EPA plans to drop public review of air permits for data centers and power plants

The US Environmental Protection Agency is moving to scrap a federal requirement that states notify residents and accept public comments before approving air-pollution permits for industrial facilities. According to Capital B, which reported the plan, the change would cover the data centers rising across the country for AI workloads, along with the power plants built to feed their electricity demand. The agency has separately proposed letting developers start building data centers before their permits are approved, and it is expected to finalize the package within the next year.

What the agency wants to change

Under existing rules, states must give residents notice and an opportunity to object before air permits are signed. The EPA's proposal would leave that choice to lower levels of government. In a statement, the agency said it would "provide the state and local agencies most familiar with local issues the discretion to determine whether, when, and for how long to provide opportunities for public participation."

The agency framed the changes as a way to "responsibly speed up permitting, supporting American economic development and energy dominance." EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said last year that making the United States "the artificial intelligence capital of the world" is now a top agency priority — a striking mission for the regulator created in 1970 to protect the environment and public health.

Where the impact lands

Capital B reports that the rural South, home to a disproportionate share of Black communities, has absorbed the largest wave of new data center construction. Residents there told the outlet the changes could worsen health risks, drive up utility bills and accelerate displacement.

The health concerns trace back to electricity generation. Data centers increase demand for gas-fired plants and turbines that emit smog-forming nitrogen oxides, fine particulate matter and, in some cases, formaldehyde, a hazardous air pollutant linked to several cancers. New utility infrastructure costs are frequently passed to ratepayers, and Black households already face a higher average energy burden; the report links rising bills and power shutoffs to data center growth.

Paul Black, an activist organizing against a data center complex in rural South Carolina that he describes as spanning the equivalent of 1,200 football fields, said the project surfaced in his community, which is 40% Black, only after developers failed to site a similar campus in a predominantly white Georgia county. "They want to come in in the dark of the night to build a data center," he told Capital B.

South Carolina's state government has acted on its own, passing a measure that lets power plants for data centers be constructed without review or approval from the state's regulatory commission.

Secrecy around siting

The reporting also documents how little visibility communities currently have. Local governments have signed nondisclosure agreements with tech companies to conceal projects and, in some instances, overruled legal orders to keep information from coming out. Davante Lewis, a Louisiana public service commissioner, was the only member of his commission to vote in favor of releasing electricity-use data tied to what Capital B describes as the country's largest data center, now under construction in rural Louisiana.

Near another Meta site billed as the nation's largest data center, a local mayor told the outlet that prices had doubled and families were evicted from trailer parks to house better-paid construction workers. Median home and rental prices in the surrounding area rose 80% in a single year.

The pushback

Nearly 200 advocacy groups and more than a dozen states, led by both Democrats and Republicans, have opposed the federal changes. Brandon Jones-Cobb, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, criticized the move as cruel toward communities that "bear the brunt of unhealthy air."

Polling cited by Capital B suggests the policy runs against public sentiment: roughly seven in 10 Americans oppose building AI data centers in or near their own communities.

Why it matters

Air permits and public comment periods are among the few formal checkpoints between a proposed AI campus and a finished one. Removing the federal floor for public participation would shorten the path from siting to construction for data centers and the generation built to power them, directly affecting the pace of AI infrastructure buildout across the US. For residents, the change eliminates what is often the only guaranteed chance to learn a project is coming, question its emissions, or contest its costs before shovels hit the ground — a loss felt most in rural areas where local officials have already shown willingness to keep projects hidden. The EPA is expected to finalize the proposal within the coming year, and the outcome will help determine who gets a voice in one of the largest industrial construction waves in recent American history.