In an unprecedented use of federal authority, President Donald Trump’s administration has invoked emergency powers to force a series of retiring coal plants to stay open.

Utilities, states and grid operators have said the aging plants are expensive, in bad repair and no longer needed to meet regional energy needs. But Trump’s efforts to save the dwindling coal industry have forced plant operators to continue investing in the facilities — a move that some consumer advocates fear could mean billions of dollars in added costs for customers in dozens of states.

Trump has long positioned himself as a champion of coal, making it a centerpiece of his “energy dominance” agenda. The emergency orders issued by his administration claim that the grid is at risk of energy shortfalls, and the coal plants are needed to ensure a reliable power supply.

But state officials in many places affected by the orders say that’s not true.

“Rather than allowing the realities on the ground, the regulators and the utilities to make rational decisions about how to meet energy needs, we have the Trump administration trying to do Soviet-style central planning to push an ideological agenda that will drive costs to customers,” said Will Toor, executive director of the Colorado Energy Office.

Under Trump, the U.S. Department of Energy has issued emergency orders to block the retirements of coal plants in Colorado, Indiana, Michigan and Washington state. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has claimed that the power demands in various regions require the plants to stay operational.

Observers expect similar orders to be issued for most, if not all, of the dozens of coal-fired units slated for retirement during the remainder of Trump’s term. Utilities subject to the orders have said they will increase costs for ratepayers, and argue those costs should be borne by the multistate region to which they provide power, rather than just their local customers.

Despite their costs, three of the five plants being blocked from retirement haven’t produced electricity since the emergency orders went into effect, either because they need extensive repairs or because power demands have been met without them.

Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act gives the secretary broad authority to take temporary control of the U.S. electricity system during emergency situations. Until now, that authority had only been invoked during wartime or natural disasters. All of the Trump administration’s orders were issued before the war with Iran. Consumer advocates say Trump’s use of the act to overturn long-planned facility retirements is unprecedented, and likely illegal.

State officials, utilities and environmental groups have challenged all of the orders.

While such emergency orders can be issued only for 90-day periods, Wright has repeatedly renewed the orders before they expire.

The Department of Energy did not respond to a Stateline interview request.

Keeping coal online

Last May, Wright issued the first emergency order to prevent the shutdown of the J.H. Campbell Generating Plant in Michigan, just days before it was scheduled to retire. The plant has remained open since then, accruing $135 million in net costs through December. Consumers Energy, the utility operating the plant, is seeking to charge ratepayers in 11 states to recoup those costs.

Michigan Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel has appealed the order, while a coalition of environmental groups has filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn it, arguing that the feds have failed to demonstrate a true emergency. That case is currently in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals awaiting oral arguments, which may take place in May.

State leaders in Colorado have appealed an order to keep a plant there open, while Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown, a Democrat, has sued the federal agency. Environmental groups have filed a lawsuit challenging the order in Indiana. Energy analysts say the Michigan case will likely be resolved first, and is expected to have major implications for the emergency orders elsewhere.

Douglas Jester, a former state energy official in Michigan, noted that Consumers Energy has had to pay extra to bring back staff, establish new delivery contracts for coal and catch up on maintenance. Jester now serves as managing partner at 5 Lakes Energy, a clean energy consulting group.

In his emergency order, Wright said the plant was needed to ensure energy reliability and reduce the risk of blackouts. His agency, in a statement issued last month, said the coal plants kept open by the emergency orders helped keep the power system online during Winter Storm Fern.

Coal industry leaders have made a similar argument, saying that growing energy demands require more baseload power, as opposed to intermittent renewables such as wind and solar.

The emergency orders are “very much needed,” said Emily Arthun, CEO of the American Coal Council, an industry trade group, “so that we can continue to have the energy just for our day-to-day lives,” said Emily Arthun, CEO of the American Coal Council, an industry trade group. “Coal plants, baseload plants, are critical to the well-being of our grid. Coal is needed at critical moments for energy.”

Some labor unions have also praised the orders as beneficial to their workforce.

But state leaders and consumer advocates argue that utilities and regulators have already completed detailed plans to replace the power the aging coal plants provided, through a mix of renewables, natural gas plants and battery storage.

“If you were to believe the Department of Energy, you would believe that more than half the country is experiencing an emergency around the clock,” said Michael Lenoff, senior attorney at Earthjustice, an environmental group that is suing the Trump administration to overturn the orders. “It costs a lot of money to make sure that an old, decrepit coal plant is available to operate.”

Lenoff and other environmental advocates have said the coal plants ran during the winter storm because the government forced them to, not because the grid needed them to meet power demands.

Even as his administration has declared an energy shortage emergency, Trump has tried to block new renewable projects from being built, including several offshore wind farms that East Coast states are relying on to meet their power demands.

Meanwhile, the administration has also authorized power generators to export electricity to Mexico and Canada, which may happen only when regulators have determined the U.S. has sufficient energy supply to meet its own needs.

“How can you authorize the export of energy to Canada from a Western market that you just declared is in an emergency status with shortages?” said Tyson Slocum, energy program director at Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy nonprofit. “It’s complete incoherence.”

Aging plants

Three of the five plants being blocked from retirement have yet to even produce electricity since the emergency orders went into effect.

The plant in Colorado suffered a failure in a steam valve that was not repaired because it was on the verge of retiring. The federal order has forced the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association to invest in repairing the plant, and the costs to keep the plant operational could reach $80 million a year even if it never produces power, said Toor, with the Colorado Energy Office.

“It’s very unlikely to actually operate even with this order,” he said.

Tri-State and the other utilities that own the plant have requested a rehearing of the emergency order, saying that keeping the plant open will be costly for their ratepayers.

In Indiana, one of the two plants targeted by the feds has suffered mechanical failures that would require extensive repairs.

“(The order) doesn’t even make sense because it’s not even really open,” said Ben Inskeep, program director at the Citizens Action Coalition, an Indiana-based consumer advocacy group. “You don’t want to throw good money after a plant you’re about to retire.”

Unlike the Democratic-led states subject to the other orders, Indiana’s leaders have welcomed the federal intervention. Republican Gov. Mike Braun issued his own executive order soon after the Department of Energy announcement directing state officials to evaluate ways to extend the life of the state’s remaining coal plants.

Meanwhile, the TransAlta Centralia coal plant in Washington state, while remaining in operational mode, has not supplied power to the grid since January, as the state’s energy needs have been met by more affordable sources elsewhere.

Democratic state Sen. Marko Liias sponsored a bill, signed into law earlier this month, that rolls back tax and regulatory exemptions that were granted to TransAlta under a 2011 agreement to gradually phase out the plant. The compliance burden will make it economically infeasible for the plant to operate again, he said.

“It’s crystal clear to the market that we’re not going backwards, we’re slamming the door and nailing it shut,” Liias said.

Consumer costs

While some states have pushed to close coal plants due to climate goals and pollution concerns, market forces have largely driven the coal industry’s decline. According to a 2025 analysis by the financial advisory firm Lazard, electricity from coal-fired power plants costs an average of $122 per megawatt-hour. That same amount of power can be produced for $78 from natural gas plants, $61 from onshore wind and $58 from utility-scale solar.

Some energy analysts say Trump’s efforts to keep fossil fuel-powered plants open could become very costly to ratepayers. A report published by Grid Strategies LLC, a consulting firm, found that as many as 90 aging plants could be subject to similar emergency orders during the remainder of Trump’s term. The analysis found that keeping those plants open could cost ratepayers anywhere from $3 billion to $6 billion a year.

“What the Department of Energy is doing is picking losers, the uneconomical plants that the utilities, the regulators, everybody involved agreed need to retire and be replaced with something cheaper and more efficient,” said Michael Goggin, who authored the report, which was commissioned on behalf of Earthjustice and other environmental groups.

Meanwhile, some consumer advocates say the orders have created chaos for utilities and energy planners. The operators of plants scheduled for retirement in the coming years no longer know if it’s safe to cancel their coal contracts, transition their workforce or defer maintenance on their facilities. And financiers may be wary of investing in new, cheaper energy projects that could be sidelined by orders to keep coal online.

“The administration has made clear that they’re not going to allow a coal-fired power plant to retire, regardless of whether or not it’s absurdly expensive to operate, whether it’s contaminating soil, air and water in that community, they literally don’t care,” said Slocum, of Public Citizen.

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org. 

Investor-owned utility profits have soared as consumer utility bills have skyrocketed in recent years, according to a new analysis of dozens of electricity providers.

The Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group tracking fossil fuel and utility industries, analyzed financial disclosures from 110 investor-owned electric utilities between 2021 and 2024, as well as available 2025 filings. The report, published on Thursday, does not include nonprofit electric providers such as municipal utilities or rural electric cooperatives. 

Last year, state-regulated, investor-owned electric utilities kept about 15 cents of every dollar they collected as profit, the report concluded. (For a customer paying a $200 monthly electric bill, that means about $30 went to corporate profits.) The 2025 figure is up from around 13 cents on average between 2021 and 2024, it said.

The utilities examined in the analysis reported almost $186 billion in profits between 2021 and 2024, the study concluded.

“These patterns suggest that a substantial share of what customers pay for electricity is consistently flowing to investors as profit,” the report said, “a finding that is especially significant as consumers face persistently high energy costs and financial stress.” 

The analysis found regional variation in utility profits. 

Utilities in the Southeast operating outside of organized wholesale electricity markets, where electricity is sold and bought in bulk, earned higher profits. Across Alabama, Florida, Georgia and other Southeastern states, utilities retained nearly 16% of their revenue as profit between 2021 and 2024, the report said.

By contrast, utilities in the PJM Interconnection regional market serving the mid-Atlantic averaged about 11.8%, while utilities in New York and New England reported similar or lower levels. 

The report found the utilities with the highest average margin between 2021 and 2024 were MidAmerican Energy (27.22%), Florida Power & Light (23.51%), Nantucket Electric (23.24%), Empire District Electric (22.45%) and Florida Public Utilities (20.35%). 

The analysis comes as consumer utility bills continue to outpace the rate of inflation and state lawmakers of both parties increasingly scrutinize utility prices.

A February report from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association found about 1 in 6 U.S. households were behind on utility bills. That organization, which represents state employees administering federal energy assistance programs, said American households were collectively behind $25 billion on electric and gas bills at the end of 2025 — up from about $23 billion the year before.

The association said home heating costs were projected to rise by 11% this winter — more than four times the rate of inflation — reaching their highest level in at least four years amid higher electricity and natural gas prices and colder-than-average weather.

Most consumers get their electricity from utilities that must seek state approval for rate changes, with appointed or elected state boards approving price structures.

While state lawmakers, governors and regulators are increasingly questioning utility prices, the Energy and Policy Institute says states can take more action to control profits.

Thursday’s report calls for states to set lower profit rates for investor-owned utilities, scrutinize the financing of new capital investments, link utility earnings to customer results and strengthen the role of consumer advocates in rate decisions.

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and his top environmental policy officer finalized a move Thursday to undo an Environmental Protection Agency regulation that laid the foundation for federal rules governing emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

At a White House event, Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said they were officially rolling back the “endangerment finding” that labeled greenhouse gases a threat to public health and provided a framework for the EPA to regulate emissions. 

The 2009 finding, established under President Barack Obama, called climate change a danger to human health and therefore gave the EPA power to regulate greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide from cars and trucks. 

Such regulations created a challenge for automakers and other industries, which dragged down the entire economy, according to Trump, administration officials and allies in Congress. 

Democrats and their allies in environmental and climate activism, though, consider the measure a crucial tool to address climate change and protect human health.

Undoing the finding will remove the economy-wide uncertainty, Trump argued. 

“That is why, effective immediately, we are repealing the ridiculous endangerment finding and terminating all additional green emission standards imposed unnecessarily on vehicle models and engines between 2012 and 2027 and beyond,” he said Thursday. 

Affordability argument

In its initial notice last year that it would repeal the endangerment finding, the EPA said it did not have the authority to regulate vehicle emissions.

With household costs, including transportation, expected to be a major theme in the fall’s midterm campaigns to determine control of Congress, members of both parties have framed it as an economic issue.

“This will be the largest deregulatory action in American history, and it will save the American people $1.3 trillion in crushing regulations,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at Tuesday’s press briefing.

Some Democrats and climate activists argue the rollback will hurt the country’s nascent renewable energy sector, driving up the cost of home heating, electricity and other common expenses.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., issued a lengthy joint statement slamming the announcement.

“The Trump EPA has fully abandoned its duty to protect the American people from greenhouse gas pollution and climate change.  This shameful abdication — an economic, moral, and political failure — will harm Americans’ health, homes, and economic well-being. It ignores scientific fact and common-sense observations to serve big political donors,” the senators said.

“This sham decision initially relied on a now thoroughly disgraced and abandoned ‘report’ by known climate deniers. Zeldin stuck to this charade anyway, undaunted by half a century of actual evidence, showing the fix was in from the beginning,” they continued.

Money and fossil fuels

The move outraged Democrats and climate activists when Zeldin first proposed it last summer. Climate activists say undoing the finding undercuts the federal government’s ability to address an issue critical to the United States and the entire world.

In a Tuesday floor speech, Schumer blasted the rollback as a giveaway to fossil fuel companies, leaders of which contributed to Trump’s 2024 campaign.

“Remember: In the spring of 2024, Donald Trump invited top oil executives to Mar-a-Lago and told them, if you raise me a billion dollars to get me elected, I will cut regulations so you can make more money,” Schumer said. “That devil’s bargain is now coming true. I never thought it would be this way in America, in this bald disgusting way that so hurts people’s health, but there it is.”

Democratic attorneys general and environmental groups are likely to sue over the rollback.

At least one lawsuit, from the Environmental Defense Fund, was promised Thursday afternoon.

“EDF will challenge this decision in court, where evidence matters, and keep working with everyone who wants to build a better, safer and more prosperous future,” Fred Krupp, EDF president, said in a statement Thursday. 

Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown, a Democrat, said last year he would “consider all options if EPA continues down this cynical path.”

Ashley Murray contributed to this report.

An Amazon Web Services data center is shown situated near single-family homes in Stone Ridge, Va., in 2024. As Americans grow increasingly frustrated over their electricity bills, states are trying to keep the nation’s growing number of data centers from causing higher energy costs for consumers. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

As Americans grow increasingly frustrated over their electricity bills, states are trying to keep the nation’s growing number of data centers from causing higher energy costs for consumers.

For years, many states competed aggressively to land data centers, sprawling campuses full of the computer servers that store and transmit the data behind apps and websites. But many officials are now scrutinizing how those power-hungry projects might affect the electric bills of households, small businesses and other industries.

Oregon last year became one of the first states to enact a law requiring utilities to charge data centers different electric prices than other industries because of how they drive up the cost of energy production and transmission.

“We are now making data centers pay a higher rate commensurate with the amount of energy they’re sucking out of the system,” said Oregon state Rep. Tom Andersen, a Democrat.

Republican and Democratic leaders in at least a dozen states have targeted data centers with separate, higher electric rates to protect other customers. States also are requiring long-term commitments and financial guarantees through collateral before greenlighting infrastructure investments for new data center projects. But lawmakers acknowledge that numerous factors affect energy prices, so targeting data center-specific costs can be complicated.

An increasingly digital world and the rise of energy-intensive artificial intelligence has led to major expansion of data centers: Consultant McKinsey & Company expects companies to spend nearly $7 trillion worldwide on data centers by 2030. But the industry is facing growing scrutiny, from neighbors who don’t want to live near the massive server farms and from residents worried about how data centers will affect their own swelling utility bills.

Delaware legislation that would charge data centers higher rates advanced out of committee last week. On Tuesday, a Florida state Senate committee approved a bill that would create new rate structures for data centers.

In Oklahoma, a Republican state senator has proposed a moratorium on new data centers until late 2029, allowing the state to study how data centers affect utility rates, the environment and property values.

Separate legislation from state Rep. Brad Boles will seek to protect other ratepayers from the costs of data centers. Boles, the Republican chair of the state Energy and Natural Resources Oversight Committee, said his in-the-works measure would ensure data centers pay their fair share.

Boles told Stateline that his constituents are increasingly worried about data centers, with a dozen potential major ones proposed across the state.

“We’re trying to ensure that those data centers pay for their own infrastructure and we don’t shift that cost or burden to everyday Oklahomans,” he said.

In Oregon, Andersen’s legislation created a new rate structure for data centers with long-term contracts and required regulators to separate the costs of those facilities from other ratepayers.

But consumer advocates have already accused the state’s largest utility of trying to skirt the new law by making residential customers pay part of the long-term cost of supplying large data centers in a pending rate case.

Andersen, a member of the state House Committee on Climate, Energy and Environment, said the new rate structure is unlikely to immediately lower consumer bills. Rather, it aims to curb future increases as data centers require more power generation and transmission.

“We’re not going to change the rates that are being currently paid by the ratepayers and the users of the electricity,” he said. “It’s just going to stop future raises.”

The data center boom

Rising utility bills continue to outpace inflation, sparking anger from consumers and more scrutiny from state regulators, governors and lawmakers.

The boom of data centers is frequently cited as a prime reason for rising electricity prices, as their operation requires more power generation, transmission and distribution upgrades. A Bloomberg News analysis in September found wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more for a single month than it did five years ago in areas with significant data center activity.

Data center companies say they aren’t the only reason prices are rising.

“It’s inaccurate to draw a clear line between large load customers like data centers coming online and increases in prices. It’s just not that simple,” said Lucas Fykes, senior director of energy policy and regulatory counsel at the Data Center Coalition, a trade group representing data center owners and users, including Amazon, Meta and Visa.

He said many factors have contributed to higher electricity prices, including extreme weather events and the nation’s aging electric grid.

Fykes said his organization opposes rate structures that treat data centers differently from other large electric users such as industrial sites. The organization is working with regulators as states increasingly implement practices to ensure residents and small businesses aren’t on the hook for big energy investments if major projects including data centers don’t come to fruition.

Fykes said the country is likely just in the “beginning innings” of a longer ramp-up in technology and power needs.

“We are also in a global race to build out data centers, to support AI, to support cloud infrastructure,” he said. “It’s important to make sure that we maintain those assets here in the United States.”

That can pose competing interests for political leaders, including mayors, who have pushed hard to land investments from tech companies.

“We want to be leaders in AI, but we don’t want the infrastructure needed to support it,” said Rusty Paul, the mayor of Sandy Springs, Georgia, in the Atlanta metro area.

He was among several mayors addressing the issue of data centers at last month’s winter meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C. On a data center panel, Paul acknowledged the effect of Georgia’s tax incentives for data centers: “They’re just popping up everywhere,” he said.

But utilities and regulators are also making long overdue grid upgrades that aren’t tied to data centers, he said.

“The cost of electricity is going up for everybody — and it’s not all related to data centers,” he said.

A bipartisan push

The Georgia Public Service Commission last year created new rules that officials said would protect ratepayers from data center costs. In addition to covering costs of power consumed at their facilities, data centers would have to fund the costs incurred by upstream generation, transmission and distribution, the regulator said.

But lawmakers aren’t convinced those steps went far enough.

State Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, a Republican, is again pushing legislation that would solidify the regulator’s rules into law. His bill would prohibit utilities from passing along the fuel, generation or transmission costs of data centers to other customers.

He told Stateline that the regulator’s rules need to be codified into law so they can’t be weakened later.

Hufstetler said rising utility bills are among the biggest issues facing his constituents. High prices played a key role in November’s election, when Democrats flipped two seats on the state’s Public Service Commission board — the first time Democrats won statewide constitutional office in nearly two decades.

“I saw people with MAGA hats going into the election polling places that were saying, ‘I’m not voting for those guys that raised my rates,’” Hufstetler said, referring to the Republican incumbents who lost.

Hufstetler said the bill, which passed out of committee last year, has already gained major bipartisan support in the Senate, where it is sponsored by multiple Republicans and Democrats.

“This is very bipartisan,” he said. “We have all heard from our people around the state of Georgia.”

The Georgia Public Service Commission agrees in principle with the legislation, said agency spokesperson Tom Krause. But he said the regulator worries about losing flexibility if its rules are written into law.

“Not just this bill, but whenever the legislature codifies a rule that we put in place, we get a little nervous because it can tie our hands in special circumstances,” he said.

A complex challenge

As part of implementing a law enacted last year, Maryland’s utility regulator is weighing a new rate structure for data centers and other large load users.

Proposed regulations would require certain preapproval analysis for heavy power users, a separate rate tariff for data centers and collateral to ensure other ratepayers don’t end up paying for major investments if projects do not come to fruition.

Maryland’s Office of People’s Counsel, an independent agency representing residential utility users, said the proposed changes meet statutory requirements but could do more to protect consumers.

In a news release last month, Maryland People’s Counsel David S. Lapp said residents are already facing higher costs from data centers from outside the state.

“While we push for better federal rules to address those costs, Maryland has the power—and customers a clear need—to make sure data centers within Maryland take on every cost that they impose on residential customers,” Lapp said.

Democratic Gov. Wes Moore recently joined 12 other governors and the Trump administration in urging the regional grid operator, PJM Interconnection, to shield residents and businesses from the infrastructure costs from data centers.

Maryland state Del. Lorig Charkoudian, a Democrat, said the grid operator has for years failed residents in the 13 states plus the District of Columbia that it serves. By delaying renewable energy projects, she said, PJM has kept older, more expensive power plants online, driving up prices as data centers increase demand.

PJM’s board last month rolled out a new data center plan that it said would improve demand forecasting, accelerate the addition of new generation projects and give states a larger role.

Charkoudian said states and utilities struggle to determine just how much power is needed. Data center users shop around for sites, which can cause wildly inaccurate forecasts of just how much power a utility will need.

“It actually has a very concrete financial impact on ratepayers,” she told Stateline. “And so that’s why one of the things that really could make a difference for ratepayers is if we actually had an accurate count of how much we’re getting online.”

While some of those challenges lie outside the realm of state control, Charkoudian said there are things the state can do, including the new rate structure for larger users. She’s crafting a bill encouraging data centers to curtail their power usage during peak periods, such as hot days, when the electrical system is taxed by heavy usage of air conditioners, Maryland Matters reported.

Charkoudian said adding solar generation and storage are low-cost ways to respond quickly to demand. And states can avoid the need for more generation by doubling down on energy efficiency programs that lower demand and also consumer costs.

“The best time to fix this was five years ago,” she said. “The next best time is right this minute, because it’s only going to get worse.”

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira contributed to this story. Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org. 

In Port Washington, Wisconsin, many residents oppose a $15 billion data center campus that’s currently under construction for end-users Oracle and OpenAI. (No Data Centers in Ozaukee County Facebook group)

Big Tech is here in Wisconsin, looking to make Wisconsin families and small businesses pay for data centers. The Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC) is about to make a decision that will affect all of us: We Energies has proposed a new rate structure on data centers that, as drafted, favors profits and protections for Big Tech companies and We Energies executives themselves, but putting Wisconsinites at risk to subsidize the costs. Here’s what’s going on and how you can do something about it. 

What’s at stake?

We Energies, the largest and most profitable utility in the state, is preparing to spend $19.3 billion on electric generation due to data center proposals from Microsoft, Oracle, Vantage, and OpenAI.4. This is largely to build new gas plants in order to power the massive energy needs of Big Tech’s data centers. Here’s the problem: If sufficient protections aren’t in place now, the costs of these expensive gas plants may be forced onto families and small businesses, driving up people’s bills to keep the lights on and heat their homes in the winter.

We Energies’ proposals put us at risk for higher utility bills without fully ensuring that Big Tech is paying their fair share. As it currently stands, more expensive data centers likely means higher costs for all of us. Tech companies should be responsible for covering the cost of service needed to power their data centers, including the cost of building out power to service these high energy demands.

In addition to their problematic proposal, We Energies is proposing to add huge volumes of natural gas plants to feed these power-hungry data centers, which are expensive to build and take decades to pay off. These so-called “stranded assets” end up costing us more money for many years down the line, at times even when they are no longer in service. With rapidly changing AI technology, there is a very real risk that Big Tech does not move forward with planned data centers because they’re no longer profitable or needed. In short, data centers create short-term gains for Big Tech and We Energies with long-term consequences for Wisconsinites. 

What’s going on behind Big Tech’s closed doors?

We Energies’ proposal encourages Big Tech to make decisions behind closed doors, without considering Wisconsinites or how their decisions will impact Wisconsin lands, waters and natural resources. We should all be suspicious of this. What’s happening in these meetings that We Energies and Big Tech don’t want us to know about? If Big Tech builds data centers in Wisconsin communities, Wisconsin communities deserve to know what deals are being made with the utilities. 

Transparency and accountability are crucial. Big Tech and utilities like We Energies must make their data center reporting, planning and financials publicly available, so that regulators like the PSC can implement protections and ensure Wisconsinites aren’t being taken advantage of. We deserve to always know how and why our electric and gas bills are being affected.

The time to take action is now.

If We Energies builds new gas plants to power Big Tech’s data centers, all of us will live with greater risks of rising gas and electricity prices as well as environmental impacts to our communities. If Big Tech wants to come into our state and use our state resources, they shouldn’t be putting us in jeopardy, they should be the ones taking on the risks. 

As we prepare for the PSC to make a decision on data centers, we need to make our voices heard to decision makers: Big Tech and We Energies don’t get to decide what’s best for Wisconsin. You have a role to play in shaping the policies that affect you. Attend the virtual public hearing on Feb. 10 or by submitting a comment by Feb. 17.

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