Trump gives data centers a pass to pollute, weakening the EPA in drive for AI supremacy

The U.S. administration is pushing accelerated construction of AI data centers at the expense of environmental regulations, exposing the public to air and water pollution that reaches far beyond the sites themselves. That is the conclusion of a new report from the Environmental Protection Network, an independent group of former EPA staff, which warns that the agency created to protect public health has ceased to function as a watchdog.

Thirty federal actions since January 2025 worsen health risks from data-center pollution, the report says. Seventeen of those steps explicitly mention AI or target computing infrastructure directly. They include executive orders and policy proposals meant to roll back renewable-energy projects, relax pollution standards, and exempt existing power plants and factories from certain standards.

In July 2025 the White House released an "AI Action Plan" that recommends "streamlining or reducing regulation" under the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Superfund law to speed permits for data centers and chip factories. Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at the consumer group Public Citizen, told The Verge at the time that the plan effectively seeks to use unprecedented emergency powers to grant mass exemptions to data centers and fossil-fuel infrastructure.

The policy lays the groundwork for new gas projects to feed power-hungry data centers, from on-site