Despite more than 84 percent of Hawkins County, Tennessee, voters casting their ballots for President Donald Trump in November 2024, the county’s government officially agreed to be represented by a progressive legal group, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), which will defend its prohibition on data centers and cryptocurrency mining operations.
The Hawkins County Commission voted to accept the offer by the SELC to defend the county in the lawsuit on May 18, only weeks after local attorney Crystal Jessee described the environmentalist group as a legal “sledgehammer” to defend the county in the lawsuit filed by ExoticRidge, the Kentucky-based cryptocurrency mining company, during a commission meeting in April.
Attorney George Nolan, the director of the Tennessee Office for the SELC in Nashville, additionally appeared at the meeting.
“One issue that’s a big concern for us is how fast things are changing in our rural communities,” Nolan reportedly said. “We’re seeing out-of-state interests come in and change things in a way that’s bad for nature and bad for the rural communities. This ExoticRidge bitcoin mining situation certainly got our attention.”
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Clifton Corker, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019.
Records show the court was notified on May 22 that Nolan would appear on behalf of Hawkins County. Two more SELC attorneys, Joseph DeGaetano and Trey Bussey, will also represent the county.
The county’s decision to accept SELC’s representation came just days after it submitted its response to the lawsuit on May 18. The judge additionally ordered the parties to meet to discuss the case within 30 days of Hawkins County’s first appearance before the court.
Just one month before Hawkins County agreed to accept the SELC offer of pro bono representation, the group filed lawsuits on behalf of clients suing the Trump administration over allegations the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is failing to enforce Biden-era emissions standards.
Shortly before its role in the lawsuit against the Trump administration, the SELC filed a lawsuit by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in a federal court in Mississippi, arguing xAI’s use of temporary turbines to support its artificial intelligence (AI) facilities in the Memphis area violated federal law.
Last year, the SELC sent notice to Musk’s company that the NAACP intended to sue over similar claims in Tennessee, but the lawsuit was never filed.
While the overwhelmingly Republican-leaning county will be represented by the progressive environmentalist group in the lawsuit, ExoticRidge has retained the free market advocacy group, the Beacon Center of Tennessee, which explained the circumstances behind the case in an April press release:
ExoticRidge runs two small data centers in Kentucky and intends to add a third in Hawkins County. The Hawkins County location currently operates a facility that separates natural gas into pure ethane, propane, and butane products, which are then sold to produce electricity for the local community. Because ethane is expensive and dangerous to transport, the ethane is constantly burned off through a 45-foot-high pipe on the property. ExoticRidge intends to use this excess ethane to generate all the electricity it needs for data mining on-site without relying on the existing power grid at all.”
Despite its plans for self-sufficiency, Hawkins County having passed no zoning code, and ExoticRidge having obtained a permit from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, the county passed a blanket ban on data centers that it argues includes the company’s bitcoin mining facility.
The lawsuit argues the ban by Hawkins County is discriminatory, unsupported by evidence of public harm, violates individual property rights, and violates both the U.S. Constitution and the Tennessee Constitution. It additionally claims Hawkins County’s ban amounts to a zoning ordinance passed without complying with Tennessee’s zoning laws, which mandate public notice and comment sessions before ordinances are adopted.
ExoticRidge filed its lawsuit on March 31.
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Tom Pappert is a 2025 recipient of the Dao Prize and the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star. He also reports for the Star News Network. Follow Tom on X. Email tips to [email protected].
