longer.blue

“ The Trump EPA has proposed a new rule that would kill the requirement for datacenters to publicly disclose the air pollution they release, letting emission permits get issued behind closed doors instead. Datacenters are often sources of nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and heavy metals, and while the Clean Air Act currently requires “minor” polluters to disclose expected pollution levels to the public through state agencies, the new rule would make that disclosure voluntary and left to state and local officials’ discretion. Former EPA air office official Joe Goffman said the move guts what he called an “ironclad promise” of public transparency, warning most states, many of which actively court datacenter investment, are unlikely to require disclosure voluntarily, leaving communities in the dark about what they’re breathing and weaker in court or public fights. Big tech companies already split datacenter permit requests into individual pieces per generator or turbine specifically to stay under the less scrutinized “minor” review process rather than face costlier federal review, and advocates say this rule would strip away the last real transparency in that already legally shaky practice. The EPA says the change is meant to cut red tape and speed up permitting to support “American economic development and energy dominance,” but critics including a former deputy director of the EPA’s air quality office call it part of a broader pattern of the administration abandoning transparency as a core EPA principle.”. Via Aaron Parnas, this AM