About the Course
Introduction
This CLE webinar will examine the risks and challenges associated with environmental permitting in developing data centers, and strategies for overcoming them. Planned generative AI and hyperscale facilities are rapidly growing to meet seemingly unending demand. These projects may face increasingly difficult and complex challenges involving environmental review, air emissions, water supply, wastewater and stormwater discharges, local land use approvals, and community opposition.
Description
It can be critical to identify the related regulatory requirements early in the development process. Project counsel must coordinate complex and overlapping federal, state, and local approval processes. Planned developments may face administrative or judicial challenges that ultimately impact project feasibility, cost, and timing. These challenges often center on water availability, cooling strategies, emissions from backup generators, site conditions, zoning requirements, and public opposition or participation.
Listen as our authoritative panel discusses the environmental factors impacting data center development, including site diligence, water and air permitting, environmental review, local approvals, public challenges, and more.
Presented By
Mr. Macfarlan is an experienced environmental lawyer with a focus on the energy sector. His practice includes project development, transactional, litigation, and government enforcement matters (both civil and criminal). Mr. Macfarlan's clients include developers and operators of solar, wind, battery storage, natural gas and coal-fired electric generation facilities; data centers and associated power infrastructure; oil and gas production and transmission facilities; water and wastewater utilities; mine and quarry operators; hazardous waste processing facilities; and lenders and investors in such facilities. He regularly provides advice regarding federal and state environmental laws governing air emissions (including greenhouse gases); wetland and stream protection; wastewater and stormwater discharges; water withdrawals; hazardous wastes and materials; threatened and endangered species; cultural resources and historic properties; and local land use and zoning requirements. Mr. Macfarlan currently serves as the Water Subcommittee Co-Chair for the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry’s Environmental Policy Council, and on the Central Pennsylvania Conservancy’s Board of Directors.
Mr. Rieser has more than three decades of experience advising clients in all areas of environmental law, including legislative, regulatory, compliance, and law enforcement matters, corporate, commercial, and real estate transactions, governmental and private cost-recovery actions, environmental insurance coverage, and remediation of contaminated sites. He serves Fortune 100 and mid-sized companies operating in a broad range of industries, including power generation, chemicals, petroleum, steel, food and consumer products, financial services, and waste management. In the legislative and regulatory arena, Mr. Rieser has represented trade associations, industry groups, and individual companies in numerous matters involving the U.S. EPA and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. He also represented power generating companies in permitting and administrative proceedings, and prepared responses to agency requests for information regarding CAA issues. An experienced litigator, Mr. Rieser has argued cases in federal and state courts, including a recent victory in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in which he represented a coalition seeking to preserve commercial navigation in the Chicago waterways. Other matters have included cost recovery and enforcement actions.
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This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.
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Date + Time
- event
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
- schedule
1:00 PM ET/10:00 AM PT
I. Environmental review, site selection, and project planning
II. Water supply, cooling, wastewater, and stormwater
III. Air emissions and permitting for backup and primary generation
IV. Land use, public process, and community opposition
V. Administrative challenges, citizen suits, and litigation
The panel will review these and other key issues:
- Identifying environmental review and regulatory requirements affecting data center development
- Assessing permitting risks for water, wastewater, stormwater, and air emissions
- Working through local approvals, public participation, and community opposition
- Strategies to reduce administrative and litigation risk
