AI data centres in the United States are being built under weakened environmental regulations, raising health risks across the country, according to a group of former Environmental Protection Agency officials who spoke at a briefing this week and released an accompanying report.
The former officials are calling on President Donald Trump to adopt a proposed “Data Center Health Protection Pledge”, intended to signal that the administration is treating the environmental threat seriously. At the start of his term, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin set out a goal of making America “the AI capital of the world” through deregulation. Since then, Zeldin and the White House have rolled back dozens of rules while cutting staff and funding at the US EPA.
Deregulation and health concerns
The former officials warn that the wave of new data centres is increasingly powered by dirty energy that can affect health even for people who do not live nearby. They argue that the agency, created to “protect human health and the environment”, is no longer acting as the watchdog it should be as the physical infrastructure behind generative AI reshapes the American landscape.
“You would think that an industry buildout of this magnitude, billed as a revolution, would mean more vigilance from EPA,” said Lynn Goldman, a paediatrician and former EPA assistant administrator. “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, part of an independent organisation called the Environmental Protection Network, released a report this week identifying 30 federal actions taken since January 2025 that they say exacerbate health risks linked to data centre pollution. These include executive actions and proposals to curtail renewable energy projects while softening pollution rules and exempting existing power plants and factories from certain standards. Of the 30 policy changes, 17 specifically mention AI or target data centres.
Fossil fuels and forever chemicals
Trump released an AI Action Plan in July 2025, recommending “streamlining or reducing regulations” under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Superfund law to speed up permitting for data centre projects and chip factories. Tyson Slocum, energy programme director at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, described the plan as using emergency powers to grant new exemptions for data centres and fossil fuel infrastructure.
The policy groundwork now supports new gas projects to power energy-hungry data centres, ranging from turbines installed on-site to power plants built specifically to serve technology companies. At the same time, demand for the advanced chips needed for generative AI is reviving production of forever chemicals that do not break down easily and accumulate in the environment and in human bodies.
All of this new infrastructure can spread pollution far beyond the sites it supports, meaning people do not need to live near a data centre to be affected.
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Image: theverge.com
