Some of the most exclusive seats at President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January were reserved for the leaders of Big Tech companies like Meta, Amazon and Google.

While the mega-rich have long had an outsized role in U.S. national politics, many saw the inaugural display as a tell-tale sign of the influence the tech industry would have in Trump’s second term after Silicon Valley pledged newfound support to his administration.

On Wednesday, that support paid off. The administration announced its plans to speed the development of artificial intelligence in the U.S. by allowing companies to build the technology and related infrastructure with minimal federal oversight. Among the actions outlined: waiving some environmental regulations for data centers and determining in concert with the industry any other rules that “unnecessarily hinder AI development or deployment.”

“Simply put, we need to ‘Build, Baby, Build!’” an introduction to the 23-page plan said.

In practice, it’s the kind of free pass on AI regulation that was overwhelmingly opposed by Congress earlier this month when such a measure was slipped into a late draft of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The U.S. Senate voted 99-1 to strip a 10-year moratorium on state and local regulation of AI from the legislation.

A series of moves by the Trump administration, including the weakening of an array of environmental protections and the AI action plan released Wednesday, leave very little federal oversight of the data center industry’s environmental imprint.

The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) said the action plan would pave the way for not only the development of data centers, but also the increased reliance of fossil fuel infrastructure to support the energy-intensive supercomputer warehouses, without consulting localities and their residents about their concerns.

The announcement of the AI plan follows residents and activists in South Memphis, an area long plagued by air pollution, alleging that Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company operated gas turbines without appropriate permits for more than a year.

Amanda Garcia, a senior attorney at the SELC, said Memphis’ experience with Musk’s AI company exemplifies what’s at stake when infrastructure growth to support AI goes unchecked.

“These turbines pump out smog-forming pollution and harmful chemicals like formaldehyde and are located near predominantly Black communities that are already overburdened with a long history of environmental injustice,” Garcia said. “Families in South Memphis deserve transparency and clean air.”

As more data centers and power plants open to serve the expected increase in energy demand from artificial intelligence, states and communities across the South are looking for more information about the effects infrastructure for AI has on the grid, public health and the environment, said Alys Campaigne, the SELC’s climate initiative leader.

“The Trump administration has manufactured barriers and a fake sense of urgency to roll back public safeguards that help the richest companies of the world at the expense of communities across the South,” Campaigne said.

The administration’s AI action plan also recommends that a government agency should revise guidelines for AI’s development to remove references to misinformation, climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion. This suggested policy action exists under the subsection: “Ensure that Frontier AI Protects Free Speech and American Values.”

It’s a plan resulting from an executive order signed by Trump that directed the federal government to create a proposal to ensure America’s global dominance in the AI race.

To environmentalists, the most concerning elements outlined in the plan include enacting a nationwide Clean Water Act permit that would allow data centers to be built without notifying the public prior to construction about the impacts to local water systems. It also recommends that federal lands are made available to companies looking to build data centers or power plants that would service those data centers.

Trump’s AI plan also aims to establish new exclusions for data centers from the National Environmental Policy Act. Earlier this month, the administration had already weakened what’s often referred to as the “Magna Carta” of U.S. environmental law, which requires agencies to assess the environmental impacts of their actions during the decision-making process.

The changes come following years of bipartisan calls for federal permitting reform, especially for energy projects. But legal experts say the changes will limit public participation, transparency and accountability for new developments on both public and private lands.

The administration’s plan was celebrated by the U.S. Department of Labor. Deputy Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said the plan will create a new era of economic prosperity for American workers. It was also celebrated by the Data Center Coalition (DCC), an industry lobbying group whose members include Amazon, Google and Meta. Many of the lobbying group’s policy recommendations, filed March 15, were included in the plan or earlier policy decisions of the administration.

DCC recommended the federal government advance onsite cogeneration, or burning fossil fuels to primarily power or offset power demand at data centers. The lobbying group also recommended making federal lands available for its members to develop and bring power to those sites, whether through utility arrangements or building their own power plants there.

DCC also recommended that the National Environmental Policy Act be overhauled, that the water permitting be expedited and that the statute of limitations deadline for suing permitting agencies about energy projects shrink from six years to five months.

The growing allegiance between the tech industry and Trump’s administration has been evident throughout the first six months of his second term. By his second day in office, Trump, along with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, announced the Stargate Project, which seeks to develop billions of dollars worth of AI infrastructure, starting with a site in Abilene, Texas.

Earlier this month, the Pentagon announced the artificial intelligence companies Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and Musk’s xAI each were awarded contracts from the Department of Defense to address national security challenges. Each of the companies can receive up to $200 million.

No other tech player has had as much influence with Trump as Musk. Before their relationship soured and Musk left D.C. in May, Trump tapped him as an adviser to the administration through the agency-slashing Department of Government Efficiency while Musk’s companies continued to secure federal contracts.

Inside Climate News’ Washington bureau chief Marianne Lavelle contributed to this report.

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