President Asshole, Techbros Sign "Ratepayer Protection Pledge", Pinky Swear AI Buildout Won't Spike Your Electric Bill
President Donald Trump joined leaders of several of the nation’s most powerful tech companies Wednesday in sending a message to cost-weary voters: The U.S. can win the artificial intelligence race without straining Americans’ wallets. But the “ratepayer protection pledge” that Trump touted in the White House, alongside executives from companies including Amazon, Google and OpenAI, is unlikely to protect ordinary consumers from all of the electricity price increases driven by the rapid expansion of AI data centers, energy experts have told POLITICO. Trump’s effort to promote his energy-affordability message is also running up against the massive public attention focused on his war in Iran, a conflict that has inflamed concerns about the cost of living.
Even so, Trump said the commitments will help lower electricity bills for Americans and provide “some PR help” to calm local opposition that has stalled and scrapped data center projects. (Ed. - emphasis added) “We’re here this afternoon for a historic signing that will help keep down utility bills very, very substantially and electricity prices for millions of Americans,” Trump said from the White House event, where he was joined by GOP lawmakers and tech leaders. “They’re not going to be going up. They’re going to be actually going down.”
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And the pact leaves it to tech companies, utilities and state officials — outside the control of the federal government — to determine how to assign a range of costs to the broader power grid that show up in customers’ electricity bills. “We’re committed to continuing to invest to add capacity where we build,” Google President and Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat said at the event. “To protect American rate payers, we’re committed not only to pay for 100 percent of the energy we use, but very importantly, the infrastructure to support that growth, whether or not we end up using that energy.”
Experts in the energy markets have cautioned that the pledge doesn’t address some key ways in which the fast construction of data centers threatens to raise people’s power bills. Those include increased competition for power plant fuels such as natural gas and components such as gas turbines, as well as Trump’s tariffs on commodities. Administration officials also acknowledged Wednesday that the companies’ pledge is voluntary, even though Trump told reporters last week that “I made it mandatory where they have to build their own electric power plant.” (Ed. - emphasis added)
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https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/04/trump-and-ai-leaders-tout-his-build-your-own-power-plant-pledge-00812891
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