Democratic senators blame White House, AI data centers for rising electricity prices
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) speaks with reporters outside the Senate Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on October 1, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
Democratic senators on Monday blamed the White House’s push to speed up artificial intelligence data centers and its attacks on renewable energy for rising electricity prices in certain parts of the United States.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and others demanded in a letter sent Monday that the White House and the Commerce Department detail what measures they are taking to protect consumers from the influence of big data centers.
Voters are increasingly feeling the pinch of rising electricity prices. Democrats Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger campaigned on the issue in the New Jersey and Virgina gubernatorial races they won in landslides last week.
Senators took aim at the White House’s relationships with the following companies: Meta, Alphabet, Seerand OpenAI and management’s support for companies’ data center plans.
The Trump administration “has already failed to prevent these new data centers from driving up electricity prices as new commercial demand surges,” the senators wrote. They accused the White House of worsening the problem by opposing expansion of solar and wind power.
In its statement, the White House blamed the Biden administration and its renewable energy policies for the increase in electricity prices.
President Donald Trump “declared an energy emergency to reverse four years of Biden’s disastrous policies and accelerate large-scale energy production” grid infrastructure “We will accelerate the expansion of coal, natural gas and nuclear power generation,” White House spokesman Taylor Rogers said.
The technology sector’s AI plans have grown in size. OpenAI and NvidiaFor example, in September it struck a deal to build 10 gigawatt data centers to train and run artificial intelligence applications. This is equivalent to New York City’s peak baseline summer demand in 2024.
The scale of these plans has raised questions about whether enough electricity is available to meet demand and who will pay for the new generation needed. Renewable energy, particularly solar power and energy storage, is currently the power source that can be deployed most quickly to meet demand.
Retail electricity prices in the U.S. have increased an average of 6% through August 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, according to the Energy Information Administration. But prices can vary greatly by region.
