Data Centers for AI Get a Pollution Break — Former EPA Officials Sound the Alarm

The Trump administration is loosening environmental regulation to accelerate the construction of data centers for artificial intelligence, and in doing so is raising public health risks. That warning was issued this week by a group of former staff of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who published a report to that effect.

The former officials, who have banded together into the independent organization Environmental Protection Network, are urging the president to adopt a “Data Center Health Protection Pledge” — an appeal the authors themselves call likely hopeless.

A course toward deregulation

Early in his term, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin declared it a goal to make the U.S. the “AI capital of the world” by lifting restrictions. Since then, critics say, the agency has scrapped dozens of rules while simultaneously cutting staff and funding. Pediatrician and former EPA deputy administrator Lynn Goldman noted the irony of the situation: from a massive industrial build-out billed as a revolution, one would logically expect tighter oversight — instead, the agency’s first instinct is to think about the industry’s needs and to ease standards on toxic substances.

The report lists 30 federal measures adopted since January 2025 that, in the authors’ view, worsen pollution from data centers. Of these, 17 explicitly mention AI or target data centers. They range from restricting renewable energy projects to granting relief for existing power plants and factories.

Dirty energy and “forever chemicals”

The “AI Action Plan,” released in July 2025, recommends streamlining standards under the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the pollution-cleanup law (Superfund) in order to speed up permitting for data centers and chip factories. In effect, this clears the way for new gas projects — from turbines right on-site to power plants built to serve tech companies’ needs.

At the same time, the growing demand for advanced chips is reviving production of “forever chemicals,” which barely break down and accumulate in nature and in the human body. As Goldman stresses, you don’t have to live near a data center to be harmed: the pollution spreads far beyond its boundaries.

The report cites research from the University of California, Riverside, Caltech, and the Rochester Institute of Technology: AI-related air pollution could lead to 1,300 premature deaths and more than $20 billion in health care costs by 2028. Factoring in the new policy decisions, the figures could turn out to be higher.

The EPA rejects the report. Agency spokesperson Cora Mundy said that every action the agency takes merely returns regulation to the “most correct reading” of the Clean Air Act after “years of overreach” by previous administrations, and that the EPA is both protecting people’s health and striving to make the U.S. the “AI capital of the world.”

Source: The Verge