Technology 5 min read By Alice Ashford
Former EPA and FERC chiefs call for national rules on data centres
Two former US regulators from opposing parties argue that data centres are outpacing the rules meant to govern them, and urge a federal framework modelled on the early regulation of aviation.
Two former US regulators who served under presidents from opposite parties have joined forces to argue that America's approach to data centres is failing, and that only a national framework can resolve the mounting conflict between the technology industry and the communities hosting its infrastructure.
One led the Environmental Protection Agency under President Biden; the other chaired the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission under President Trump. Despite their political differences, they write that the status quo is untenable: data centres are being developed faster than the rules meant to govern them can evolve.
Communities are pushing back against rising power bills, air pollution, strained water supplies and constant noise. Grid operators are warning about reliability. Governors and county boards are improvising with moratoriums and new permitting rules because Washington has no framework, even as the industry itself asks for one.
The pair draw a parallel with the early days of aviation a century ago, when pilots navigated by following rail lines and roads a few hundred feet above the ground and landed by bonfire in low light. The United States had invented the aeroplane but had no national aviation policy, and Europe was pulling ahead.
In 1925, President Calvin Coolidge convened a board to study aviation for national defence. Its findings were blunt: aviation was essential to the country's defence, civil aviation served a national purpose, and the public would not trust it until the federal government set standards for aircraft and for the people flying them. Congress responded with the Air Commerce Act of 1926, putting the Commerce Department in charge of commercial flight. By the late 1930s the country had four major airlines and well over a million air passengers a year. Oversight was later consolidated into a single independent agency, and then into the Federal Aviation Administration in 1958, which moved quickly to strengthen air traffic management and safety rules. As the industry grew, Congress added safety, noise and emissions standards to protect communities living beneath flight paths.
The former regulators argue that data centres are at the equivalent of the bonfire stage, but that the country does not have decades to get the rules right. They point to warnings from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which in May issued its most serious alert, warning that sudden swings in data centre demand threaten grid stability. Pennsylvania's Public Utility Commission has reported that the largest grid in the country will miss its reliability standard starting next year.
Governors are responding within the limits of the current system. Some have imposed moratoriums of up to a year on new hyperscale facilities, while Virginia removed future large data centre projects from its fast-track permitting process, allowing developers to negotiate community benefits agreements and meet standards on grid reliability, water, pollution, noise control and local hiring.
The authors describe both a blanket refusal and unbridled development as short-term political responses. A conditional approach — «maybe, but here's what you have to do» — is, they argue, the beginning of a responsible framework.
They stress that data centres cannot simply be rejected. They house the computing power underpinning American competitiveness, national security and everyday digital life, and they will be built regardless. The questions are how, where and who benefits. The authors focus on the infrastructure behind the ordinary AI tools that a quarter of American adults now use daily, rather than the debate over the most advanced systems.
They call for a tailored approach rather than a one-size-fits-all model, noting that facilities differ in cooling technology, load profile, footprint and water demand, and that communities should have a say in how they participate. Communities, they argue, should not shoulder the costs of water infrastructure, interconnection and transmission upgrades, and under the right conditions data centres can leave the grid stronger than they found it.
The pair compare the industry's trajectory to the fracking boom, when some pipeline developers raced for market share and cut corners on siting and restoration, turning initially welcomed projects into sources of fierce opposition. In Northern Virginia, they note, much of the noise neighbours complain about comes not from the buildings but from the gas generators running behind them — problems they describe as solvable if the right standards are applied.
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