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Biden Issues Executive Order Freeing Up Federal Land For Data Centers

President Joe Biden issued an executive order Tuesday enabling a pair of federal departments to lease sites for developers to build artificial intelligence infrastructure powered by clean energy “at speed and scale.”

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The order directs the Department of Defense and Department of Energy to make federal sites available for data centers and clean power facilities, facilitate the infrastructure’s interconnection to the electric grid, fulfill permitting obligations quickly and advance transmission development around those sites. 

“We will not let America be out-built when it comes to the technology that will define the future, nor should we sacrifice critical environmental standards and our shared efforts to protect clean air and clean water,” the White House said in a press release

The DOD and DOE will select sites based on their accessibility to high-capacity transmission infrastructure and ability to minimize adverse effects on communities, the natural environment and commercial resources, according to the release. Following site selection, the departments will solicit bids from the private sector for building, owning and operating large-scale AI infrastructure.

Developers the departments pick to build on these sites will need to bring online “sufficient clean energy generation resources” to fully power their data centers, according to the release. This will help to ensure that electricity costs don't spike for consumers, the White House said.

The executive order also mandates that developers leasing federal sites pay the full cost of building, operating and maintaining AI infrastructure, including the costs of building new data centers and clean power facilities, transmission development and upgrades. 

“President Biden’s executive order to accelerate AI infrastructure development is a credit positive for the US AI industry, given the scarcity of prime locations with access to large quantities of power,” said Raj Joshi, senior vice president of corporate finance at Moody’s Ratings, in a statement. “Building data centers on Federal land reduces the permitting burden for developers, although power availability will remain a key constraint.”

Reports of Biden's intention to sign an executive order promoting data center growth surfaced in December, much to the chagrin of environmental and consumer groups worried about the negative impacts of the data center industry’s rapid ascension.

Internet-focused activist group Demand Progress slammed the measure as harmful to power “unproven AI.” Emily Peterson-Cassin, the nonprofit’s director of corporate power, said in a release that the American people will pay for this mistake “for generations.” 

“The Biden administration is going out, not with a bang, but with a giveaway to Big Tech snake oil salesmen,” Peterson-Cassin said.

“While we appreciate the inclusion of some consumer protection language, we are concerned that these provisions provide insufficient safeguards to prevent a Big Tech takeover of federal lands ... The big winners here are Big Tech and Dirty Energy executives — and any Biden administration officials who may move on to jobs in those sectors.”