Democratic senators investigate data centers’ effects on electricity prices | US Senate

Three Democratic U.S. senators announced Tuesday they are investigating whether major tech companies are passing on the rising costs of using “energy-guzzling” data centers to ordinary Americans. The trio sent letters to the heads of Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta, as well as data center operators CoreWeave, Digital Realty and Equinix, demanding greater transparency, cost sharing and accountability.

Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, Chris Van Hollen from Maryland and Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut wrote that they were concerned about this situation. reports It turns out that these data centers are causing residential electric bills to “skyrocket.” Regions with significant data center activity have already endured price increases up to 267% Three MPs wrote it in the last five years. The average cost of a U.S. family’s electric bill rose 7% year over year as of September, according to the Energy Information Administration, a federal agency.

“Through these utility price increases, American families are financing the electricity costs of trillion-dollar technology companies,” they said, demanding that data centers and technology companies “pay their fair share of electricity rates” and “prepay a greater share of the costs for future energy use.”

Lawmakers asked companies for more information about their current and projected data center numbers, their energy use, and what measures are being taken to prevent electricity costs from being reflected in consumer energy bills. They also learned about tax breaks or other financial incentives these companies received from state and local governments, as well as payments they made to lobbyists and consultants to advocate for the construction of data centers. They requested a response by January 12, 2026 at the latest.

The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence and the fact that a single data center “can use enough electricity” electricity to hundreds of thousands of homes“, according to the senators, which means utilities are spending billions of dollars building new transmission lines and power plants. Data centers could account for 12% of the nation’s energy consumption by 2028. US Department of Energy. About one third The country’s 4,000+ data centers It is located in three states: Virginia, Texas and California.

At least one study questions the connection between data centers and rising electricity prices. A recent Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study found that data centers are actually helped reduce average retail electricity prices. experts to say Utilities can spread fixed infrastructure costs among more electricity customers.

In the letters, lawmakers highlighted specific examples of tech companies insisting they don’t want taxpayers to be overburdened by data centers and also opposing efforts to regulate them at the state and local level.

“Technology companies paid lip service to cover the energy costs of data centers, but their actions demonstrated the opposite,” the letters said.

Google, Amazon, CoreWeave and Equinix did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Digital Realty said in an emailed statement that it “looks forward to working with all elected officials to continue investing in the digital infrastructure necessary to support America’s leadership in technology.” Meta and Microsoft declined to comment.

While the senators’ letters mostly focus on the financial burden of data centers, the massive energy consumption of massive structures also comes with a significant climate cost. A. Cornell study A study published last month in the journal Nature Sustainability found that data centers could consume as much water annually as 6 million to 10 million Americans and emit as much carbon dioxide as 5 million to 10 million cars.

Opposition to the environmental and financial costs associated with data centers is growing in the United States. Local efforts across the country have prevented or delayed nearly $64 billion in disruption to data center projects, according to a report released earlier this year. Data Center Monitoring. Details about these projects and proposed construction are often shrouded in trade secrets, which lawmakers say allows tech giants to operate in secrecy.

“The contracts between data centers and utility companies that underpin these regulations are almost always secret, leaving the public in the dark about why utility bills continue to rise,” they wrote.