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Donald Trump’s EPA pick wants to ‘make America the AI capital of the world’

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Artificial intelligence is top of mind for President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY). Zeldin plans to help “unleash US energy dominance” and “make America the AI capital of the world,” he said in a post on X today.

The EPA regulates emissions that pollute the air and cause climate change, giving it a huge role to play in how much the rise of energy-hungry AI leads to a jump in power plant pollution. From the looks of it, though, the EPA’s incoming leader is prioritizing making sure environmental protections don’t get in the way of doing business — particularly when it comes to expanding AI data centers.

Environmental advocates are already concerned about Trump’s plans for the EPA. “We can meet demand for data centers without scrapping EPA rules to clean up dirty power plants and cut climate pollution,” Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said in a statement responding to Zeldin’s appointment. “We count on the EPA to protect clean air and water and public health and that’s what we’ll hold the next administrator accountable to do.”

If he makes good on campaign promises, Trump’s next term in office is sure to be a deregulation spree. The last time Trump was in the White House, his administration rolled back more than 100 environmental regulations and stacked the Supreme Court with justices whose decisions have curbed the ability of federal agencies to regulate industry.

Zeldin will “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards,” Trump posted on Truth Social yesterday.

During a three-hour interview with Joe Rogan on October 25th, Trump also complained about environmental impact studies that he said made it more difficult to complete his own building projects in the past. “The environmental stuff was always horrible. They could slow a project down 10 years, 15 years,” he said. “Remember this, it costs much more to do things environmentally clean.”

Zeldin has also faced off with environmental groups over the years. The League of Conservation Voters (LCV), which rates lawmakers’ environmental track records, has given Zeldin an abysmal 14 percent lifetime score. He has accepted more than $269,000 from the oil and gas industry and close to $1.5 million from real estate while running for Congress, according to the nonprofit OpenSecrets that tracks campaign contributions. (Trump picked fossil fuel lobbyists to lead the EPA when he was last in office.)

“Remember this, it costs much more to do things environmentally clean.”

Some environmental advocates are holding out hope that they’ll be able to salvage long-standing environmental rules with Zeldin, rather than seeing a worst-case scenario outlined in Project 2025 that would all but dismantle the EPA. (Although Zeldin voted to slash the EPA’s budget by 25 percent in 2017, which could have eliminated 3,200 staff positions at the agency.)

“While we did not always see eye to eye with Rep. Zeldin, we did work to find common ground on several issues during his time in office,” Julie Tighe, New York League of Conservation Voters president, said in an email. She pointed to Zeldin’s opposition to offshore drilling during Trump’s previous administration as an example.

Data centers, which tend to gobble up more energy when used for training AI, have become a hot-button environmental topic. Until recently, gains in energy efficiency have allowed data center power use to stay relatively flat. Now, with the popularity of AI and efficiency gains waning, data center power demand could climb 160 percent by 2030, according to Goldman Sachs Research. The US has more data centers than any other country, and their growing appetite for electricity could lead to more pollution from the power sector.

To their credit, American tech companies have been among the biggest purchasers of renewable energy. Big tech companies, including Google and Microsoft, have also signed a slew of new agreements this year to try to revive the nuclear energy industry in a bid to shore up another source of carbon pollution-free power. Nevertheless, both Google and Microsoft have seen their carbon footprints grow as they develop new AI tools.

Typical data centers still plug into the local power grid, and the US gets 60 percent of its electricity from fossil fuels. Trump previously repealed an Obama-era plan to slash power plant emissions and replaced it with weaker regulations, a decision the EPA estimated would lead to thousands more deaths and “exacerbated” asthma cases from pollution. The Biden administration introduced tougher standards for coal-fired power plants but punted a decision on emissions from the nation’s existing fleet of gas-fired plants until after the election. Now, with Trump headed back to the White House, these rules are in jeopardy.

“The two things we know for certain are that Trump has tried to cripple EPA in the past and he has tasked his new pick to head EPA with rolling back dozens of clean air and water regulations,” Jeremy Symons, senior adviser to Environmental Protection Network and former EPA climate adviser, said in an email to The Verge. “Hopefully Zeldin can rise above his alarming EPA voting record and will recognize there is broad and bipartisan public support for EPA’s work to protect the air we breathe and the water we drink,” Symons added.



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NASA wants SpaceX and Blue Origin to deliver cargo to the moon

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The agency wants Elon Musk’s SpaceX to use its Starship cargo lander to deliver a pressurized rover to the Moon “no earlier” than 2032, while Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin will be tasked with delivering a lunar surface habitat no sooner than 2033. Both launches will support NASA’s Artemis missions, which aim to bring humans back to the Moon for the first time in over 50 years.

Both companies are developing human landing systems for Artemis missions — SpaceX for Artemis III and Blue Origin for Artemis V. NASA later asked both companies to develop cargo-hauling variants of those landers, capable of carrying 26,000 to 33,000 pounds of equipment and other materials to the Moon.

NASA says it will issue proposals to SpaceX and Blue Origin at the beginning of next year.

Conceptual renderings of cargo landers from SpaceX (left) and Blue Origin (right).
Image: NASA

“Having two lunar lander providers with different approaches for crew and cargo landing capability provides mission flexibility while ensuring a regular cadence of Moon landings for continued discovery and scientific opportunity,” Stephen D. Creech, NASA’s assistant deputy associate administrator for the Moon to Mars program, said in the announcement.



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Brazil leads new international effort against climate lies

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Brazil and the United Nations launched a new international effort to combat disinformation on climate change. They announced the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change during the G20 Leaders’ Summit taking place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

It’s a collaboration between governments and international organizations to boost research on misinformation swirling online and around the globe that they fear could slow action on climate change. There isn’t much information available yet, but they say they’ll fund nonprofit efforts to counter that spread of lies.

“Countries cannot tackle this problem individually,” President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in a press release.

“Countries cannot tackle this problem individually.”

Only Chile, Denmark, France, Morocco, the United Kingdom, and Sweden have joined Brazil in the initiative so far. Countries that make the commitment are expected to contribute to a fund administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The initial goal is to get more countries on board and raise $10 to 15 million over the next three years. The money is then supposed to be distributed to nonprofit organizations as grants to support research and public awareness campaigns on climate disinformation.

They haven’t yet named any specific groups they plan to work with; “calls for partnerships” are forthcoming. Some environmental organizations are already working together to study disinformation and push for measures to stop its spread, like the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition that publishes reports on misinformation trends and advocates for more stringent content moderation.

A webpage for the new global initiative says environmental disinformation is “increasingly spreading through social media, messaging apps, and generative AI.” That has “serious” consequences, it says: “it undermines scientific consensus, obstructs authorities’ ability to respond effectively to the crisis, and threatens the safety of journalists and environmental defenders working on the frontlines.”

FEMA employees faced violent threats on social media in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in the US, for example. Accounts spewing misinformation about the storm and FEMA were also tied to content denying climate change, according to an analysis by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) in October. Posts baselessly accused FEMA of seizing private property and confiscating donations — lies that risked deterring storm survivors from applying for assistance, and that raised fears that FEMA staff might face attacks.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres also voiced his concerns during remarks today with both the G20 summit and a UN conference on climate change currently underway. “We must also take on climate disinformation,” Guterres said. “Our climate is at a breaking point.”



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Amazon and SpaceX attack US labor watchdog in court

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Amazon and SpaceX are seeking to hamstring the National Labor Relations Board, asking a court to declare its processes for upholding labor law unconstitutional. But judges on a three-person panel appeared skeptical when the companies presented their arguments Monday.

In two separate cases before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the two companies argued that the NLRB is unlawfully forcing them to participate in administrative law proceedings over alleged anti-labor actions. The Amazon case centers around whether it’s required to bargain with the union at its JFK 8 fulfillment center on Staten Island, while the SpaceX case involves a charge by former employees who claimed they were fired after being critical of CEO Elon Musk.

A ruling in favor of the companies could undermine the NLRB’s power to enforce protections for workers. It comes just as vocal pro-union President Joe Biden is leaving office and deregulation-friendly President-elect Donald Trump takes over. Trump notably counts Musk among his chief allies after his massive fundraising push. The NLRB is an independent agency with five board members appointed by the president to 5-year terms.

During oral arguments, the judges mostly prodded attorneys on the finer points of the companies’ decisions to appeal, and the timeline of their objections. At one point, Judge James Graves Jr., an Obama appointee, expressed doubt that Amazon had even met the conditions for an appeal — suggesting it should have waited on the ruling from the district court first. Two days after Amazon’s notice of appeal, the district court denied Amazon’s request for a temporary restraining order on its NLRB proceedings.

Both companies are seeking to short-circuit the NLRB’s proceedings with a court order

George W. Bush-appointed Judge Priscilla Richman similarly pressed SpaceX’s counsel Michael Kenneally about why the company rushed to an appeal, rather than letting the case progress in a lower court. Kenneally said SpaceX waited as long as it felt it could to bring its challenge and accused the government of leaning on procedural arguments because it couldn’t defend the NLRB’s constitutionality. Graves appeared skeptical. “That sounds to me about like the argument that, ‘well, procedure doesn’t matter if I win on the merits, so just skip right over procedure,’” he said.

Both companies are seeking to short-circuit the NLRB’s proceedings with a court order, which requires demonstrating this would cause them irreparable harm. But in Amazon’s case, NLRB counsel Tyler Wiese called the company’s deadline for the district court “imaginary,” and said, “merely proceeding through an administrative process is not irreparable harm.”

Amazon and SpaceX both argue that the NLRB’s administrative proceedings are tainted because its board members or administrative law judges are unconstitutionally insulated from removal. They point to Article II of the Constitution, which says the president must “take care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” which they say includes removing officials.

Amazon also says the NLRB is violating the Seventh Amendment, which protects the right to a jury trial in certain civil cases. It argues that the NLRB shouldn’t be allowed to decide on financial remedies related to the case because it would deny the company due process. Cox said the board itself “improperly interfered with the [union] election by exercising its prosecutorial authority,” so failing to stop the proceedings would let the NLRB as as judge and prosecutor.

The NLRB says it feels confident in a 1937 Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act. “It is nothing new for big companies to challenge the authority of the NLRB to enforce workers’ rights so as not to be held accountable for their violations of the National Labor Relations Act,” NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo said in a statement. “While the current challenges require the NLRB to expend scarce resources defending against them, we’ve seen that the results of these kinds of challenges is ultimately a delay in justice, but that ultimately justice does prevail.”



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