WASHINGTON— A coalition of 185 community, labor, climate and environmental justice organizations today urged congressional leaders to oppose anti-environmental permitting legislation.
The groups’ letter opposes this “back-door deal” to drive a massive buildout of hyperscale AI data centers and the fossil fuel infrastructure to power them.
“This would be a golden ticket for huge AI data centers and tech billionaires. Gutting environmental safeguards means opening the floodgates for more gas-powered data centers fouling the air and draining communities’ water supplies,” said Camden Weber, senior climate and energy policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We can’t let this trillion-dollar industry keep ravaging neighborhoods and making Americans pay more for their electricity. It’s shameful for lawmakers to even consider a bill that would silence their constituents, who’ve been crystal clear they don’t want more data centers.”
“Communities are fighting AI data centers because they see first-hand the impacts these monstrosities are having on utility bills, quality of life and precious water resources they depend on,” said Jim Walsh, policy director at Food & Water Watch. “Instead of helping, this bill will further harm families by facilitating a Big Tech power grab while limiting the power of states and local communities to protect the public. Congress must reject this cynical industry-backed effort to force data centers on America and get to work on protecting the public, not the tech billionaires.”
The permitting bill would roll back key provisions in the Clean Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act. It would turn federal approvals into a rubber-stamp for both data centers and the fossil fuel infrastructure that powers them, all but ensuring each project will be approved regardless of community opposition.
“It would be highly ironic if the first action Congress took after an election largely defined by opposition to data centers would be to make it easier to build them,” said author Bill McKibben, co-founder of Third Act.
Methane gas generation to serve data centers has surged from roughly 4 gigawatts in early 2024 to more than 189 gigawatts today, or enough to power roughly 189 million homes.
Today’s letter says the permitting bill would not accelerate the much-needed transition to clean energy. Instead, it would drive up electricity demand by data centers that use methane gas and other fossil fuels. Its provision include:
● Narrowing state and Tribal authority under the Clean Water Act to protect waterways
● Exempting pipelines in existing rights-of-way from NEPA review
● Capping the time limit for NEPA reviews at one to two years
● Giving communities only 150 days to challenge federal permits in court
● Creating a new right for gas pipeline and power plant developers to sue for taxpayer money over permit denials and delays.
“This bill will make it virtually impossible for communities and individuals to challenge infrastructure projects that threaten their air and water,” said Lorne Stockman, research director at Oil Change International. “It comes as communities across the U.S. face an unprecedented buildout of gas power plants currently being planned to fuel the AI data center boom. If the current slate of data centers and associated gas power plants move ahead, the power sector’s gas consumption could rise by 50 percent, the equivalent of the gas consumption of Central and South America combined. This would be disastrous for our climate and the communities whose air and water would be poisoned. We urge senators to reject this bill.”
“Six years, the same message from frontline communities: listen to us, protect our health, and build solutions with us. Instead, each version of this backroom deal gets worse. And now, rather than listening to their own constituents, politicians are trying to force through legislation that will allow data centers to explode at an even faster pace, even as families across the political spectrum are saying enough is enough,” said Mar Zepeda Salazar, legislative director at Climate Justice Alliance. “Announcing a deal before the public can even see the bill is simply undemocratic. They may call it affordability, but affordable for whom and at what cost? You don’t make energy cheaper by sacrificing our health, our neighborhoods, and our children’s future. We’ve offered common-sense solutions. We’ve helped craft better policy. And once again, communities are being sidelined for industry gain under the very risky assumption that we won’t make our voices heard at the ballot box.”
“Latino communities know the cost of fossil fuel expansion. We breathe it, drink it and pay for it with our wallets and our health. More than 1.8 million Latinos already live within half a mile of oil and gas facilities. This bill would bring even more gas plants and pipelines into our neighborhoods to power data centers for some of the richest companies on earth, at further health and likely economic costs to us,” said Andrea Marpillero-Colomina, Ph.D., policy advisor at GreenLatinos. “Many of these projects are going up in the Southwest, where water is already scarce, near sacred ancestral lands, while our families struggle with rising electricity bills, energy monopolies, and serious and valid concerns about the consequences of these new data centers. This bill does not address affordability. It’s asking working families to give up their health, their water and their voice so Big Tech and the fossil fuel industry can build faster and with less oversight. We urge Congress to reject this deal, and to remember that their job is to protect and serve the communities who will live with the consequences.”
“Across the country, communities couldn't be clearer about their demands in the face of the frenzied data center build-out: more public oversight and community control, not less,” said Jenna Ruddock, advocacy director at Free Press Action. “From Tennessee to Texas, people already have too little time and systematically restricted access to information when confronted with massive industrial projects targeting their communities, including hyperscale data centers and the largely fossil-fueled energy infrastructure being built to power them. Our communities deserve more information about and opportunities to both influence and challenge decisions that will profoundly impact our public health, our quality of life, and our environment for generations to come — not less.”
“The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 does anything but advance the priorities of its title. Supporting the proliferation of data centers, most of which are or plan to be powered by fossil fuels, is unacceptable in the face of community-led opposition,” said Paige Knappenberger, environment and health program director at Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Polluting facilities are being constructed in places where residents are already subjected to health, environmental, and economic burdens. These are not sacrifice zones for Big Oil and Big Tech; they are communities being denied the opportunity to thrive. Research on the health impacts of data centers has not even had time to catch up to the AI boom, but the breadth of research available on the harms of exposure to fossil fuel emissions could not be more clear. Advancement of this bill would be reckless. The Senate should go back to the drawing board and this time listen to their constituents about what equitable permitting reform can look like.”
“The toxic tech industry is forcing data center expansion down the throats of communities across the U.S. — selling us a false narrative of AI inevitability while taking our water, land, energy, public health, and economic futures for their profit,” said Alli Finn, director of community partnerships at AI Now Institute. “This deregulatory agenda will only accelerate the harms of Big Tech’s data centers, and simultaneously dismantle some of the few tools the public has to hold them accountable. Our elected leaders must enact policies that ensure communities — not the wealthiest corporations in the world — decide our own futures, and continuously work to wrest power from the tech industry back into the hands of the public.”
“This bill signals that the Senate is happy to let Big Tech and Big Oil move fast and break things at a level of irreparable damage to public health,” said Jai Dulani, senior research specialist at MediaJustice. “Giving corporations more legal power than states and Tribes in order to poison clean air and clean water is shameful. The Senate must reject this bill that is a blatant handout to Big Tech and Big Oil and a blatant betrayal to Black, brown and Indigenous communities who will bear the brunt of this massive scaling of environmental racism.”
Today’s letter is led by AI Now Institute, Center for Biological Diversity, Climate Justice Alliance, Food & Water Watch, Free Press Action, GreenLatinos, Indigenous Environmental Network, MediaJustice, Oil Change International, Our Revolution, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Science Environmental Health Network and Third Act.
