FOIAengine: Journalists Submit 39 Bureau of Land Management FOIA Requests
The battle over data-center construction widened in September, as news outlets began scrutinizing the Trump administration’s push to open federal lands to development.
According to FOIAengine, which tracks Freedom of Information Act requests in as close to real time as availability allows, seven different journalists submitted 39 separate requests last month to the Bureau of Land Management seeking records about data center proposals in seven Western states.
The journalists’ requests sought details about rights of way, proposed project locations, power demands, environmental review, and communications between developers and federal officials.
The escalation of requests stood in stark contrast to previous months. Before September, only three requests had been logged, none of which we could identify as coming from journalists. (One was from a public lands non-profit and two were submitted by unidentified requesters.)
Background. The Trump Administration’s data center initiative became public on July 23, 2025, when President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order entitled “Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure.” Trump’s order described “bold, large-scale industrial plans” to facilitate the construction on lands managed by the BLM of “AI data centers and infrastructure that powers them, including high-voltage transmission lines and other equipment.” The order’s intended goal: “the rapid and efficient buildout of this infrastructure by easing Federal regulatory burdens,” including expedited environmental reviews, streamlined permitting review, and federal funding.
Public lands managed by BLM are challenging sites for major infrastructure projects because they are remote and lack electricity and water. But some data center developers nonetheless are pursuing them to avoid the intense local opposition they often face in developed areas.
The initiative is controversial. Mary Jo Rugwell, a former BLM state director who serves as president of the Public Lands Foundation, said, “I think we’re just bending [a] knee to the tech oligarchs and letting them do whatever they need to do.” The initiative also comes as the Trump administration has halved BLM staff and assigned them to other administration priorities, including oil and gas development, grazing and mining.
The first approved data center on BLM land near Boulder City, Nevada, was halted by a judge after developers tried to use an earlier environmental study for a proposed solar array at the same site. But a number of data centers, and the associated energy infrastructure, are in their planning stages.
The FOIA Requests. The wave of FOIA requests was triggered by a September 11 article in The Washington Sun by Eric Katz and Mara Hoplamazian reporting that the BLM had “asked its state directors to identify public land ripe for data center development, according to two people familiar with the request, and those leaders have compiled lists for Interior Department leadership.”
That same day Leia Larsen of the Salt Lake Tribune submitted a FOIA request to the BLM for all communications, maps and documents “regarding public lands in Utah identified for potential data centers, artificial intelligence facilities, AI sites and intelligence factories.”
On September 14, two reporters cited the Washington Sun article in submitting requests for detail. Alex Mitchell of the Billings Gazette requested “the list of potential data center locations” compiled for Montana that had been mentioned in the Washington Sun article. Jimmy Tobias of Public Domain cited the Sun article in requesting “any and all maps, as well as related documents, that contain documentation of public land parcels being considered for data center development.”
Jeremy Lindenfeld of Capital & Main on September 17 submitted a request seeking “any email correspondence received or sent by Bureau of Land Management employees since January of 2025 containing mention of data center permitting and/or construction on federally managed public land in California” and “any document about which federally managed public lands in California are being considered”
The Washington Sun published another story on September 18 reporting that the BLM was in the early stages of reviewing data center-related proposals in Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.
More FOIA requests followed. On September 24 and 25, 13 requests were submitted by three journalists. Bloomberg Law’s Magill submitted 11 detailed requests for “all records” associated with many BLM land cases, each listed by case number. The requests mentioned five companies (Wood McKenzie Inc., Valar Atomics, Copia Digital LLC, Leo Data LLC, and Rhea Data LLC) and five projects (Project Beehive, Green River Gigasite, Charleston Data Center, Frontier Data Center, and TAP Data Center). Many of the requests were for right-of-way applications.
KTNV’s Anjali Patel requested on September 24 “all records concerning current, active right-of-way (ROW) proposals for data centers on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land in Nevada.” Patel requested application documents and forms; site plans and maps; environmental assessments or reviews; correspondence between BLM and applicants; all records identifying the applicants, proposed locations, acreage, and current status of each proposal; any internal BLM communications, memoranda, or reports regarding these data center ROW proposals; and any public comments or stakeholder input received regarding these proposals.
The Daily Caller’s John Loftus submitted a 250-word, September 24 request seeking a long list of records related to applications submitted in Idaho by Rhea Data, Rhea Energy, Arevia Power, or any subsidiary. The documents he sought included the plan of development and exhibits; maps; legal descriptions; acreage tables; cost-recovery account documents; completeness letters and “holding” or deficiency letters; records stating electrical demand, load, megawatts, interconnection capacity, or generation capacity for the proposed data center or on-site gas plant; and records of consultations with Ada County, Elmore County, City of Kuna, City of Boise, Idaho Power, and federally recognized tribes.
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Randy E. Miller, co-creator of FOIAengine, is a Washington lawyer, publisher, and former government official. He has developed several online information products and was a partner at Hogan Lovells, where he founded the firm’s Brussels office and represented clients on international regulatory matters. Miller also has served as a White House trade lawyer, Senior Legal Adviser to the U.S. Mission to the World Trade Organization, policy director to Senator Bob Dole, and adjunct professor at Georgetown University. He is a graduate of Yale and Georgetown Law. FOIAengine is a product of PoliScio Analytics (PoliScio.com), a venture specializing in U.S. political and governmental research, co-founded by Miller and Washington journalist John A. Jenkins.
Write to Randy E. Miller at randy@poliscio.com.