A group of United States senators is demanding transparency from some of the nation’s largest electric utility companies over secretive contracts with technology giants — agreements that local communities say are being shielded behind nondisclosure agreements even as residents face rising electricity bills and strained power grids.
The bipartisan inquiry, led by Senators Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, has placed a spotlight on the opaque arrangements between utilities and hyperscale data center operators such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta. The senators sent letters to more than a dozen utility companies in late June 2025, requesting detailed information about how these deals are structured, who bears the cost of new infrastructure, and why affected communities are being forced to sign NDAs as a condition of participation in the planning process.
Billions in Infrastructure Costs, Zero Public Scrutiny
At the heart of the controversy is a simple but alarming dynamic: data centers operated by the world’s wealthiest technology companies require enormous amounts of electricity — often rivaling the consumption of small cities — and utilities are racing to accommodate them. But the terms of these supply agreements, including who pays for new transmission lines, substations, and generation capacity, are frequently hidden from the public, ratepayers, and even local elected officials.
According to reporting by MSN, the senators’ letters specifically cite instances in which community members and local government officials were required to sign nondisclosure agreements before being allowed to participate in discussions about proposed data center projects in their own jurisdictions. The letters describe this practice as fundamentally at odds with the principles of democratic governance and public accountability.
The AI Boom’s Insatiable Appetite for Power
The surge in demand is being driven largely by the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure. Training and running large AI models requires vast computing resources, and the data centers that house those resources are consuming electricity at a pace that has caught grid operators and utility planners off guard. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has projected that data center demand in the state could more than double by 2030. Similar projections have emerged from grid operators across the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, and Pacific Northwest.
This is not a theoretical problem. In northern Virginia, already the largest data center market in the world, Dominion Energy has warned that it may not be able to keep up with connection requests. In Georgia, Georgia Power has proposed billions of dollars in new generation capacity, including natural gas plants, to meet data center demand — costs that could ultimately be passed on to residential and commercial ratepayers who have no connection to the tech industry. The senators’ inquiry is focused precisely on this cost-shifting dynamic and whether utility commissions are adequately protecting consumers.
NDAs as a Barrier to Democratic Participation
Perhaps the most provocative element of the senators’ letters is the focus on nondisclosure agreements. In several documented cases, community leaders and local officials have reported being told they could not discuss the details of proposed data center projects with their own constituents. In some instances, the NDAs extended to the identities of the tech companies involved, the projected electricity demand of the facilities, and the financial terms of the utility agreements.
Senator Markey, in a statement accompanying the letters, said that “communities deserve to know who is consuming their energy, how much it will cost them, and what it means for the reliability of their electric grid.” He added that the use of NDAs to silence local stakeholders is “unacceptable” and that utility regulators should be “shining a light on these deals, not helping to keep them in the shadows.” Senator Capito echoed those concerns, noting that rural communities in West Virginia and Appalachia are being targeted for data center development precisely because of their access to cheap power and available land — but that those same communities are being excluded from meaningful participation in decisions that will shape their futures for decades.
Utilities Under the Microscope
The letters were sent to utilities including Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Georgia Power (a subsidiary of Southern Company), American Electric Power, Entergy, and several others. The senators requested that the companies provide detailed responses by late July 2025, including copies of any template NDAs used in community engagement processes, descriptions of how data center interconnection costs are allocated between the tech companies and existing ratepayers, and information about any rate increases that have been proposed or approved in connection with data center load growth.
The inquiry also asks whether the utilities have sought or received any special regulatory treatment — such as expedited permitting or exemptions from standard rate-making procedures — to accommodate data center customers. Industry observers note that some utilities have created special tariff structures or “economic development” rate classes that offer discounted electricity to large industrial users, including data centers, with the discount effectively subsidized by other ratepayers.
A Growing Backlash Across Multiple States
The Senate inquiry comes amid a broader wave of public backlash against data center development in communities across the country. In recent months, residents in parts of Virginia, South Carolina, Indiana, and Wisconsin have organized against proposed data center campuses, citing concerns about noise, water consumption, environmental impact, and the strain on local power supplies. In some cases, local governments have imposed moratoriums on new data center construction while they assess the long-term implications.
The tension is particularly acute in regions where electricity supply is already tight. In the PJM Interconnection territory, which covers 13 states and the District of Columbia, new generation interconnection requests — many of them from data centers — have created a queue so long that some projects may not receive grid access for a decade or more. Meanwhile, existing customers in those regions face the prospect of higher rates and reduced reliability as utilities scramble to build out infrastructure to meet the new demand.
Tech Companies Respond With Caution
The major technology companies named in the controversy have generally declined to comment in detail on the specific utility agreements in question, citing the very confidentiality provisions that the senators are challenging. However, several have pointed to their broader commitments to clean energy procurement and community investment as evidence that they are responsible corporate citizens.
Amazon, for example, has said it is the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy and that its data center investments create thousands of construction and operations jobs. Google has made similar claims, emphasizing its goal of operating on 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030. Microsoft has committed to being carbon negative by 2030 and has invested in nuclear energy projects, including a deal to restart a unit at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania, to power its data centers.
The Regulatory Gap at the Heart of the Debate
Critics argue that these corporate sustainability pledges, however well-intentioned, do not address the fundamental question of who pays for the grid infrastructure needed to deliver power to data centers. Building new transmission lines, upgrading substations, and constructing new generation facilities costs billions of dollars, and the allocation of those costs between data center operators and ordinary ratepayers is determined through regulatory proceedings that are often complex, opaque, and poorly understood by the public.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) oversees interstate transmission and wholesale electricity markets, but the siting and cost allocation for many data center-related projects falls under state jurisdiction. State public utility commissions vary widely in their capacity, independence, and willingness to scrutinize large industrial load agreements. Some consumer advocates have called for FERC to establish uniform standards for data center interconnection cost allocation, arguing that the current patchwork of state-level regulation is inadequate to protect consumers in the face of a national — indeed, global — surge in demand.
What Comes Next for Ratepayers and Regulators
The senators’ letters represent the most significant congressional intervention to date on the question of data center energy consumption and its impact on ordinary electricity customers. If the utilities comply with the information requests, the resulting disclosures could provide the first comprehensive public accounting of how much grid infrastructure is being built to serve Big Tech, how much it costs, and who is paying for it.
For now, the answers remain locked behind nondisclosure agreements and confidential commercial arrangements. But as electricity demand from AI and cloud computing continues to accelerate, and as ratepayers in affected communities begin to see the impact on their monthly bills, the political pressure for transparency is only likely to grow. The question facing utilities, regulators, and technology companies alike is whether the current system of private deal-making can survive in an era when the public consequences of those deals are becoming impossible to ignore.