Judge rejects Trump’s wild claim EPA can dismiss data center pollution lawsuits

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Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI is stuck facing a lawsuit over alleged data center pollution after Donald Trump failed to convince a judge that his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has complete control over all Clean Air Act lawsuits and can dismiss any suit at whim.

埃隆·马斯克的 SpaceXAI 因涉嫌数据中心污染而陷入诉讼，此前唐纳德·特朗普未能说服法官相信其环境保护署（EPA）对所有《清洁空气法》诉讼拥有完全控制权，并可以随意驳回任何诉讼。

Soon after unpermitted gas turbines were discovered powering Musk’s giant Colossus data center in Memphis, Tennessee, the NAACP sued. Its lawsuit sought an injunction requiring xAI (which, following a merger, is known now as SpaceXAI) to use the best available pollution control technology when operating the turbines and ordering penalties up to $124,426 per day per violation.

在发现未经许可的燃气轮机为马斯克位于田纳西州孟菲斯的巨型 Colossus 数据中心供电后不久，美国全国有色人种协进会（NAACP）提起了诉讼。该诉讼寻求一项禁令，要求 xAI（合并后现称为 SpaceXAI）在运行涡轮机时使用现有的最佳污染控制技术，并要求对每次违规行为处以每天最高 124,426 美元的罚款。

Without such remedies, the turbines risked drastically spiking pollution in already vulnerable neighborhoods housing predominantly Black communities nearby, the NAACP argued. To block the lawsuit, Trump tried to intervene, arguing that the EPA had the power to unilaterally dismiss lawsuits any time the president decides against enforcing the Clean Air Act.

NAACP 辩称，如果没有这些补救措施，这些涡轮机可能会导致附近以黑人为主的脆弱社区的污染急剧增加。为了阻止诉讼，特朗普试图进行干预，辩称只要总统决定不执行《清洁空气法》，环保署就有权单方面驳回诉讼。

According to Trump, it would supposedly “not serve the public interest” if citizens were allowed to seek massive civil penalties to punish polluting AI firms that were trying to get data centers operational as fast as possible to support Trump’s AI Action Plan. But Trump’s efforts to spare Musk’s firm were halted by a federal judge Tuesday, who ruled that “nothing” in the Clean Air Act (CAA) allows the EPA Administrator to “unilaterally dismiss a citizen suit.”

据特朗普称，如果允许公民寻求巨额民事罚款来惩罚那些为了支持特朗普的“人工智能行动计划”而试图尽快让数据中心投入运营的污染型人工智能公司，那将“不符合公共利益”。但特朗普保护马斯克公司的努力周二被一位联邦法官叫停，法官裁定《清洁空气法》（CAA）中“没有任何内容”允许环保署署长“单方面驳回公民诉讼”。

Such a power grab would seemingly give Trump authority to block any lawsuits alleging data center pollution, US District Judge Debra Brown’s order suggested. Even further, she observed that Trump could have used the authority to defend any interests against CAA lawsuits, not just the AI industry’s.

美国地方法院法官黛布拉·布朗的命令指出，这种权力攫取似乎会赋予特朗普阻止任何指控数据中心污染的诉讼的权力。她进一步指出，特朗普本可以利用这种权力来捍卫任何利益免受《清洁空气法》诉讼的影响，而不仅仅是人工智能行业的利益。

The NAACP had argued that the CAA’s text is focused “on ensuring air pollution standards are met and people are protected.” It urged the court to recognize that there is “no way to read” a provision granting citizens a right to sue as Trump has.

NAACP 辩称，《清洁空气法》的文本重点在于“确保达到空气污染标准并保护人民”。它敦促法院认识到，像特朗普那样解读赋予公民起诉权的条款是“行不通的”。

That would “suggest that Congress, having gone out of its way to preserve people’s ability to sue to stop unlawful pollution when the government has not, also implicitly authorized the government to dismiss those very suits at its whim because it would prefer that the unlawful pollution continue,” the NAACP successfully argued.

NAACP 成功辩称，这“意味着国会在政府未采取行动时，特意保留了人们起诉以制止非法污染的能力，同时也隐含地授权政府可以随意驳回这些诉讼，因为它更希望非法污染继续存在”。

In a press release, Laura Thoms—an enforcement director for an environmental group called Earthjustice that has partnered with the NAACP to support the lawsuit—accused Trump of seeking “unilateral and unreviewable veto power over citizen suits.”

在一份新闻稿中，与 NAACP 合作支持该诉讼的环保组织“地球正义”（Earthjustice）的执法主任劳拉·托姆斯指责特朗普寻求“对公民诉讼拥有单方面且不可审查的否决权”。

“The Trump Administration has gone out of its way to shield Elon Musk’s company, [SpaceXAI], from liability and to deny local communities their right to protect themselves against illegal pollution,” Thoms said.

托姆斯说：“特朗普政府不遗余力地保护埃隆·马斯克的公司 [SpaceXAI] 免于承担责任，并剥夺了当地社区保护自己免受非法污染的权利。”

Thoms’ group is monitoring data center fights nationwide, not just SpaceXAI’s Colossus fight. However, Musk’s company’s battle was the first to expose the AI industry’s increasingly common practice of using unpermitted gas turbines to keep data center goals on target.

托姆斯的组织正在监测全国范围内的数据中心纠纷，而不仅仅是 SpaceXAI 的 Colossus 项目。然而，马斯克公司的这场官司首次暴露了人工智能行业日益普遍的做法，即使用未经许可的燃气轮机来确保数据中心目标的实现。

So, Brown’s ruling is likely viewed as a big win for Americans worried Trump might make it impossible to stop the AI industry from polluting communities at a critical moment when data center demand for gas turbines is exploding.

因此，布朗的裁决很可能被视为美国人的重大胜利，他们担心在数据中心对燃气轮机的需求激增的关键时刻，特朗普可能会使人们无法阻止人工智能行业污染社区。

Praising the court for “denying the US’s unprecedented and alarming argument,” Thoms vowed to “continue the fight to hold xAI accountable for the illegal air pollution it has been pumping out around the clock.”

托姆斯称赞法院“驳回了美国政府前所未有且令人震惊的论点”，并誓言“继续斗争，追究 xAI 全天候排放非法空气污染的责任”。

Trump’s deeply flawed argument: Brown slammed the Trump EPA’s reading of the CAA as an “extraordinary position” with no grounding in federal law. Trump tried to warp a single exception that lets the EPA dismiss a CAA lawsuit when it is either suing to require CAA enforcement or otherwise acting to require compliance.

特朗普存在严重缺陷的论点：布朗抨击特朗普政府环保署对《清洁空气法》的解读是一种“非同寻常的立场”，在联邦法律中毫无根据。特朗普试图歪曲一个单一的例外条款，该条款允许环保署在为了要求执行《清洁空气法》或采取其他行动要求合规而提起诉讼时，驳回《清洁空气法》诉讼。

Neither situation applies in this case, where the Trump administration has made it clear that it has no intention to sue SpaceXAI over the alleged violations. The federal government’s decision to ignore the problem is partly why the citizen lawsuit is necessary, the NAACP argued.

这两种情况都不适用于本案，因为特朗普政府已明确表示无意就所谓的违规行为起诉 SpaceXAI。NAACP 辩称，联邦政府选择忽视这一问题，这在一定程度上是公民诉讼的必要性所在。

In that scenario where Trump could have dismissed the NAACP’s lawsuit, courts recognize that a citizen lawsuit could clash with government efforts to enforce the CAA or reach agreements with violators. But in the SpaceXAI lawsuit, Trump argued that the government’s right to intervene, which is sometimes used to dismiss lawsuits, was enough to shut down this lawsuit, regardless of the other facts.

在特朗普本可以驳回 NAACP 诉讼的情况下，法院承认公民诉讼可能会与政府执行《清洁空气法》或与违规者达成协议的努力发生冲突。但在 SpaceXAI 诉讼中，特朗普辩称，政府的干预权（有时用于驳回诉讼）足以终止此案，而不考虑其他事实。

Brown pointed out that it made no sense to argue that citizens can’t raise CAA lawsuits that the EPA opposes when the CAA also grants a right to sue the EPA administrator for failing to enforce the CAA. “Evidently, Congress contemplated that citizen suits may not always align with the EPA’s judgment,” Brown wrote.

布朗指出，如果《清洁空气法》也赋予了公民因环保署署长未能执行该法而起诉其的权利，那么辩称公民不能提起环保署反对的《清洁空气法》诉讼是毫无意义的。布朗写道：“显然，国会预见到公民诉讼可能并不总是与环保署的判断一致。”

Congress even contemplated granting powers close to the authority Trump’s EPA tried to assert in this case, Brown said in a footnote. In 1990, Congress considered amending the CAA so that the EPA could substitute itself and take control of citizen suits over alleged violations.

布朗在脚注中说，国会甚至曾考虑授予接近特朗普政府环保署在此案中试图主张的权力。1990 年，国会曾考虑修订《清洁空气法》，以便环保署可以取代原告并控制针对违规行为的公民诉讼。

Had that happened, Trump may have been able to step in and drop the lawsuit. However, Congress did not adopt that amendment back in 1990, and Brown suggested that the mere consideration of the amendment favored the NAACP’s reading of the CAA.

如果发生了这种情况，特朗普或许能够介入并撤销诉讼。然而，国会在 1990 年并没有通过该修正案，布朗认为，仅仅是考虑过该修正案这一事实，就支持了 NAACP 对《清洁空气法》的解读。

“At most, the proposed amendment is evidence that at least some members of the 1990 Congress believed that the citizen suit provision as written does not allow the Administrator to intervene and subsequently terminate a citizen plaintiff’s claim,” Brown wrote.

布朗写道：“该拟议修正案充其量证明，1990 年国会中至少有一些成员认为，现行公民诉讼条款不允许署长干预并随后终止公民原告的索赔。”

Judge denies EPA veto power: Brown also acknowledged that the NAACP’s argument that every case Trump tried to use to seize power to veto the lawsuit “arose in a context where a government acted to require abatement of unlawful pollution, not one where t

法官否决了环保署的否决权：布朗还承认，NAACP 的论点是，特朗普试图用来夺取诉讼否决权的每一个案例，“都是在政府采取行动要求减少非法污染的背景下产生的，而不是在……”