{"id":410770,"date":"2026-01-16T11:33:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T11:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/410770\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T11:33:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T11:33:06","slug":"how-the-white-house-and-governors-want-to-fix-ai-driven-power-shortages-and-price-spikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/410770\/","title":{"rendered":"How the White House and governors want to fix AI-driven power shortages and price spikes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The White House and a bipartisan group of governors are pressuring the operator of the mid-Atlantic power grid to take urgent steps to boost energy supply and curb price hikes, holding a Friday event aimed at addressing a rising concern among voters<\/a> about the enormous amount of power used for artificial intelligence<\/a> ahead of elections later this year.<\/p>\n

The White House said its National Energy Dominance Council and the governors of several states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia, want to try to compel PJM Interconnection to hold a power auction for tech companies to bid on contracts to build new power plants,<\/p>\n

The Trump administration and governors will sign a statement of principles toward that end Friday. The plan was first reported by Bloomberg.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnsuring the American people have reliable and affordable electricity is one of President Trump\u2019s top priorities, and this would deliver much-needed, long-term relief to the mid-Atlantic region,” said Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is expected to be at the White House, a person familiar with Shapiro\u2019s plans said, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement. Shapiro, a Democrat, made his participation in Friday\u2019s event contingent on including a provision to extend a limit on wholesale electricity price increases for the region\u2019s consumers, the person said.<\/p>\n

But the operator of the grid won’t be there. \u201cPJM was not invited. Therefore we would not attend,\u201d said spokesperson Jeff Shields.<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear whether President Donald Trump would attend the event, which was not listed on his public schedule.<\/p>\n

Trump and the governors are under pressure<\/a> to insulate consumers and businesses alike from the costs of feeding Big Tech\u2019s energy-hungry<\/a> data centers. Meanwhile, more Americans are falling behind<\/a> on their electricity bills. <\/p>\n

Consumer advocates say ratepayers in the mid-Atlantic electricity grid \u2014 which encompasses all or parts of 13 states stretching from New Jersey to Illinois, as well as Washington, D.C. \u2014 are already paying billions of dollars in higher bills to underwrite the cost to supply power to data centers, some of them built, some not.<\/p>\n

However, they also say that the billions of dollars that consumers are paying isn\u2019t resulting in the construction of new power plants necessary to meet the rising demand.<\/p>\n

Pivotal contests<\/a> in November will be decided by communities that are home to fast-rising electric bills or fights over who\u2019s footing the bill for the data centers that underpin the explosion in demand for artificial intelligence. In parts of the country, data centers are coming online faster than power plants can be built and connected to the grid. <\/p>\n

Electricity costs were a key issue in last year’s elections for governor<\/a> in New Jersey and Virginia, a data center hotspot, and in Georgia<\/a>, where Democrats ousted two Republican incumbents for seats on the state\u2019s utility regulatory commission. Voters in New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York City all cited economic concerns<\/a> as the top issue, as Democrats and Republicans gird for a debate over affordability<\/a> in the intensifying midterm battle to control Congress.<\/p>\n

Gas and electric utilities sought or won rate increases of more that $34 billion in the first three quarters of 2025, consumer advocacy organization PowerLines reported. That was more than double the same period a year earlier. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The White House and a bipartisan group of governors are pressuring the operator of the mid-Atlantic power grid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[197143,182,966,181,507,28,12291,1070,3321,793,11382,111,18907,1548,74,800],"class_list":{"0":"post-410770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-197143","9":"tag-ai","10":"tag-article","11":"tag-artificial-intelligence","12":"tag-artificialintelligence","13":"tag-business","14":"tag-data-management-and-storage","15":"tag-elections","16":"tag-energy-industry","17":"tag-general-news","18":"tag-information-technology","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-subsidies","21":"tag-taxes","22":"tag-technology","23":"tag-washington-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}