Pennsylvania real estate executive Brian O’Neill sought the help of an attorney at the United States Department of State to lobby state and federal officials to waive national federal air pollution limits on his proposed gas-fired power plants in the Philadelphia suburbs, emails obtained via a public records request show.
The power plants are crucial components of O’Neill’s plans to construct a giant AI data center complex spanning the communities of Upper Merion and Plymouth townships, in Montgomery County. Combined, the data centers would consume one-gigawatt of energy — enough to power the equivalent of about 800,000 homes.
The documents, shared by the No Conshy Data Centers community group, and published by DeSmog, open a new window into O’Neill’s lobbying of state officials in 2025 and early 2026, as he sought to pave the way for his company, MLP Ventures, to move ahead with the project.
The State Department official, Michael Tierney, worked in 2023 as legal counsel for Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D). He helped O’Neill coordinate his data center plans with state officials in early 2025, while working as a private attorney.
In March 2025, Tierney took his initial role in the Trump administration as general counsel at USAID. He remained copied on emails related to O’Neill’s project, however, and subsequently attended a May 2025 meeting about the project that also included a state official and O’Neill.
