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The US Government Is Letting a Key Data Center Regulation Expire (wired.com) 77

Posted by BeauHD from the no-policy-is-the-policy dept.
The Federal Data Center Enhancement Act (FDCEA) is set to expire in September without an apparent replacement, potentially ending requirements for federal agencies to report on data-center efficiency, resilience, energy and water use, and contractor sustainability. Wired reports: Despite the public backlash, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the government agency that sets guidance for how agencies implement policies in line with the president's agenda, is not providing any plans for how federal agencies should manage the sunset or continue to implement reporting beyond the timeline of the law. This, current and former workers at OMB and the General Services Administration (GSA) say, signals that the Trump administration is set to take an even more hands-off approach to data center oversight and regulation.

A replacement for the requirements laid out in FDCEA would, in other administrations, have been in the works for months ahead of its expiration. An employee with the GSA, the agency that oversees the government's IT services and helps to implement the FDCEA, says that the lack of any sort of plan is highly uncommon. The employee spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. "Never in the history of data center policies has a policy expired without another one having been painstakingly worked on for three years behind the scenes," says the GSA employee. "The technology has changed so much it's not about getting everything right, it's about doing the best they can and updating to a new policy. They claim they're going to make sure private companies pay their fare share, but they haven't explained how they'll do that."

[...] There has been a burst of data-center-related legislation introduced in Congress this year, from bills that mandate environmental reviews of data centers to bills designed to protect local moratoriums. However, it appears that none of these bills are designed to address the requirements in FDCEA, nor do they specifically address federally run or leased data centers. [...] A search of reginfo.gov, the OMB website that contains reports on the president's Unified Agenda, also turns up nothing for the FDCEA. "By letting this expire, OMB is going to enter into this new age of prioritizing rapid AI development over any sort of centralized control or rigorous standards," says the anonymous GSA employee who spoke to Wired. "In the absence of a new policy from OMB, [GSA] has no directive or measurable standards with which to point agencies towards managing data centers efficiently."
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The US Government Is Letting a Key Data Center Regulation Expire More

The US Government Is Letting a Key Data Center Regulation Expire

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  • Are there people in the government (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    that understand these issues? If they did, they would be working in the private sector for much more money.

    • Re:Are there people in the government (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 ) on Monday June 15, 2026 @08:45PM (#66194784)

      The current administration selects people specifically for incompetence. That is not true for any other administration in the country's history. Traditionally there most definitely are people in government that understand issues, now the issues they understand are how to grift and stack the deck. Whether that gets worse or better depends on whether people like you win or people with critical thinking skills do.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by johnnys ( 592333 )
        The USA voted them in. FAFO.

        • If the law was passed with a sunset clause, then the requirements for the report will end. Whether this is a good thing, or a bad thing, please don't tell me that you want to pay for the government to do things that its not required to do by law. I certainly don't.

          If you think the law should been extended and/or re-enacted without a sunset clause, contact your legislators. Feel free to have your family, friends, and neighbors do the same thing.

          • No, it wouldn't be the government doing something it isn't required to, it would be the government doing something it no longer had the legal authority to do. This is a government employee bemoaning the fact that the administration isn't trying to do an end-run around Congress to take authority that it has been denied.

            And I'm glad he is losing that authority.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Targon ( 17348 )

          Based on how Trump accuses others of the things he and his administration are guilty of, there is a fair indication that the election was stolen, but the Democratic Party has pussies running things and they don't challenge questionable things the way Republicans do.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        It isn't just the administration, a good number of congress critters are similarly incompetent but have a media "outreach" organization to blind voters to this. That allows them to enrich themselves (stock trading, siphoning money in bills to their friends for a Bit-O-Graft under the table, etc). Their media "outreach" organization is a group of people dedicated to keeping their pet cockroach in office and paying them for their phony-baloney jobs.

    • Re:Are there people in the government (Score:5, Funny)

      by arglebargle_xiv ( 2212710 ) on Monday June 15, 2026 @08:51PM (#66194806)
      "Thank you for calling the US government. We're very sorry but we're quite busy right now running UFC fights and harassing Gavin Newsom. Next up is thinking up new distractions to amuse the Dear Leader. If you're worried about silly things like the cost of living or what's going to happen to your 401k, please call the psychic hotline for advice. If you'd like to hear this message in Spanish, please press 1 and an ICE team will be by shortly to deport you".

    • Sounds like the precise argument why governments shouldn't be the ones regulating these things. Maybe private industry consortiums

      For the same reasons that any internet standard goes through the IETF, not the FTC. Maybe there needs to be a SIG group that consists of all the major AI players, that can come up w/ the various conventions, best practices & so on. They can include in their coverage issues like Net Zero, privacy protection and the entire gamut

      • If you think a private industry consortium will.have more your interests at heart than your own democratically elected government... boy, do I have a bridge to sell you.

        Also, if you're realy that gullible and still somehow old enough to have learned how to read, you deserve whatever comes your way from a dysfunctional government or industry.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PCM2 ( 4486 )

        Sounds like the precise argument why governments shouldn't be the ones regulating these things. Maybe private industry consortiums

        "These things"? You mean the government shouldn't be drafting regulations for government, which is what we're talking about here? Instead, private industry should be telling the government what to do?

  • potentially ending requirements for federal agencies to report on data-center efficiency, resilience, energy and water use, and contractor sustainability. ... signals that the Trump administration is set to take an even more hands-off approach to data center oversight and regulation.

    Sounds like another case of if it's not measured, it doesn't happen, like when Trump said [thehill.com] during COVID, "If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any." (Ignoring the obvious fact that they'd still exist, we just wouldn't know about them, noting that would have been better PR for him in the moment, but not so much in reality for the rest of us.)

    • Something else the states will have to do by themselves. You would think a warning sign like the sharp rise in electronics due to data centers consuming memory at an alarming rate would be a reason to at least consider regulation. But we are in the act of stopping the steal to make america great again lest we forget someone named benghazi is actually what the epstein files are about......

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kenh ( 9056 )

        Something else the states will have to do by themselves. You would think a warning sign like the sharp rise in electronics due to data centers consuming memory at an alarming rate would be a reason to at least consider regulation. But we are in the act of stopping the steal to make america great again lest we forget someone named benghazi is actually what the epstein files are about......

        What?

        This regulation is about tracking energy/environmental impact, not controlling it/reducing it - this is about data collection, not environmental regulation.

        States already heavily regulate construction, be it data centers or anything else.

        This regulation only concerns federal data centers, either those operated by the federal government or those operated by contractors for the federal government - private AI data centers, Microsoft, google, meta, etc data centers aren't part of this regulation.

    • Oh, like when the DC (and so many other cities') police stopped reporting crime? https://www.wusa9.com/article/... [wusa9.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cpurdy ( 4838085 )

        Oh, like when the DC (and so many other cities') police stopped reporting crime?

        You linked to an article that does not support your lie; I just read the article, but it seems that you either did not read it, or you're an even worse liar than you first appeared to be. The article you linked to is about a police officer who was a "whistle blower" and claimed that managers within the Washington D.C. police department were down-grading crimes (and pushing for their subordinates to do the same) so that they cou

  • need we say more? republicans find your tiny balls that you haven't seen in decades and for once in your miserable lives do you f/ing job!

    • I'm not sure why Americans are upset. You got what you voted for.

      • I'm not sure why Americans are upset. You got what you voted for.

        We got what something around 30% of the population voted for. The rest of us are disgusted by this continual shit-show, and even the ones who voted for him are starting to realize they've been duped. Well, some of them.

      • I don't know why anyone would be upset by the idea of a bureaucrat losing authority they aren't allowed to keep. I'm happy about it. I like that this administration hasn't spent the whole time trying to figure out how to make temporary authority permanent.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      There are 535 of them.

    • Why, because he hasn't been working from the start to find a way to do an end-run around Congress and keep authority that was granted on a limited basis? Congress gave OMB this authority for 3 years. That authority has ended.

      Our elected representatives gave bureaucrats three years to make rules for Federal datacenters. By their own admission, those bureaucrats can't. They're "doing the best they can" with tech that moves faster than they can. And yet, they don't want to give up the authority to make

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cpurdy ( 4838085 )
        We get it, "sabbede". You love trump, you hate the environment, you hate protections for the American public, and you hate public servants. You keep posting the same tired screed, calling public servants "unelected bureaucrats" and celebrating the demise of any government behavior designed to better life for Americans. In short, you suck ass, and serve the forces of evil, but I guess that's par for the course for all MAGAs at this point.

  • Free market... (Score:5, Informative)

    by devloop ( 983641 ) on Monday June 15, 2026 @08:54PM (#66194814)
    The idea is to let "The Free Market self-regulate".
    In reality, this is code for "Give the tech billionaire oligarchs unrestricted free reign".

    • Free Market? This regulation is *exclusively* concerned with FEDERAL datacenters, it has nothing to do with datacenters in the private sector. How do I know? I read the first f'ing sentence in the summary:

      The Federal Data Center Enhancement Act (FDCEA) is set to expire in September without an apparent replacement, potentially ending requirements for federal agencies to report on data-center efficiency, resilience, energy and water use, and contractor sustainability.

      The Federal Data Center Enhancement Act (FDCEA) - limited to just federal datacenters, not the new private sector datacenters popping up all around the country...

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by devloop ( 983641 )
        Who do you think built and runs those data centers?
        About 50% (and growing) of federal government data centers are run by private corporations.
        That means no more mandates on those private sector contractors to reduce or even report on ecological impact, water resource usages, electricity usage.
        Free license to pillage.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by kenh ( 9056 )

          Yes, but federal data centers, either directly run by the federal government or by contractors for the government represent a very, very small percentage of the standalone data centers in the US. This excludes every MS, AMZ, Meta, Google, etc data centers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by havana9 ( 101033 )
      I think that data centers are hyped by real estate people, building some construction it's always good.
      Twenty years ago there was a construction wave on building malls, until some of them started to become dead malls. One place proposed was near an airport, but at the end nothing was done and the project was scrapped because it was clear that nobody was interested to have a shop opened there, especially because having a jet taking off or worse making a go-around doesn't make the better shopping experience

  • The summary conflates Federal Data Center reporting with private industry datacenter reporting - the legislation that is subset for the end of FY'26 (September) is only concerned with federal government datacenters.

    . "Never in the history of data center policies has a policy expired without another one having been painstakingly worked on for three years behind the scenes,"

    If the process of crafting the legislations replacement should have been worked on the past three years, doesn't that mean the process should have started under the previous (Biden/Harris) administration back in 2023?

    The summary is misdirecting by trying to hold the current (Trump/Vance) administ

  • Misleading (Score:2, Informative)

    by darkain ( 749283 )

    1) The Law is only 3 years old. This isn't some massive change, as it has barely been on the books at all.
    2) It only applies to Federal facilities, not general data centers, so has absolutely NOTHING to do with all the other bullshit hype around AI datacenters.

    • And yet the unnamed source tries to make it sound like it is about making private companies "pay their fair share" and can't believe that the administration hasn't spent three years trying to figure out how to make the temporary power it was granted permanent. Power, apparently, for him.

      Even though he says they're just fumbling in the dark to make rules about things they don't understand that are outdated by the time they are written. Which I think that on some level we all already knew was the case.

      I

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by kenh ( 9056 )

        And yet the unnamed source tries to make it sound like it is about making private companies "pay their fair share" and can't believe that the administration hasn't spent three years trying to figure out how to make the temporary power it was granted permanent. Power, apparently, for him

        The administration that took charge 18 months ago didn't start working on this regulation 36 months ago? I wonder why that is?

        • Yup, that too. But that silliness, in my mind, pales in comparison to the banal evil of assuming the government should always be trying to keep temporary authority.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      1) The Law is only 3 years old. This isn't some massive change, as it has barely been on the books at all.
      2) It only applies to Federal facilities, not general data centers, so has absolutely NOTHING to do with all the other bullshit hype around AI datacenters.

      I'm struggling to make sense of your statements and this quote from the summary:

      A replacement for the requirements laid out in FDCEA would, in other administrations, have been in the works for months ahead of its expiration. An employee with the GSA, the agency that oversees the government's IT services and helps to implement the FDCEA, says that the lack of any sort of plan is highly uncommon. The employee spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. "Never in the history of data center policies has a policy expired without another one having been painstakingly worked on for three years behind the scenes," says the GSA employee.

      It implies this is along-standing regulation and it takes tears to update...

  • Biden-era red-tape enhancement rules that have only been around three years aren't of interest to this administration, nor to me.

    Though I do have particular disdain for the employee who can't believe the administration hasn't spent three years preparing a replacement for three-year-old legislation that was intended to sunset! Oh boo-hoo, Congress only gave him authority for three years and the administration won't find a way for him to keep it in spite of the law. Tough sh-t.

    And then he complains th

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