The White House and a bipartisan group of governors are pressuring the operator of the mid-Atlantic power grid to take urgent steps to boost energy supply and curb price hikes, holding a Friday event aimed at addressing arising concern among votersabout theenormous amount of power used for artificial intelligenceahead of elections later this year.
The White House said its National Energy Dominance Council and the governors of several states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia, want to try to compel PJM Interconnection to hold a power auction for tech companies to bid on contracts to build new power plants,
The Trump administration and governors will sign a statement of principles toward that end Friday. The plan was first reported by Bloomberg.
"Ensuring the American people have reliable and affordable electricity is one of President Trump's top priorities, and this would deliver much-needed, long-term relief to the mid-Atlantic region," said Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is expected to be at the White House, a person familiar with Shapiro's plans said, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement. Shapiro, a Democrat, made his participation in Friday's event contingent on including a provision to extend a limit on wholesale electricity price increases for the region's consumers, the person said.
But the operator of the grid won't be there. "PJM was not invited. Therefore we would not attend," said spokesperson Jeff Shields.
It was not immediately clear whether President Donald Trump would attend the event, which was not listed on his public schedule.
Trump and the governors areunder pressureto insulate consumers and businesses alike from the costs of feeding Big Tech'senergy-hungrydata centers. Meanwhile, more Americans arefalling behindon their electricity bills.
Consumer advocates say ratepayers in the mid-Atlantic electricity grid — which encompasses all or parts of 13 states stretching from New Jersey to Illinois, as well as Washington, D.C. — are already paying billions of dollars in higher bills to underwrite the cost to supply power to data centers, some of them built, some not.
However, they also say that the billions of dollars that consumers are paying isn't resulting in the construction of new power plants necessary to meet the rising demand.
Pivotal contestsin November will be decided by communities that are home to fast-rising electric bills or fights over who's footing the bill for the data centers that underpin the explosion in demand forartificial intelligence. In parts of the country, data centers are coming online faster than power plants can be built and connected to the grid.
Electricity costs were a key issue in last year'selections for governorin New Jersey and Virginia, a data center hotspot, and inGeorgia, where Democrats ousted two Republican incumbents for seats on the state's utility regulatory commission. Voters in New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York City all citedeconomic concernsas the top issue, as Democrats and Republicans gird for a debate overaffordabilityin the intensifying midterm battle to control Congress.
Gas and electric utilities sought or won rate increases of more that $34 billion in the first three quarters of 2025, consumer advocacy organization PowerLines reported. That was more than double the same period a year earlier.
