Is the Government Trying to Muzzle Americans Who Oppose Data Centers?
On July 18, Americans are expected to turn out for a nationwide protest against data centers. A group called Humans First is organizing the events. As this protest is being planned, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) appears to be trying to weasel through a rule that may quash the public comment requirements for AI data centers.
EPA Weasel Talk
The EPA is couching this scheme in bureaucratic gobbledygook, describing the proposal this way:
The [EPA] is proposing to revise the public participation regulatory requirements for sources subject to Clean Air Act (CAA) New Source Review (NSR) programs approved into State Implementation Plans (SIPs). Specifically, the EPA is proposing to recognize in regulation that State and local air quality regulatory authorities (“air agencies”) determine, pursuant to the CAA, whether, when, and to what extent public participation in minor NSR programs is necessary to assure the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) are achieved.
The greenies at the Sierra Club offered this translation of the EPA’s weasel talk:
The [EPA] proposed cutting the American public out of air pollution permits for “minor sources”, which includes the tractor trailer-sized diesel generators used by data centers. EPA’s proposal removes any requirement for transparency or public participation for “minor source” pollution sources, including most data centers.
A public hearing on this rule is scheduled for July 22.
Bipartisan Public Resistance
The EPA’s plan is almost assuredly a response to the growing resistance to AI data centers. The U.S. is more bullish on AI data centers than any other country — by far. We have more than 4,000 of them, and that number is growing. While advocates frame the breakneck mission to stand up a data center in seemingly every community and neighborhood as some sort of neck-in-neck arms race with China, the reality is that America has eight times more data centers than the runner-up nations (which do not include China). The United States is also way ahead in computing power, as we covered in a previous report, so this explanation is not very convincing.
The pushback against data centers is apolitical. Red and blue communities are enraged. And nothing scares the Machine more than when people cross political lines to resist an agenda that benefits the elites and injures the people.
Data centers are spiking utility bills, draining communities of precious water resources (in the West, water was already an issue), and causing mental distress from the constant noise they emit. On the flipside, they bring in tax revenue, which is irresistible to poorer communities, and a small number of high-paying jobs.
As far as the U.S. government is concerned, data centers put America ahead in the modern arms race. But what they really do is boost the surveillance and manipulation capacity of the emerging technocratic order.