BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
17 September 2026
Former EPA Officials: Trump Is Letting Data Centers Make People Sick 13SEP26
GLARING corruption and corporate greed of the drumpf/trump-vance administration and the gop / greed over people-republican party exposed in this from Mother Jones. Communities across the US are organizing against new data center development due to health issues from air, noise and electromagnetic pollution, increasing utility bills, threats to potable water supplies, and tax breaks for the data center oligarchs resulting in increased cost for maintaining community services dumped on residents, small businesses, and local governments. There are many groups in every state you can join to participate in the struggle against new data centers and AI, I belong to AVA / Ashburn Village Advocacy. Remember who is promoting more data centers, more high-voltage transmission lines and more AI and then vote Blue / Democratic Party in the 2026 Midterm elections on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026.
Former EPA Officials: Trump Is Letting Data Centers Make People Sick
“Families shouldn’t have to pay for the AI boom with their health.”
September 13, 2026
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While tech oligarchs grandstand about the existential danger AI superintelligence poses to humanity, former Environmental Protection Agency officials say we should be worried about a more immediate threat to our health: the data centers that power those AI models.
The former EPA researchers, now working with the nonprofit Environmental Protection Network, are warning in a new report that since January 2025, Donald Trump’s EPA has embarked on a systematic weakening of pollution safeguards, permitting processes, inspection norms, and other guardrails—at least 30 different actions—that could increase the health risks associated with the data center boom.
There are currently about 3,000 data centers in the United States, and more than 1,500 new centers are in the planning stages. But as developers build out this vast, energy-hungry infrastructure, the country is losing the government regulatory safeguards that are needed to ensure that expansion is done safely, the ex–EPA officials say.
Dan Costa, who spent 35 years at EPA studying air pollution, noted that for decades the environmental agency, which was established in 1970, had a large and committed cadre of researchers who investigated emerging sources of pollution and new environmental threats.
“Over the decades, toxicologists, chemists, atmospheric scientists, modelers and engineers worked in concert with academic colleagues on behalf of the American people—not on behalf of industry,” Costa said in a press briefing last week. “We wanted to carry out EPA’s mission of protecting people’s health from industrial air pollution.”
Now, though, that work force has been gutted. The Trump administration has dismantled EPA’s main research office, and the agency’s priorities have shifted away from strict enforcement of pollution standards. “Transforming the nation’s energy system, while diminishing its scientific capacity to understand what the impacts are going to be, makes no sense,” Costa said.
But that appears to be the direction the country is heading in. President Donald Trump is “positioning America as the global leader in AI,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin wrote in a memo last year. The agency is “committed to bolstering” those efforts, Zeldin said, by “cutting heavy-handed regulations to ensure America can build and power the data centers essential to Making America the AI Capital of the World.”
Since Trump returned to the White House, data center developers have seized the opportunity to expand at a rapid pace, helped by the administration’s moves. In some cases, that deregulation has involved keeping old coal-fired plants online past their planned decommissioning times in order to power data centers; other times, it has meant easing regulations on the use of onsite fossil-fuel-powered turbines to power hyperscale data centers like xAI’s Colossus.
The agency has proposed a rule change that would let developers begin constructing data centers and their associated power plants before they get air pollution permits. And it has directed the agency’s enforcement staff to avoid any action that could “unduly burden or significantly disrupt” energy production or power generation.
According to one study the former EPA researchers cited in their new report, pollution associated with the AI boom may lead to 1,300 additional deaths per year.
Physician and former EPA administrative official Lynn Goldman said some health impacts of increased data center pollution might be felt quickly—for example, heart attacks or premature births associated with particulate exposure. Others, such as cancer, might take years to emerge. “The AI industry’s race for advantage should not be a matter of life or death,” Goldman said at the press conference. “Families shouldn’t have to pay for the AI boom with their health.”
Related
16 September 2026
VERSE AND VOICE FROM SOJOURNERS 16SEP26
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VIDEO & ARTICLES: Dominion-NextEra merger faces calls to slow down after new customer benefits unveiled 15&16SEP26
Spanberger formally intervenes in proposed NextEra-Dominion merger
I formally intervened in the proposed merger between NextEra and Dominion because Virginians deserve to know that their long-term interests, not simply those of the companies involved, are being put first.UPDATE on the proposed Dominion Energy-NextEra merger which will have a negative impact for residential, educational and small business electric utility customers in Virginia and North Carolina and other parts of the Mid-Atlantic power grid. There was opposition to this merger as soon as it was announced and opposition has grown in numbers and strength to the point that these companies have found it necessary to sweeten the incentives described as "customer" benefits to gain support for approval of the merger by the Virginia SCC / State Corporation Commission. It will not work. Virginians have good reason not to trust anyone associated with either company since SCC chairperson kelsey bagot refuses to recuse herself from the case on this merger though she promised the general assembly in Richmond she would recuse herself since she had worked for NextEra. Feel free to e mail kelsey bagot at kelsey.bagot@scc.virginia.gov and tell her to recuse herself from the Dominion Energy-NextEra proceedings and vote. If you are interested in sending your opinion on this merger to the SCC click here. Be sure you copy your comments before sending the form e mail so you can also e mail the SCC ( all these addresses on one e mail is best ) at sccefile@scc.virginia.gov , UtilityReg@scc.virginia.gov , pstmail@scc.virginia.gov , accounting@scc.virginia.gov , vadamageprevention@scc.virginia.gov . ALSO send an e mail to Gov Spanberger at abigail.spanberger@governor.virginia.gov and http://www.governor.virginia.gov/.../contact-the.../ and to your delegate and senator in Richmond, find them here https://whosmy.virginiageneralassembly.gov/. Be sure to enter case number PUR-2026-00112 & Dominion Energy-Nextera in the subject line. Please share with family, friends, coworkers and all opposed to this merger and all new data centers in Virginia.
Here is the remaining SCC schedule regarding the proposed Dominion Energy-NextEra merger
Nov. 2: Last day to register as a public witness for the hearing
Nov. 5: Public witness testimony telephonically 8:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Nov. 5: Public witness testimony in person 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. in second-floor courtroom at 1300 East Main St., Richmond, VA, 23219
Nov. 9: Public witness testimony telephonically 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Nov. 9: Last day to submit written comments
Nov. 10: Public witness testimony telephonically 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Nov. 17: Evidentiary hearing begins
I share this here because it is important reach out to as many people in Virginia as possible to defeat this merger as well as stopping all new data center development in Virginia, for us specifically in Ashburn and Loudoun County. There are multiple groups across the Commonwealth fighting this merger and new data centers, I am part of Ashburn Village Advocacy, if you are a resident of Ashburn and interested in joining us please complete the interest form found here.
Virginia Governor Questions NextEra-Dominion Merger
Dominion-NextEra merger faces calls to slow down after new customer benefits unveiled
Posted 2:33 PM, Sep 15, 2026
and last updated 7:40 AM, Sep 16, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — The Dominion Energy and NextEra merger is facing renewed scrutiny after the companies unveiled an expanded package of benefits for Virginia customers and employees — but at least one energy advocacy group says the new commitments are arriving too late in the process.
Clean Virginia, which has opposed the merger since it was announced in May, is calling on the State Corporation Commission to extend its review after Dominion and NextEra announced the updated deal Monday. The new package includes commitments to double bill credits, expand job protections, and build a new tower for NextEra employees, funded by NextEra shareholders.
Clean Virginia President Brennan Gilmore said the additions raise more questions than they answer.
"Months into this process, weeks into the official litigation process, now Dominion and NextEra are coming in with a whole lot of other baubles and Christmas tree ornaments to hang on to this deal. That makes it even more important that we reset the clock, we extend the clock," Gilmore said.
Intervenors have spent weeks preparing for the Nov. 17 evidentiary hearing. Gilmore is calling on Gov. Abigail Spanberger to convene a special session so legislators can push back the current January deadline.
"We need an extension of this timeline. We need to slow this process down to make sure that Virginia customers who are being charged some of the most incredible bills, certainly of my lifetime, they need to be protected," Gilmore said.
Dominion Energy Virginia President Ed Baine backed the potential merger saying it is designed to benefit the state.
"I don't have any hesitation around the merger. I believe it'll be good for our customers, good for our colleagues, good for the communities we serve, and good for the Commonwealth overall," Baine said.
Baine acknowledged the review process is still generating significant questions.
"The timeline is still a six-month timeline from a commission approval. Right now, there's a lot of questions being asked by the various parties," Baine said.
The SCC's deadline remains in January. If the commission does not issue a decision by that date, approval of the merger would automatically be granted.
I reached out to the State Corporation Commission to ask whether the announcement of new customer benefits could affect how commissioners review the merger.
Spokesperson Greg Weatherford responded saying this is normal for court procedures including at the SCC.
"All proposals and filings will be thoroughly reviewed and cross-examined by participating parties during the hearing. In the end, after the courtroom evidentiary hearing and public witness statements have concluded, the Commission will make its decision by applying the law, based exclusively on the evidence presented formally and cross-examined publicly, under oath, as part of the court process," Weatherford said.
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