The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has rebuffed calls to set nationwide environmental requirements or recommendations for the data center market.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said that the onus should be on states and local communities to set guidelines, as they know what works best for them, according to reporting from Politico.

“Ten times out of ten, I’m not going to sit inside of an agency building in Washington, DC, and that we say that we know that local community in Georgia or Florida or Arizona or elsewhere, better than everyone there locally,” Zeldin said.

Data centers have seen growing local opposition across the US in recent years, due to the perceived and real-world impacts the facilities have had on the local environment. The most notable case has been in Memphis, where Elon Musk’s xAI has faced lawsuits due to the installation of methane natural gas turbines at its Colossus data centers in the city. Water use has also become a major concern, especially in more arid regions.

In response to these concerns, Zeldin cited the increased deployment of closed-loop data center designs that don’t have to regularly tap into local water supplies, in addition to the President Trump-initiated ratepayer protection pledge, which saw some of the world's biggest tech companies commit to paying for grid upgrades needed to serve their facilities.

Zeldin went on to argue that data centers should not be painted with a broad brush, with each facility unique.

“You can’t just across the board act as if every data center project is equal, like they’re all following the same exact model in how they power their project in various ways, or how they cool their data center, so it really depends on how the deal gets done,” Zeldin said.

The stance is not surprising given the Trump administration's apathy towards environmental protection measures. Earlier this month, the administration announced plans to introduce a support package of up to $700 million for coal-fired power plants and imports to meet growing electricity demand, primarily from the data center market.