Trump is giving data centers a pass to pollute

<figure> <img alt="Photo collage of a data center." data-caption="" data-portal-copyright="Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images" data-has-syndication-rights="1" src="https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/STKS528_DATA_CENTERS_D.jpg?quality=90&#038;strip=all&#038;crop=0,0,100,100" /> <figcaption> </figcaption> </figure> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">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 <a href="https://www.environmentalprotectionnetwork.org/new-report-ai-data-center-boom-poses-growing-health-risks-as-epa-other-federal-agencies-weaken-protections-against-harmful-pollution/">report</a>. 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. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">At the start of his term, Trump's EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/12/24294483/donald-trump-ai-data-center-epa-lee-zeldin">proclaimed his goal of making America</a> "<a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/icymi-administrator-zeldin-fox-news-trumps-epa-clearing-regulatory-path-america">the AI capital of the world</a>" through deregulation. Since then, Zeldin and the White House have rolled back dozens of rules …</p> <p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/994112/ai-data-center-pollution-health-epa">Read the full story at The Verge.</a></p>