The Fortress in Reverse

In February, a data center developer called Novva asked the EPA for an exemption from Clean Air Act rules. The application did not plead cost or urgency. It asked "to assist in ensuring the United States' AI supremacy."

We ask that you provide this exemption to assist in ensuring the United States’ Al supremacy. — Novva

Novva's CEO later explained the logic with less ceremony.

Almost everybody would claim it’s some kind of national security issue. — Wes Swenson

The solemn phrase and the wink beside it are the same mechanism. The administration has found in "AI supremacy" a warrant that can override the two constraints that most block energy buildout in America — local consent and environmental law — and it is deploying that warrant across every instrument it controls. Federal grid regulators ordered faster connections for large power users at the energy secretary's request, explicitly to "maintain a competitive lead over China in AI computing power" ^[1]. Senator Tom Cotton's DATA Act would exempt in-house data center utilities from federal regulatory requirements, letting tech giants build their own generators and power lines without oversight, framed as maintaining competitiveness against China ^[2]. Cotton has gone further, urging an investigation into whether foreign adversaries are stoking local opposition to undermine American AI development ^[3]. Trump himself has dismissed communities that resist, calling it a mistake for any community to turn down AI ^[3]. Secretary of State Marco Rubio framed the broader mining push as national sovereignty — the principle that America should never depend on other countries for what it needs to prosper and defend itself ^[4]. The warrant does not merely bypass the consent wall. It treats resistance as suspect. The scale of the redirect is enormous. The Department of Energy restructured or eliminated $83.6 billion in loans approved under the previous administration, pivoting from wind and solar to natural gas, nuclear, and coal ^[5]. The Loan Programs Office was renamed the "Office of Energy Dominance Financing" ^[6]. The administration repealed the 2009 endangerment finding that gave the federal government authority to regulate greenhouse gases, dismantled the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and restricted the use of terms like "sustainability" and "climate change" inside the DOE ^[7][8]. The warrant clears the field. But the strategy is colliding with forces the warrant cannot reach. Despite the federal pivot, solar and battery storage accounted for 85 to 92 percent of new power added to the grid in 2025 ^[9]. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse put it plainly.

Trump's effort to manipulate government regulation to harm clean energy just isn't enough to offset the natural advantages that clean energy has. — Sheldon Whitehouse

The market is not choosing only solar. GE gas turbines are sold out through 2029, and Meta is building ten company-funded gas plants for a single Louisiana data center ^[10]. The administration's bet was on gas and nuclear together. The gas leg has buyers. The nuclear spearhead does not. NuScale Power, the only U.S. developer with NRC design approval for small modular reactors, is in severe distress. Its stock is down 75 percent. It posted a $355 million net loss in 2025 and faces class-action lawsuits alleging executive misconduct ^[11][12]. Its first operational plant is not expected before 2030. Its prior project in Utah collapsed when costs surged from $3 billion to $9.3 billion. The nuclear spearhead the administration is counting on to power the AI buildout is financially broken, and the timeline does not match the urgency the warrant claims. Then there is the mirror. While the U.S. repeals environmental regulation and pivots to fossil fuels, China is targeting 80 percent green power for its data centers by 2030 ^[13]. The country that the warrant names as the threat — the rival the entire energy fortress is designed to beat — is greening the very infrastructure the U.S. is fossil-fueling. The fortress is being built in the opposite direction from the competitor it was designed to match.