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Boulder appeals BLM approval of data center on public land
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Fusion42 · 18 July 2026 · Fusion42 review
Boulder City Council unanimously voted to appeal the Bureau of Land Management's approval of a data center on federal land in Eldorado Valley, after the developer switched from an approved solar farm project without local oversight. The appeal contests the BLM's environmental review, which strips local zoning authority under federal land rules that align with the White House's AI Action Plan opening federal lands to data centre construction.
This Wire brief sits within Fusion42's coverage of AI Infrastructure and Cloud Infrastructure.
◆ ◆ The Wire takeaway
If you're building a data centre and local planning is going to kill you, you can now route through federal land and sidestep zoning entirely—but Boulder's appeal will test whether that loophole holds. Watch this case; if it sets precedent, every data centre company's next move is federal land applications instead of city permits.
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1 source · 18 Jul 2026
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