Federal judge rejects xAI's bid to dismiss NAACP pollution lawsuit

A federal judge in Mississippi has denied xAI’s request to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the NAACP over air pollution at the company’s Colossus data center outside Memphis. The ruling means claims that xAI violated the Clean Air Act, the federal law governing air pollution, can move forward.

The lawsuit, filed on the NAACP’s behalf by the Southern Environmental Law Center, accuses xAI of installing and running at least 35 gas turbines and other pollution sources at the Colossus site without the preconstruction or operating permits the Clean Air Act requires.

xAI had argued the case should be thrown out on several grounds. It said the turbines count as “mobile sources,” a category exempt from the permitting rules at issue, and it said the plaintiffs lacked standing, meaning they had no legal right to sue. xAI also challenged the broader practice of citizen suits, in which private groups rather than government regulators enforce environmental law, arguing it violates the Constitution’s division of power between branches of government.

Judge Debra M. Brown rejected all of those arguments. She found that the plaintiffs have statutory standing under the Clean Air Act, that the turbines are not mobile sources under Mississippi’s State Implementation Plan, the state’s federally approved blueprint for meeting air quality standards, and that citizen suits don’t exercise the federal government’s executive power because plaintiffs sue in their own name to redress harm to themselves, not on the government’s behalf.

Abre’ Connor, the NAACP’s director of environmental and climate justice, called the decision “another important victory in our effort to hold xAI accountable.” In a statement, Connor said: “The courts have repeatedly rejected attempts by xAI and the DOJ to dismiss the NAACP’s Clean Air Act case, affirming our right to pursue justice for communities impacted by pollution.” Connor added that the NAACP’s position has stayed the same throughout: xAI cannot run gas turbines without the required permits.

The ruling follows a separate denial earlier in October of a motion to dismiss filed by the Department of Justice in the same case. TechCrunch, which first reported the decision, said it had reached out to xAI’s parent company, SpaceX, for comment.

The case lands amid a broader shift in public opinion against data centers. New York recently passed a moratorium on new data center construction, and other state and local governments are considering similar measures. Amazon and Microsoft have each said they will stop using nondisclosure agreements in their dealings with government agencies, a move that followed the wider backlash.

The NAACP’s claims now move toward the next stage of litigation, with the question of whether xAI operated its 35 turbines without proper permits still to be resolved. The outcome will be one more data point in a fight over data center oversight that is playing out in courts and statehouses alike, with the U.S. midterm elections approaching.