YHK - yet another hacker news clone

The EPA Is Planning to Scrap Public Review Rules for Data Center Pollution

93 points doener 1 hour ago 41 comments

paimapi 50 minutes ago | parent

I love this line:

>Last year, Lee Zeldin, who runs the EPA, said it was now the agency’s top priority to “make the United States the artificial intelligence capital of the world.” The 56-year-old agency was established in 1970 to protect the environment and public health.

lol, reminds me of those videos where a host will say one thing and then the cameraman pans to reveal the lie

andai 35 minutes ago | parent

That's a very strange goal for the EPA to have. I mean, it's a worthy goal, but it sounds very much like not their department?

JohnFen 49 minutes ago | parent

That's in line with the EPA's new mission of ensuring environmental degradation.

GolfPopper 44 minutes ago | parent

This is bad news for everyone (well, except the high priests of the LLMs / nascent Cthulhoid godlings), but it certainly makes the communities who've successfully opposed data centers seem ever more justified in retrospect.

dyauspitr 42 minutes ago | parent

Goddamnit this is the worst possible administration to have while we’re having this massive buildup of data centers. Any reasonable government would have done what Massachusetts did and stipulated that you can build a data center, but it needs to be powered by renewable energy so build out your own energy sources, which would have been a win-win for everyone but instead we get this. Also, if the Democrats were in power, I hope they wouldn’t succumb to a minority in their base and just ban data centers and completely take us out of the race.

jeffbee 35 minutes ago | parent

I'm pro-information and believe generally that anti-data-center activists are chasing a Glonzo on par with anti-5G electrosensitives. That said given the tide of opinion I'm overjoyed that Trump and his allies want to step into the fusilade to defend the unpopular.

cogman10 8 minutes ago | parent

That data centers need a lot of power and some cases a lot of water isn't some sort of conspiracy theory. When you have data centers like the box elder county DC that is planed to consume more power than the entire state of Utah and it wants to do that by burning natural gas, that's not some sort of conspiracy theory that it would be tremendously bad for the environment and the regional gas and electric bills (particularly since a decent amount of power already is generated via natural gas there).

I'm not wholesale against data centers, but there are more than a few projects that are downright irresponsible.

childofhedgehog 35 minutes ago | parent

Probably an oversimplified question but how do we actually stop this?

JohnFen 29 minutes ago | parent

A good start is to vote in the midterms to reduce the amount of power that these antihuman criminals have. The US is currently in the midst of a serious political disaster and there will be no quick fix to any of this. But if we take every opportunity possible whenever we can to rid ourselves of these people and to stand in their way as much as possible, we can work our way back from the brink.

pc86 8 minutes ago | parent

I don't know about you but I've been hearing for two decades now that we "in the midst" of a political disaster. Every election is the most important election we've ever had! Just one more election going a certain way and surely things will start to get better! And then someone gets elected and they start "doing the work" or whatever but as soon as the wrong person gets elected we're right back "in the midst" of it again.

It's all just so tiresome, but perhaps more importantly - it's not true. We are no more "on the brink" now than we were in 2020, or 2016, or 2008, or 2000, or 1996, or 1992. Or any of the elections in between those.

Your hyperbolic "antihuman criminals" nonsense certainly isn't helping your point, either.

Y-bar 27 minutes ago | parent

Unfortunately the answer is ”it requires effort”, or in other words: Vote (and hold them accountable after the ballots have been counted), Shout (literally), Protest (including civil disobedience), join any civil or environmental movement, help file legal challenges.

Democracy is for good and for worse not a one-and-done thing, it is a continuous fight.

idontwantthis 24 minutes ago | parent

Elections have consequences. Vote democrat in November and again in 2028. When someone tells you both sides are the same tell them no, it's only Republicans that are allowing Datacenters to sidestep the law in order to poison us more efficiently.

cogman10 15 minutes ago | parent

Vote strategically.

Democrats aren't by default better on this issue vs republicans so you need to be more involved than just voting in the general.

If you are in a D leaning district, then register as a D and vote in the D primary. Make sure the candidate you vote for is the most likely to win who isn't captured by big business.

A good example of a datacenter friendly dem that just won by the skin of their teeth is Crowley for governor in Wisconson.

idontwantthis 12 minutes ago | parent

> Democrats aren't by default better on this issue vs republicans so you need to be more involved than just voting in the general.

The only thing that matters is Democrats gaining control of Congress and state governments. The choice that isn't a democrat is the wrong one. The time to vote out an incumbent was the primary.

crawfordcomeaux 24 minutes ago | parent

Thousands of people marching on data centers and taking them over at the same time.

Elections will never save you when the parties in power serve the billionaires.

pfdietz 5 minutes ago | parent

If such reviews are required by legislation then you stop it in the courts; approvals without legally required steps are invalid.

If they are not required by legislation then you just deal with the change.

drop_star 29 minutes ago | parent

which reality show host is running the EPA now?

awakeasleep 27 minutes ago | parent

I wonder if you could open any type of business as a datacenter now, to avoid the review.

Analemma_ 26 minutes ago | parent

Funnily enough this probably the most safetyist thing the administration could do at the moment, since this will certainly autocatalyze more opposition to DC construction in a bunch of states and probably accelerate the state-level moratoriums. A big thank you to the White House for taking AI pause as such an urgent priority.

59percentmore 22 minutes ago | parent

Antis are running out of time to stop what they wish to stop without resorting to destructive methods (bold and extreme action is already necessary).

Pros are running out of time to square their ambitions with a public that's about to go from needing a leg up to a public that wants their heads.

millerm 21 minutes ago | parent

Executive Protection Agency

ck2 18 minutes ago | parent

"for the next 800 days"

but of course a lot of permanent damage can be set in motion in that time

aqme28 16 minutes ago | parent

So-- basically until the next administration. Interesting timing.

palmotea 6 minutes ago | parent

Perhaps the next administration will drop a few cluster bombs on some hyperscaler data centers. The air force needs targets to practice on, after all. Then throughout the land there will be much rejoicing and feelings of justice done, as trillions of dollars of GPU go up in smoke.