iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lastly, even if many of the gas plants for hyperscale data center complexes get approved, these are massive projects that will take many years to build. In 2029, i'm counting on a new Admin to enforce the law & limit the damage. But section IV of the bill places huge hurdles in the way of this.

Want to stop a fossil-powered data center? The first thing is to mobilize your community around public participation opportunities and then go about enforcing clean air, clean water and other environmental laws. The bill removes many of these tools .. bc the fossil gas buldout is inevitable?

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The Section IV provisions should be analyzed with this context: the data center opposition is strong and getting stronger, with a proven ability to stop projects; most of the gas plant buildout is tied to data centers, so at least some data center cancellations will lead to gas plant cancellations.

Permitting Reform’s Battle Lines Are Taking Shape

Agree w @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social that today's baseline condition is many GWs of fossil gas in the development pipeline, but don't buy into the idea that buildout is inevitable and therefore we shouldn't care what the permitting reform bill says on this topic.

heatmap.news

Many nonprofits representing the environmental and climate movement are split.

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 18h

Thanks and yes, no question, there are tradeoffs. Transmission is the big unlock for large renewables. But plenty of groundwork can be laid in terms of building support while we await a governing moment at the federal level.

John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 18h

More than 1/2 of gas plant capacity under development will use simple cycle turbines (SCGT) or reciprocating engines (RICE). This means much more CO2, NOx and PM2.5 pollution if combined cycle gas turbines were used. For Big Tech, data centers' "speed to power" matters far more your health.

C02, NOX and PM2.5 emissions factors for types of gas power generation technology.

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 19h

I'm with the "don't do this deal and don't bet on the next Congress" crowd. For the next 2-1/2 years, it's all defense on the federal side, advancing a climate-friendly agenda requires focusing on the states. bsky.app/profile/kost...

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 20h

So sorry, Danny. Your caution about ad hominem attacks resonates now more than ever.

John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 21h

Very much agree. I've seen that indignity up close: my grandfather, a Pennsylvania coal miner, died of black lung.

"Most BYOP projects are expected to seek grid connection eventually, raising important questions about the long-term economic, technical, and societal consequences of allowing future grid-connected gas projects to circumvent regulatory decision-making and protections today."

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Not coincidental that the proposals are concentrated in Appalachia / Midwest and Texas - those are the locations of the biggest oil and gas reserves in the US (and extensive pipeline networks).

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The report does a nice job of giving a sense of the scale (177 GW = 65% of the power used by all US households) and harms to our climate & public health & pocketbooks. Rejects claims by the data center industry that BYOP eliminates harm to consumers.

Location of proposed BYOP gas plant proposals from data centers.

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The AI Gas Rush: Risks and Implications of “Bring Your Own Power”

Regulators are offering to speed up data centers' connections to the grid if they "bring their own power." @earthjustice.org & Better Data Center Project find that over the next 5 years, 80% of BYOP energy will come from fossil gas. Data centers propose to bring 177 GWs (!) of new gas.

earthjustice.org

A new report explains how data centers being built for AI tools are different than data centers of the past and present.

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WIRED’s Midterms Races to Watch

In so many of these races, candidates' track records of support of data centers running roughshod over communities is just part of the disdain for democracy. From supporting Trump's subversion of elections to helping launch DOGE, these candidates should be nowhere near the reins of government.

wired.com

From data centers to Elon Musk funding to the AI lobby, the 2026 midterms are the most WIRED elections yet. These are the candidates we’re following closely.

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$33B transmission build-out leaves Texas ranchers fuming

We absolutely need reform of federal tranmission policy. But many setbacks, like this one in Texas, are not due to federal law, they're due to short-circuiting of public input and the lack of serious effort by industry to do outreach in the communities where the project would be built.

eenews.net

The state approved a massive electric infrastructure expansion after lawmakers shortened the time regulators had to study projects.

Winning on federal and state politics and policy also requires getting into communities and building a stronger base of support. "Sorry, there will be no opportunity for public input under our new law," maybe not the best conversation starter?

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Across large swaths of the US, renewables deployment is blocked by local moratoriums & other local gov't action. This doesn't get fixed by rollbacks of federal env'tl laws. It requires the clean energy sector to come to terms w the fact that it has been badly out-organized by the fossil fuel lobby.

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When Data Centers Cluster Together, How Dirty Are They? One County Wants Answers.

Cumulative impacts analyses are traditionally done by federal and state environmental regulators, whereas local zoning officials typically evaluate proposals in isolation. Lackawanna County PA wants to change this, launching a cumulative impacts study of the many proposed data centers in its area.

nytimes.com

An unusual study aims to estimate the pollution and health costs from a cluster of proposed data centers, instead of considering each one separately.

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Plenty of respected leaders on protection of clean water, endangered species, and public participation are writing up their critiques, so i'll defer. I'll only add here that the clean energy industry doesn't help itself in its quest to build much-needed community support by pushing these rollbacks.

Time matters for the climate & public health. Hoping that all sides of this debate focus on the climate & health consequences of fossil fuel lock-in - both the locking in of fossil fuel infrastructure and the locking in of Trump's destructive regulatory policy.

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What the Senate Permitting Deal Means for US Climate Emissions

@zekehausfather.com, a supporter of the compromise, acknowledges that "the fossil-fuel provisions would take effect immediately, while the biggest clean-energy gains would take much longer to arrive, since they depend on years of implementation by federal regulators."

bloomberg.com

Experts say the bill, which would speed clean-energy and fossil-fuel projects alike, would probably reduce greenhouse gas emissions overall.

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Suppose that after public grids are modernized and made more accessible, the builders of these gas-powered private grids will want to connect. What could a new administration do under the draft bill to prevent the addition of this massive complex of fossil power plants to the public grid?

Streamlined permitting for transmission & clean energy projects is hardly a win if the main source of new electricity, Big Tech, refuses to commit to these grid-connected projects. RIght now, it is signaling that it has little patience for them & likes the "speed to power" benefits of private grids.

Data centers face a sweeping new power regime

The bill has provisions requiring Big Tech to pay for its grid impacts, but a tech lobbyist says these "tougher grid-connected requirements could encourage some developers to build more power systems completely off-grid."

axios.com

Lawmakers are considering forcing data centers to shoulder new costs and restrictions while speeding up the energy infrastructure needed to power the AI boom.

Some clean energy advocates believe that because their tech is more economic, they will win under the "level playing field" created by this draft bill. But this bill creates legal rights for polluters to build pipelines and other infrastructure that negate the idea of a level playing field.

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Big Tech firms are stumbling over each other to show who has the biggest ambition when it comes to fossil-powered data centers. Every day another massive climate-wrecking proposal gets approved under Trump. What options would a new admin have to reverse this under the draft bill?

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As Jeremy explains, Title IV does far more than provide "project certainty." It gives unprecedented power to polluters to defeat regulatory actions by future administrations. If you're voting in 2028 to reverse Trump's vast rollbacks, study up on Title IV, it largely stymies those reversals.

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This is not the permit reform deal that was advertised

The Senate will take up permitting reform in early November, so it's time to grapple w what Dem negotiators gave up to streamline permitting for clean energy. @jeremysymons.bsky.social finds that the provisions won by the fossil & tech lobbies would cause lasting damage to our climate & clean air.

substack.com

Dangerous provisions would hand Trump broad powers to block future presidents from acting on climate change and restoring the Clean Air Act

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Alabama Sets Stricter Data Center Rules. But There’s a Loophole. - Inside Climate News

Talk about not reading the room. AL's PSC has adopted rules with the stated purpose of requiring data centers to pay their own costs, but data center proposals are approved "by default" if the commission fails to vote on them, and there are no provisions for public hearings or other public input.

insideclimatenews.org

The new rules require more public disclosure on data center projects but still allow large projects to be approved without a vote.

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Democracy Docket @democracydocket.com · 07/10/2026

Love this! "Enabling public pension fund assets to be channeled in productive ways rather than putting public funds under the control of extractive asset managers" makes more sense today than ever, with our environmentally-destructive AI bubble financially engineered by those very asset managers.

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Reposted by John Kostyack

🎥 NEW: ICE never wanted you to see the internal documents it released last week. Why? It went so far as to outline a plan to use undercover agents to target nonprofits for registering voters. Marc Elias explains how deeply ICE has become involved in elections under Trump's second term👇

youtube.com

ICE Voter Plot EXPOSED in Smoking Gun Documents

YouTube video by Democracy Docket

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I'd add: Big Tech $ is polluting virtually every one of these races with attack ads. The big question to be answered over the next month, depending in part on how the AI data center accountability movement responds: will voters buy into its deceptive narratives or see right through them?

Voters Will Soon Decide the Fate of America’s Trillion Dollar AI Buildout

@michael-thomas.bsky.social on the importance of November's elections to the trajectory of the data center boom. 20 closely-contested House districts have large-scale proposals. 10 close governor’s races will set rules for 67.4 GW of planned data centers.

substack.com

Ten races will set the rules for 67.4 GW of planned data centers—more capacity than the entire country has operating today

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ICE Is Everywhere and Acting with Impunity

I didn't think i was still capable of being shocked after all we've seen, then i read this update on ICE. Things have only gotten worse since the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Expect to see many of these armed thugs at the voting stations in November.

newyorker.com

ICE arrests have reached a record high—nearly fifty-one thousand in August alone—with agents conducting operations nationwide at hospitals, at airports, and outside schools.

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So very sad. Proud to have known him, greatly benefitted from his wisdom.

I confess to not having read the full 155-page (!) document but it seems that, thankfully, it does not encourage onsite generation at data centers, as the Governor suggested it would a week or so ago. Instead it calls for discouraging reliance on new BTM gas generation for data centers.

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"All four routes [to the climate target] involve massive growth in solar farms — between 1.2 GWs and 1.8 GWs per year — and a steady increase in distributed energy resources, such as customer-sited solar & batteries. One maintains current policies, while three add an emphasis on demand flexibility."

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Virginia’s new energy plan: Make the AI boom work for — not against —…

Gov. Spanberger's new energy plan would preserve the state's "zero carbon by mid-century" climate target while meeting projected electricity demand growth of 85%. Presumes that most proposed data centers will get built and developers will power them w largely clean energy & pay their own costs.

canarymedia.com

Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s just-released blueprint doubles down on the state’s landmark climate law while aiming to solve the data center growth…

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Yes, and bc these are mostly being set up (initially) as private grids, they're evading scrutiny from grid operators and utility regulators. What's left for communities to protect themselves from harms from this gas buildout? Some of the key remaining tools would be removed by permitting reform.

The Surge in Rates Is Blowing Up Commercial Real-Estate Deals

There's a pretty clear correlation between problems in the real estate industry and rising interest rates. Loss of Biden-era subsidies aren't the driver of rising interest rates, are they? www.wsj.com/real-estate/...

wsj.com

Property buyers are demanding sellers renegotiate terms because of higher mortgage rates, signaling broader market distress.

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Reposted by John Kostyack

Danny Cullenward @ghgpolicy.org · 05/10/2026

I thought this might be an exaggeration, but no! Despite all the talk of technology neutrality, it appears the permitting reform proposal would weaponize claims for federal damages — but in practice, only for fossil fuels.

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