The Trump administration is moving to eliminate rules mandating transparency for data center emissions — a change that may make it harder for communities to learn how much air pollution the facilities will produce and that could reduce residents’ ability to voice opposition to new data centers.

The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed scrapping a Clean Air Act requirement that forces states to publicly disclose air pollution permit applications from data centers and other “minor” polluters and makes them provide an extended period of public comment.

In addition to data centers, the change would apply to all facilities emitting up to 250 tons of pollutants annually, a broad category that includes businesses ranging from steel mills to laundromats.

If finalized, the change would leave reporting and public feedback requirements for data center air pollution permits fully in the hands of individual states. And while some governors have promised robust reporting requirements even without a federal mandate, other states could scale them back or eliminate them altogether.

The EPA’s proposal comes amid a wave of opposition to data center projects across the U.S. and as data center development is becoming a central political issue, one that could sway the balance of power in the midterm elections in November. The proposed rule change has prompted pushback from 14 states and hundreds of advocacy groups.

“This proposal continues efforts by the current administration to turn its back on the fundamental EPA principle of transparency,” Mike Koerber, a former deputy director of the EPA’s Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, told The Guardian.

While direct, on-site emissions are relatively low for most data centers in their regular operations, many require federal air permits for their emergency backup generators, which are typically fueled by diesel or, less commonly, natural gas. A single large hyperscale campus can house enough generators to produce hundreds of megawatts of power, enough to keep the facilities fully operational should the campus lose grid power.

These generators are run infrequently under normal circumstances, emitting pollution only during periodic testing or maintenance. However, they can become a significant source of emissions in the event of a prolonged grid outage, when data centers may rely on their backup generators for days at a time. This was the case during the blackouts that roiled Texas in 2021 following Winter Storm Uri.

Additionally, as large blocks of electricity from power grids become increasingly scarce, a growing number of data center campuses are being planned with the intention of producing their own power or buying power directly from a co-developed power plant. Much of this power is expected to come from natural gas.

The EPA has separately made many of these gas plants exempt from some existing limitations on emissions.

In response to critics of the proposed rule changes, the Trump administration said the measure wouldn’t relax emissions standards or weaken any environmental protections.

EPA spokeswoman Carolyn Holran told The New York Times that the changes will “provide the state and local agencies most familiar with local issues the discretion to determine whether, when, and for how long to provide opportunities for public participation.”

The intent is to “responsibly speed up permitting, supporting American economic development and energy dominance,” she said.

President Donald Trump's administration hasn't been shy about its support for data center development or about wanting the EPA to make it easier for data centers and the power plants supporting them to be built quickly.

The president has signed several executive orders meant to facilitate the build-out of AI data centers, which he has framed as a top national security concern.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, meanwhile, said last year that one of the administration’s highest priorities is to “make the United States the artificial intelligence capital of the world.”

Yet the proposed changes to pollution reporting requirements come as the AI infrastructure arms race is already dramatically driving up carbon emissions from the world’s largest tech and data center firms, causing them to move away from what had been ambitious carbon reduction targets.

A Bisnow investigation published ealier this month examined emissions data from tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft and Google and digital infrastructure firms like Stack Infrastructure, Vantage and QTS. It found that emissions created by three-quarters of the firms rose in the last year for which they reported such data — in some cases doubling or tripling.

Meanwhile, six hyperscalers alone put 171 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere in the last year for which they provided figures, Bisnow found — 30 million more than the previous year. That is the equivalent of 7 million extra cars on the roads over the course of a year or burning 70 million barrels of oil.

Not a single company analyzed by Bisnow could say unequivocally that, using any of the potential metrics for measuring carbon output that are considered plausible, it had cut emissions.