The US administration released its Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Plan (Plan) on July 23, 2025. This Plan seeks to encourage innovation in AI along with an aggressive buildout of AI data centers, as well as the energy infrastructure needed to power them.
Our AI Action Plan LawFlash provides a full analysis. In this blog post, we highlight the Plan’s recommendations regarding AI data centers.
Streamline Environmental Reviews and Permitting
To encourage the rapid build-out of AI data centers, the Plan recommends changes to the environmental review and permitting process to eliminate the need for environmental reviews of data center projects or significantly reduce the burden and time to obtain the needed environmental permits. The Plan recommends the following:
- Creating a categorical exclusion under the National Environmental Policy Act to “cover data center-related actions that do not normally have a significant effect on the environment”
- Expanding the use of the FAST-41 process to cover all data centers and data center energy projects eligible under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act of 2015
- Expediting environmental permitting or reducing regulations under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, including a nationwide Clean Water Act Section 404 permit for data centers
- Making federal lands available for data center construction and the construction of power generation infrastructure for those data centers by directing agencies with significant land portfolios to identify sites suited to large-scale development
- Using AI to accelerate and improve environmental permitting under the US Department of Energy’s PermitAI projec
Ensuring Sufficient Electrical Power and Improving Grid Reliability
The Plan recognizes that data centers will require a significant increase in electric generation capacity and a stable, efficient grid to transmit and deliver the electricity. To achieve these goals, the Plan recommends the following:
- Stabilizing the grid by preventing premature closure of generation assets
- Making the transmission system more efficient through better technology, physical upgrades, and load management
- Prioritizing the interconnection of dispatchable power sources
- Reforming power markets to align financial incentives with the goal of grid stability
Increase US Semiconductor Manufacturing
In order to supply data centers with the advanced chips that will be required, the Plan calls for revitalizing US chip manufacturing by continuing the implementation of the CHIPS Act and streamlining regulations that slow manufacturing efforts.
Build High-Security Data Centers
The Plan calls for the construction of high-security data centers for the US military and intelligence agencies. It also calls on the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in collaboration with the US Department of Defense and US intelligence agencies to create new technical standards for high-security data centers.