The artificial intelligence revolution demands enormous quantities of electricity, and the Trump administration has found a way to supply it — by dismantling environmental protections that have kept some of the nation’s dirtiest power plants in check for over a decade. The result is a policy framework that simultaneously accelerates AI infrastructure development and rolls back public health safeguards affecting millions of Americans who live near coal-fired generating stations.
On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized the repeal of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), a regulation first implemented under the Obama administration in 2012 that placed strict limits on mercury, arsenic, and other hazardous pollutants emitted by coal- and oil-fired power plants. The move, as reported by The Verge, is explicitly tied to the administration’s broader strategy of powering the nation’s rapidly expanding network of AI data centers, which consume staggering amounts of energy.
A Regulation Born From Decades of Scientific Evidence
The MATS rule was no minor regulatory footnote. It was the product of more than two decades of scientific study and legal battles. Mercury, the primary pollutant targeted by the rule, is a potent neurotoxin that accumulates in fish and can cause developmental damage in children and fetuses. The EPA’s own analysis at the time of the rule’s implementation estimated that it would prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, and 130,000 asthma attacks annually. Coal-fired power plants were the largest source of mercury emissions in the United States when the rule took effect.
The repeal does not come in isolation. It is part of a broader deregulatory push that includes rolling back carbon pollution limits for power plants and easing permitting requirements for new energy infrastructure. President Trump has framed these actions as necessary to maintain American dominance in artificial intelligence, an argument that has found receptive audiences among tech executives and energy industry lobbyists alike. But public health advocates and environmental scientists warn that the costs will be borne disproportionately by communities already suffering from pollution exposure.
AI’s Insatiable Appetite for Power
The scale of electricity demand from AI data centers has caught even industry veterans off guard. According to estimates from the International Energy Agency, data centers globally could consume more than 1,000 terawatt-hours of electricity by 2026 — roughly equivalent to Japan’s total electricity consumption. In the United States, utilities are scrambling to meet demand from tech companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta, all of which are racing to build massive computing facilities to train and run AI models.
The connection between AI data centers and coal plant pollution is more direct than many realize. Several aging coal plants that were on the verge of retirement — partly because of the economic pressure created by MATS compliance costs — may now remain operational to feed the grid. In some cases, tech companies have explored direct power purchase agreements with fossil fuel generators. The Trump administration’s argument is straightforward: if America wants to lead in AI, it cannot afford to take any power generation capacity offline, regardless of the environmental consequences.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s Framing
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has been the public face of the administration’s energy-for-AI agenda. In statements accompanying the MATS repeal, Zeldin characterized the original rule as an example of regulatory overreach that imposed billions of dollars in compliance costs on the power sector while delivering benefits that he argued were overstated. The agency under Zeldin has adopted the position that the costs of the MATS rule outweigh its benefits — a reversal of the finding made by the EPA under both the Obama and Biden administrations.
Environmental law experts have noted that this cost-benefit reanalysis is legally vulnerable. The Supreme Court ruled in 2015’s Michigan v. EPA that the agency must consider costs when deciding whether regulation is “appropriate and necessary,” but the Court did not say that costs must outweigh benefits for a rule to be struck down. The original MATS rule survived that legal challenge and was subsequently upheld. Legal observers expect the repeal itself to face court challenges from state attorneys general and environmental organizations, as reported by The Verge.
The Health Toll That Doesn’t Appear on a Balance Sheet
The communities most affected by the MATS repeal are often those least equipped to absorb additional health burdens. Coal-fired power plants in the United States are disproportionately located near low-income communities and communities of color. Mercury exposure is particularly dangerous for pregnant women and young children; even small increases in airborne mercury can lead to measurable increases in the neurotoxin’s presence in local waterways and fish populations.
Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician and epidemiologist at Boston College who has studied environmental health for decades, has previously described mercury as “one of the most well-documented toxic substances known to science.” The American Lung Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics both opposed the rollback during the public comment period, arguing that the health benefits of the MATS rule were well-established and that repeal would lead to measurable increases in disease and death.
Tech Industry’s Uncomfortable Silence
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the MATS repeal is the near-total silence from the technology companies that stand to benefit most directly. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta have all made extensive public commitments to sustainability, carbon neutrality, and clean energy procurement. Yet none of these companies have publicly opposed the administration’s decision to weaken pollution controls in order to keep the lights on at their data centers.
This silence reflects a broader tension within the tech industry. Companies that have spent years burnishing their environmental credentials now find themselves dependent on an administration whose energy policy is built around maximizing fossil fuel output. Some industry analysts have suggested that tech firms are calculating that the political cost of criticizing the White House on environmental policy outweighs the reputational risk of being associated with increased coal plant pollution. The calculus may shift if litigation or public pressure forces the issue into sharper focus.
A Deregulatory Strategy With Broad Implications
The MATS repeal is not an isolated action. It fits within a pattern of environmental rollbacks that the Trump administration has pursued since taking office. The administration has also moved to weaken the Clean Power Plan’s successor regulations, ease methane emission standards for oil and gas operations, and streamline permitting for new fossil fuel infrastructure. Taken together, these actions represent the most significant retreat from environmental regulation in at least a generation.
For the AI industry specifically, the short-term benefits are clear: more available power, lower electricity costs, and fewer regulatory hurdles for new data center construction. But the long-term implications are more complex. If the United States builds its AI infrastructure on a foundation of dirty energy, it risks creating a generation of computing facilities that are both carbon-intensive and politically vulnerable to future regulatory shifts. A subsequent administration could reimpose strict pollution controls, potentially stranding assets that were built on the assumption of continued deregulation.
What Comes Next in the Courts and Congress
Legal challenges to the MATS repeal are expected to begin within weeks. A coalition of state attorneys general, led by offices in New York, California, and Illinois, has signaled its intent to sue, arguing that the EPA failed to follow proper administrative procedures and ignored its own scientific findings. Environmental groups including the Sierra Club and Earthjustice are also preparing litigation.
In Congress, the repeal has drawn sharp partisan lines. Democratic lawmakers have introduced legislation that would codify the MATS standards into law, removing the EPA’s ability to repeal them through administrative action. That legislation has virtually no chance of passing in the current Congress, but it serves as a marker for future policy debates. Republican leaders, meanwhile, have praised the repeal as a necessary step to ensure American energy security and AI competitiveness, framing the issue as a choice between economic growth and what they characterize as excessive regulation.
The Broader Question of Who Pays for Progress
At its core, the MATS repeal raises a question that has recurred throughout American industrial history: who bears the cost of economic progress? The benefits of AI development — increased productivity, new industries, national security advantages — are widely distributed and often abstract. The costs of increased pollution — higher rates of asthma, heart disease, neurological damage, and premature death — are concentrated among specific populations, many of whom have no direct stake in the AI boom.
The administration’s position is that the trade-off is worth making, that the economic and strategic benefits of AI leadership outweigh the health costs of relaxed pollution standards. Critics argue that this is a false choice, that the United States could power its AI ambitions with cleaner energy sources if it invested in renewable generation and grid modernization rather than extending the life of aging coal plants. The debate is unlikely to be resolved quickly, but its outcome will shape both American environmental policy and the trajectory of the AI industry for years to come.