The Bureau of Land Management just proposed 17,500+ acres of public land, across six states, for more data centers. This is the first time ever BLM has been ordered to include data centers on land it manages for the public, land used for recreation, grazing, and timber for over a century. At least 12 are now proposed across Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming. One is the Charlestown Data Center, 106 acres near Hermiston, Oregon, 7 miles from the Columbia River. It would be the first data center ever sited on federal public land in the state. And of course, the company behind it, Copia, declined to comment. This is also Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation ceded land. Their Natural Resources Director, Eric Quaempts, has already testified that water here is foundational to fish, deer, roots, berries, and Tribal culture, and that this development could affect Treaty-protected resources. Much of eastern Oregon's summer water is already promised to other users. So is water across the rest of the West. While BLM fast-tracks these projects, Arizona farmers are already fallowing half their fields, and a Colorado rancher sold a fifth of her herd this summer as her stock ponds ran dry. Federal officials are considering cutting Arizona, Nevada, and California's Colorado River water by 21% through 2028, just to keep the reservoirs from collapsing. Data centers are competing with these families for the same disappearing water. I don't know how anyone justifies that. Another proposal, the Rhea Data Center, would take over 3,200 acres south of Boise, Idaho, plus 550 more for transmission lines. Four million square feet. It would also build its own natural gas power plant on-site. It sits next to Blacks Creek Reservoir, home to more than 150 bird species. Nobody knows what this will do to them, because nobody's studied it. None of these 12 projects have gone through a full environmental review the public actually got to weigh in on. Not that it's made any difference anyway; BLM has kept moving projects forward regardless of the public comments it does receive. I already told you about the first data center BLM ever approved on public land, this July, near Boulder City, Nevada. Boulder City already won once: a judge halted the project, ruling BLM skipped a real environmental review. Now BLM wants that ruling reversed and the project sent back to itself, without promising to do a real review, or let the public weigh in, this time either. Boulder City is fighting to keep it stopped, because it doesn't trust BLM to do this right. This isn't a data center problem anymore. It's a pattern: take the land, take the water, skip the review, fight the lawsuit later. #DemsUnited