Data centers are coming to Pima County, whether residents like it or not.
The Pima County Board of Supervisors has approved a new data center despite major community opposition and no end user formally lined up.
Amazon was outed earlier this summer as the longtime, unofficial end user lined up for the 290-acre data center, Project Blue, but the e-commerce giant reportedly backed out around the beginning of this month after the developer, Beale Infrastructure, nixed water cooling in favor of the more electricity-dependent air cooling process.
Amazon’s departure was uncovered during the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) hearing earlier this month by sources first reported on by the Arizona Daily Star. ACC approved, 4-1, a decade-long Energy Supply Agreement between Tucson Electric Power (TEP) and the developer to power Project Blue.
Beale Infrastructure made the cooling process switch after the Tucson City Council voted unanimously to deny access to their reclaimed water system back in August. Tucson Mayor Regina Romero also pledged to place limits on future data centers.
The days leading up to the council vote were filled with contentious community information meetings on the project.
Per 13 News, multiple unnamed sources told Pima County Supervisor and Tucson City Councilman Paul Cunningham that up to eight other companies expressed interest in taking Amazon’s place. Sources conflicted on whether one of the companies is Meta, or whether Meta had already backed out as Amazon had.
Project Blue’s developer, Beale Infrastructure, presented the proposed data center as both an economic driver and environmentally friendly operator: “no risks or financial burdens [will be] passed on to other customers,” their representatives promised in their presentations during the community information meetings.
Opponents argue these data centers will further strain an already stressed water supply and electric grid, ultimately leading to scarcity as well as higher fiscal and health costs for the consumer.
It was the promised economic benefits that won over the 3-2 majority of Pima County supervisors. The two supervisors against the data center, Andres Cano and Jen Allen, expressed concerns over the long-term unknown impacts on the environment and community health.
Pima County’s vote came several weeks after ACC approved Beale Infrastructure’s application for Project Blue.
Data centers are the powerhouse for platforms covering virtually every aspect of modern life online: government, streaming, remote work, cloud storage, e-commerce, education, finance, and healthcare.
An independent Economic Impact Study on Project Blue projects a $3.6 billion total capital investment, $250 million in tax revenues, 180 new jobs by 2029, and over 3,000 direct construction jobs during the building phase.
The project will be located north of Pima County Fairgrounds, at the I-10 and Houghton interchange. The development site is over a mile away from the nearest resident, located within an unincorporated area that’s part of the Southeast Employment & Logistics Center.
Beale Infrastructure is also moving on another, equally controversial data center development in Marana totaling 600 acres. Two rezoning applications were filed recently for potential data center development: Luckett North and Luckett South. Earlier this month, the town’s planning commission recommended rezoning for development.
As with Project Blue, the closest resident lives about a mile away from the proposed data center campus. It will also be an air-cooled facility.
In preparation for consideration of the data center, town officials produced two podcast episodes on the town’s data center ordinance and potential for development.
Marana Town Council is scheduled to consider the data center project on Jan. 6, 2026. Progress on the project is available for viewing on the town’s development projects and activity portal.
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Amazon has agreed to pay a total of $2.5 billion in penalties and customer refunds to resolve a federal lawsuit alleging the company improperly enrolled users in its Prime membership program and made it difficult for them to cancel, according to a settlement announced on Sept. 25. The agreement stems from a 2023 Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawsuit accusing Amazon of using deceptive design tactics—often called “dark patterns”—that allegedly pushed customers into Prime subscriptions without their informed consent. The company has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing but said it is settling the case to move forward.
According to court filings, $1.5 billion of the settlement will be distributed directly to Prime subscribers. Refunds will be capped at $51 per customer and automatically issued to eligible users within 90 days of the settlement taking effect. Those eligible for automatic payments include customers who were enrolled in Prime through specific online flows such as “Single Page Checkout” and similar enrollment pages between June 23, 2019, and June 23, 2025.
The FTC alleged that Amazon knowingly designed confusing interfaces that nudged or steered customers toward Prime subscriptions. The agency said internal documents revealed discussions among company executives acknowledging problems with both the enrollment path and the cancellation process. “Amazon created confusing and deceptive user interfaces to lead consumers to enroll in Prime without their knowledge,” the FTC said in its announcement. The complaint also accused the company of creating a “complex and difficult” cancellation process that impeded users’ ability to leave the service.
Under the settlement terms, Amazon must revise its user interface to ensure clearer options when customers are signing up for—or declining—Prime. That includes a requirement for a prominent ‘decline Prime’ button and more straightforward cancellation tools. In a statement released the same day, Amazon rejected the claims but said the agreement allows the company to avoid prolonged litigation.
“Amazon and our executives have always followed the law, and this settlement allows us to move forward and focus on innovating for customers,” the company said. It added that it works to make Prime enrollment and cancellation “clear and simple” and emphasized the value Prime offers to millions of subscribers worldwide. With the settlement now approved, Amazon will begin issuing refunds and overhauling portions of its checkout and subscription processes. Meanwhile, the company will pay the remaining $1 billion of the settlement as a civil penalty to the federal government.
Jonathan Eberle is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Seldom have a few days of energy-related news provided a clearer illustration of the stark contrasts between the crony-capitalism-based energy policies of the Biden administration and the American energy dominance policies to come during a second Trump administration as the news from the past week.
On Nov. 26, the Biden Department of Energy led by Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced an award of $6.6 billion to struggling electric vehicle maker Rivian in the form of a low-interest loan. The infusion of capital is designed to help the company finance a new Georgia-based plant with a production capacity of 400,000 cars per year. Rivian already operates a plant in Illinois capable of turning out 150,000 units annually.
So, what is the problem, you might ask? Well, first, Rivian — like every other U.S. EV maker other than Tesla — has consistently struggled financially. The company so badly missed its sales targets in 2023 that it was forced to discount prices and layoff workers to maintain its ability to service its existing debt load.
Second is the fact that Rivian has only managed to sell a little more than 37,000 units this year as U.S. consumer demand for EVs has stalled, at a financial loss of over $107,000 per car. This begs the question why a car company struggling to sell 50,000 units per year somehow needs the taxpayers to pony up $6.6 billion to raise its production capacity to 550,000 per year, or roughly 13 times its current annual sales.
Third is the fact that Amazon, owned in large part by billionaire Jeff Bezos, is one of Rivian’s biggest investors. Bezos is currently listed as the world’s second-richest individual by Forbes, with a net worth of more than $226 billion. If pouring another $6.6 billion into Rivian is a terrific financial idea — as DOE claims — then why haven’t Amazon and/or Bezos been eager to do that?
The answer seems fairly obvious: This really isn’t a good financial idea at all. What is really happening here is the desperation last gasp of Biden era crony capitalism, shoving those billions of IRA dollars out the door before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in and starts reining in the madness.
The day before DOE announced its award to Rivian, Trump announced plans to impose 25% tariffs on all imported goods from both Canada and Mexico if the governments in those countries do not immediately move to stop the flows of illegal immigrants and drugs across their borders with the United States. It is key to note that, when you talk about all goods coming in from Canada and Mexico, you are talking about America’s two biggest trading partners for crude oil. Canada is far and away the biggest exporter of oil into the United States, with Mexico ranking second on the list, well ahead of any OPEC nation.
The strategic objective behind announcing these tariff plans two months before being sworn into office was to give the governments of these two countries time to act quickly to slow the flows across their borders and commit to major reforms so the tariffs never have to be actually invoked. It is Trump exercising leverage in a negotiation, a skill that has made him a billionaire in his business life. It is a strategy Biden has never attempted to use related to the open borders the flow of deadly fentanyl that now kills more than 100,000 Americans annually.
Within 48 hours, Trump had held initial talks with socialist Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, reporting significant progress. Trump reported far more progress than Sheinbaum was willing to admit, another clear negotiating tactic.
By Friday, Nov. 29, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was jetting down to Mar-a-Lago to hold talks with Trump on border reforms his government is willing to make to avoid the tariffs. Again, Trump is still seven weeks away from being sworn into office.
Joe Biden remains president, at least nominally, but the days of his crony capitalist approach to energy policy are running out fast, and will soon be displaced by a Trumpian return to American energy dominance. It is a change that cannot come soon enough.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
Amazon issued a statement blasting the Democratic Arizona attorney general for a “fundamental misunderstanding and mischaracterization of how Amazon’s businesses work.”
Under Arizona AG Kris Mayes’ leadership, the Grand Canyon state sued Amazon for “unfair and deceptive business practices under the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act and the Arizona Uniform State Antitrust Act.”
“Amazon’s anti-competitive and monopolistic practices have artificially inflated prices for Arizona consumers and harmed smaller third-party retailers that rely on its platform,” Mayes wrote.
Arizona filed two lawsuits, the first one focusing on the cancellation process for Amazon Prime, and the second targeting an Amazon algorithm that “determines which offer for a given product is made available via the ‘Buy Now’ or ‘Add to Cart’ buttons.”
“The lawsuit claims the Buy Box algorithm is actually biased toward offers that maximize Amazon’s profits, often favoring its own products or those of Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) sellers over better non-FBA options,” according to a statement from the Attorney General’s office.
The company is “surprised and disappointed” by the cases, a spokesperson for Amazon said, accusing the state’s AG of initiating the lawsuits “without reviewing a single document from Amazon.”
“Prime’s sign-up and cancellation processes are clear and simple by design, meeting a high bar for customer satisfaction well above legal requirements,” the statement says. “Customers sign up for Prime because it’s an incredible service and a great value, and they can cancel their Prime membership with a few clicks from the home page.”
“These suits would force Amazon to engage in practices that actually harm consumers and the many businesses that sell in our store—such as having to feature higher prices,” the Amazon statement continues.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
A dark money, globalist climate group poised to obtain power over U.S. defense contracts has Arizona roots.
Last November, the Biden administration proposed granting decision-making power on defense contracts to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi): a London, England-based environmentalist group. In mid-February, a key initiative to SBTi called the Advanced and Indirect Mitigation (AIM) Platform launched at GreenBiz 23 in Scottsdale.
According to a press release, the AIM Platform will provide net-zero carbon value chain mitigation for SBTi and the GHG Protocol. Value chain mitigation determines the greenhouse gas emissions of each aspect of a company in an effort to reduce it; SBTi is also advancing a successor of the concept, called “beyond value chain mitigation,” or BVCM.
AIM Governing Committee members are Alexia Kelly, High Tide Foundation; Devon Lake, META; Kelley Kizzier, Bezos Earth Fund (Amazon founder, executive chairman, and former CEO Jeff Bezos); Mandy Rambharos, EDF; Tim Juliani, World Wildlife Fund (WWF); Derik Broekhoff, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI); Graham Winkelman, BHP; Dan Smith, Smart Freight Center; Elena Schmidt, Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB); Lisa Spetz, H&M Group; Meinrad Bürer, Louis Dreyfus Company; Peter Skovly, MAERSK; and Pierre Bloch, Sustaincert.
SBTi funders include the Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, IKEA Foundation, and Laudes Foundation. The initiative is a collaboration by the Carbon Disclosure Project, World Resources Institute, and WWF, an outgrowth of the leftist dark money initiative called “We Mean Business Coalition” fronting the New Venture Fund: an arm of one of the leading leftist dark money networks, Arabella Advisors.
Washington Free Beaconreported that SBTi didn’t officially incorporate until June, though it launched in 2015. SBTi could receive around $1.2 million in annual estimated fees for their services.
The AIM Platform creators were the Gold Standard, a Switzerland-based, climate-focused finance group; Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), a Virginia-based climate policy think tank; and Neoteric Energy & Climate, a D.C.-based climate advisory firm.
The few Americans on Gold Standard’s leadership include Scott Harder, a California native and founder of the Environmental Financial Group; Kerry Constabile, a New Yorker who formerly served as a sustainability executive for Google as well as a senior officer and lead advisor for the United Nations, and also a technical advisor for SBTi; Sue Ellen Johnson, a North Carolina agriculturalist and advisor for a number of climate groups including Gold Standard; and Lawson Henderson, a Vermont-based manager of Wildlife Works Carbon and formerly a coordinator for Rainforest Alliance.
C2ES is the successor of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, led currently by Nathaniel Keohane: former President Barack Obama’s special assistant on energy and environment and formerly a senior vice president for the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The former president for C2ES was the deputy administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama administration. C2ES and its predecessor were founded and presided over initially by Eileen Claussen, the special advisor to the president on global environmental affairs at the National Security Council and assistant secretary of state for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs to former President Bill Clinton.
Neoteric Energy & Climate was founded in January by Kim Carnahan, the current CEO, who helped lead the State Department under both Obama and Trump on finalizing the Paris Agreement and other major emissions reductions policies with the International Maritime Organization and International Civil Aviation Organization. Carnahan also worked as the senior director for ENGIE Impact, a Washington-based sustainability consultancy company.
GreenBiz 23 was the latest in a series of annual events that have taken place in Arizona since at least 2014. Next year’s event, GreenBiz 24, will take place in Phoenix.
Featured speakers for this year’s event included Arizona State University (ASU) Morrison Institute Kyl Center for Water Policy directors Kathryn Sorensen and Sarah Porter.
Most of the other speakers over the years have represented the biggest companies worldwide. This year included representatives from 3M, Anheuser-Busch, Associated Press (AP News), BASF Chemicals, CEMEX, Coca-Cola, Cox Enterprises, Clif Bar, Deloitte Tax, Delta Airlines, Dollar Tree, eBay, Estée Lauder, Ford, General Mills, General Motors, Henkel, IBM, Intuit, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss, Mars, McDonald’s, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Nasdaq, National Public Radio (NPR), NCX, NextEra Energy Resources, Nike, Paramount, Procter & Gamble, Salesforce, Seventh Generation, S&P Global, Starbucks, Under Armour, United Airlines, UPS, U.S. Steel, and Wells Fargo.
The Biden administration also sent speakers: Betty Cremmins and Katy Newhouse, directors for sustainable supply chains with the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
