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Former EPA officials tally 30 federal actions that raise the AI buildout's health cost
The Environmental Protection Network says 17 of those actions name AI or data centers outright, and the remedy it proposes is a voluntary pledge for the White House to sign. The health figures it cites come from academic modelling.
The Product Desk · Product desk
What happened
- The Environmental Protection Network, an independent group of former EPA employees, published a report identifying 30 federal actions taken since January 2025 that it says worsen health risks from data center pollution.
- Seventeen of those 30 policy changes specifically mention AI or target data centers, according to the report.
- The group is urging President Trump to adopt a voluntary "Data Center Health Protection Pledge" as a signal that the administration takes the environmental threat seriously.
- The report cites research from UC Riverside, Caltech and the Rochester Institute of Technology finding that AI-associated air pollution could lead to up to 1,300 premature deaths and more than $20 billion in public health costs by 2028.
- Trump's July 2025 AI Action Plan recommended streamlining or reducing regulations under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Superfund law to expedite permitting for data centers and chip factories.
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Why it matters
- cost The only dollar figure anyone has attached to the buildout is a public health estimate, paid by residents and insurers, while the permitting relief goes to the builder.
- exposure Because the pollution comes from generation and chip supply rather than the building itself, the people carrying the risk are frequently outside the county whose hearing decides the project.
- constraint The pledge is voluntary and addressed to the White House. A siting team still has to answer the community group that asks who is accountable for the power source.
- decision Operators choosing sites now weigh accepting emergency-powers exemptions against having to defend their power sourcing at a later hearing, after the exemption has expired and while the plant is still running.
Lynn Goldman, a pediatrician and former EPA assistant administrator, put the geography of the problem plainly at the group's briefing [9]. "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," she said [8].
The emitting asset and the permitted asset are usually different assets. The Verge reports that Trump has laid the policy groundwork for new gas projects to power data centers, including turbines installed on site and power plants built specifically to serve tech companies [6]. Demand for the advanced chips inside those buildings is also reviving production of forever chemicals that do not break down easily and build up in human bodies [7]. All of that new infrastructure can spread pollution far from the data centers it supports [18].
A majority of the list points at this industry by name: 17 of 30 is 57 percent [1]. The other 13 [2] are broader measures, including executive actions and proposals to curtail renewable energy projects, soften pollution regulations, and exempt existing power plants and factories from certain standards [14].
The pledge the group wants is voluntary, and the signature it wants belongs to the president. Lee Zeldin, Trump's EPA administrator, opened the term by proclaiming a goal of making America "the AI capital of the world" through deregulation [11]. Zeldin and the White House have since rolled back dozens of rules and cut staff and funding at the agency [12]. "You would think that an industry buildout of this magnitude, billed as a revolution, would mean more vigilance from EPA," Goldman said at the briefing [10]. Hundreds of current EPA employees told Zeldin much the same thing in a public letter: "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" [16].
The count of federal actions is the group's own work. The health figures it quotes are academic modelling with a 2028 horizon, and the organization says the toll could be even larger once the policy changes on its list are factored in [15]. Tyson Slocum, energy program director at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, told The Verge that the AI plan is really about "using unprecedented emergency powers to grant massive new exemptions for data centers and specifically fossil fuel infrastructure" [13].
So for whoever is choosing a site and a power contract, the report comes down to two variables. One is whether the load runs on the existing grid mix or on new fossil generation built to serve it. The other is whether the people downwind of that generation live in the jurisdiction that grants the permit. Where the answer is new generation and the downwind population lives somewhere else, the project's health cost sits with people who have no vote at the hearing, and a faster federal permit leaves it with them.
What to watch
- Any response from the White House or Zeldin's EPA to the pledge request.
- Whether the AI Action Plan's Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Superfund recommendations become finalised rules or project-specific exemptions.
- Whether any hyperscaler adopts the health protection language in its own siting and power-sourcing commitments.