Senate Democrats are demanding answers from the White House over climbing electricity bills, which they say are being driven by the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., led a letter sent Monday to Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director Michael Kratsios and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, which requested details on efforts taken to protect consumers from rising energy costs as a result of the Trump administration’s push for new data centers across the country.
In several executive orders this year, President Donald Trump ordered the large-scale buildout of data centers, directing the construction of at least one center within all 48 continental states and the District of Columbia.
Voters are bearing the cost of that buildout, the five senators wrote, laying blame on “the Administration’s reckless abandonment and assault on new, clean energy sources,” in reference to the administration’s shift to coal and nuclear sources to power data centers.
At the root of those rising costs, senators wrote, are “cozied” relationships between Trump and Big Tech companies like Meta, Google, Oracle, and OpenAI, whose administration-supported “buildout of power-hungry data centers” has led to “staggering and unprecedented” surges in energy demand.
For example, each of Meta’s new data centers require the same amount of electricity needed to power 4 million homes, the senators noted.
“While the Administration has gestured at eventually adding some more power sources and improving grid infrastructure, it has failed to keep up with increasing demand. As a result, everyday Americans are already being forced into bidding wars with trillion-dollar companies to keep the lights on at home,” the senators wrote.
Rising energy costs have begun to play a larger role in national politics. Abigail Spanberger, who won the Virginia governor’s race last week, promised in her victory speech to address the state’s growing energy crisis by making “data centers pay their fair share.” Virginia houses more than 660 data centers, the largest concentration of data centers in the world.
Virginians aren’t alone in facing rising energy costs. The Energy Department estimated this summer that half of all new American electric power will be consumed by data centers by 2030, and that without major change, “the Nation’s power grid will be unable to meet projected demand.”
“Americans should not be expected to bankroll Big Tech’s infrastructure through excessive electricity bills and threats to their water supplies,” senators wrote in their letter. They requested details by Nov. 21 on what the Trump administration is doing to mitigate the rising costs, infrastructure strains, and environmental impacts on American households caused by data centers.