A federal judge in Mississippi has allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to join a Clean Air Act lawsuit over xAI's Southaven power facility but refused to let the government end the case, keeping the dispute alive without deciding whether the company violated pollution law, Reuters reported via The American Quorum. US District Judge Debra Brown ruled on Monday, October 19, that the EPA may intervene in the citizen suit brought by the NAACP and its Mississippi State Conference.

Source: Reuters account via The American Quorum

The lawsuit, filed in April, alleges — as an allegation that remains contested and has not been decided — that xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech constructed and operated gas-fired turbines in Southaven without the preconstruction and operating permits required for a major pollution source. The NAACP's filing initially identified 27 turbines and sought an order stopping unpermitted operations, requiring pollution controls and imposing statutory penalties; a later filing said six more turbines had been added, raising the alleged total to 33 at that stage. The facility supplies power to xAI's Colossus 2 data centre across the state line in the Memphis area.

The Justice Department intervened on the EPA's behalf in June. Its motion argued that Mississippi had determined no permit was required for the disputed power source and that shutting it down could hinder artificial-intelligence work important to the economy and national security, and it asserted that executive-branch enforcement authority should override the private action, according to the reporting. In arguing for dismissal, the Justice Department also wrote that ending the case 'accords with federal policy, national security, and the public interest,' Tesla News Wire reported, citing Action News 5 in Memphis.

Source: Tesla News Wire (court opinion and SELC)

Brown accepted only part of that position. The order says there is 'no fairly possible interpretation of the Clean Air Act that would give the United States the right to unilaterally dismiss a citizen suit,' and that the court 'does not share the serious constitutional doubts' the government raised, the Southern Environmental Law Center, which represents the plaintiffs, quoted. The court recognised the EPA administrator's statutory right to participate but found no provision authorising dismissal unless the government is itself diligently prosecuting a related enforcement action.

'The court made clear today that the law applies to everyone, including the federal government,' said Abre' Conner, the NAACP's director of environmental and climate justice, in the plaintiffs' response reported by Tesla News Wire. xAI did not immediately comment on the new decision, and the EPA declined Reuters' request for comment. The ruling is procedural: the NAACP's claims remain pending, the government remains a party, and xAI's liability remains undecided.