Trump is giving data centers a pass to pollute

The Environmental Protection Network, an independent group of former EPA officials, released a report this week identifying 30 federal actions since January 2025 that it says worsen health risks from AI data center pollution, with 17 of those actions specifically mentioning AI or targeting data centers. Former EPA assistant administrator Lynn Goldman said at a briefing that "EPA is doing just the opposite, thinking first about industry's needs and weakening or reconsidering limits on toxic chemicals and harmful pollutants," and the group urged President Donald Trump to adopt a "Data Center Health Protection Pledge." The report points to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin's deregulation push to make America "the AI capital of the world," alongside staff and funding cuts at the EPA, as driving new data centers toward dirty energy.

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 https://www.environmentalprotectionnetwork.org/new-report-ai-data-center-boom-poses-growing-health-risks-as-epa-other-federal-agencies-weaken-protections-against-harmful-pollution/ . They are urging — perhaps futilely — the president to adopt a “Data Center Health Protection Pledge” to signal that the administration is taking the environmental threat seriously. Trump is giving data centers a pass to pollute The Trump administration is sacrificing Americans’ health to build data centers, former EPA officials warn. , a podcast from Vox Media and Audible Originals. https://www.audible.com/podcast/Hell-or-High-Water-When-Disaster-Hits-Home/B0C15QVQLM Hell or High Water: When Disaster Hits Home At the start of his term, Trump’s EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, proclaimed his goal of making America /2024/11/12/24294483/donald-trump-ai-data-center-epa-lee-zeldin “ the AI capital of the world https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/icymi-administrator-zeldin-fox-news-trumps-epa-clearing-regulatory-path-america ” through deregulation. Since then, Zeldin and the White House have rolled back dozens of rules on top of cutting staff https://www.environmentalprotectionnetwork.org/epa-facts staffing-sheet/ and funding https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/trump-seeks-deep-cuts-to-epa-budget-for-second-year-in-a-row at the US EPA. As a result of the Trump administration’s deregulation spree and attacks https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty scholarship/4735/ on renewable energy /news/696047/senate-republican-spending-bill-passage-renewable-wind-solar-energy , the wave of new AI data centers is increasingly powered by dirty energy that can impact Americans’ health even if they don’t live near a data center, the group of EPA alumni warn. They say that the agency they once worked for, which was created to “ protect human health and the environment https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/our-mission-and-what-we-do ,” is no longer the watchdog it should be as the physical infrastructure underpinning generative AI changes America’s landscape. “You would think that an industry buildout of this magnitude, billed as a revolution, would mean more vigilance from EPA.” “You would think that an industry buildout of this magnitude, billed as a revolution, would mean more vigilance from EPA,” Lynn Goldman, a pediatrician and a former EPA assistant administrator, said at the briefing. “Instead, EPA is doing just the opposite, thinking first about industry’s needs and weakening or reconsidering limits on toxic chemicals and harmful pollutants.” Goldman and other former EPA employees who are part of an independent organization called the Environmental Protection Network released a report https://www.environmentalprotectionnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Hidden-Health-Costs-of-AI-Data-Centers.pdf this week that identifies 30 different federal actions since January 2025 that they say exacerbate health risks stemming from data center pollution. That includes executive actions and proposals meant to curtail renewable energy projects /climate-change/712038/ai-energy-trump-epa-gas-coal-emissions while softening https://policyintegrity.org/tracking-regulatory-rollbacks pollution https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/tracker-type/regulatory-tracker/ regulations /science/877371/trump-carbon-pollution-endangerment-finding-repeal-climate-change and exempting https://apnews.com/article/trump-coal-epa-clean-air-exemption-mercury-7b800db8d6cf6fffbee28039f42d2daf 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. Trump released an “ AI Action Plan /policy/713788/trump-ai-action-plan-explainer ” in July 2025, recommending “ streamlining or reducing regulations https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf ” under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Superfund law to expedite permitting for data center projects and chip factories. “What the AI plan is really about is using unprecedented emergency powers /2025/1/20/24347870/trump-executive-order-fossil-fuels-environment to grant massive new exemptions for data centers and specifically fossil fuel infrastructure,” Tyson Slocum, energy program director at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, told The Verge at the time /climate-change/714900/trump-ai-plan-executive-order-handout-gas-coal-chemical-companies . Trump has essentially laid the policy groundwork for new gas projects https://www.wired.com/story/us-data-centers-drive-gas-power-expansion/ to power energy-hungry data centers /news/870422/data-center-ai-gas-power-surge , ranging from turbines installed on-site https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/pollution-musks-unpermitted-xai-power-project-hits-hardest-black-communities-2026-07-14/ to power plants built specifically to serve tech companies /science/876555/meta-data-center-winter-power-outages-storm-ice . Meanwhile, demand for advanced chips needed for generative AI is reviving the production of forever chemicals /the-stepback-newsletter/772845/computer-chips-forever-chemicals that don’t 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. “You do not need to be near a data center to be affected, because the pollution doesn’t just come from the data centers themselves,“ Goldman says. “A more polluting AI buildout is not inevitable. It depends on the choices government makes now.” Last year, hundreds of current EPA employees fired off a public letter https://www.standupforscience.net/epa-declaration addressed to Zeldin saying, “EPA under your leadership will not protect communities from hazardous chemicals and unsafe drinking water, but instead will increase risks to public health and safety.” The new report cites a study https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.06288 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’s report, according to the organization. The US can avoid those losses by restoring clean air and water standards, as well as rebuilding federal agencies’ capacity to enforce those rules, the EPA alumni argue. “A more polluting AI buildout is not inevitable. It depends on the choices government makes now,” Marc Boom, EPN’s senior director of public affairs, said in the briefing. “EPA 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.” Responding to the report in an email to The Verge , EPA spokesperson Cora Mandy said, “In 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.” She also reiterated the agency’s commitment to “Protect Human Health and The Environment” while simultaneously prioritizing “Making America the AI Capital of the World.” Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.