Big Tech Asked for Looser Clean Water Act Permitting. Trump Wants to Give It to Them

There are currently more than 50 statements issued worldwide-some of which still require pre-construction notifications-which are renewed every five years. Many of these exemptions are dedicated to agricultural activities, such as cranberry harvesting and building ponds for farms, or ecosystem and scientific services such as wiping and soil maintenance. Some types of coal mining and oil and gas are also included in the program.

Buildings such as stores, restaurants, hospitals and schools currently have their permit at the country level, in which some data centers are included. However, the permit requires a more deeper individual analysis if the project affects more than half an acre of protected water.

DCC recommended in its commentary in March to create a statement at the country level with “strong notification and coverage of thresholds” and argued that “the long timelines for approvals are not consistent with other national permits that have higher limits or do not contain a threshold where PCN is not needed, allowing immediate action.” Meta, which announced its intention to build huge data centers across multiple states, has now developed a 2250 -acre data center in Louisiana, also obtaining a permit at the country level in its suspension and suggested that the federal government “replacing” the declaration process 404.

The head of global affairs at Meta Joel Kaplan published on X last week that the artificial intelligence plan “is a bold step to create the correct organizational environment for companies like us to invest in America”, and that Meta “invests hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure to create jobs throughout the United States, including government data centers.” Meta refused to comment on this article through a spokesman.

Environmental attorneys were not sure that a statement at the country level of data centers, regardless of its size, will follow the intention of the clean water law. “What makes [a blanket data center exemption] “The center that may affect” part of the acres, “says McFish says, by rebuilding local waterways during their construction, that the difficulty is a little that the effects will differ somewhat depending on its whereabouts.

Hana Connor, a senior lawyer at the Biodiversity Center. “What we see here is an attempt to expand the 404 license program at the country level so that it passes through this regulatory review that is very reduced outside the intention of the cause [the permitting] “The program has been created,” she says.

There are some data center projects under development today, which faced major problems with Federal Protected Water. In Indiana, Amazon is currently installing the local opposition because it tries to fill nearly 10 acres of wetlands and more than 5,000 streams to build a huge data center. In Alabama, environmental protection advocates warn that the water fingerprint from the proposed data center can have serious effects on local waterways and cause possible extinction of fish species.