This is bad news for everyone (well, except the high priests of the LLMs / nascent Cthulhoid godlings), but it certainly makes the communities who've successfully opposed data centers seem ever more justified in retrospect.

The EPA hasn’t been able to regulate anything since it’s been gutted by the current administration. Of course it’s going to scrap rules. We’re not even allowed to measure the effects of climate change.

That's in line with the EPA's new mission of ensuring environmental degradation.

I can’t believe we’re seeing so much bad news coming from EPA. Why all this backtracking from an agency that used to be so effective and well organized? Well, I guess we know the reason.

I wonder if you could open any type of business as a datacenter now, to avoid the review.

These changes will last exactly as long as this administration, so it would be a pretty foolish business that makes long term investment decisions based on this announcement.

ftfa "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."

so give local government the controls, that doesn't seem so bad. As for the next line in the article saying people are losing faith in their local government i don't buy that a bit. Local government and elections are where your vote and voice are loudest. The most faith lost seems to be at the federal level.

Triggering articles like this are usually not so alarming if you take the time to read them and fish out the details. They're made for social media distribution and engagement from the headline alone.

public forums should be for exchanging ideas and not a place to virtue signal whatever fad Nextdoor/Facebook emotional bait normies are feeding each other via brain rot feeds.

the public essentially has little interest in preventing human extinction. And tons of interest in preventing data centers under false arguments and performative displays.

What is the point of empowering the public when they are not curious but rather emotional children.

Basically, to empower the public now means, how to bastardize your arguments into an emotional narrative that is palatable to the commoners but probably misses all relevant arguments.

Like if you think x-risk is real, and datacenters are benign/reasonable/can-be-done-in-net-local-positive-way - then you are incentivized to pretend like datacenter are bad because peasants will not entertain your x risk calculus.

It's a herding/shepherding game where the only people willing to play are compromised.

Antis are running out of time to stop what they wish to stop without resorting to destructive methods (bold and extreme action is already necessary).

Pros are running out of time to square their ambitions with a public that's about to go from needing a leg up to a public that wants their heads.

Probably an oversimplified question but how do we actually stop this?

https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-proposes-streamline-sta...

Public comment is bad. It gives people with time to comment far more power than those who can't. It's one of the major reasons we can't building housing or high speed rail.

There is a huge business opportunity to become the world leader in sustainable data center design. Whoever wins could one day have immense influence over every single data center in the world (or even out of this world, where efficient resource utilization would likely be essential). It’s disappointing to see the United States miss out: US companies and research institutions would actually be extremely competitive in this field with the right government incentives.

Executive Protection Agency

The US is in a new cold war. It's clear that the government has determined that who owns AI will be leaders in this century and they will do whatever is necessary to accomplish that - I mean in the 50s into the 90s we nuked our own soil - I don't know what we expect here.

which reality show host is running the EPA now?

The administration is way behind the curve on this one. Data center opposition is one of the rare areas that has bipartisan support.

This article seems incredibly biased. Is there a more balanced report of what is actually occurring?

So much for no taxation without representation.

I love this line:

>Last year, Lee Zeldin, who runs the EPA, said it was now the agency’s top priority to “make the United States the artificial intelligence capital of the world.” The 56-year-old agency was established in 1970 to protect the environment and public health.

lol, reminds me of those videos where a host will say one thing and then the cameraman pans to reveal the lie

Of course it is. The datacenters are running personalized cops, they will get their cut for sure. This is how we will transition to the new Slave Age.

This just simply removes the last vestiges of the old Republic, and leads the way to the common deployment of Chinese designed AI reactors, which while designed by AI, are really for the burning of the sky in preparation of a Matrix future. It has been foretold: It is the way.

Just in time for midterms.

It’s strange because on one hand, people don’t want to live near data centers, but on the other: the rampant use of AI signals people really *do* want data centers.

The proposal to put data centers in space doesn’t seem too far fetched.

Funnily enough this probably the most safetyist thing the administration could do at the moment, since this will certainly autocatalyze more opposition to DC construction in a bunch of states and probably accelerate the state-level moratoriums. A big thank you to the White House for taking AI pause as such an urgent priority.

When you can't tell if it's profit motive or the AGI has already taken over.

The crazy part is that everybody in the US calls this "data center pollution". Over here in Frankfurt/Germany, we have data centers in the middle of the city, right next to residential housing. You don't smell anything, you do not hear anything.

A data center can simply put the heat pumps onto the roof or in the backyard pointing away from housing. Humans have developed noise protection systems for ages. All this stuff is available.

This is just end-stage capitalism giving a sh*t about humans, burning fossil fuels without any filters of any kind next to kids playing outside like it's the year 1920.

So plan for a heavy crack down or a severe rule change after this probably short-lived partisan deregulatory action?

And a return to voluntary membership in the Paris Agreement?

This doesn't scrap public review. It scraps federal mandates requiring public review. The states can decide for themselves if a public review is required. This is a good thing. As the ability for highly motivated activist groups to veto projects is a major strategic impediment for the economic expansion of the United States.

Well, that's not gonna happen, under the administrative procedures act they'll have to open it up for public comment, which opens it up for lawsuits.

"for the next 800 days" (this is what I say in my head everytime I read a horrible headline)

but of course a lot of permanent damage can be set in motion in that time

Goddamnit this is the worst possible administration to have while we’re having this massive buildup of data centers. Any reasonable government would have done what Massachusetts did and stipulated that you can build a data center, but it needs to be powered by renewable energy so build out your own energy sources, which would have been a win-win for everyone but instead we get this. Also, if the Democrats were in power, I hope they wouldn’t succumb to a minority in their base and just ban data centers and completely take us out of the race.

Trump and co have done so many awful things that I forgot about their gutting of the EPA. There is no punishment fitting for him and the idiots who voted for him. A significant amount seem to prowl around HN I'll add. They can read and write but can't think apparently.

I'm pro-information and believe generally that anti-data-center activists are chasing a Glonzo on par with anti-5G electrosensitives. That said given the tide of opinion I'm overjoyed that Trump and his allies want to step into the fusilade to defend the unpopular.

Trump really works for billionaires only. 33% of the public in the USA still do not understand this.

I'm sure this will stop all the public opposition to data centers! /s

This type of thing will just enrage the opposition more, give them far more fuel, and attract far more people into opposing data centers.

The ruling regime is used to controlling a subservient political group that always, 100% falls in line to marching orders. Now that they control the entire country, they either need to have oppressed tho populace enough that all objection gets arrested or is subject to immediate political violence. But that's not going to be possible with how unpopular they have made themselves.

The nonsense about 'using all the water' and datacenter protests has to be a Chinese psyop. It's so fantastically stupid to protest someone taking an empty field and paying local taxes on it and employing dozens of highly paid people in the middle of nowhere. There's literally no downside. There is effectively no pollution. There are jobs for every level of education, from security guard to the people installing hardware. There's no toxic runoff, no danger of a chemical explosion, and no carcinogens being dumped. This is the only rural industry you can say that about.

Water is a renewable resource. I know you folks in California can't comprehend this, but in the parts of the country where it actually makes sense for humans to live water just falls from the sky multiple times per week. We get so much water the problem is making sure we get rid of it safely, we don't have to fight over who has the most senior claim to it or decide whether we want to have endangered species or almonds more. Our streams don't run dry 4/5 of the year. We don't have to check about water restrictions when we water our lawns because there are never water restrictions and we never have to water our lawns.

There are entire areas miles across in this country where if you drive through it you might throw up from the smell. The ponds full of animal feces make the air un-breathable. Where is the protest over that? You realize that this literally does ruin ground water and poisons surface water? Where are the people coming out to say they have to live 4 miles from oceans of pig feces and when the wind blows their way they can't go outside? Yet the media is able to find the 4 people on earth that want to say a building full of computers is 'loud' and that computers use lots of water? When was the last time you filled the water tank on your computer? Yet people are very quick to believe that somehow a warehouse with a bunch of computers in it somehow destroys water?

When did datacenters start using up all the water? Nobody seemed to worry about this until the US and China were fighting for AI dominance, then suddenly datacenters use water and are so loud people go insane from them. What is the first time someone mentioned datacenters using water and causing pollution?

It's absolute group psychosis. Are you actually so dumb that you don't notice that a thing that has been around for 50 years suddenly is a threat to our survival? Were you born yesterday so you don't remember 2 years ago when nobody had ever realized the existential threat of building datacenters in America? Why didn't anyone notice that datacenters were pumping the wells dry in 2021? Maybe they weren't and still arent...

This is really bad news. Here's a good look at what infrasound is doing to humans near datacenters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bP80DEAbuo

Perhaps the next administration will drop a few cluster bombs on some hyperscaler data centers. The air force needs targets to practice on, after all. Then throughout the land there will be much rejoicing and feelings of justice done, as trillions of dollars of GPUs go up in smoke.

First of all, what is datacenter pollution?

Second, why is the article trying so hard to make datacenters out as racist?

Good. Public review is nonsensical anyway. The public always “wants everything in one bag but the bag shouldn’t be heavy”. Elected representatives, and a set of rules with enforcement are a far better system than discretionary review.

We can’t have everyone extracting rent from all productive pursuits. If the public has their way they’d prefer to have the right to vote on who gets to be their neighbor.