A group representing more than 800 former employees of the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday sounded the alarm over the health consequences of data centers. It warned that Trump administration policies to weaken pollution safeguards and speed up approvals of the facilities threatened to exacerbate those health harms.
In a report released Thursday, the nonprofit Environmental Protection Network examined pollution from power plants, gas turbines and diesel generators needed to meet data centers’ surging electricity demand. And it listed 30 federal actions taken by the Trump administration that it warned would increase pollution-related health risks as more data centers open across the country.
The report builds on modeling from academic researchers that projects that air pollution from data centers could contribute to roughly 600,000 asthma symptom cases, 1,300 premature deaths and more than $20 billion in annual public health costs by 2028. But the former E.P.A. employees note that these estimates do not account for the rollback of environmental regulations under the Trump administration, which could further increase emissions and health risks.
“What concerns me now is the role E.P.A. and other government agencies are playing and proudly touting: weakening the very safeguards designed to protect people from the pollution in the name of helping tech and power companies accelerate these data center build outs,” said Dr. Lynn Goldman, a pediatrician and former E.P.A. assistant administrator and a member of the group.
“These are decisions that can affect what Americans breathe, what gets into our water and, ultimately, what can make its way into our soil and food supply,” said Dr. Goldman, who is now dean emerita of the Milken School of Public Health at George Washington University.
The E.P.A. did not respond to a request for comment.
Data centers are the target of a national, bipartisan backlash. Much of the debate has focused on worries about a quickly changing economy and the loss of jobs to machines, along with noise, energy costs and water use.
But concerns about air pollution from the gas-burning plants to power the centers are drawing more attention.
More than 1,300 data centers already operate in the United States, and more than 2,000 more are planned, according to Cleanview, a market intelligence company that tracks U.S. power infrastructure and data center development. Still, polling shows the majority of Americans oppose data centers in their communities, elevating the issue to one that could affect November’s midterm elections.
President Trump has held steadfast in his support of A.I. Last week, the president lashed out at communities that are protesting data centers.
“The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor,” Mr. Trump posted on his Truth Social site. “If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign.”
Mr. Trump has acknowledged, however, that families should not have to bear higher electricity bills and his ratepayer protection pledge seeks to prevent A.I. data centers from driving up electricity costs for millions of Americans.
The former E.P.A. employees argue that protecting families from pollution, illness and medical costs warrants the same urgency.
“If the administration has already said that families shouldn’t have to bear higher costs of electricity because of the A.I. boom, we think the same principle should apply to health,” said Marc Boom, a former senior adviser in the E.P.A.’s policy office.
Under President Trump, the E.P.A. has made establishing the United States as the “A.I. capital of the world” a central goal. It has made it easier for data centers to run certain kinds of emergency generators that burn diesel fuel and emit soot, nitrogen oxides and other harmful air pollution. It has proposed a sweeping rule change that would let developers start building data centers and power plants before their air pollution permits are approved. And it has exempted off-grid gas plants that supply data centers from federal limits on pollution that causes acid rain.
To make more electricity available, the E.P.A. has eased restart rules for long-idled coal and gas-burning power plants, proposed the repeal of power-plant carbon standards, and is moving to make it harder for communities to weigh in on proposed data centers through public comment. At the same time, it has throttled clean energy wind and solar projects.
The former E.P.A. employees group also points to a mismatch between the scale of the A.I. build out and the E.P.A.’s capacity to oversee it. With staffing levels at their lowest in four decades, the E.P.A. lacks the personnel and resources to monitor pollution and enforce limits, said Larry Starfield, a former principal deputy assistant administrator in the E.P.A.’s Office of Enforcement. “They’ve got fewer inspectors to go out there,” Mr. Starfield said. “They’re conducting quick and simple inspections. That’s not going to be effective for data centers.”
Shaolei Ren is a professor of electrical and computer engineering who studies A.I. and society at the University of California, Riverside, and led the analysis used by the Environmental Protection Network. He said because of the Trump administration’s explicit focus on increasing the use of fossil fuels, “the actual impact could be worse than we modeled.”
To protect public health, he said, there also needed to be a focus beyond tech companies’ emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases, to air pollution that harms local communities.
“Tech companies report their energy use, their carbon emissions, but there’s no mention of local air pollution,” he said. And while tech companies often offset their greenhouse gas emissions with investments in clean energy, he said, it was trickier to offset local health risks.
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