This post was originally published on this site.
Nearly half the country’s governors, as well as dozens of utility companies and data center developers, have signed President Donald Trump’s voluntary pledge to help mitigate cost increases these massive energy consumers pass on to everyday Americans.
Trump is slated to announce on Thursday that major utilities like Nextera and Duke Energy are joining the pledge, a White House official told The Hill. They join nearly 200 others in signing Trump’s “Ratepayer Protection Pledge.”
What is the pledge?
The Ratepayer Protection Pledge is aimed at mitigating costs passed down to Americans as data centers take up more and more energy. The pledge includes five key commitments:
- Artificial intelligence companies must pay for their AI projects, including power generation and electricity needs, and even adding to the energy grid’s capacity.
- Tech companies must cover the costs of upgrading existing power infrastructure if they require more power.
- AI and energy companies will negotiate separate utility rate structures, ensuring that the cost of new energy infrastructure is borne by companies, not consumers.
- Local energy grids must be allowed to use the additional infrastructure made by AI companies for backup power.
- And companies must invest in the communities where they build and operate — including training and jobs for skilled workers, like electricians and engineers.
Trump has dubbed data centers “big, strong, bold, and Money Machines,” even as bipartisan concerns persist over their energy and water consumption and the noise they produce.
Who has signed the pledge?
Nextera and Duke Energy will join dozens of other utility companies, electricity co-ops and public power sources in signing the pledge. But they’re not the only new additions.
Unbiased. Straight Facts.TM
A standard data center uses as much electricity in one year as 10,000 to 25,000 households, according to the International Energy Agency.
“President Trump is expanding the Ratepayer Protection Pledge to governors, legislators, developers, and power providers to ensure everyone involved in building and powering data centers covers their own costs instead of passing them on to American families,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement. “The President’s bold action is turning data centers into engines of growth for local communities, while cementing America’s dominance in the global AI race.”
So far, 23 Republican governors have reportedly signed on. Among them are Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Greg Abbott of Texas, Bill Lee of Tennessee and Spencer Cox of Utah.
Kemp, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen and Idaho Gov. Brad Little are all expected to attend Trump’s event Thursday.
Only three of the nation’s 26 Republican governors have not signed the pledge: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte and Vermont Gov. Phil Scott. No Democratic governors have signed.
The pledge was already signed months ago by big tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, xAI, OpenAI and Amazon.
Round out your reading
- From Obama to Trump to Biden: When networks said ‘no’ to presidential speeches.
- ‘The end of American science as we know it.’ White House funding plan sparks alarm.
- AI data centers are popping up everywhere. What exactly do they do?
- The Trump administration is accused of breaking a law built to target the KKK.
- One Republican senator is dead, another is still alive. Both are the center of conspiracy theories.