Under Zeldin’s leadership and Musk’s influence, an unlikely federal agency has become a key enabler of AI data centers.
Since his nomination, Lee Zeldin, the head of Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, has been clear about his unprecedented intentions: supporting the artificial intelligence industry.
One of the core pillars of Zeldin’s “Powering the Great American Comeback” initiative is making the United States the AI capital of the world. The EPA’s proposed budget for 2027 calls for a 52 percent cut, but requests $202.2 million to “support the United States becoming the global leader in AI.” The budget document also anticipates the EPA “encouraging internal expansion of AI,” including using AI for pesticide evaluations and the federal permitting process, while collaborating with “external industry partners” on powering AI data centers.
At this point, it should be mentioned that the EPA’s mission, still (surprisingly) on its website, is to “protect human health and the environment.” How making America the AI capital of the world furthers this goal is unclear. Yet before our eyes, the environmental agency has been transformed into an eager yes-man for an industry with both antisocial implications and a pollution problem. While it’s hard to tell how deeply AI has been embedded in the EPA’s workflow, the agency’s deregulatory actions to benefit the data center expansion are very real.
This article was originally published in The American Prospect. Continue reading (paywall-free) on the original site.