ON-PREM
State and local regulators would decide whether the public gets a say on minor-source permits
Soon, you may not even be able to find out what that new neighborhood bit barn could do to your air quality. A proposed change by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would eliminate federal minimum requirements for public participation in minor-source air permits, a move critics warn could affect some datacenter projects.
The Environmental Protection Network, which is made up of former employees of the EPA itself, says the proposed rule change would eliminate mandatory public notice and comment requirements for so-called minor New Source Review (NSR) industrial air pollution permits in state plans under the Clean Air Act (CAA).
Instead, state and local air quality regulatory authorities would be able to determine whether and to what extent public participation in minor NSR programs is necessary, effectively allowing them to decide whether the public is notified about new sources of pollution or modifications to existing sources.
The EPN, which has submitted formal public comments on the proposed changes, warns that it would leave communities in the dark regarding industrial developments. These could include large-scale, fossil-fueled power generators for AI datacenters that may be permitted as minor or synthetic-minor sources, and therefore avoid more stringent major-source review, it claims.
“By eliminating the long-standing federal requirement for public notice, this proposal continues efforts by the current administration to turn its back on the fundamental EPA principle of transparency,” said Mike Koerber, a former deputy director of EPA’s Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards.
We asked the EPA for comment.
The agency’s current administrator, Lee Zeldin, stated earlier this year that the Trump administration was not going to set national-level environmental rules for the growing datacenter industry. He argued that state and local governments were best equipped to make such decisions, as local conditions like water availability, air quality, and electricity needs differ between regions.
But the EPN says that the current proposal directly contradicts Zeldin’s earlier transparency memorandum, which pledged that “the public must be able to trust our work” and called for “the fullest possible public participation in our decision making.”
Without public review, facilities such as datacenters may be able to avoid major-source controls on pollution altogether, it warns.
The build boom in new server farms to profit from the AI gold rush has often run into difficulties when it comes to getting a connection to the grid. Rather than wait years, many developers or operators opt for on-site power generation, typically supplied by gas-burning turbines. But this can have an effect on local communities, thanks to emissions of smog-generating nitrogen oxides (NOx) and other pollutants.
This comes against a background of rising public opposition to bit barns, with a recent Gallup survey finding that more than 70 percent of Americans would be against the construction of a facility in their neighborhood.
But President Trump has become more vocal in his backing for datacenters. Speaking out about the Texas governor’s decision to pause new grid-connection approvals for datacenter projects, he claimed it would be a mistake to push back on datacenters, saying “taxes are going to go way down because this is a tremendous source of income.” ®
