Big Tech Asked for Looser Clean Water Act Permitting. Trump Wants to Give It to Them
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Summary
Environmental lawyers have expressed concerns that new US government proposals aimed at speeding up the launch of AI data centres could lead to a diminution of regulatory oversight.
Last week, US president Donald Trump signed an executive order that recommended sweetheart deals for data centre construction that included rolling back some restrictions of the Clean Water Act; the order follows a letter submitted in March by the Data Center Coalition (DCC) to the Office of Science and Technology, which called for similar reductions in water regulations.
“There’s much reduced regulatory review to kind of literally speed along the paving of wetlands,” attorney Hannah Connor warned.
As part of the order, the White House also recommended exempting data centres from pre-construction notification, a move also proposed by DCC.
