Dive Brief: - Forty-four percent of U.S. residents live in a county that received a failing grade for at least one measure of air pollution, and 33 million live in counties with failing grades for ozone and short-term and long-term particle pollution (also known as smog), the American Lung Association’s 27th annual State of the Air report found. - The report examines data centers as “a newer, rapidly-growing contributor” to air pollution, noting that “communities located near large data center clusters often experience higher localized pollution burdens than regional averages, particularly when facilities are sited in already overburdened or economically disadvantaged areas.” - Bangor, Maine, was the only city to make the cleanest cities list for all three pollution sources measured in the report. “This is a change from historic reports, which had multiple cities on that list,” said Diana Van Vleet, director of nationwide clean air advocacy for ALA. She called this “another grim indication of the deterioration of air quality nationwide.” Dive Insight: The State of the Air report, released Wednesday, grades counties’ air quality based on data from 2022 through 2024. “While we have seen significant progress in cleaning up the air over the past 50-plus years, 152 million people across the country are still living in areas with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution,” Van Vleet said. “No city and no place is immune from air pollution.” Extreme heat, drought and wildfires are exposing more people to ozone, particularly in southwestern states from California to Texas and most of the Midwest, the report states. The number of people living in counties with ground-level ozone pollution has increased by nearly 4 million since last year’s report. Los Angeles is the city most polluted by ozone, followed by Visalia and Bakersfield in California, Phoenix and Fresno, California,