Data Centers Proposed on Federal Land in Eastern Oregon and Across Western States

A new data center campus could soon rise on federal land near Hermiston in eastern Oregon, marking the first time a data center has been proposed on federal public land in the state and forming part of a broader wave of at least 12 such projects across more than 17,500 acres of Bureau of Land Management land in the western United States. The proposals, located in Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming, stem from President Donald Trump's July 2025 executive order aimed at accelerating data center development on federally owned land and resources.

The push represents a significant shift for the Bureau of Land Management, which is tasked with managing more than 245 million public acres for uses including animal grazing, timber harvesting and recreation. Under the executive order, Trump mandated that federally owned land and resources be used for "the expeditious and orderly development of data centers (…) to be used in service of the prosperity and security of the American people." It is the first time the agency has been directed to include data centers in its portfolio, a move that underscores the growing land and energy demands of the nation's rapidly expanding digital infrastructure.

The bulk of federally managed land in the U.S. is concentrated in the West, including in Oregon, where half the state's land is owned and managed by the federal government. Oregon ranks among the top 10 data center markets in the U.S., according to Pew Research, and Umatilla County — where the proposed Hermiston-area project would be located — already hosts some of the state's largest data centers, accounting for 20% of Oregon's roughly 111 facilities, according to a recent analysis from ECOnorthwest and the University of Virginia. Other estimates place the number of data centers in Oregon at more than 140, reflecting the difficulty in defining what exactly constitutes a data center, and Umatilla County holds the second-largest share of server farms among the state's 36 counties.

Several months after Trump issued the order, California-based energy company Copia, which maintains an office in Lake Oswego, submitted an application to site the Charlestown Data Center and Battery Energy Storage System in Umatilla County on 106 acres of BLM land. The company most recently submitted a draft plan for development of the project on May 8, 2026, available only via federal public records request, according to Sarah Bennet, a spokesperson for the bureau's Northwest region office. A Copia spokesperson reached by the Capital Chronicle on Monday declined to comment on the project.

Copia is also behind the Snake River Energy Data Center proposed on BLM land in Jerome, Lincoln and Gooding Counties in southern Idaho. That project includes solar energy arrays, battery storage and transmission, and is currently beginning an environmental review, according to Bennet, who added that there is currently no approved federal timeline for the project. "Data centers are becoming a key part of the infrastructure that supports our nation's technology, security, and economic growth," Bennet said in an email. "And the BLM remains committed to managing public lands so they continue to serve the needs of current and future generations, whether those needs involve technology, recreation, conservation or economic opportunity."

In Idaho, the Rhea Data Center project, proposed by a subsidiary of Nevada-based Arevia Power on more than 3,200 acres of federal land south of Boise, could become the largest data center in the state. It would include a natural gas power facility, according to The Washington Sun, and would connect to a utility-scale solar energy project also being proposed for development on federal land by another Arevia subsidiary. Two data centers are being considered on BLM land in Utah, and four are being proposed in Arizona on more than 3,000 acres. The exact locations and scope of each project will become publicly available as the federal environmental review process begins, according to The Washington Sun.

Only one data center proposed on federal public land has been approved so far, but that project — on 80 acres of federal land near Boulder City, Nevada — was put on hold earlier this month after the city sued the Bureau of Land Management over a lack of public comment period and for modifying the scope of the project without conducting a new environmental review. The outcome of that litigation could set an important precedent for how federal agencies balance the push for rapid data center development against public transparency and environmental review requirements, with significant implications for the dozens of projects now working their way through the approval pipeline across the western states.