DOJ rules burning raw methane is perfectly legal if it trains an AI

The Department of Justice submitted a brief on Tuesday urging a federal judge to allow xAI to continue operating roughly two dozen unpermitted natural gas turbines at its Mississippi supercomputer facility. The filing marks a major evolution in federal climate policy, establishing that the administration’s stated goal of halving national greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 includes a broad exemption for companies burning raw methane to teach a server rack how to be sarcastic.

While local environmental groups have sued over the facility’s unauthorized release of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, the Justice Department argued that shutting down the illegal power plant would cause irreparable harm to Musk’s ability to generate slightly worse versions of existing chatbot technology. The administration’s intervention suggests that environmental impact statements can be bypassed entirely provided the resulting carbon footprint is categorized as compute.