Senator Markey, Rep. Beyer Reintroduce AI Environmental Impacts Act

Bill Text (PDF)

Washington (June 9, 2026) - Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Representative Don Beyer (VA-08), co-chair of the House Artificial Intelligence Caucus, today reintroduced the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Environmental Impacts Act of 2026. The legislation would require artificial intelligence (AI) data centers to report on their environmental and energy-related impacts, with fines levied for those that fail to comply. In order to develop the framework for corporate reporting, the AI Environmental Impacts Act would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology to convene a consortium of experts responsible for establishing measurement standards. The legislation would also require the Environmental Protection Agency, in conjunction with other relevant federal agencies, to compile and publish a comprehensive study on the environmental and energy-related lifecycle impacts of AI and related infrastructure.

Communities around the country are currently experiencing effects from the build-out of AI-related infrastructure-including on energy costs, air quality, water quality, noise and light pollution, and land use-and those impacts are only projected to grow. However, there is no comprehensive federal study or reporting requirement to assess the full scope of these impacts. The AI Environmental Impacts Act will help close this information gap and empower policy makers to enact common sense protections for communities across the United States.

This legislation is cosponsored by Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt), and Representative Nanette Barragán (CA-44).

"Data centers are literally changing the landscape for families across the country-from the air they breathe to the electricity bills hitting their inboxes every month," said Senator Markey. "Understanding the environmental and energy impacts of AI data centers and requiring transparency from the companies that operate them is the first step toward protecting communities and working to tackle this rapidly growing crisis."

"As artificial intelligence advances at an extraordinary pace, and as the data centers and energy infrastructure that power it continue to expand, we have a responsibility to fully understand its environmental impacts," said Congressman Beyer. "Our legislation would ensure that we have better data, coordination, and transparency to identify risks and develop solutions that ensure AI development does not compromise our environment and serves the American people as it brings us into a new age of technology."

This legislation is endorsed by the Center for AI and Digital Policy, Public Citizen, Center for Biological Diversity, Union of Concerned Scientists, GreenLatinos, Food and Water Watch, Moms' Clean Air Force, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"Compelling data centers to report to the environmental and energy impacts of their operations to the EPA provides essential public transparency," said Tyson Slocum, Director of Public Citizen's Energy Program. "Communities can't evaluate whether proposed data centers are appropriate when the developers lock all the detail behind non-disclosures. Requiring the federal government to collect and publish energy and environmental data of data center operations is an essential part of the ongoing public debate on the role of AI in our economy and society, and will enhance our ability to ensure that any data centers comply with the public interest."

"GreenLatinos is wholeheartedly endorses Sen. Markey's Artificial Intelligence Environmental Impacts Act. Data centers powering AI are being built in our backyards, consuming shocking amounts of energy and water while driving up emissions in the communities that already bear the heaviest environmental burdens. In Latino communities, we cannot afford to have the AI boom accelerate unchecked. This legislation will create key tools for measuring AI's true environmental footprint and creating a public reporting framework, which are crucially needed to protect communities from further AI-related environmental harms," said Andrea Marpillero-Colomina, PhD., Sustainable Communities Policy Advisor at GreenLatinos.

"We know that the recent surge in buildout of data centers and associated infrastructure is already having enormous consequences for people, their pocketbooks, and the environment. However, the tech industry has repeatedly worked to hide the full magnitude of these harms from decisionmakers and the general public to duck accountability and maximize profits. This Act rightly confronts the issue head-on, demanding urgently needed transparency across a wide range of impacts to enable accountability and inform the development of rigorous industry requirements," said Julie McNamara, Director at Federal Energy Policy, Union of Concerned Scientists.

"The Southern Environmental Law Center welcomes Senator Markey's bill requiring the EPA and other agencies to take a closer look at the environmental impacts of AI data centers. It is past time to dig deeper. Every day we see communities terrified of what will happen to their clean water, clean air, local landscapes, and electric bills when data centers move in. These are often communities that have long grappled with the impacts of other polluting industries and bad siting and zoning decisions. Communities need and deserve the transparency that the Markey bill will provide," said Amanda Garcia, Senior Attorney at Southern Environmental Law Center.

"We must build AI infrastructure with the public rules around it, with community input, and mitigating environmental impacts. The AI Environmental Impacts Act sets common sense transparency and accountability guardrails. It charts the path for incentivizing data and energy efficient AI models to ensure that a singular focus on scale doesn't compromise American's pocketbooks and well-being," said Christabel Randolph, Associate Director at CAIDP.

"Data centers are polluting our air and water and driving up electricity costs, yet Big Tech continues to operate with zero accountability," said Camden Weber, climate and energy policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity. "This unchecked growth is causing real environmental harm. Sen. Markey's bill is a critical first step in understanding the full scope of the damage so that Congress can take aggressive action to address it."

Senator Markey has long been outspoken about the importance of understanding and addressing the energy, environmental, and health-related impacts of data centers, first introducing his AI Environmental Impacts Act in February of 2024.

• In March 2026, Senator Markey wrote to the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) to urge its members to take stronger action to protect ratepayers from data center-induced energy bill hikes.
• In November 2025, Senator Markey wrote to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) urging the agency to ensure that increased and projected energy demand from data centers does not result in unjust or unreasonable rate hikes for American households.
• In September 2025, Senator Markey wrote to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (EPA) Lee Zeldin in opposition to Zeldin's decision to allow major polluting facilities-including data centers and associated power generation infrastructure-to start pre-construction activities without securing the air quality permits required under federal law.
• In July 2025, Senator Markey hosted a roundtable discussion titled, The Data Center Next Door: Hidden Costs and Harms of Artificial Intelligence and Cryptomining to highlight the adverse environmental, health, climate, and energy cost impacts of data center proliferation in communities across the United States, and to condemn the deregulatory actions set forth in President Trump's AI Action Plan.

###

• Print
• Email
• Like
• Tweet