Block the Interior Department's push to hand over public lands for data center development. At least 91.3 million acres managed by Interior, an area the size of Montana, are being eyed for these projects, and the public has far less ability to stop them on federal land than through local or state processes.
The conflict-of-interest problem here is serious. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum holds between $18.1 million and $64.4 million in AI company investments through his firm Arthur Ventures, yet he has met with Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet representatives more than 20 times and signed an AI cooperation agreement with the UAE. His ethics agreement let him keep his financial stake in Arthur Ventures. Richard Painter, President George W. Bush's chief ethics lawyer, said Burgum "has to recuse" from decisions benefiting industries in which he is heavily invested. He has not.
The 1976 law governing federal land management was never written to permit data centers, and rental fees for their use of public land could be quite low, meaning taxpayers may see little return. Public lands belong to everyone. They should not be quietly leased to tech giants to benefit officials who are personally invested in the outcome.
Sign Petition
