{"id":286498,"date":"2025-07-24T00:03:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T00:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/286498\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T00:03:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T00:03:16","slug":"climate-advocates-outraged-at-trump-administration-plans-to-fast-track-ai-sector-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/286498\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate advocates outraged at Trump administration plans to fast-track AI sector | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration<\/a> has unveiled plans to speed the development of the highly polluting artificial intelligence sector, sparking outrage from climate advocates.<\/p>\n

Rolled out on Wednesday, the 28-page scheme<\/a> pledges to remove so-called \u201cbureaucratic red tape\u201d and streamline permitting for datacenters, semiconductor manufacturing facilities and fossil fuel infrastructure.<\/p>\n

To do so, it will dismantle some environmental and land-use regulations, roll back some Biden-era rules for subsidies for semiconductor plants related to climate requirements, and seek to establish exclusions for datacenters from the National Environmental Policy Act and streamline permits under the Clean Water Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to build and maintain vast AI infrastructure and the energy to power it. To do that, we will continue to reject radical climate dogma and bureaucratic red tape, as the Administration has done since Inauguration Day,\u201d the plan says. \u201cSimply put, we need to \u2018Build, Baby, Build!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump is also expected to sign three AI-related executive orders on Wednesday during a keynote address at a summit in DC. The announcement will be co-hosted by bipartisan lawmakers with the Hill and Valley Forum and a business and technology podcast<\/a> hosted by four technology investors and businessmen, including Trump\u2019s AI and crypto czar, David Sacks.<\/p>\n

The AI sector is already depleting land and water resources and taking a massive toll on the climate, with AI-powered large language models such as ChatGPT taking up to 10 times more energy than a regular Google search, according to an estimate<\/a> by the Electric Power Research Institute. Last year, ChatGPT used more than half a million kilowatts of electricity<\/a> every day, equivalent to the daily power use of 180,000 US households.<\/p>\n

The training of a single AI model can lead to an emissions footprint that is almost five times larger than the lifetime carbon footprint of the average American car. Recent research<\/a> from Food and Water Watch also found that energy demand from AI servers and datacenters in the US is expected to increase up to threefold from 2023 to 2028, which could lead the US sector to, by 2028, annually consume enough water to fill more than 1m Olympic-size swimming pools and enough electricity to power more than 28m American households.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt its core, President Trump\u2019s AI agenda is nothing more than a thinly veiled invitation for the fossil fuel and corporate water industries to ramp up their exploitation of our environment and natural resources \u2013 all at the expense of everyday people,\u201d said Mitch Jones, a managing director Food and Water Watch, an environmental advocacy group.<\/p>\n

The new plan recommends that regulators review states\u2019 AI laws to see whether they interfere with the agency\u2019s authority. It also says federal agencies will \u201cconsider a state\u2019s AI regulatory climate when making funding decisions\u201d and \u201climit funding if the state\u2019s AI regulatory regimes may hinder the effectiveness of that funding or award\u201d.<\/p>\n

Republicans earlier this year attempted to enact a version of this by placing a moratorium on states\u2019 ability to impose regulations on artificial intelligence into Trump\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill Act<\/a>, but the provision was stripped at the last minute.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder this plan, tech giants get sweetheart deals while everyday Americans will see their electricity bills rise to subsidize discounted power for massive AI datacenters,\u201d said JB Branch, a big-tech accountability advocate with the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen. \u201cStates are held hostage: either stop protecting their residents from dangerous, untested AI products, or lose federal funding.\u201d<\/p>\n

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As a counterweight to the new Trump plan, a broad coalition of more than 90 advocacy groups \u2013 including climate and environmental justice non-profits, consumer protection organizations and labor advocates \u2013 published an open letter<\/a> calling for a \u201cpeople\u2019s AI action plan\u201d that prioritizes \u201cpublic wellbeing, shared prosperity, a sustainable future and security\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t let big tech and big oil lobbyists write the rules for AI and our economy at the expense of our freedom and equality, workers and families\u2019 wellbeing,\u201d the coalition wrote.<\/p>\n

Research<\/a> shows<\/a> that many datacenters used for AI are placed near low-income communities of color, which are already often overburdened by pollution.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople sacrifice their health, their wellbeing and, too often, their future, so that others can benefit,\u201d said Sharon Lewis, executive director of the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice. \u201cWe\u2019re told these datacenters are harmless, but even though they might seem like they pose no risk, in reality, these energy-hungry, pollution-intensive facilities are just as damaging to our environment and health.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration has unveiled plans to speed the development of the highly polluting artificial intelligence sector, sparking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3163],"tags":[323,1942,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-286498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-technology","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114905284834132713","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}