Markey Joins Kelly, Whitehouse to Press EPA on Rollback of Public Input Rules for Data Center Air Permits

Washington (October 6, 2026) - Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, this week sent a letter opposing the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposal to eliminate the 30-day mandatory public notice period that allows communities to provide input on proposed facilities, like data centers, that may affect the air they breathe. “We agree that permitting should be efficient, predictable, and capable of supporting the infrastructure our country needs. But faster permitting should not come at the expense of transparency or communities’ ability to shape the decisions that affect them,” wrote the senators to Administrator Zeldin . The letter to the EPA was co-signed by Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). Read the full letter to the EPA here . The proposed rollback is included in the Senator’s recent report, The EPA’s Data Center Disaster: How the Trump Administration is Destroying Environmental Protections and Selling Out Communities for Big Tech , which details the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s campaign of reckless deregulation to dilute environmental and public health guardrails in direct service of Big Tech’s race to build data centers. Senator Markey has been a leading voice against irresponsible and unregulated data center buildout at the expense of public health and the environment. In July , Senator Markey released a discussion draft of his Protecting Communities Against Data Center Impacts proposal, a bill that would create a national framework to prevent increased energy costs, pollution, and adverse health harms related to the rapid buildout of data centers and associated fossil fuel infrastructure. In June , Senator Markey wrote to EPA Administrator Zeldin to demand the withdrawal of a proposed rule that undermines Clean Air Act permitting standards to facilitate the buildout of data centers and associated fossil fuel infrastructure. In June, Senator Markey reintroduced his Artificial Intelligence (AI) Environmental Impacts Act , legislation that would require data center operators to report the full range of their facilities’ environmental impacts. In November 2025 , Senator Markey wrote to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) urging the agency to ensure that increased and projected energy demand from data centers does not result in unjust or unreasonable rate hikes for American households. In September 2025 , Senator Markey wrote to the EPA in opposition to the agency’s initial announcement of plans to roll back the NSR program for data center buildout. In July 2025 , Senator Markey hosted a roundtable discussion titled The Data Center Next Door: Hidden Costs and Harms of Artificial Intelligence and Cryptomining to highlight the adverse environmental, health, climate, and energy cost impacts of data center proliferation in communities across the United States, and to condemn the deregulatory actions set forth in President Trump’s AI Action Plan. On the day of the roundtable, Senator Markey also released a storybook to spotlight the experiences of American families living with data centers in their backyard. ###