{"id":6937,"date":"2026-09-12T14:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T14:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=6937"},"modified":"2026-09-12T14:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T14:43:11","slug":"ai-data-center-pollution-health-epa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=6937","title":{"rendered":"Trump is giving data centers a pass to pollute"},"content":{"rendered":"


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President Donald Trump is weakening environmental regulations in the name of speeding up the construction of AI data centers, raising health risks for Americans, a cadre of former EPA officials said this week in a briefing and new report<\/a>. They are urging \u2014 perhaps futilely \u2014 the president to adopt a \u201cData Center Health Protection Pledge\u201d to signal that the administration is taking the environmental threat seriously.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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At the start of his term, Trump\u2019s EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, proclaimed his goal of making America<\/a> \u201cthe AI capital of the world<\/a>\u201d through deregulation. Since then, Zeldin and the White House have rolled back dozens of rules on top of cutting staff<\/a> and funding<\/a> at the US EPA.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As a result of the Trump administration\u2019s deregulation spree and attacks<\/a> on renewable energy<\/a>, the wave of new AI data centers is increasingly powered by dirty energy that can impact Americans\u2019 health even if they don\u2019t live near a data center, the group of EPA alumni warn. They say that the agency they once worked for, which was created to \u201cprotect human health and the environment<\/a>,\u201d is no longer the watchdog it should be as the physical infrastructure underpinning generative AI changes America\u2019s landscape.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cYou would think that an industry buildout of this magnitude, billed as a revolution, would mean more vigilance from EPA.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cYou would think that an industry buildout of this magnitude, billed as a revolution, would mean more vigilance from EPA,\u201d Lynn Goldman, a pediatrician and a former EPA assistant administrator, said at the briefing. \u201cInstead, EPA is doing just the opposite, thinking first about industry\u2019s needs and weakening or reconsidering limits on toxic chemicals and harmful pollutants.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Goldman and other former EPA employees who are part of an independent organization called the Environmental Protection Network released a report<\/a> this week that identifies 30 different federal actions since January 2025 that they say exacerbate health risks stemming from data center pollution.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That includes executive actions and proposals meant to curtail renewable energy projects<\/a> while softening<\/a> pollution<\/a> regulations<\/a> and exempting<\/a> existing power plants and factories from certain standards. Of the 30 policy changes included in the report, 17 specifically mention AI or target data centers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Trump released an \u201cAI Action Plan<\/a>\u201d in July 2025, recommending \u201cstreamlining or reducing regulations<\/a>\u201d under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Superfund law to expedite permitting for data center projects and chip factories. \u201cWhat the AI plan is really about [is] using unprecedented emergency powers<\/a> to grant massive new exemptions for data centers and specifically fossil fuel infrastructure,\u201d Tyson Slocum, energy program director at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, told The Verge<\/em> at the time<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Trump has essentially laid the policy groundwork for new gas projects<\/a> to power energy-hungry data centers<\/a>, ranging from turbines installed on-site<\/a> to power plants built specifically to serve tech companies<\/a>. Meanwhile, demand for advanced chips needed for generative AI is reviving the production of forever chemicals<\/a> that don\u2019t break down easily and build up in the environment and human bodies. All this new infrastructure can spread pollution far from the data centers they support.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cYou do not need to be near a data center to be affected, because the pollution doesn\u2019t just come from the data centers themselves,\u201c Goldman says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cA more polluting AI buildout is not inevitable. It depends on the choices government makes now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Last year, hundreds of current EPA employees fired off a public letter<\/a> addressed to Zeldin saying, \u201cEPA under your leadership will not protect communities from hazardous chemicals and unsafe drinking water, but instead will increase risks to public health and safety.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The new report cites a study<\/a> from UC Riverside, Caltech, and the Rochester Institute of Technology that found that air pollution associated with AI could lead to up to 1,300 premature deaths and more than $20 billion in public health costs by 2028. The toll could be even larger after factoring in the policy changes outlined in EPN\u2019s report, according to the organization. The US can avoid those losses by restoring clean air and water standards, as well as rebuilding federal agencies\u2019 capacity to enforce those rules, the EPA alumni argue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cA more polluting AI buildout is not inevitable. It depends on the choices government makes now,\u201d Marc Boom, EPN\u2019s senior director of public affairs, said in the briefing. \u201cEPA should be measuring how this buildout is changing pollution, who is being exposed, what it means for their health, and making all of that information public. That is what a Data Center Health Protection Pledge should mean in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Responding to the report in an email to The Verge<\/em>, EPA spokesperson Cora Mandy said, \u201cIn each action EPA has taken, the agency has returned regulations to the best reading [of] the Clean Air Act after years of overreach by previous administrations.\u201d She also reiterated the agency\u2019s commitment to \u201cProtect Human Health and The Environment\u201d while simultaneously prioritizing \u201cMaking America the AI Capital of the World.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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