A Dive into Trump's 'Build, Baby, Build!' Plan for Data Centers

Energy attorney Ram Sunkara was quoted in a Law360 article examining President Donald Trump's AI Action Plan, which seeks to accelerate data center development by streamlining federal permitting and reducing regulatory hurdles under federal environmental laws. The plan directs agencies to find ways to expedite approval processes for data center projects, aiming to help the U.S. outpace China in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. The administration is also instructing agencies to take advantage of regulatory loopholes and expand exemptions for qualifying projects, though many details about how this will be implemented remain unclear. The executive order additionally aims to create exemptions from National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review for specific digital infrastructure projects, open up federal land for data center development and expedite other processes to accelerate project start times. Mr. Sunkara said he anticipates military sites will be among the federal government's choices for data center locations.

"Military sites are already shoot-to-kill," he said. "Super secure. So for them to site data center infrastructure on the military bases or military lands makes sense for this administration and may expedite some of those permitting constraints as well."

READ: A Dive into Trump's 'Build, Baby, Build!' Plan for Data Centers