The records · The new ruling
Every record behind the essay on Judge Brown's ruling in the xAI lawsuit
These are the records the essay is built on: the court's ruling, Mississippi's own air rule, MDEQ's letter and its written answers to my records request, the turbine industry's petition to EPA and the Permit Board's agenda. MDEQ is the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. Some of these files are hosted here, some sit on the pages for earlier essays, and the court filings are on the free court mirror. Read them yourself.
The pages that matter, marked up
Each one outlines the passage the essay relies on, in red, on the page it actually sits on. Tap to open the full image.
The ruling
What the judge decided, and what she didn't.
Judge Brown's opinion and order
NAACP v. X.AI Corp., No. 3:26-cv-74, Doc. 139, 28 pages. Judge Debra M. Brown denies xAI and MZX Tech's motion to dismiss. She reads Mississippi's air rules through the federal definition of a mobile source and holds that the Southaven turbines are "stationary combustion turbines," not mobile sources (page 17). She says MDEQ's letter "is not consistent with Mississippi's SIP" (page 20), that the plant "was not (and is not) exempted from permitting requirements" (page 22), and in a footnote on page 22 that MDEQ changing its position now "would create a fair notice issue." This is a ruling on a motion to dismiss: the court takes the NAACP's facts as true and makes no finding that anyone broke the law.
The ruling (PDF)The same ruling on the free court mirror (PDF)
The rule and the letter
What Mississippi's rule says, and what MDEQ wrote.
Rule 2.13.D, "Mobile sources"
Mississippi's air permit rules, Part 2, Chapter 2, as EPA approved them into the state's federally approved air plan (85 FR 10070, 2020). The NAACP filed this copy in the lawsuit as Exhibit A1 (Doc. 20-3, 42 pages). Rule 2.13.D, on page 33, lists the things that need no permit to construct or operate. Item 3 reads "Mobile sources." That is the whole entry: no definition and no time limit.
MDEQ's letter to xAI's Brent Mayo
MDEQ's one-page letter to xAI. It treats the portable turbines as "mobile," because each one stays "affixed to a portable unit (i.e., a flatbed trailer)," and "temporary," because as MDEQ understood it each one would stay on site "for less than twelve (12) months," and on that basis says they are exempt from permitting requirements.
The State's brief on the companies' side
Filed by Attorney General Lynn Fitch's office as a friend of the court (Doc. 81). Page 13 says MDEQ's decision "does not purport to apply a standalone exemption for ‘temporary’ sources" and cites only the mobile-source rule.
The twelve months
Who keeps track.
MDEQ's written answers to my records request
Answers written item by item by Jaricus Whitlock, chief of MDEQ's Air Division. On tracking the twelve months by unit, by group or by site: "There are no such records for this request item." The answers arrived as the body of an email, so they are set as a document, with MDEQ's wording unaltered.
The September 14th site visit
An email from xAI's consultant to MDEQ, filed in MDEQ's own MZX folder. It says "MDEQ performed a site inspection on September 14, 2026." MDEQ's press office later answered a request for its own record of that visit by saying there are currently no public records responsive to the request, so this email is the only account of the visit in hand.
The industry's own reading
What the turbine companies told EPA.
The COMET petition to EPA
The petition as EPA released it to me on September 17th, 2026, in answer to my records request (2026-EPA-07703). The first two pages are EPA's response letter from an earlier request by the Southern Environmental Law Center. The 44 pages after that are the petition and its attachments. It asks EPA to treat portable turbines like portable engines, and to make that case it says what the rules say today: portable turbines are a "stationary source," they "trigger state stationary source permitting programs" (page 5), and those programs "require preconstruction approval" (page 16). The chair of its steering committee gives his employer as Life Cycle Power (page 17).
What MDEQ said, and what comes next
MDEQ's statement on the ruling
Jan Schaefer, MDEQ's communications director, to Mississippi Today: "MDEQ is not a party to that case and the order is not binding upon the agency. Furthermore, that litigation is ongoing and subject to appeal so it is not final at this point."
The ruling and the hearing
The Mississippi Free Press on the ruling and the Permit Board hearing set for November 9th.
The notice and the agenda for the MZX hearing
MDEQ's meeting notice on its Permit Board page says the Board "will convene on Monday, November 9, 2026, for an evidentiary hearing" on MZX Tech's permit to construct (Air Ref. No. 0680-00119, 2875 Stanton Rd., Southaven), and will continue if necessary after the regular Permit Board meeting on Tuesday, November 10th. The agenda for November 10th lists it as item 7, "Office of Legal - Continuing MZX, LLC Evidentiary Hearing." The agenda is three scanned pages, hosted here because MDEQ's page changes from meeting to meeting.
Back to the essay · the case board
Think I got something wrong? Check the records, then tell me. That's the whole point.