The Trump administration has approved two new datacenter chemicals to which exposure can result in “sudden death” and a range of other serious health risks, like cancer, eye corrosion, neurological damage and reproductive harm, a new lawsuit warns.
The two compounds approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for import and immediate use in facilities across the US are photoacid generators that also appear to be Pfas “forever chemicals”, though it is unclear because much of the EPA documents are redacted. Some Pfas are commonly used in the production of semiconductors.
The EPA acknowledged in its approvals that it does not know the level at which the chemicals are “acutely lethal” or cause other serious health damage, but the agency still approved them anyway, said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, an attorney with the Earthjustice nonprofit, which filed the suit.
In consent orders approving the chemicals that were reviewed by the Guardian, the EPA also concedes that the chemicals present an “unreasonable risk” to workers and the public, but still approved them.
That violates the law, Kalmuss-Katz said. If there is an “unreasonable risk”, then the Toxic Substances Control Act requires the EPA to “prohibit or limit the manufacture, processing, distribution in commerce, use, or disposal of such substance or to prohibit or limit any combination of such activities to the extent necessary to protect against an unreasonable risk”.
The restrictions the EPA put in place are minimal and non-protective, Kalmuss-Katz said, and the severity of the chemicals’ harms, the absence of data, and the failure to take protective steps are highly unusual.
“This is turning the new chemical review process on its head,” Kalmuss-Katz said. “You have a situation where the EPA has failed at its most fundamental obligation when it comes to new chemicals, and that is to protect the public from unreasonable risk.”
The EPA did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
Redactions in the consent orders also make it unclear if the compounds were fast-tracked by the EPA under a controversial late ۲۰۲۵ Trump executive order to speed up the approval of data center chemicals. Public health advocates at the time said the order appeared to suggest the administration intended to ignore chemical safety review laws.
The name of the company that produces the chemicals is also redacted. Producing semiconductors is a highly complex process and Pfas are essential ingredients used in as many as ۱,۰۰۰ steps at the nanometric level, including photolithography and plasma processing.
Ultraviolet light is filtered through photoacid generators to imprint circuit patterns onto the semiconductor wafer. Most of the chemicals used in that process do not remain on the chip, but are instead discharged in wastewater or otherwise disposed of. Other types of Pfas are used in datacenter cooling.
Pfas are a class of at least ۱۶,۰۰۰ compounds dubbed “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down, and accumulate in the human body and environment. Testing data from ۲۰۲۲ from one US production plant, or “fab”, previously reviewed by the Guardian showed as much as ۷۸,۰۰۰ parts per trillion (ppt) of PFAS in wastewater from some samples. The EPA legal limit for several common compounds in drinking water is ۴ppt.
The consent orders appear to clearly spell out the risks to the public and workers, and include explicit admissions that the EPA does not understand the level at which people could be harmed. For example, the order for a chemical with a generic name highlights the serious risk from anyone exposed via pollution.
The “EPA identified acute toxicity, genetic toxicity, and systemic, reproductive, and developmental effects as potential risks to the general population if exposed via drinking water, ingestion of groundwater impacted by landfill leachate, and/or inhalation from stack air releases,” the agency stated.
However, it continued: “The risks for these endpoints were not quantified due to insufficient information on hazard.”
The EPA also identified “acute toxicity, genetic toxicity, skin and respiratory irritation, eye corrosion, skin photosensitization, and systemic, reproductive, and developmental toxicity effects as potential risks to workers.” Exposure could also cause “acute lethality”, or sudden death, but that it had “insufficient data” to assess that risk as well, the agency wrote.
Similarly, the EPA wrote that the chemical was “likely to present an unreasonable risk” to the environment and wildlife, but added that it was “unable to estimate the environmental hazard of this … substance” because it did not have enough information.
“EPA found that both chemicals pose potentially severe risks to public health, admitted that it lacked the information needed to calculate those risks, and still approved both chemicals for immediate use,” Kalmuss-Katz said.
Among the EPA’s restrictions are limiting the size of the container in which a chemical can be imported, but not the volume. Kalmuss-Katz said that does little to protect anyone.
Industry has argued that it cannot make semiconductors without the chemicals. Industry documents provided to the Guardian in ۲۰۲۴ stated that finding safer alternatives is “impossible in some instances” and would require “stepping back decades in technological advancement”.
It is also unclear what may happen with the chemicals’ disposal. The EPA states that they should be incinerated, but that process does not fully destroy many chemicals, and it would create unknown health risks for largely low income communities around the incinerators.
Despite the photoacid generators’ toxicity and persistence in the environment, there are likely no requirements for a semiconductor plant in the US to limit discharges, said Lenny Siegel, executive director of the Center of Public Environmental Oversight, which advocates for stronger regulations around the industry’s chemicals.
“The EPA should not approve any new photoacid generators, even on a temporary basis, until there is enforceable assurance that there will be zero discharge of such chemicals,” Siegel said.
Kalmuss-Katz said the chemicals’ approval is part of a broader pattern around datacenters.
“Unfortunately what we’ve seen time and time again in this administration especially is the EPA putting the pursuit of AI and increased computing capacity over its obligation to protect public health and the environment,” Kalmuss-Katz said.
He added that environmental groups were not calling for the elimination of domestic chip production, but “we need to do it in a way that isn’t exposing workers and communities to these unstudied risks.”
