Summary

• The White House’s new plan to fast-track AI data centers has critics worried about harms to the climate and environment, especially if the administration builds on public lands and formerly polluted sites.
• The plan includes provisions directing government agencies to identify federal lands and remediated hazardous sites that could be appropriate for AI data centers, sparking criticism and warnings of challenges ahead.
• Critics, including Amanda Garcia, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, argue that the Trump administration has "manufactured barriers and a fake sense of urgency to roll back public safeguards" to benefit companies. 

Moreover, “no one wants a data center in Yellowstone,” said Robert Montejo, a former special adviser to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack during the Obama administration. “The Trump administration needs to be a good steward of federal land and will need to get input from a range of stakeholders when identifying sites to avoid unnecessary politicization.”

The White House should also carefully consider which private companies will be the end users of data centers built on federal land, said Montejo, now a partner at Duane Morris LLP. [...]

“It’s all about implementation and execution,” said Montejo. “Any way we can employ creative solutions to make it economically viable to remediate and make these sites productive is a net positive.”[...]

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