The EPA has proposed a rule change that would let states decide how much input the public has on air pollution permits. It would be a huge boon for data centers increasingly reliant on fossil fuels. The Trump administration is quietly considering a rule change that could make it easier for polluters to build facilities--including certain gas plants and diesel generators that power data centers--with little to no notice to the public. On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency held a public hearing on a proposed rule change that would hand the power to states to decide how the public participates in the permitting process for certain new sources of air pollution. The proposed rollback comes as data centers face greater pushback across the US, with many communities using the permitting process to try to slow down development.

Hamstrung by lawsuits, the state can't officially keep its goal to ban new gas-powered car sales by 2035. But it's going to keep trying. It's been a weird and confusing few weeks for the auto industry--especially for those who hoped to see more batteries on the road in the coming decade. Just this month: Ford announced a retrenchment in its EV business, canceling some battery-powered vehicle plans and delaying others; the European Commission proposed to backtrack its goal to transition fully to zero-emission cars by 2035; the US government said it would loosen rules that would have required automakers to ratchet up the fuel economy of their fleets. BloombergNEF projects 14 million fewer EVs will be sold in the US by 2030 than it did last year--a 20 percent drop.

Being stuck in traffic is a familiar problem for many Californians, but state officials want to harness the power of artificial intelligence to discover new solutions. The California Department of Transportation, teaming up with other state agencies, is asking technology companies by Jan. 25 to propose generative AI tools that could help California reduce traffic and make roads safer, especially for pedestrians, cyclists and scooter riders. Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can quickly produce text, images and other content, but the technology can also help workers brainstorm ideas. The request shows how California is trying to tap into AI to improve government services at a time when lawmakers seek to safeguard against the technology's potential risks. California politicians set the stage for more AI regulation in 2024, but they'll also face challenges as they try to place more guardrails around AI's impact on jobs, safety and discrimination.

Being stuck in traffic is a familiar problem for many Californians, but state officials want to harness the power of artificial intelligence to discover new solutions. The California Department of Transportation, teaming up with other state agencies, is asking technology companies by Jan. 25 to propose generative AI tools that could help California reduce traffic and make roads safer, especially for pedestrians, cyclists and scooter riders. Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can quickly produce text, images and other content, but the technology can also help workers brainstorm ideas. The request shows how California is trying to tap into AI to improve government services at a time when lawmakers seek to safeguard against the technology's potential risks. California politicians set the stage for more AI regulation in 2024, but they'll also face challenges as they try to place more guardrails around AI's impact on jobs, safety and discrimination.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday signed an executive order directing state agencies to examine the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence that can generate text, images and other content. The executive order sets the stage for potential regulation around what's known as generative AI technology, which has already raised concerns about misinformation, plagiarism, bias and child safety. The governor and California lawmakers thus far have been cautious about regulating technology they might not fully understand and hindering business innovations that fuel the state's economy. "We recognize both the potential benefits and risks these tools enable. We're neither frozen by the fears nor hypnotized by the upside," Newsom said in a statement.

Haywood Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions' government division, told Fox News Digital that he believes there will be more than $1 trillion in artificial intelligence-assisted fraud if U.S. doesn't act quickly. Artificial intelligence smashed the floodgates to unprecedented fraud that could cost taxpayers hundreds of billions, if not $1 trillion, over the next 12 months, an expert told Fox News Digital. Haywood Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions' government division, which evaluates and predicts risk, said he's already seeing criminals on the dark web using people's faces to steal from government and state agencies. Benefits to America's most vulnerable communities, such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and unemployment, are ending up in the pockets of criminals and criminal enterprises that are operating all over the world. "Being one of the wealthiest countries in the world makes us a huge target," Talcove said.

In 2018, the New York City Council created a task force to study the city's use of automated decision systems (ADS). The concern: Algorithms, not just in New York but around the country, were increasingly being employed by government agencies to do everything from informing criminal sentencing and detecting unemployment fraud to prioritizing child abuse cases and distributing health benefits. And lawmakers, let alone the people governed by the automated decisions, knew little about how the calculations were being made. Rare glimpses into how these algorithms were performing were not comforting: In several states, algorithms used to determine how much help residents will receive from home health aides have automatically cut benefits for thousands. Police departments across the country use the PredPol software to predict where future crimes will occur, but the program disproportionately sends police to Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

The Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA) is working to offer artificial intelligence as a service to the state's 65 agencies. VITA is rolling out the Digital Customer Experience, an AI service that's essentially a basic chatbot that state agencies can implement into user-facing functions. For more complex AI and machine learning solutions, VITA will provide the country's first public-sector AI as a service. "What we wanted to do was design a service that avoids the common AI pitfalls," said Jon Ozovek, chief operating officer at VITA. "AI at this point in time is highly predicated on data, so you have 65 different agencies with 65 different levels of understanding of business processes, 65 different levels of datasets, 65 different levels of data security. Al as a service will look like this, he explained: VITA will conduct an intake process for state agencies that want to implement AI to get a solid understanding of the business process it would apply to, the datasets ...

The Texas Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence will "evangelize" AI efforts to deliver government services, the state's Department of Information …

NASA-funded researchers applied artificial intelligence to Facebook user location data captured as two fires wrecked northern California in 2018 and gained new insight into people's evacuation movements and behaviors when disaster strikes, which could strengthen future response. The Defense Innovation Unit and Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute are collectively crafting datasets to teach AI tools to assess buildings and structures after natural crises occur, and ultimately augment and increase the accuracy of damage estimates. These are two of many examples detailed in a new report from the Partnership for Public Service and Microsoft that explores how the maturing technology can improve disaster resilience and response, and considerations and actions governments should pursue when adopting AI to boost preparedness, recovery and relief. The report suggests agencies improve data collection and access, make proactive instead of reactive moves, collaborate with other organizations--and more. "While some governments, companies and universities have already used AI in this field, most are still in the early stages of use," officials wrote in the report.