Don’t Let Big Tech Hide Data Center Pollution

Big Tech is racing to carpet the country with massive data centers — and Trump’s EPA wants to make it easier to operate them with less public scrutiny.

The public-comment period on the EPA’s proposal just closed, and now the agency is deciding whether to make the rollback final. The proposal would eliminate minimum federal public-participation requirements for facilities classified as “minor” pollution sources under the Clean Air Act’s New Source Review program.

That could mean fewer guaranteed chances for communities to learn what is being permitted, challenge pollution plans, or speak out before projects are approved.

This is exactly the kind of rollback Big Tech wants: fewer questions, fewer hearings, fewer people standing in the way. We need to demand Congress fight back before it's too late.

Tell Congress: Stop the EPA from helping Big Tech keep communities in the dark about data center pollution.

Data centers can bring diesel generators, gas turbines, and other sources of air pollution into communities already dealing with dirty air, rising electricity demand, and industrial expansion. Families should not have to discover what a massive new facility could put into their air only after the permits are approved and construction is underway.

The companies behind these projects are some of the richest corporations on Earth. They do not need Washington making it easier to shut the public out.

Without strong federal participation requirements, residents could have less warning and less leverage while corporations move enormous projects through the permitting process.

Congress must act before this rollback becomes final. Committees with authority over the EPA should demand documents, haul Administrator Lee Zeldin to hearings, and make the political cost of weakening these protections impossible to ignore.

The EPA is supposed to protect the public from pollution — not clear the path for billion-dollar tech companies to face less scrutiny.

Add your name before the EPA makes this rollback final. Demand Congress use its oversight power to stop this giveaway and protect communities’ right to know.

The petition to Congress reads:

“Use your oversight power to stop the EPA from weakening public notice and participation requirements for air pollution permits. Communities have a right to know what data centers and other polluting facilities could put into their air.”