This week, New Jersey ordered the operator of one of the East Coast’s largest planned data centers to pay a $1.1 million fine for secretly installing and operating gas generators in violation of the state’s Air Pollution Control Act.
I’ll bet anything they budgeted for a fine and it was still cheaper than doing it the proper way. Whoever signed the paper to approve the install should be on the hook personally.
the [62] “tractor-trailer-size” generators were “impossible to miss” and certainly were not there when inspectors last visited in December 2025.
Each one of the generators cost roughly $1 million. With shipping, installation, etc. the total was probably north of $100 million for these generators.
So, they were fined less than 2% of what it cost them to have these installed. Pocket change, indeed.
Tow the generators and impound them!
Instead they’re allowed to run them while they apply for the permit they didn’t follow through on. What a fucking joke
“You have 30 minutes to remove your generator.”
“You have ten minutes.”
“Your generator has been impounded.”
“Your generator has been crushed into a cube.”
“You have 30 minutes to move your cube.”Donate em to Ukraine, these things sound perfect for temporary emergency energy relief after strikes on infrastructure.
Fine them one million a day until the generators are done. That should motivate them a bit more.
$1M on day 1, $2M on day 2, $4M on day 3, etc.
So just the cost of doing business in the end then.
Fine per day, right? RIGHT?
Exponentially increasing per day is still up right?
Does the order also include removing the gas generators, or is it just cost of doing business?
DataOne was given 45 days to apply for the permits or else cease operations, but they can continue operating the gas engines while seeking permits.
Absolutely ridiculous ruling
I’ve worked in construction most of my life and I always wonder how code enforcement will come down hard on small projects and do nothing about larger ones. This is a local government issue, and the locals write the laws….
Fines are just a cost of doing business. There needs to be criminal charges and real consequences on the people making the decisions, and shutting down those generators until they meet regulations.
Or the scale of the fine can be expressed as a percentage of the assets and revenues, to make the fines genuinely dreadful.
Never mind right sizing the fines. I keep operating from the assumption that we are dealing with largely reasonable people who have a bad take and are correctable.
Make guillotines great again.
No new taxea, no fines, no jails, straight to the public square guillotine with this level of malfeasance.
$1.1M an hour right?
At least $1.1M a day right?
Not even $1.1M a week???
Why not $1 trillion?
That’s per generator, right?
Really? $1.1 million is nothing
Break the law, pay a tiny fine
I feel that only 1 million is a fraction of what they would had to pay if they had to produce the certifications and documentations for getting the permissions for the 62 turbines
If it’s punishable by a fine, it’s legal for a fee. We need jail time for CEOs, not paltry tickets
DataOne works for Nebius which caters to Microsoft mainly. This wasn’t a no name datacenter, it’s Microsoft.
Backward society
