Big Tech requires loose cleaning water methods to be allowed. Trump wants to give it to them
There are currently more than 50 nationwide 404 licenses (some of which still require pre-construction notices) updated every five years. Many of these exemptions are used for agricultural activities, such as harvesting and building ponds for farms, or ecosystem and scientific services such as measurement and soil maintenance. The plan also includes certain types of coal mining as well as oil and gas activities.
Buildings such as shops, restaurants, hospitals and schools currently have their own national licenses, and some data centers fall under these licenses. However, if the project affects more than half of the water conservation, the permit requires a deeper personal analysis.
The DCC recommended using “reliable notifications and coverage” to create a national license in its March comment and argued that “the lengthy schedule of approval is inconsistent with other national licenses with high or no limits or no PCN thresholds without immediate action.” Meta announced its intention to build a large number of data centers in multiple states and is currently building a 2,250-acre data center in Louisiana, and he also requested a national license in his comments and recommended that the federal government further “simplify” the 404 licensing process.
Meta’s chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan released the AI action plan on X last week “a bold step toward the right regulatory environment for companies like ours to invest in the U.S., while Meta “invested tens of billions of dollars throughout the U.S., including inclusion in current data centers, and tens of billions of dollars in creating infrastructure across the U.S..” ” Meta declined to comment further through a spokesperson.
Environmental lawyers are unsure of data center licenses nationwide, regardless of their size, that follow the intentions of the Clean Water Act. “What is [a blanket data center exemption] “What’s a little tricky is that the impact will be very different,” McFish said.
Hannah Connor, a senior attorney at the Center for Biodiversity, agreed. “What we’re seeing here is an attempt to expand the 404 licensing programs nationwide in order to conduct a substantial reduction in regulatory reviews in addition. [the permitting] She said the plan was created. From the paving of wetlands, the speed of regulatory review has been greatly reduced. ”
There are some data center projects in development today that encounter major problems with federally protected waters. In Indiana, Amazon is currently raising local opposition as it tries to fill nearly 10 acres of wetlands and more than 5,000 streams to build a large-scale data center. In Alabama, environmentalists warn that the proposed data center’s water footprint could have a serious impact on local waterways and lead to the extinction of a fish.
