23 governors sign Trump's cost pledge for data centers, backbone of AI - USA Today

What the report says

USA Today reported that President Donald Trump said 23 Republican governors have signed onto his Ratepayer Protection Pledge, a nonbinding effort aimed at preventing household utility customers from shouldering costs linked to new data centers. Trump announced the expanded support on July 23 at an event at Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington, where several governors joined him.

The pledge, introduced by the White House in March, asks companies and other participants to cover energy and infrastructure costs associated with data centers and to help reduce consumer electricity costs over time. USA Today reported that nearly 200 stakeholders have signed, including utilities, data center developers, public power entities and cooperatives. Governors who signed include Kay Ivey of Alabama, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Greg Abbott of Texas, Bill Lee of Tennessee and Spencer Cox of Utah. No Democratic governors signed, and three Republican governors — Phil Scott of Vermont, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Ron DeSantis of Florida — were not listed as signatories.

The announcement comes as data centers, which support cloud computing and artificial intelligence systems, face growing local pushback over electricity demand, water use, noise, land use and limited neighborhood benefits. USA Today noted that electricity prices are about 4% higher than last year and energy costs are up 16%, making utility bills a political issue ahead of the midterm elections.

The White House has framed data center growth as important to U.S. AI competitiveness, especially against China. USA Today reported that earlier pledge signers included Google, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, xAI, OpenAI and Amazon.