1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Artificial Intelligence Environmental Impacts Act of 2024 . 2. Findings Congress finds the following: (1) Multiple estimates indicate that the amount of computational power being used for artificial intelligence applications has increased rapidly over the last decade. A 2022 estimate suggested that the number of computational operations being used to create each of the largest artificial intelligence models is currently doubling every 10 months. (2) Accelerating use of artificial intelligence has the potential to greatly increase energy consumption due to the power utilization of computer hardware required for training and operating artificial intelligence models, despite ongoing efficiency gains in both artificial intelligence models and hardware. (3) Rapid growth in data center infrastructure, including cooling systems and backup power equipment, supporting artificial intelligence and other computing-intensive technologies contributes to pollution, water consumption, and land-use changes. (4) Resource and energy-intensive manufacturing processes are required for the hardware that runs artificial intelligence and other computing-intensive technologies, leading to significant environmental impacts. (5) Yearly increases in electronic waste (known as e-waste ) pose increasing environmental and health risks, and will likely be exacerbated by outdated and discarded hardware used for artificial intelligence and other computing-intensive technologies. (6) Many applications of artificial intelligence can have direct and indirect positive environmental impacts. Positive environmental impacts may include optimizing systems for energy efficiency, developing renewable energy, advancing planetary systems research, enabling discovery of new materials, and automatically monitoring environmental changes. However, artificial intelligence applications may also have direct and indirect negative environmental impacts, including rebound effects, behavioral impacts, and accelerating