FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 17, 2026
CONTACT:
Aaron Bharucha, Public Relations Associate
(509) 429-1699 and epn-press@environmentalprotectionnetwork.org
Trump DOJ Asks Court for Executive Veto Over Citizen Clean Air Lawsuits
EPN warns DOJ’s xAI data center filing could threaten community enforcement rights across environmental and public protection laws
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a move that threatens to dismantle decades of community environmental protections, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a motion to intervene and dismiss a Clean Air Act citizen lawsuit brought by the NAACP against xAI’s use of gas turbines located in Southaven, Mississippi, to power a data center near Memphis.
The Environmental Protection Network (EPN) is warning that this filing goes far beyond a single data center. Instead, the DOJ is asking a federal court to grant the Executive Branch a sweeping “veto power” to shut down congressionally authorized citizen lawsuits whenever community enforcement conflicts with the administration’s political priorities.
“During my time at the Justice Department, as an environmental law professor, and leading EPA’s enforcement office, I saw again and again how essential citizen suits are to protecting communities across America from harmful pollution. EPA and the states have primary enforcement responsibility under the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws, but Congress gave communities the right to go to court when companies break the law, and EPA and the states fail to act. DOJ is trying to rewrite the Clean Air Act and turn the public’s right to bring citizen suits into a permission slip the Executive Branch can revoke,” said David M. Uhlmann, former Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.
“Although the stakes are high for this community in Mississippi, this is much bigger than one data center or one company. If DOJ’s unprecedented attack on the Clean Air Act succeeds, any administration could try to shut down citizen enforcement whenever a case conflicts with its political priorities, favored industries, or preferred projects. DOJ should be protecting communities from harmful pollution, not taking actions that weaken the rule of law, defy Congress, and leave Americans breathing dirty air and drinking filthy water.”
For more than 50 years, the Clean Air Act has established the explicit legal right for citizens to go to court and hold polluters accountable when government agencies fail to act. Congress created this community enforcement mechanism with very few limitations, and it never intended for the Executive Branch to have a veto over it. By using a vague national security argument to stop this lawsuit, the DOJ is attempting to override an explicit act of Congress—making it significantly harder for communities to seek accountability when large facilities violate clean air requirements.
A Dangerous Precedent for Public Safety
The immediate target is a Clean Air Act citizen suit. But the theory DOJ is advancing could invite attacks on citizen enforcement under the Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, RCRA, CERCLA/Superfund, TSCA, EPCRA, the Endangered Species Act, and other environmental laws Congress wrote so communities could act when agencies fail to enforce. It could also put pressure on private enforcement frameworks Congress created in anti-fraud, civil rights, fair housing, disability access, worker protection, antitrust, and consumer protection laws.
Citizen enforcement is not a loophole or procedural technicality. It is one of the ways Congress made public protection laws enforceable when agencies are under-resourced, delayed, politically constrained, or unwilling to act.
That history matters. Citizen enforcement helped force EPA to implement toxic water pollutant protections under the Clean Water Act. It helped confirm that civil penalties paid to the U.S. Treasury can deter future violations and protect communities. It recently helped hold ExxonMobil accountable for repeated Clean Air Act violations at its Baytown refinery and petrochemical complex. If DOJ’s theory had governed for the last 50 years, some of the most important environmental enforcement cases in modern history could have been stopped not because the law was not violated, but because the administration in power did not want the law enforced.
Trying to Put Data Centers Above Clean Air Laws
The administration is deploying this sweeping legal theory in service of its AI and data center agenda. EPA has made AI and data center expansion one of its defining priorities, including efforts to speed permitting and power generation for data centers, while moving to weaken pollution standards for coal and gas power plants at the same time data centers are driving new electricity demand.
Communities and Families Left Paying the Price
Communities have seen this pattern before. For generations, people have been told to accept pollution in the name of national defense, military readiness, economic necessity, or technological progress. At Santa Susana Field Laboratory in California, rocket engine testing and defense-related research left a legacy of chemical contamination that still requires cleanup. In Vieques, Puerto Rico, decades of naval training, bombing, munitions storage, and unexploded ordnance left communities living with contamination long after the military mission ended. From burn pits overseas to PFAS-contaminated military bases at home, history shows what happens when the government treats pollution as an acceptable cost of national priorities.
Families, workers, service members, and nearby communities are the ones left paying the price.
AI development does not require abandoning clean air protections. Data centers do not need a special exemption from the laws every other major source of pollution must follow. No data center, defense contractor, factory, power plant, or politically favored project should be above the clean air laws families rely on to protect their health.
Defending the Rule of Law
EPN urges the court to reject DOJ’s attempt to erase Clean Air Act citizen enforcement rights and preserve the public’s ability to hold polluters accountable when government agencies fail to do so.
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ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION NETWORK
The Environmental Protection Network is a nonpartisan organization comprising more than 750 former EPA scientists, toxicologists, chemists, biologists, engineers, and policy analysts — many of whom spent decades as career experts inside the agency. They assessed cancer and developmental risks, studied links between pollution and fertility and chronic disease, investigated contaminated communities, and brought enforcement actions to hold corporate polluters accountable. EPN was founded in 2017 to serve as an independent voice promoting science-based policies that protect Americans’ health.