Story thread · 12 reports / 12 sources

Red state loophoole lets data centers power up with no state or local oversight

rawstory.com · 15dShare

Gov. Bill Lee last week joined 22 Republican governors in signing onto President Donald Trump’s “ Ratepayer Protection Pledge ,” a voluntary agreement to hold companies responsible for the costs of building, maintaining and powering data centers. The Trump administration has publicly touted the pledge as sparing taxpayers from tax and electricity rate hikes tied to data centers, even as communities across Tennessee and the U.S. push back on plans for the massive data infrastructure projects in their own backyards. Tech companies including Google, Meta and OpenAI have also signed onto the pledge, which positions data center expansion as essential to the nation’s future. “America’s continued economic and technological leadership depends on reliable, large-scale data center infrastructure built here at home,” the pledge says. On Friday, Lee posted a message of thanks to Trump for introducing the pledge. “Tennessee has shown we can lead the nation in innovation while protecting hardworking

First report: Data center demand is soaring, and off-grid gas won't fix the problem — canarymedia.com, 18d