Zeldin warns against banning data centers in US, citing China

Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), on Sunday warned against banning data centers, citing implications for the U.S. in the artificial intelligence race to outpace China.

“There’s been a push from some states where they’re talking about a statewide moratorium and what I’ve found is that most of this country wants to make sure the United States wins this race to be the AI capital of the world, that we do not relinquish this to China,” Zeldin said during a Sunday appearance on John Catsimatidis’s radio show “The Cats Roundtable” on 77 WABC.

“At the same time, they have important questions about how data centers get built,” he added.

Residents nationwide have raised concerns with the increase in energy costs and environmental impacts due to the development of data centers near their neighborhoods.

A Fox News poll released in late July found that 70 percent of voters oppose the building of a data center in their area to support AI, with 78 percent in support of slowing construction to address environmental and community concerns.

It’s been a major topic for candidates in midterms as President Trump aims to encourage more data centers while urging corporate companies to mitigate the increased costs through his ratepayer protection pledge.

So far, Meta, Amazon, Google and 100 others have agreed to pay for increased energy costs under the Trump administration’s voluntary pledge.

“We have to make sure that these projects are a net provider onto the grid, not a net taker. And we have to make sure that they are making important reuse 100 percent recyclable water … or better if they don’t need water at all. They need to be responsible users of water,” Zeldin said.

“But what we can’t do is just say, well, let’s not have any data centers built all across the entire country and let’s just let China win,” he added.

The EPA administrator urged people to “realize” how much daily life relies “right now on data centers.”

“So let’s ask the questions, let’s be responsible, let’s do it right. But let’s make sure that we win this race in the United States,” he added.