A Growing Data Center Pollution Threat, and the Last of the Jan. 6 Cases

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**Tracy Mumford** (0:33)
From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today is Wednesday, August 5th. Here's what we're covering.
To start, two quick updates on fast moving stories. First, as of early this morning, the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, one of the most heated and most expensive this year, is still too close to call. The matchup is effectively a test for the Democratic Party as a whole. What kind of candidate is their best bet to help take control of Congress?

**Abdul El-Sayed** (1:09)
I'm running for US. Senate because in the state that built the American Dream, it shouldn't be this hard just to get by.

**Tracy Mumford** (1:15)
Right now, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive who's had Bernie Sanders and AOC stumping for him, has got a slight lead over Representative Hailey Stevens, a moderate Democrat backed by the party establishment.

**Hailey Stevens** (1:28)
Housing's more expensive than ever, but all we're getting is more chaos. What the heck are they doing?

**Tracy Mumford** (1:34)
What's also made this race one to watch is the role of AIPAC, the country's most influential pro-Israel group. AIPAC's super PAC arm poured more than $30 million into ads for Stevens, and that has made support for Israel a big part of the conversation. With the midterms this fall, Michigan is going to be a crucial race for Democrats. Whoever wins the primary will be up against a Republican challenger, Mike Rogers, who is trying to flip the Senate seat red. And if Democrats want to take control of Congress, holding on to Michigan will be key. For the latest primary results, check nytimes.com.
And second quick update. All eyes are on the stock market, where the S&P 500 rallied to a record high yesterday. It's been both spiking and plunging over the last few months, rising when there's hope that the conflict with Iran is nearing an end, or when big tech companies have put out strong earnings reports, then faltering again when negotiations fall apart, or fears that companies are overspending on AI flare back up.
Around the country, the intense public debate over data centers has largely been about how much water they'll use, how much noise they'll make, or if they'll drive up electric bills for people who live nearby. But The Times has also been digging into the growing threat of air pollution and planet warming emissions, as the Trump administration encourages data center developers to build their own power plants.

**Donald Trump** (3:20)
We have an old grid. It could never handle the kind of numbers, the amount of electricity that's needed. So I'm telling them they can build their own plant. They're going to produce their own electricity.

**Tracy Mumford** (3:31)
President Trump himself endorsed the strategy during this year's State of the Union, and tech companies have been quick to take him up on it, hoping to bypass the years-long process of connecting to the normal grid. Now, across the US, at least 82 gas-burning power plants are currently being built or have been proposed. If they all come online, they could release as much greenhouse gas emissions as roughly half of all passenger vehicles in the entire country, according to an estimate from an environmental watchdog group. They will also produce harmful pollutants that can contribute to heart disease, asthma, lung cancer, and strokes in people living nearby. Most of those projects were given permits or announced in just the past 18 months, as the Trump administration, along with certain state governments, have swept aside environmental regulations in order to encourage the industry's growth. For example, the federal government has exempted data center power plants from limits on pollution that causes acid rain. And in Texas, regulators have been allowing large projects to get approved in smaller phases that require less paperwork and oversight before combining them.
One expert called it a legal loophole that means the state is essentially ignoring the cumulative environmental effect of when all the pieces are brought together and turned on. That's what's happening with one huge data center campus in West Texas, which is designed to eventually use as much electricity as a city of 1.5 million households. It plans to try and get approval for its power plants in eight separate phases. The first phase was approved in just three days.
In a courtroom in Washington, DC yesterday, a federal judge granted a request by the Justice Department to throw out the criminal cases of eight members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia which played a role in January 6th. The judge expressed deep regret and that he wished for a different ending, but said that his hands were tied by the administration's request. This comes just weeks after another federal judge said he was also pushed to throw out January 6 related cases involving the Proud Boys. All of the cases were for seditious conspiracy, the most serious charges stemming from the Capitol attack. And together, the judge's rulings marked the final erasure of the vast investigation into the attempted insurrection. The militia members had already had their sentences commuted, something President Trump moved to do on his first day back in office when he issued a sweeping clemency order for people involved in the January 6 riot. But their cases hadn't been wiped away entirely until now.