The Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency has approved two new industrial chemicals for immediate import and use in data centers across the United States — compounds that the agency itself acknowledges present an “unreasonable risk” to workers and the public, and exposure to which can result in “sudden death,” cancer, eye corrosion, neurological damage, and reproductive harm. Now, a coalition of groups represented by the nonprofit legal organization Earthjustice has filed a federal lawsuit challenging those approvals, arguing they violate the nation’s core chemical safety law.

What the EPA Approved — and What It Admitted

The two compounds at the center of the lawsuit are photoacid generators — chemicals used in semiconductor manufacturing, particularly in a photolithography process where ultraviolet light is filtered through them to imprint circuit patterns onto semiconductor wafers. According to reporting by The Guardian, the chemicals also appear to be PFAS, the class of synthetic compounds commonly known as “forever chemicals,” though heavy redactions in the EPA’s own consent orders make that classification uncertain.

PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are a class of at least 16,000 compounds that do not naturally break down, accumulating in the human body and the environment over time. They are widely used in semiconductor production, appearing in as many as 1,000 steps at the nanometric level. Most of the chemicals used in chip fabrication do not remain on the finished product but are discharged in wastewater or otherwise disposed of, raising concerns about environmental contamination pathways.

What makes the EPA’s approvals particularly striking is not merely what the agency approved — but what it conceded in doing so. According to Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, an attorney with Earthjustice who filed the suit, the EPA acknowledged in its consent orders that it does not know the level at which these chemicals become “acutely lethal” or cause serious health damage. Despite that acknowledged gap in safety data, the agency approved the compounds anyway.

The Legal Argument: Turning Chemical Review ‘On Its Head’

The lawsuit centers on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the federal law governing new chemical approvals. Under TSCA, if the EPA determines that a substance presents an “unreasonable risk” to health or the environment, the agency is legally required to “prohibit or limit the manufacture, processing, distribution in commerce, use, or disposal” of that substance to the extent necessary to eliminate that risk.

According to Kalmuss-Katz, the EPA’s own consent orders explicitly acknowledge that the chemicals present an “unreasonable risk” — yet the restrictions the agency put in place are described as minimal and non-protective. That combination, the lawsuit argues, constitutes a direct violation of federal law.

“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 respond to The Guardian’s request for comment on the lawsuit or the approvals.

Fast-Tracking Under an Executive Order

Adding another layer of concern, the redactions in the consent orders also obscure whether the two chemicals were fast-tracked under a controversial Trump executive order issued in late 2025, which directed the EPA to accelerate approval of chemicals for use in data centers. At the time that executive order was issued, public health advocates warned it appeared to signal the administration’s intent to bypass standard chemical safety review procedures. Reporting from Inside Climate News documented the EPA prioritizing data center chemical reviews under that directive.

The name of the company that applied for and received approval to import and use the chemicals is also redacted from public documents, leaving the identity of the corporate beneficiary of these approvals unknown to the public.

A Pattern of Contradiction on PFAS

The lawsuit arrives amid a wider pattern that critics describe as a fundamental contradiction in the Trump administration’s approach to toxic chemicals. In May 2026, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and EPA Assistant Administrator for Water Jess Kramer held a press conference to announce a set of commitments branded “PFAS OUT,” publicly promising to address forever chemicals across their “full life cycle” and linking PFAS contamination to serious health effects. Zeldin stated that addressing PFAS contamination is “essential to making America healthy again.”

Yet reporting by The New Lede and other outlets has documented a series of regulatory actions that run counter to those stated goals. In late June 2026, the EPA quietly approved three new herbicides — trifludimoxazin, diflufenican, and epyrifenacil — for direct application on major food crops, with no press release or media briefing. While the EPA does not classify these compounds as PFAS under its own narrower definition, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) does define them as PFAS under its broader international standard.

Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, was direct in his assessment: “This administration is putting more effort into omitting chemicals from PFAS regulation than they have in actually protecting people from PFAS.” The EPA’s own internal data had previously linked trifludimoxazin to animal thyroid tumors, and the agency had classified it as having “suggestive evidence of carcinogenic potential.”

“I think it’s safe to say that right now the focus is on deregulation,” said Rainer Lohmann, director of a PFAS research center at the University of Rhode Island, speaking to The New Lede.

Bill Pluecker, an independent Maine state representative and a leader in PFAS prevention policy, put it more bluntly: “They’re saying one thing, and then they’re doing something completely opposite.”

The Broader PFAS Accountability Landscape

The Earthjustice lawsuit over datacenter chemicals is one front in a much wider legal and regulatory battle over forever chemical accountability. In July 2026, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a separate major lawsuit against some of the nation’s largest chemical manufacturers — including 3M, DuPont, The Chemours Company, EIDP, and Corteva — alleging that these companies knowingly manufactured, marketed, and sold PFAS-containing products for decades while concealing evidence of their toxicity from the public and regulators.

According to the New York Attorney General’s complaint, researchers at 3M discovered PFAS in employee and general public blood samples as early as the 1970s. In 1981, DuPont secretly monitored pregnant employees exposed to one of its PFAS products and found that two of seven exposed pregnant workers had babies with eye and nostril defects — yet the company abandoned the study and continued manufacturing and selling the product without informing employees or regulators. By 1983, 3M scientists had concluded that PFAS could pollute water supplies through wastewater, yet the company conducted no environmental risk assessments for decades.

Attorney General James is seeking court orders holding the companies liable for environmental and public health damage, requiring them to fund cleanup efforts across New York, and compelling them to warn consumers about product risks. The suit also seeks financial damages, restitution, and penalties.

What This Means for Communities Near Data Centers

The rapid expansion of data center infrastructure across the United States — driven by demand for artificial intelligence computing power — has created new vectors for chemical exposure that regulators are only beginning to grapple with. Semiconductor fabrication processes rely on PFAS not only in chip production but also in cooling systems and other facility operations. When those chemicals are discharged in wastewater or otherwise released, nearby communities can face contamination of water supplies and soil.

The Earthjustice lawsuit now puts the question squarely before the courts: can a federal regulatory agency acknowledge that a chemical presents an “unreasonable risk” to human health and still approve it for commercial use? Under the plain language of the Toxic Substances Control Act, the plaintiffs argue, the answer is no.

Until the courts rule, the chemicals remain approved for import and use in data centers across the country — their full identity, their manufacturer, and the precise extent of their hazards shielded from public view by a wall of government redactions.

This article draws on reporting from The Guardian, The New Lede, and the New York Attorney General’s Office.