20,742 Right. Prometheus hyperscale is asking for a water pipeline, 440 00:25:20,742 --> 00:25:21,924 which is appropriate, I think. 441 00:25:22,423 --> 00:25:24,805 A across the desert, right? Just so you know. 442 00:25:24,805 --> 00:25:25,805 ~ 443 00:25:24,844 --> 00:25:25,844 Yeah. 444 00:25:25,726 --> 00:25:28,248 and and Rhea, who by the way is also a Titan. 445 00:25:28,248 --> 00:25:32,151 Rhea was the mother of Zeus, once her own power plant, 446 00:25:32,151 --> 00:25:36,615 and the gods of the West want ten thousand two hundred acres in Utah. 447 00:25:37,115 --> 00:25:42,019 So we've essentially got a pantheon of ~ would be Greek gods sitting 448 00:25:42,019 --> 00:25:43,980 up on Mount Olympus or wherever they sit, 449 00:25:43,980 --> 00:25:47,063 ~ applying for rights of way at a field office. 450 00:25:47,832 --> 00:25:52,295 Right. And and here is the piece that kind of wraps it all up because 451 00:25:52,516 --> 00:25:55,137 I can't do better than the reality that we're living in. 452 00:25:55,137 --> 00:26:00,221 But Valar Atomics withdrew the application after press scrutiny. 453 00:26:00,221 --> 00:26:04,805 The ten thousand two hundred acre nuclear data center campus on public land near 454 00:26:04,805 --> 00:26:08,908 Green River, Utah was actually stopped by news coverage before NEPA. 455 00:26:08,908 --> 00:26:12,821 A hearing or the Interior Board of Land Appeals ever touched it. 456 00:26:13,321 --> 00:26:16,005 That's the part who should that should bother the people who design this. 457 00:26:16,005 --> 00:26:19,621 If your process is so light that journalism is the binding constraint, 458 00:26:19,621 --> 00:26:20,883 the press is doing the review. 459 00:26:21,747 --> 00:26:25,769 Right. And and the quiet part is that we only know about the twelve projects 460 00:26:26,029 --> 00:26:29,611 and the seventeen thousand six hundred acres because of that reporting, 461 00:26:29,611 --> 00:26:31,072 right? BLM 462 00:26:30,623 --> 00:26:31,623 Yeah. 463 00:26:31,072 --> 00:26:36,135 didn't like announce it, which brings us back to the letter that went out today. 464 00:26:36,135 --> 00:26:38,186 Stanton, Kelly, Gallico, Ansari, 465 00:26:38,186 --> 00:26:42,238 and Grijalva. All Democrats, all representing Arizona, 466 00:26:42,238 --> 00:26:49,012 writing to ask BLM ~ for details on four of those proposed twelve data 467 00:26:49,012 --> 00:26:50,883 centers in their own state. 468 00:26:51,721 --> 00:26:56,965 that they only read about in a Washington D C based news organization article. 469 00:26:57,465 --> 00:27:00,628 Nothing like our legislators finding out from the the local paper. 470 00:27:00,628 --> 00:27:03,431 But I want to be precise about who's doing what here, 471 00:27:03,431 --> 00:27:07,234 because the record is lopsided and I'd rather acknowledge that up front. 472 00:27:07,234 --> 00:27:10,277 The executive order is this Republican administration's. 473 00:27:10,277 --> 00:27:13,641 The energy secretary picking sites is this administration's. 474 00:27:13,641 --> 00:27:16,333 The BLM approval is this administration's. 475 00:27:16,333 --> 00:27:18,926 The letter demanding answers came from five Democrats. 476 00:27:18,926 --> 00:27:22,079 And then the local picture flip flips completely. 477 00:27:22,325 --> 00:27:25,806 On June 24, 2026, voters in Spartanburg County, 478 00:27:25,806 --> 00:27:27,507 South Carolina, and Calvert County, 479 00:27:27,507 --> 00:27:30,969 Maryland threw out incumbents over data center fights. 480 00:27:30,969 --> 00:27:36,351 And in Spartanburg, that was Republican voters removing Republican officials, 481 00:27:36,351 --> 00:27:39,942 after which the county withdrew the tax breaks it had offered and moved toward 482 00:27:39,942 --> 00:27:42,483 a 12-month moratorium. In Tulsa, 483 00:27:42,483 --> 00:27:45,295 the City Council voted unanimously for a nine-month halt on 484 00:27:45,295 --> 00:27:50,537 new data center construction. And Councilmember Jackie Dutton said she'd support 485 00:27:50,537 --> 00:27:51,537 an indefinite one. 486 00:27:51,499 --> 00:27:55,971 I'm sure you could speak to that more than I ~ but and in July twenty twenty 487 00:27:55,971 --> 00:27:59,442 six New York became the first state with a data center moratorium when Governor 488 00:27:59,442 --> 00:28:04,265 Kathy Hochell, a Democrat, signed an executive order pausing state permitting 489 00:28:04,265 --> 00:28:08,537 for up to a year. So at the federal level this is a one party's program. 490 00:28:08,537 --> 00:28:11,758 At the local level, the revolt is bipartisan in the most literal sense. 491 00:28:11,758 --> 00:28:15,240 People in red counties and blue states are doing the same thing for the same reason. 492 00:28:15,740 --> 00:28:18,291 Yes, they are. And then of course 493 00:28:17,573 --> 00:28:19,044 Nimbi Nimbi is bipartisan. 494 00:28:19,311 --> 00:28:22,222 right. And then of course is the jobs argument, 495 00:28:22,222 --> 00:28:25,773 right? Since w you talked earlier about employ employment numbers, 496 00:28:25,773 --> 00:28:28,093 we're gonna give some data on that, 497 00:28:28,093 --> 00:28:34,335 right? Good jobs first. A research outfit that that tracked corporate subsidies 498 00:28:34,335 --> 00:28:36,906 for decades. That's the name of the organization. 499 00:28:36,906 --> 00:28:42,308 Good jobs first. I mean it's it's simple, 500 00:28:42,308 --> 00:28:43,438 but sure, it works. 501 00:28:44,081 --> 00:28:49,184 They identified the largest per job data center subsidy in the country 502 00:28:49,684 --> 00:28:52,366 was in your wonderful state, North Carolina, 503 00:28:52,366 --> 00:28:54,087 to Apple, 504 00:28:53,455 --> 00:28:54,455 Mm. 505 00:28:54,967 --> 00:28:58,789 like the you know, the one who makes half of you people's phones, 506 00:28:58,789 --> 00:29:05,113 because I use an Android, at six point four million dollars per job. 507 00:29:05,113 --> 00:29:08,315 That based on every job they created, 508 00:29:08,315 --> 00:29:10,596 North Carolina granted them 509 00:29:10,842 --> 00:29:16,679 A six point four million dollar per person tax break 510 00:29:17,179 --> 00:29:19,882 in order to build in North Carolina, 511 00:29:19,882 --> 00:29:26,349 right? That is what one state agreed to pay per position to host servers. 512 00:29:26,849 --> 00:29:29,941 And I'm gonna let them hold on to that argument because the number, 513 00:29:29,941 --> 00:29:32,043 if as extraordinary as those numbers are, 514 00:29:32,043 --> 00:29:35,115 they don't kill it. ~ the peer-reviewed result still stands. 515 00:29:35,115 --> 00:29:38,367 Employment wages in new businesses do rise in host communities. 516 00:29:38,367 --> 00:29:43,291 ~ what the $6.4 million figure tells you is about the price paid for that rise, 517 00:29:43,291 --> 00:29:45,803 and also tells you something the study itself says, 518 00:29:45,803 --> 00:29:49,595 which is better off metro areas capture more of the benefit than rural regions do. 519 00:29:49,595 --> 00:29:51,697 Both things can be true at once. 520 00:29:51,697 --> 00:29:54,829 Facilities help. The states are paying an extraordinary amount for the help. 521 00:29:55,513 --> 00:29:56,824 And both can be true. 522 00:29:57,324 --> 00:29:58,775 Okay, so let's go where the fuel is. 523 00:29:58,775 --> 00:30:02,256 Because that's where this stops being about acreage and starts being about air. 524 00:30:02,256 --> 00:30:07,618 Loudoun County, Virginia, known globally as Data Center Alley. 525 00:30:07,618 --> 00:30:12,600 Julie Bolthouse is the director of land use at the Piedmont Environmental Council, 526 00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:15,902 a Virginia nonprofit that tracks development in that part of the state. 527 00:30:15,902 --> 00:30:18,083 And she has been counting generators. 528 00:30:18,083 --> 00:30:23,515 Her number is roughly 4,700 diesel generators across Loudoun's data center. 529 00:30:24,015 --> 00:30:26,456 four thousand seven hundred generators. 530 00:30:26,456 --> 00:30:27,456 Those 531 00:30:26,969 --> 00:30:27,969 Yes. 532 00:30:27,337 --> 00:30:29,038 generators exist for emergencies, 533 00:30:29,038 --> 00:30:30,919 which is the entire justification for them, 534 00:30:30,919 --> 00:30:33,090 that the thing that runs when the grid fails, 535 00:30:33,090 --> 00:30:35,932 which is supposed to be rare. In 2025, 536 00:30:35,932 --> 00:30:38,663 a substation fire knocked out power, 537 00:30:38,663 --> 00:30:42,886 and Loudoun's data centers ran on backup for four to five days straight. 538 00:30:42,886 --> 00:30:46,768 Residents reported the smell of diesel exhaust in a Walmart parking lot. 539 00:30:46,768 --> 00:30:50,390 Somebody described the noise as planes landing constantly 540 00:30:50,390 --> 00:30:51,711 for over twenty-four hours. 541 00:30:52,211 --> 00:30:56,008 And inside climate news reported in December ~ twenty twenty five that while this 542 00:30:56,008 --> 00:30:57,008 was happening 543 00:30:57,129 --> 00:30:59,112 Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality, 544 00:30:59,112 --> 00:31:00,834 the state agency that writes air permits, 545 00:31:00,834 --> 00:31:03,998 was weighing whether to allow expanded runtimes for those generators. 546 00:31:03,998 --> 00:31:06,291 So that's the sequence you need to hold on to. 547 00:31:06,291 --> 00:31:08,744 The emergency equipment ran for the better part of a week. 548 00:31:08,744 --> 00:31:11,687 The neighbors could taste it in the air, 549 00:31:11,687 --> 00:31:14,741 and the regulatory response under consideration was should we allow them 550 00:31:14,741 --> 00:31:15,741 to run more? 551 00:31:15,862 --> 00:31:18,413 Yeah, it never looks good when you look at it from these angles. 552 00:31:18,413 --> 00:31:20,494 And then September eleventh of this year, 553 00:31:20,494 --> 00:31:23,894 you know, twenty five years or how how long has it been? 554 00:31:23,894 --> 00:31:26,366 Yeah, twenty five years since September eleventh, 555 00:31:26,366 --> 00:31:28,337 which is I guess twelve days ago now. 556 00:31:28,337 --> 00:31:34,760 ~ Equinix, which is one of the biggest data center operators on the planet, 557 00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:37,961 has a facility in Secaucus, New Jersey. 558 00:31:37,961 --> 00:31:41,502 Two fuel filtration valves failed. 559 00:31:41,502 --> 00:31:45,504 It's about five thousand to fifty five hundred gallons of diesel. 560 00:31:46,155 --> 00:31:49,587 basically leaked out of a tank into Anderson Creek, 561 00:31:49,587 --> 00:31:52,099 which feeds the Hackensack River in the Metallands. 562 00:31:52,099 --> 00:31:55,592 Bill Sheehan runs the Hackensack River Keeper, 563 00:31:55,592 --> 00:31:59,184 a watershed ag v advocacy group that's been on the river for decades, 564 00:31:59,184 --> 00:32:00,625 and he went out and looked at it. 565 00:32:00,625 --> 00:32:04,868 He watched containment booms get laid across the creek. 566 00:32:04,868 --> 00:32:09,812 What he was told initially was that a computer glitch caused the spill. 567 00:32:09,812 --> 00:32:14,155 Gothamus later reported the actual cause two failed valves 568 00:32:14,463 --> 00:32:16,164 in the fuel filtration system. 569 00:32:16,164 --> 00:32:20,786 Equinix self-reported it and hired Clean Harbors, 570 00:32:20,786 --> 00:32:23,568 a national environmental services contractor, 571 00:32:23,568 --> 00:32:26,909 who showed up with vacuum trucks and absorbent pads. 572 00:32:26,909 --> 00:32:30,381 Sea Caucus Mayor Michael Gannelli's reaction, 573 00:32:30,381 --> 00:32:33,813 reported at the time, was to assume there'd be like a giant fine 574 00:32:33,873 --> 00:32:35,094 for something like this. You would think, 575 00:32:35,094 --> 00:32:39,406 right? Like both ~ Will and I lived in Louisiana during the big BP oil spill. 576 00:32:37,670 --> 00:32:38,670 Right. 577 00:32:39,406 --> 00:32:40,406 It was 578 00:32:39,666 --> 00:32:43,058 a very big deal. ~ But 579 00:32:42,515 --> 00:32:43,515 Yeah. 580 00:32:43,284 --> 00:32:47,037 The number that was probably the most staggering is the retail value 581 00:32:47,037 --> 00:32:49,759 of the diesel that went into that creek, 582 00:32:49,759 --> 00:32:52,761 right? So if you if you do the math then, 583 00:32:52,761 --> 00:32:55,263 it was about thirty-one thousand dollars. 584 00:32:55,263 --> 00:32:59,616 Now if you look at the the average cost of a gallon of diesel right now, 585 00:32:59,616 --> 00:33:01,468 which I believe is over six dollars, 586 00:33:01,468 --> 00:33:03,249 let's just cap it at six bucks. 587 00:33:03,249 --> 00:33:06,562 That's where we get the number from. 588 00:33:06,562 --> 00:33:09,384 Thirty one thousand dollars worth of current fuel. 589 00:33:08,104 --> 00:33:09,104 Yeah. 590 00:33:09,884 --> 00:33:12,069 So ~ it's staggering. 591 00:33:10,013 --> 00:33:12,663 Which is go ahead. 592 00:33:13,507 --> 00:33:15,279 Yeah. It really is. And it's 593 00:33:14,695 --> 00:33:15,695 I mean 594 00:33:15,279 --> 00:33:16,411 the pattern under all of those. 595 00:33:16,786 --> 00:33:19,926 Exactly and and it spills into this this little, 596 00:33:19,926 --> 00:33:22,117 you know, tributary of the Hackensack River. 597 00:33:22,117 --> 00:33:25,688 And it's just a a line item on Equinix's books, 598 00:33:25,688 --> 00:33:28,218 which is essentially the price of like, 599 00:33:28,218 --> 00:33:31,849 you know, a Tacoma. Something by Toyota, 600 00:33:31,849 --> 00:33:37,511 maybe a a you know, a a newer model ~ of a of a sedan. 601 00:33:35,791 --> 00:33:37,168 More brand new Mac Studio. 602 00:33:37,751 --> 00:33:41,872 Yeah, well, you know a maxed out Mac Studio for sure. 603 00:33:42,372 --> 00:33:45,752 ~ but the fuel is cheap, the cleanup is contracted out and the fine 604 00:33:45,752 --> 00:33:48,660 is assumed rather than known and the creek is the one thing in 605 00:33:48,660 --> 00:33:50,453 the transaction that can't send an invoice. 606 00:33:50,953 --> 00:33:54,135 Alright, so I kinda I want to give you the part that that kind 607 00:33:54,135 --> 00:33:58,898 of counts against this. And I I kinda wanna give it where it costs something because 608 00:33:59,098 --> 00:34:03,700 we just made that spill sound like an ecological catastrophe. 609 00:34:03,700 --> 00:34:09,754 Because it was. But New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protections, 610 00:34:09,754 --> 00:34:12,255 the DEP, said that the spill was contained. 611 00:34:12,255 --> 00:34:14,706 It said it had not impacted the Hackensack River. 612 00:34:14,706 --> 00:34:17,318 There were no reported wildlife impacts, 613 00:34:17,318 --> 00:34:19,269 no drinking water intakes in that area. 614 00:34:19,615 --> 00:34:22,327 Officials said the fuel stayed in the creek. 615 00:34:22,327 --> 00:34:26,811 Equinex reported it themselves and they had a remediation contractor working with 616 00:34:26,811 --> 00:34:31,215 ours. And there's more. The Better Data Center Project, 617 00:34:31,215 --> 00:34:33,196 which is a critic of this industry, 618 00:34:33,196 --> 00:34:34,698 notes that most data center 619 00:34:34,009 --> 00:34:35,009 Yeah. 620 00:34:34,698 --> 00:34:36,219 diesel leaks are pretty small, 621 00:34:36,219 --> 00:34:39,531 under 200 gallons. Now, if you drive a truck, 622 00:34:39,531 --> 00:34:41,103 that's like a full fuel fill-up. 623 00:34:41,103 --> 00:34:46,117 But they consider that small. Fortune cited that this month, 624 00:34:46,117 --> 00:34:47,328 actually. So a $5,000. 625 00:34:47,833 --> 00:34:51,025 gallon release is a pretty big outlier. 626 00:34:51,025 --> 00:34:55,948 Well off of, you know, your typical tiny couple drops a year or whatever. 627 00:34:55,948 --> 00:35:00,311 But if somebody says data centers are are constantly dumping fuel into waterways, 628 00:35:00,311 --> 00:35:02,392 the actual record doesn't actually support that. 629 00:35:02,392 --> 00:35:08,866 And i I'm not gonna, you know prop it up to make it sound more dangerous 630 00:35:08,866 --> 00:35:12,398 or more, you know, often than it actually really is. 631 00:35:12,898 --> 00:35:15,140 Well I wish I had a clean answer to that for ya. 632 00:35:15,140 --> 00:35:17,802 ~ 633 00:35:15,863 --> 00:35:16,863 Ha. 634 00:35:17,802 --> 00:35:19,704 But really the accident was never the point. 635 00:35:19,704 --> 00:35:21,125 I mean it's i the spills are vivid, 636 00:35:21,125 --> 00:35:23,647 right? That's where you kind of get a it just hits you in the face when 637 00:35:23,647 --> 00:35:27,530 you see or imagine five thousand gallons of diesel turning a creek into 638 00:35:27,530 --> 00:35:32,454 a like raging diesel river. But the thing that stays behind when you get 639 00:35:32,454 --> 00:35:36,537 rid of that the spills is still forty seven hundred generators in one county. 640 00:35:36,537 --> 00:35:39,620 Running four to five days on a substation fire, 641 00:35:39,620 --> 00:35:42,152 with the state considering longer permitted hours. 642 00:35:42,613 --> 00:35:45,576 That's the designed operation of the equipment on a permit in public 643 00:35:45,576 --> 00:35:47,837 air and nobody has to spill anything for it to happen. 644 00:35:47,837 --> 00:35:51,681 And I noticed that the permitted version generates almost no coverage, 645 00:35:51,681 --> 00:35:55,074 while the five thousand gallon version generates a week of it, 646 00:35:55,074 --> 00:35:58,166 right? So the the newspapers are following this big spill for a week, 647 00:35:58,166 --> 00:36:03,431 but then they take no note of the generators running constantly for five days. 648 00:36:03,431 --> 00:36:07,675 So the thing that's easier to point at is the the thing that matters the least, 649 00:36:07,675 --> 00:36:09,074 but that's just the way it goes sometimes. 650 00:36:09,574 --> 00:36:10,574 Yeah. 651 00:36:10,314 --> 00:36:13,207 So I guess honestly, you know, 652 00:36:13,207 --> 00:36:16,277 two guys on a podcast don't necessarily have a fix for this. 653 00:36:16,277 --> 00:36:21,146 I I don't know the answer. The goal is ultimately awareness and solidarity. 654 00:36:21,146 --> 00:36:22,988 That's kind of the goal of this podcast. 655 00:36:22,988 --> 00:36:28,034 So I'd rather, you know, put that part into the episode toothless than 656 00:36:28,214 --> 00:36:31,378 not actually tell our audience the the real issues here. 657 00:36:31,878 --> 00:36:32,878 Yeah. 658 00:36:32,432 --> 00:36:35,573 I agree. So let's let's turn back to Nevada where the cost is really 659 00:36:35,573 --> 00:36:41,806 the linchpin here. ~ Bryn Delormier or Delorm Delorimer lives in Boulder City. 660 00:36:40,334 --> 00:36:41,444 It's probably Delorimer. 661 00:36:42,717 --> 00:36:47,249 probably. sorry, th that that Cajun French sneaking in on me again. 662 00:36:46,035 --> 00:36:47,471 This is Nevada, so 663 00:36:47,622 --> 00:36:48,950 Yeah, that's that's a good point. 664 00:36:48,950 --> 00:36:52,211 when when T S two, 665 00:36:52,211 --> 00:36:57,994 which remember was solar, ~ originally the developer was s for a solar plant, 666 00:36:57,994 --> 00:37:00,165 ~ wanted City land for the project, 667 00:37:00,165 --> 00:37:02,236 she, Miss ~ Delorimer 668 00:37:02,866 --> 00:37:04,317 organized a petition against it. 669 00:37:04,317 --> 00:37:06,899 Neighbors signed it. In May of twenty twenty six, 670 00:37:06,899 --> 00:37:09,840 her city's planning commission voted six to one against opening the door 671 00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:13,632 to data centers. By every measure available to a resident of a small city, 672 00:37:13,632 --> 00:37:19,176 she had won. I mean that's that's not the this under underdog story we all love, 673 00:37:19,176 --> 00:37:21,567 but not the one you hear very often. 674 00:37:21,567 --> 00:37:25,079 Then on June twenty sixth, the BLM approved the same project on 675 00:37:25,079 --> 00:37:26,860 the federal parcel right next door, 676 00:37:26,860 --> 00:37:30,022 and her wind essentially ev evaporated because the acreage that mattered 677 00:37:30,022 --> 00:37:31,503 was never under her city's control. 678 00:37:32,251 --> 00:37:34,372 When TS2 withdrew its city application in July, 679 00:37:34,372 --> 00:37:37,553 her response was that the developer had a had not actually heard the community. 680 00:37:37,553 --> 00:37:40,264 Then the city council. July fifteenth, 681 00:37:40,264 --> 00:37:44,257 twenty twenty six, they voted unanimously to appeal BLM's approval, 682 00:37:44,257 --> 00:37:47,868 arguing the agency had departed from its own precedent and procedure for 683 00:37:47,868 --> 00:37:52,010 a use ~ precedent and procedure for a use that had never before been authorized 684 00:37:52,010 --> 00:37:55,892 on BLM land. And the statute they're arguing under is the FLPMA 685 00:37:55,892 --> 00:37:57,983 you mentioned before, the nineteen seventy six law. 686 00:37:57,983 --> 00:38:00,937 ~ Sherry Jorgensen, the mayor pro Tem, 687 00:38:00,937 --> 00:38:01,945 ~ put it plainly. 688 00:38:02,405 --> 00:38:06,236 We're taking on a giant. Now that's that's a city mayor talking, 689 00:38:06,236 --> 00:38:10,067 right? ~ the sentence that sentence is the accurate description of the situation. 690 00:38:10,067 --> 00:38:13,767 Because a city poun council with a city attorney's budget appealing 691 00:38:13,767 --> 00:38:17,808 a federal land decision inside a federal appeals body against a project backed 692 00:38:17,808 --> 00:38:20,729 by an executive order. That's worse than David and Goliath. 693 00:38:20,729 --> 00:38:25,020 ~ that's like David and and all Goliath and all of his brothers that 694 00:38:25,020 --> 00:38:28,331 he brought those stones for, ~ if you remember that that story. 695 00:38:28,331 --> 00:38:29,591 ~ then 696 00:38:28,613 --> 00:38:30,693 Or like Iran versus the US 697 00:38:30,693 --> 00:38:31,693 Navy. 698 00:38:31,555 --> 00:38:35,896 Yeah. maybe. that that could actually work out in in their favor. 699 00:38:35,896 --> 00:38:40,238 th but that sentence is an accurate description of the situation, 700 00:38:40,238 --> 00:38:42,779 right? and they got somewhere. 701 00:38:42,779 --> 00:38:45,399 The the Center for Biological Diversity appealed too, 702 00:38:45,399 --> 00:38:47,760 so they've now got some people jumping in as well. 703 00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:52,562 And I'm sure they'll have some some friend of the court filings as well. 704 00:38:54,142 --> 00:38:58,094 but Patrick Donnelly is the Great Basin director and on September first Judge Judge 705 00:38:58,094 --> 00:39:02,966 Gunter granted a stay. So with both the city of Boulder City and 706 00:39:02,966 --> 00:39:05,887 the Center for Biological Diversity appealing the BLM's decision, 707 00:39:05,887 --> 00:39:08,568 ~ they got a stay on the the project. 708 00:39:08,568 --> 00:39:11,590 So the project is halted and a new environmental review is possible now. 709 00:39:12,707 --> 00:39:16,570 I think it's important to point out here though that a stay is really just 710 00:39:16,570 --> 00:39:19,593 a temporary pause button on this project. 711 00:39:19,593 --> 00:39:21,731 And that doesn't mean we can, you know, 712 00:39:21,731 --> 00:39:24,197 move on to something else because it will come back. 713 00:39:24,197 --> 00:39:28,400 It means that that BLM may actually have to do the review it skipped. 714 00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:32,344 And if it does the review and reaches the same conclusion, 715 00:39:32,344 --> 00:39:35,286 then the project just goes forward and and continues on, 716 00:39:35,286 --> 00:39:39,770 and the the appeal will have bought Boulder City a delay and a paper trail without 717 00:39:39,770 --> 00:39:41,191 actually addressing the problem. 718 00:39:41,357 --> 00:39:43,254 Just a little bit of whiteout on the process. 719 00:39:44,056 --> 00:39:45,056 Yeah. 720 00:39:45,482 --> 00:39:48,083 And here's what neither of us can tell you because it isn't in the record. 721 00:39:48,083 --> 00:39:50,985 We don't know what TS2 pays the federal government for that right-of-way. 722 00:39:50,985 --> 00:39:54,124 We don't know how much diesel will be stored on that site or how much water 723 00:39:54,124 --> 00:39:56,587 a 170 megawatt facility there would draw, 724 00:39:56,587 --> 00:39:59,769 because the environmental assessment that would have been that would have examined 725 00:39:59,769 --> 00:40:02,650 those questions was written for a solar project in a different location. 726 00:40:02,650 --> 00:40:06,192 BLM would have those figures or would have had to generate them. 727 00:40:06,192 --> 00:40:10,984 But the approval made that made this the first data center on American public land 728 00:40:10,984 --> 00:40:12,595 didn't require them to be public. 729 00:40:12,595 --> 00:40:15,376 So when somebody in Boulder City asks what this 730 00:40:15,366 --> 00:40:16,366 thing 731 00:40:15,536 --> 00:40:16,907 will actually do next to their houses? 732 00:40:16,907 --> 00:40:21,051 The answer in September 2026 as we sit here is that the document that will answer 733 00:40:21,051 --> 00:40:24,514 your question does not exist yet and the project was approved anyway. 734 00:40:26,210 --> 00:40:29,951 So I guess I want to kind of return back to the substantially 735 00:40:29,951 --> 00:40:33,002 the same phrase because the opening was a little off, 736 00:40:33,002 --> 00:40:36,572 right? I read it as though it was a lie. 737 00:40:36,572 --> 00:40:41,544 But somebody typed that phrase out so they could throw it over the wall into someone 738 00:40:41,544 --> 00:40:45,505 else's silo. And the longer we've spent uncovering this, 739 00:40:45,505 --> 00:40:48,515 the more I I think it's the most honest sentence in the whole record. 740 00:40:48,515 --> 00:40:52,566 Because ask what category BLM was actually filling out, 741 00:40:52,566 --> 00:40:55,067 and the answer is the right-of-way category. 742 00:40:55,067 --> 00:40:56,067 And 743 00:40:56,169 --> 00:40:58,910 In a right of way grant under the FLPMA, 744 00:40:58,910 --> 00:41:03,391 what BLM is authorizing is just a a private use of public acreage, 745 00:41:03,391 --> 00:41:07,553 described by its footprint and its its length of term. 746 00:41:07,553 --> 00:41:11,614 A solar array is a private use of public acreage. 747 00:41:11,614 --> 00:41:14,765 A one hundred and seventy watt ~ you know, 748 00:41:14,765 --> 00:41:21,557 megawatt, sorry, not watt, megawatt data center is a private use of public acreage. 749 00:41:22,057 --> 00:41:24,539 In the box the agency wasn't filling in, 750 00:41:24,539 --> 00:41:27,181 those two things are not the same thing. 751 00:41:27,181 --> 00:41:31,405 And that's why Judge Gunter's pause reads kind of the way it does. 752 00:41:31,405 --> 00:41:35,148 He found that the agency leaned on a review written before 753 00:41:35,148 --> 00:41:37,130 the project actually changed locations, 754 00:41:37,130 --> 00:41:41,994 right? His finding was about the location that they had initially submitted it for. 755 00:41:41,994 --> 00:41:47,078 Whether a data center is a different animal from a solar farm 756 00:41:47,078 --> 00:41:50,001 was never asked because the form doesn't have a line for it. 757 00:41:50,501 --> 00:41:53,714 So the phrase I opened on is is the agency telling you exactly 758 00:41:53,714 --> 00:41:56,316 how this country categorizes its own land, 759 00:41:56,316 --> 00:41:59,189 right? A grant, stakes mark in the plot, 760 00:41:59,189 --> 00:42:02,001 a lease term, and a rent price set on public property. 761 00:42:02,001 --> 00:42:06,654 Whether the thing on top pulls one hundred and seventy megawatts 762 00:42:06,654 --> 00:42:11,349 or stores a thousand gallons of diesel and runs the most valuable computing 763 00:42:12,090 --> 00:42:14,722 in this economy is for permitting purposes, 764 00:42:14,722 --> 00:42:17,535 just a filled in line on a form in Washington DC. 765 00:42:18,035 --> 00:42:20,236 And that's the assumption the whole fight depends on. 766 00:42:20,236 --> 00:42:24,959 The reason that should this go on public land is a hard question at all, 767 00:42:24,959 --> 00:42:28,421 is that the public's acreage is priced as permission rather than as production. 768 00:42:28,421 --> 00:42:33,684 ~ rent on eighty acres of Nevada Desert with no royalty on what what 769 00:42:33,704 --> 00:42:35,745 on what 170 megawatts produces. 770 00:42:35,745 --> 00:42:37,449 Congress has done the other version. 771 00:42:37,449 --> 00:42:39,687 It did it in nineteen twenty for oil and coal, 772 00:42:39,687 --> 00:42:42,709 and you can see the reason the result in a single number. 773 00:42:43,565 --> 00:42:46,866 ~ arguably nine hundred and forty eight million million dollars 774 00:42:46,866 --> 00:42:49,987 to Wyoming and federal mineral royalties in fiscal twenty eleven. 775 00:42:49,987 --> 00:42:52,568 interior writes rent schedules. 776 00:42:52,568 --> 00:42:54,388 Congress writes royalty regimes. 777 00:42:54,388 --> 00:42:57,929 For compute on public land, neither one has written anything. 778 00:42:57,929 --> 00:43:01,140 Now let me run the two things people actually want to do about this, 779 00:43:01,140 --> 00:43:04,571 past the question of who they cost and ~ because I don't think either 780 00:43:04,571 --> 00:43:05,831 one does what its supporters hope. 781 00:43:05,831 --> 00:43:11,173 So moratoria first. Hochle's New York pause up to a year 782 00:43:12,084 --> 00:43:15,105 Tulsa's nine months, Spartanburg's moving towards twelve, 783 00:43:15,105 --> 00:43:18,165 those are real and they're the only lever a local body actually has. 784 00:43:18,165 --> 00:43:21,546 Here's the cost. Boulder City's Revolt, 785 00:43:21,546 --> 00:43:25,887 which I admire, cost Boulder City almost $1.5 million from the lease 786 00:43:26,267 --> 00:43:30,218 and roughly $2.3 million a year in total new revenue that would have gone to police, 787 00:43:30,218 --> 00:43:32,449 fire, emergency response, and utilities. 788 00:43:32,449 --> 00:43:34,869 That money came off the city's own books, 789 00:43:34,869 --> 00:43:37,770 and the residents who pay for those services are the ones carrying the bill. 790 00:43:37,770 --> 00:43:41,081 And the developer's cost is just a delay in a different county. 791 00:43:41,907 --> 00:43:45,610 Caterpillar's $72.1 billion backlog does not move because Tulsa said 792 00:43:45,610 --> 00:43:48,972 no for nine months. The generator sets ship somewhere else. 793 00:43:48,972 --> 00:43:53,175 Second, litigation. The Interior Board of Land Appeals stay is 794 00:43:53,175 --> 00:43:55,817 the best outcome anybody in this story has achieved, 795 00:43:55,817 --> 00:43:57,838 and what it produces is a redo. 796 00:43:57,838 --> 00:44:01,421 A better environmental assessment on the same parcel for the same tenant 797 00:44:01,421 --> 00:44:06,125 at the same rent. It costs BLM staff time and it costs TS2 a calendar year, 798 00:44:06,125 --> 00:44:07,786 but it doesn't change a dollar of the arrangement. 799 00:44:08,286 --> 00:44:10,458 The change that would cost the people at the top something is the 800 00:44:10,458 --> 00:44:14,921 one nobody has proposed. Pricing public acreage and public power against what gets 801 00:44:14,921 --> 00:44:17,994 produced on it. And putting permitted generator runtime on 802 00:44:17,994 --> 00:44:20,365 the operator's meter instead of the neighbor's lungs. 803 00:44:20,365 --> 00:44:24,558 That takes Congress for the first part and state environmental agencies 804 00:44:24,558 --> 00:44:28,772 for the second. Virginia DEQ is sitting on exactly that question right now. 805 00:44:28,772 --> 00:44:30,733 I'm not going to tell you it's likely. 806 00:44:30,733 --> 00:44:33,946 I'll tell you that every fix currently on the table leaves the rent schedule alone. 807 00:44:34,446 --> 00:44:38,092 And it leaves the seventeen thousand six hundred acres still on the table. 808 00:44:38,592 --> 00:44:42,584 Exactly. And here's the position that I came in with that I'm leaving with because 809 00:44:42,584 --> 00:44:44,986 I've been turning it over for forever now, 810 00:44:44,986 --> 00:44:46,276 it seems like it hasn't resolved. 811 00:44:46,276 --> 00:44:49,097 Messina, New York. Little town, 812 00:44:49,097 --> 00:44:54,069 North Country, and its town board voted three to two against a six month data center 813 00:44:54,069 --> 00:44:57,622 moratorium. Residents testified in favor of the data centers. 814 00:44:57,622 --> 00:45:01,264 The reason they gave, reported by WWNY on September sixteenth, 815 00:45:01,264 --> 00:45:05,186 is that Messina has been economically depressed for years and this 816 00:45:05,186 --> 00:45:06,186 is industry coming back. 817 00:45:06,677 --> 00:45:09,308 I'm not gonna call those people confused or say they've been marketed. 818 00:45:09,308 --> 00:45:13,157 ~ they live in a place that lost its employers and they're not 819 00:45:13,157 --> 00:45:16,150 and they're being offered the only thing anybody's offered them in thirty years. 820 00:45:16,150 --> 00:45:18,431 And the entire apparatus we described, 821 00:45:18,431 --> 00:45:21,632 NEPA, FLPMA, the Interior Board of Land Appeals, 822 00:45:21,632 --> 00:45:24,854 the Stay, the Appeal, the letter from five members of Congress, 823 00:45:24,854 --> 00:45:27,355 none of it hands missing an alternative. 824 00:45:27,355 --> 00:45:31,096 It can slow down a project, but it can't put anything in its place. 825 00:45:31,096 --> 00:45:32,477 So I'm holding 826 00:45:33,103 --> 00:45:35,957 two things in tension as we end this this episode. 827 00:45:35,957 --> 00:45:38,760 The people who live next to a thing should get to decide whether it's built, 828 00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:42,674 and yet a town with no other offer on the table is not really making 829 00:45:42,674 --> 00:45:44,086 a free decision when it says yes. 830 00:45:44,086 --> 00:45:46,259 I know how those two sound together, 831 00:45:46,259 --> 00:45:47,581 but I don't have the third sentence yet. 832 00:45:48,081 --> 00:45:50,703 Essentially we have to I don't know, 833 00:45:50,703 --> 00:45:53,945 demand more from the press, like the media to report these sort of things. 834 00:45:53,945 --> 00:45:56,135 They should be all over these dockets, 835 00:45:56,135 --> 00:45:57,567 right? And sometimes they are. 836 00:45:57,567 --> 00:46:01,490 Every right-of-way application on a BLM land, 837 00:46:01,490 --> 00:46:06,173 you know, goes into a public planning system and is organized by a field office. 838 00:46:06,173 --> 00:46:10,876 The RIA data application in Idaho went to the Four Rivers field office 839 00:46:10,876 --> 00:46:13,498 in August in twenty twenty five and just sat there, 840 00:46:13,498 --> 00:46:17,491 right? The Prometheus Hyperscale proposals for an access road and a 841 00:46:17,809 --> 00:46:21,372 A telecom line and a water pipeline went into Wyoming. 842 00:46:21,372 --> 00:46:27,146 And the Valar Atomic Survey request for ten thousand two hundred acres near Green 843 00:46:27,146 --> 00:46:31,519 River, Utah went in and came back out after the press asked about it. 844 00:46:31,519 --> 00:46:35,382 Those files are public before anybody gets approved, 845 00:46:35,382 --> 00:46:39,735 and they're they're public in the name of a field office most people around there 846 00:46:39,735 --> 00:46:44,839 have never heard of. The other docket is in your state's air permits. 847 00:46:45,103 --> 00:46:50,326 Virginia DEQ has been weighing expanded runtime for data center generators 848 00:46:50,326 --> 00:46:55,048 and state environmental agencies have taken written comment from anybody 849 00:46:55,048 --> 00:46:58,170 on that kind of proceeding. You don't need a lawyer or a connection or 850 00:46:58,170 --> 00:47:01,031 a weekday off to file a comment on a runtime rule. 851 00:47:01,031 --> 00:47:05,394 But I don't know how much those comments actually matter. 852 00:47:05,394 --> 00:47:08,306 And the third one is is the one that that already worked, 853 00:47:08,306 --> 00:47:12,888 right? Spartanburg County, South Carolina had offered tax breaks for a data center. 854 00:47:13,670 --> 00:47:16,803 The tax break is a public agenda item with public documents, 855 00:47:16,803 --> 00:47:21,228 and after residents got into them and voters removed the incumbents 856 00:47:21,228 --> 00:47:26,403 in office in June, the county clawed back the breaks. 857 00:47:26,403 --> 00:47:32,318 What happened at ~ a county council meeting on paper anybody could actually read? 858 00:47:32,818 --> 00:47:36,880 And if you want to put all the absurdity in one sort of nice package, 859 00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:39,201 it's a single 12-day sequence in September. 860 00:47:39,201 --> 00:47:45,174 September 11th, 5,000 to 55,500 gallons of diesel out 861 00:47:45,174 --> 00:47:47,245 of one facilities tank into Anderson Creek, 862 00:47:47,245 --> 00:47:50,507 and the retail value of that fuel is only about $30,000. 863 00:47:50,507 --> 00:47:55,290 September 18th, reporting reveals at least 12 projects 864 00:47:55,330 --> 00:47:59,532 on 17,600 acres of public land across six states, 865 00:47:59,532 --> 00:48:01,223 most of it never announced. 866 00:48:01,723 --> 00:48:03,174 Then finally on September 23rd, 867 00:48:03,174 --> 00:48:06,935 today, ~ five members of Congress write to ask the agency what's happening 868 00:48:06,935 --> 00:48:09,756 on public land in their own state because they read about it in a newspaper. 869 00:48:09,756 --> 00:48:12,827 That $31,000 of diesel got cranes, 870 00:48:12,827 --> 00:48:14,488 vacuum trucks, absorbent pads, 871 00:48:14,488 --> 00:48:18,419 and a state agency statement and a week of coverage on the major media outlets. 872 00:48:18,419 --> 00:48:21,320 The 17,600 acres got a letter. 873 00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:25,772 That's how this runs. The arrangement responds to the small visible spill 874 00:48:25,772 --> 00:48:27,743 and ignores the large invisible transfer. 875 00:48:27,743 --> 00:48:29,544 And if you're designing it to work that way, 876 00:48:29,544 --> 00:48:30,544 it would look exactly like that. 877 00:48:31,024 --> 00:48:36,052 Yeah. Well look, thanks for spending a an hour on public land use with us. 878 00:48:36,052 --> 00:48:38,016 If you if 879 00:48:37,573 --> 00:48:38,573 Hey, when the data 880 00:48:38,177 --> 00:48:41,046 center shows up in your backyard you'll be glad you heard the story here first. 881 00:48:41,209 --> 00:48:44,211 We hope. If you if you want to listen to the show, 882 00:48:44,211 --> 00:48:46,323 right, it's at FOF. foundation, 883 00:48:46,323 --> 00:48:48,745 you can find it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. 884 00:48:48,745 --> 00:48:51,607 And that's where we're putting the sourcing as well. 885 00:48:51,607 --> 00:48:56,551 You includes the USGS report number two twenty twenty six dash five zero three five. 886 00:48:56,551 --> 00:49:00,585 If you want to read what government scientists found about how close all 887 00:49:00,585 --> 00:49:03,677 of this is already happening to the land that you already own a share of. 888 00:49:03,677 --> 00:49:06,509 And our collective vote is what made this happen. 889 00:49:06,509 --> 00:49:09,722 So be kind to each other, help out where you can. 890 00:49:10,424 --> 00:49:13,294 Like we always say, Bye. 891 00:49:13,389 --> 00:49:14,389 Aye.