Utahns to Inland Port Board: Vote No on Juniper, Stop Backing Data Centers
Coalition press conference at the Capitol precedes Nov. 5 vote on tax financing for a gas-powered data center campus in Iron County
On Thursday, Nov. 5, the Utah Inland Port Authority (UIPA) board is scheduled to vote on Iron Springs Amendment #5, which would add the 847-acre “Juniper Zone” in Iron County to a UIPA project area and open it to tax-increment financing. The site sits next to the Kern River natural gas pipeline and is planned for a gas power plant serving Project Juniper, a data center campus. A statewide coalition of Utahns and organizations will hold a press conference at the Utah State Capitol at 9 a.m. that day, then attend the board meeting to ask the board to vote no and to commit in writing that UIPA will not support data centers, directly or indirectly.
UIPA has repeatedly told the public it does not support data centers. Its recent policy statement says UIPA “is not providing financial incentives to data centers and is not actively recruiting data centers to its project areas,” and that it “will not… fast-track data center development.”
The Juniper record tells a different story:
- UIPA’s own plan lists data centers as a favored industry. The draft Amendment #5 plan says UIPA incentives “will favor” industries including “technology and data centers.”
- The developer says data centers pay for the deal. E3 Platforms, Project Juniper’s developer, calls data centers the “fiscal engine” of the project and plans a UIPA-sponsored public infrastructure district funded by tax increment “derived within Project Juniper.” Its materials describe 300+ megawatts of on-site gas power to start, growing to 2 gigawatts or more.
- Key facts are missing. The plan names natural-gas generation as the site’s purpose but gives no plant size and no water figure, and its environmental review never analyzes a power plant’s air emissions.
- The numbers don’t reconcile. E3 projects $3.12 billion in tax increment from Juniper over 25 years. UIPA’s plan projects about $2.0 billion for the entire Iron Springs project area.
- Iron County’s consent rests on unwritten promises. The county’s resolution relies on “oral representations” about water, energy and taxes that it “does not detail.” Juniper has not yet been reviewed under the county’s new rules for large data center and power projects.
At an Oct. 21 legislative hearing, UIPA Executive Director Ben Hart acknowledged that “we do have some data centers that are taking advantage of our infrastructure,” while saying UIPA defines an incentive only as “a cash offering directly to a business.” He also told lawmakers that HB 507, the Legislature’s new data center law, “will be our future. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it.” Yet the UIPA Board is being asked to approve Juniper outside of HB 507.
“UIPA says it doesn’t subsidize data centers, and then puts a gas-powered data center campus on its agenda,” said Deeda Seed, Senior Utah Campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Infrastructure paid for with diverted property taxes is a subsidy. Utahns are asking the board to walk the talk and refrain from greenlighting this project.”
“Iron County Commissioners have already ignored their constituents and saddled the community with Antelope Data Center and its polluting 1,500-megawatt gas power plant. Red Butte Data Center is next in line. Now Juniper wants maximum profit with minimum upfront capital risk by leveraging UIPA—meaning our tax dollars would bankroll its potential 2,000-megawatt industrial footprint,” said Marion Munn with Iron County Rural Preservation Group. “We shouldn’t be paying to pollute our own backyard. UIPA needs to stay out of it.”
“Utah is facing a looming environmental catastrophe at the hands of Big Tech. Dozens of proposals for massive AI data centers have been filed across the state and more are popping up weekly. Meanwhile, the White House is eliminating every environmental protection they can to make it easier for the industry, and our state government continues to encourage it with public subsidies. Utah residents must demand that our government start working for us and not Silicon Valley billionaires,” said Dr. Brian Moench, President, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment.
“Like MIDA, UIPA has become yet another tool for overreach that puts the interests of tech billionaires ahead of Utah families,” said Sierra Club Senior Campaign Organizer Luis Miranda. “An agency with unchecked power to bypass local decision-making that can advance projects outside its mission threatens our community, leaving us to deal with the detrimental environmental impacts that data centers carry. On top of that, our taxpayer dollars subsidize these projects.”
“From Tooele to Emery, we’ve heard the same thing from Utahns: they want a real say in whether massive data centers and gas plants come to their communities. UIPA is using public money to override that say. Iron County families have a right to a healthy environment and a right to refuse projects that threaten it. The board should honor both and vote no on Juniper,” said Lexi Tuddenham, Executive Director of HEAL Utah.
At the press conference, coalition members will deliver a statewide sign-on letter to the UIPA board. The letter asks the board to:
- Say no to the Juniper Zone on Nov. 5.
- Adopt a binding policy, by resolution, that UIPA will not support data center development in any form, directly or indirectly. That means no tax increment, no infrastructure district bonds or Authority Infrastructure Bank loans, no infrastructure built to serve data centers, no project area designations or amendments for them, and no support for the power plants that serve them.
“A promise that covers only ‘direct’ cash incentives is not enough,” the letter says. “Infrastructure is support.” It notes that in August more than 1,100 Utahns asked the board to put its data center position in writing, and the board has not done so.
The coalition is also calling for a statewide moratorium on new data center approvals until Utah has real rules on water, power and air.