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U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers
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4 min read
The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed removing a federal requirement for states to publicize certain air-pollution permit applications and provide a 30-day public comment period. The change would cover permits for “minor sources” of pollution, a category that includes data centers, landfills, laundromats and steel mills. States could still seek public feedback or impose stricter standards, but they could also eliminate the comment period because it would no longer be federally required. The proposal could take effect within the next year. The change comes as communities challenge AI data-center projects over their environmental effects. Harvard School of Public Health researchers estimated that a Vantage data center in Loudoun County, Virginia, caused between $53 million and $99 million in annual health damages, the largest estimate for a single facility in the cited analysis. Research by Michael Cork informed public debate before Fluvanna County, Virginia, denied an expansion of a fossil-fuel plant. Attorneys general from 14 states and three cities opposed the proposal, saying that even sources classified as minor can have significant health and environmental effects. Their letter said removing application notices and the 30-day comment period would weaken transparency safeguards while accelerating data-center and AI-infrastructure construction. In Gilroy, California, Amazon began building a data center after a public-comment period that had ended two years earlier, while Festus, Missouri, residents sued their city over time allowed to review a proposed data center.