Washington, DC — Today, in a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations Committee, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) urged Congress to use its power to stop the Trump administration push to build data centers on public lands.

In the letter, sent to Senators Collins and Murray and Representatives Cole and DeLauro, PEER states, in part:

America’s public lands belong to all of us, not a handful of billionaires looking for a place to build AI data centers. Yet that is precisely the direction the Trump administration appears to be heading.

The public overwhelmingly supports protecting public lands and overwhelmingly opposes the speed at which data centers are being built.  

That is why we urge you, as part of the upcoming government funding bill, to include clear language prohibiting the Department of the Interior, the U.S. Forest Service, and other federal agencies from using appropriated funds to sell, transfer, lease, or otherwise make federal public lands available for private hyperscale data centers and their associated infrastructure.

You can read the full letter here.

The letter follows reports that the Trump administration is considering transferring more than 17,000 acres of land managed by the Bureau of Land Management in Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah for at least 12 proposed data centers.

The Federal Land Policy and Management Act clearly states that public lands should generally remain in federal ownership unless disposal of a particular parcel, through the required planning process, serves the national interest. It also directs that public lands be managed to protect environmental, water, ecological, scenic, historic, and recreational values.

“It’s hard to imagine a move more out of step with the public than building data centers on public lands,” said PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse. “Americans love their public lands and have legitimate concerns about data centers. Congress has the power to stop this, and we urge them to do so without delay.”

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PEER protects public employees who protect our environment, natural resources, and public health. We support current and former environmental and public health professionals, land managers, scientists, enforcement officers, and other civil servants dedicated to upholding environmental laws and values across federal, state, local, and tribal governments.