Whitehouse, McClellan Investigate EPA’s Decision to Exempt Data Center Power Plants from Acid Rain Protections
EPA adopted new policy in response to lobbying from data center companies and in furtherance of Trump’s data center-over-people agenda
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), and Representative Jennifer McClellan (D-VA-04), last month launched a bicameral investigation into the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) guidance exempting data center power plants from the Acid Rain Program (ARP).
By EPA’s own admission, the decision to issue new guidance came at the behest of data center companies. And according to the EPA press release issuing the new guidance, the agency took this action to “further President Trump’s agenda promoting data centers.”
“EPA’s new ARP guidance is a handout to the richest and most powerful companies in the world. And this handout comes at the expense of Americans’ health and the safety of our ecosystems and communities that were, prior to the inception of the ARP, regularly drenched in dangerous acidic rainfall,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.
The ARP regulates the emission of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) from power plants. SO2 and NOx are both harmful to human health, damaging the respiratory system and worsening heart disease. They are also linked to adverse pregnancy and birth outcomes, kidney damage, autoimmune disorders, and cancer.
The pollutants are also the primary causes of acid rain. Prior to the ARP, acid rain poisoned rivers, lakes, and streams; damaged forests; killed and sickened aquatic animals; and corroded buildings, monuments, and statues.
“EPA explicitly bills its new guidance as a means to facilitate data center development. In so doing, EPA misapprehends its own mission, which is to ‘protect human health and the environment,’ as stated in black and white on the agency’s own website,” continued the lawmakers.
“Bizarrely, under EPA’s new guidance, massive new gas-fired power plants large enough to power cities would be exempt from NOx and SO2 caps under the ARP only as long as they do not serve the public electricity grid and instead exclusively power a privately-owned data center. This is a perverse outcome, and it is contrary to Congress’s design for the Clean Air Act, which creates specific and comprehensive regulatory requirements for significant pollution sources like these,” added the lawmakers.
The lawmakers, together with Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), requested answers from EPA by October 7th about the agency’s decision-making process while crafting this new guidance, as well as any information regarding the agency’s communications with data center companies. Senators Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and 24 Members of the House of Representatives also signed the letter. EPA has not yet responded to the lawmakers’ letter.
Ranking Member Whitehouse also requested information and documents from the following companies by October 7th: Meta, Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, xAI, Amazon Web Services, Anthropic, Fermi America, and Joule.
In March 2026, Ranking Member Whitehouse, Senator Van Hollen, and Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, launched an investigation into eight technology and related companies, including Meta, xAI, and OpenAI, regarding twelve planned data center projects that would be powered by massive new gas plants. The gas plants—many of which are ten or more times the size of the average gas plant currently powering the U.S. electric grid—would emit millions of tons of greenhouse gases and tens of thousands of tons of health-harming pollutants every year.
The letter to EPA Administrator Zeldin is available here.
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