{"id":3242,"date":"2026-03-18T21:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T01:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/?p=3242"},"modified":"2026-03-18T21:00:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T01:00:19","slug":"ferc-undermines-trumps-useless-big-tech-ratepayer-pledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/?p=3242","title":{"rendered":"FERC Undermines Trump\u2019s Useless Big Tech Ratepayer Pledge"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last night issued orders that approved transmission rate agreements with data centers that explicitly put households at risk for hikes in the rates they pay for electricity.<\/p>\n<p>The FERC orders approved bilateral electric transmission rate agreements between Exelon\u2019s ComEd utility and five different data centers, four of which Public Citizen intervened as a party (<a href=\"https:\/\/elibrary.ferc.gov\/eLibrary\/filelist?accession_number=20260310-3104&amp;optimized=false\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">PowerHouse<\/a>, owned by American Real Estate Partners; Tract\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/elibrary.ferc.gov\/eLibrary\/filelist?accession_number=20260310-3100&amp;optimized=false\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Grundy County Power<\/a> in Morris, Illinois; <a href=\"https:\/\/elibrary.ferc.gov\/eLibrary\/filelist?accession_number=20260310-3101&amp;optimized=false\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Equinix<\/a>; and Blackstone\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/elibrary.ferc.gov\/eLibrary\/filelist?accession_number=20260310-3102&amp;optimized=false\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">QTS<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>In response, <strong>Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen\u2019s Energy Program, <\/strong>issued the following statement:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Commission\u2019s orders show what a total sham Trump\u2019s Big Tech pledge is for protecting consumers. These reckless FERC orders are designed to quickly rubber stamp agreements with utilities and data centers with zero guaranteed protection that household consumers won\u2019t be exposed to unjust and unreasonable price hikes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs acknowledged in Commissioner Judy Chang\u2019s concurrence in support of the order, FERC\u2019s acceptance of the transmission rate agreements rely on the fact that they were between \u2018sophisticated parties who negotiated them freely at arm\u2019s length,\u2019 but did not investigate whether the contracts themselves could result in unjust and unreasonable cost shifts onto other customers such as households.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile the agreements between the utility and the data centers result in the data centers making certain financial payments that attempt to cover the utility\u2019s revenue requirements, Chang\u2019s concurrence plainly concludes that they do not insulate rate hikes for household consumers should those costs change during the duration of the agreement. Utility obligations and commitments within its service territory can change dramatically \u2013 especially with the onslaught of data centers \u2013 where the estimated revenue requirements negotiated today could prove insufficient in the near future, exposing households to rate hikes from any revenue shortfall. All FERC had to do was hold formal hearings and investigate any needed changes to ensure households would be protected. Instead, FERC rushed the orders in order to prioritize expediency for data center developers at the expense of protecting consumers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLast night\u2019s orders expose FERC and the Trump administration unprepared and unwilling to address America\u2019s energy affordability crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last night issued orders that approved transmission rate agreements with data centers that explicitly put households at risk for hikes in the rates they pay for electricity. The FERC orders approved bilateral electric transmission rate agreements between Exelon\u2019s ComEd utility and five different data centers, four of which Public [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[742],"class_list":["post-3242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ciencia-y-tecnologia","tag-vr-news-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}