Twenty years ago, residents of the Upper Delaware raised the alarm about plans to use hydraulic fracturing to drill for natural gas in the Upper Delaware River Basin. Working to educate ourselves about the potential dangers of the process, we hit an informational brick wall: the chemical components of the fluids used to fracture wells had been deemed “proprietary” trade secrets under the terms of the 2005 Energy Policy Act. Pushed through by Vice President Dick Cheney, who had served as chairman and CEO of oil giant Halliburton, the legislation that came to be known as the “Halliburton Loophole” exempted hydraulic fracturing from all of the federal oversight required under the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act. 

“Proprietary” was the magic word that shielded the industry from having to reveal that fracking involved more than a thousand chemicals that made their way into drinking water supplies and waterways. 

Now, as local governments seek to quantify the potential environmental impacts of the massive data centers being proposed for their communities, the term “proprietary” is being applied to information about energy and water demand, and even the identities of the project developers, contending that disclosure would give rival projects a competitive edge. With roughly 100 new large-scale data center projects proposed across Pennsylvania and New York, communities have organized rapidly and the opposition is remarkably bipartisan.  

According to the Pew Research Center, a typical hyperscale AI facility can use as much electricity each year as 100,000 households. They need millions of gallons of water for equipment cooling systems. Communities want to know what impact that power and water consumption will have on local utility rates. They worry about air pollution from ramped-up power generation using coal and natural gas, and back-up power from diesel generators. They’re concerned about the loss of agricultural land as thousands of acres are re-zoned for industrial use.  

A number of states, including Pennsylvania and New York, are developing laws that will regulate water and energy use, protect ratepayers from having to foot the bill for grid upgrades and additional power generation, and end the use of non-disclosure agreements between data center companies, utilities and municipalities to conceal critical information.

“National security” is another magical incantation that is turning up in new contexts as a way to override environmental laws when legislative efforts have failed. It’s already been used to justify withdrawal from international climate initiatives, arbitrary defunding of renewable energy projects, and efforts to prevent states from attempting to regulate AI. Late last month, it dealt a serious blow to the Endangered Species Act (ESA). 

Congress passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973 to establish a comprehensive protocol for the designation and protection of threatened species and critical habitats. While the ESA has been amended several times over the years, changes have largely served to expand the scope and refine methods of enforcement, with one notable exception: in 1978, Congress approved an amendment that established an Endangered Species Committee empowered to grant exemptions to projects it deems to in the national interest or for which no alternative can provide the same economic benefits in a region. Made up of the secretaries of agriculture, interior and the army, the chairperson of the Council of Economic Advisors, and the administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—all presidential appointees—the committee was nicknamed “the God Squad” because it had the power of life or death over protected species. It had only met three times in its 53-year history until last week, when it was convened to approve a request by the Secretary of Defense for a blanket exemption for all oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico, citing the war in Iran and the military’s strategic need for fuel as an overriding rationale. 

The threatened or endangered species that make their home in the Gulf include sperm whales, manatees and sea turtles, but the most endangered is the rice whale, whose numbers declined by 22 percent after the 2010 Deep Horizon oil spill. Researchers estimate that only 51 rice whales now exist, and the Gulf is their only habitat. Advocates say the committee’s decision was rushed through without the required public notification, adequate discussion or the customary consultation with wildlife experts.  

We used to talk about energy independence as a national security goal most effectively supported by renewable wind and solar energy, free from the price fluctuations and geopolitical tensions of the international oil and gas trade. Now, our leaders have replaced the idea of energy independence with the notion of global “energy dominance” related exclusively to fossil fuels, and they have conflated the idea of dominance with national security. As a result, we are on course to perpetuate our dependence on fossil fuels to the exclusion of all the other goals and priorities. At a private event before his national address regarding the Iran war last Wednesday, the president opined that the federal government can’t take care of domestic needs like Medicaid and Medicare while fighting wars. On Friday, the White House released an outline of its proposed 2027 federal budget that reflected that intention, proposing to offset an unprecedented $1.5 trillion defense department appropriation by cutting all non-defense spending by 10 percent, with the states taking up the slack. Those magic words keep on giving.