The Trump administration is not going to set nationwide environmental requirements or recommendations for the rapidly growing data center industry, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said Wednesday.
While there are technologies and practices that reduce air pollution and water usage, states and communities know what works best for them, Zeldin said at the POLITICO Energy Summit in Washington.
“Ten times out of 10, I’m not going to sit inside of an agency building in Washington, D.C., and that we say that we know that local community in Georgia or Florida or Arizona or elsewhere, better than everyone there locally,” Zeldin said.
Just 37 percent of Americans would support a data center being built in their area, according to a POLITICO poll earlier this year. There are myriad reasons cited by opponents, but water usage and air pollution are common complaints.
