Bernie Sanders, Democrats Press White House Over Electric Bill Surge Tied To AI Boom

Benzinga

Bernie Sanders and other Democratic senators are pressing the White House for answers on rising electric bills, blaming the surge in AI data-center expansion. They argue that communities are being forced to compete with trillion-dollar tech companies for power and want firms to pay more of the cost.

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00:00It's Benzinga bringing Wall Street to Main Street.

00:03Senator Bernie Sanders and several Democratic senators pressed the White House to explain

00:07rising electric bills they linked to the artificial intelligence boom and its massive

00:12data center expansion, according to The Wall Street Journal. In a letter to the administration

00:16and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, they warned that Americans are being forced into

00:21bidding wars with trillion-dollar companies to keep the lights on. The group criticized Trump's

00:26policy of fast-tracking data center projects by major firms, including Meta, OpenAI, Alphabet,

00:32and Oracle. Local opposition to tax-subsidized, power-hungry data centers is growing, as rising

00:39electric bills helped Democrats win recent elections in New Jersey, Virginia, and Georgia.

00:43The lawmakers argued that tech companies should pay their fair share as data centers

00:47drive up energy demand and strain grids nationwide. For all things money, visit Benzinga.com.

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