More than 800 former Environmental Protection Agency employees are warning that rapidly expanding AI data centers could increase air pollution and associated health risks as demand for electricity from power plants, gas turbines and diesel generators rises.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
More than 800 former Environmental Protection Agency employees are warning that the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence data centers could carry significant public health consequences as the facilities consume growing amounts of electricity and increase demand on power plants and backup generators.
The Environmental Protection Network released a new report Thursday examining pollution associated with the energy required to operate data centers. The nonprofit network consists of more than 800 former EPA career employees and political appointees from Republican and Democratic administrations.
Read the full report: Hidden-Health-Costs-of-AI-Data-Centers
The report focuses on emissions from electricity-generating power plants as well as gas turbines and diesel generators located at or serving data center sites. It identifies at least 30 actions taken by the Trump administration since January 2025 that EPN argues could increase pollution-related health risks, weaken existing safeguards or make enforcement more difficult as AI infrastructure expands. Seventeen of those actions explicitly reference AI or data centers, according to the report.
EPN cited academic modeling projecting that data center-related air pollution could generate between $11.7 billion and $20.9 billion in annual public health costs by 2028. Under the researchers’ high-growth scenario, the pollution could contribute to roughly 600,000 asthma symptom cases and 1,300 premature deaths.
Those figures are modeled projections rather than observed illnesses or deaths. The underlying research examined pollution associated with the electricity used by data centers, including emissions from fossil-fuel power generation. More than 90% of the estimated health impact in the model came from power plants supplying electricity rather than pollution generated directly at data center sites.
The former EPA officials argue that the projections could understate future effects because the modeling did not incorporate subsequent changes in federal environmental policy. The report says no study has yet calculated the combined health impact of the 30 federal actions it identified.
“What concerns me now is the role EPA and other government agencies are playing and proudly touting: weakening the very safeguards designed to protect people from the pollution in the name of helping tech and power companies accelerate these data center build-outs,” Dr. Lynn Goldman, a pediatrician, former EPA assistant administrator and EPN member, told The New York Times.
“These are decisions that can affect what Americans breathe, what gets into our water, and, ultimately, what can make its way into our soil and food supply.”
Pollution concerns extend beyond generators located directly at the facilities. EPN said increased electricity demand can keep coal and natural-gas plants operating longer, require additional generation and increase emissions of nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and other pollutants in communities that may be located far from the data centers themselves.
The report comes as data centers consume an increasingly large share of U.S. electricity. EPN cited estimates showing the facilities used about 4.7% of U.S. electricity in 2024, with that share potentially reaching roughly 11.8% by 2030 under one projection.
President Donald Trump has strongly supported expanding AI infrastructure and data center construction, portraying the industry as an important source of investment, employment and economic growth.
“The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last month. The administration has also pursued policies intended to accelerate data center development and make the United States a leading center for artificial intelligence.
EPN argues that protecting households from pollution-related health expenses should receive the same attention as concerns about electricity costs associated with the AI expansion.
“If the administration has already said that families shouldn’t have to bear higher costs of electricity because of the AI boom, we think the same principle should apply to health,” Marc Boom, a former senior adviser in the EPA’s policy office, told the Times.
The organization is calling for what it describes as a Data Center Health Protection Pledge that would require stronger consideration of public health as additional AI infrastructure and supporting power generation are developed.
Former EPA officials are also raising concerns about whether the agency has sufficient personnel to monitor the expanding industry.
Larry Starfield, a former principal deputy assistant administrator in EPA’s Office of Enforcement, told the Times that staffing at the agency has fallen to its lowest level in four decades, leaving fewer personnel available to conduct inspections and enforce pollution requirements.
“They’ve got fewer inspectors to go out there,” Starfield said.
“They’re conducting quick and simple inspections. That’s not going to be effective for data centers.”
The EPA did not respond to the Times’ request for comment.
The debate places two competing considerations surrounding the AI boom into sharper focus: the economic and technological benefits the administration expects from rapidly expanding data infrastructure and the potential environmental and health costs former EPA officials say could accompany that growth depending on how the facilities are powered and regulated.
EPN’s report does not argue that the health effects of expanding data centers are inevitable. Instead, it maintains that the scale of any additional pollution will depend heavily on where their electricity comes from, the amount of fossil-fuel generation needed to support them and the environmental safeguards applied as construction accelerates.
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